Dying and Getting Better

One thing that bugs me in D&D is the following situation: A character is at -5 hit points and dying. The character receives a cure moderate wounds spell, is restored to 3 hit points, and immediately starts fighting again, as though nothing had happened.

(Actually, the situation doesn't bug me too much - it's certainly not realistic, but if I wanted realism I wouldn't be playing D&D.)

Anyway, here's a two-part fix:

Firstly, a character who is dying should be knocked prone automatically. Such a character, once healed, has to stand up and retrieve his weapons before he can get back into the combat. This is obvious, and should be in the rules as they are. If it is, though, I haven't noticed it. Moreover, I've never seen any DM (myself included) enforce it. (The point here is that standing up is an action, and picking up fallen weapons is an action. This means that the character will spend at least a round readying himself again, which doesn't seem unreasonable.)

Secondly, I'm going to propose a rules modification as regards healing spells. At present, these spells are instantaneous. If, however, they spread their healing across a number of rounds, this changes the dynamic, as characters are most likely not going to be healed, and immediately jump to their feet.

The change is simple: A healing spell takes a number of rounds to act equal to its level. So, when cast by a Cleric, cure light wounds takes one round, cure moderate wounds takes two, and so on. Each round, the spell has a partial effect; work out the damage healed as soon as the spell is cast, and divide this by the number of rounds. The character will be cured a fraction of the damage each round. That way, the character above would go from -5 to -1 hit points on the first round, and then from -1 to 3 on the second.

There is a question of what happens if multiple cures are working at once. One answer is to say that only the most powerful takes effect (that multiple cures don't stack). Another is to say that they each work independently (this is the current default - the only change is that each takes time to operate). The third answer is to say that they operate sequentially. That is, a character who is under the effects of a cure serious wounds spell who receives a cure light wounds spell on the next round will gain the benefit of the cure light wounds, but not until the cure serious wounds has finished. Personally, I favour this last approach.

There are two consequences of this change: A character who was dying may remain out of action for a few rounds longer than he otherwise would, making him more vulnerable to attack. (Similarly, a character with low hit points may be knocked below 0 hit points before the cure can take full effect, knocking him out of action briefly, where he would otherwise have been fine.) Additionally, a character may be hit with a dispel before the curative spell has taken full effect, with the result that some of the curative power is lost.

The net result of these two effects is to make PCs slightly weaker. The DM must weigh these against any slight gain in realism before adopting this ruling.