Given powerful low-level Clerical healing, how can sick, crippled or otherwise unhealthy people exist?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

In my attempt to make a more harsh, uncaring setting, I’ve hit a stumbling block in terms of the ease with which even low level Clerics can treat the poor and the sick:

• A 1st-level Cleric can bring most commoners back from the brink of death (Cure Wounds), Detect Poison and Disease, and Create Water.

• A 3rd-level Cleric can completely eliminate a disease or a case of poisoning (Lesser Restoration), twice every 8 hours.

• A 5th-level Cleric can Create Food and Water, and treat most magical-related illnesses (Remove Curse, Dispel Magic).

This would lead me to believe that the presence of a single first level Cleric in a small community would render broken bones or debilitating injuries (accidental or otherwise) a non-issue. Nobody has to fear the result of falling off a ladder, mishandling an axe, or getting into a bar fight. At slightly higher level, a Cleric could ensure suffering from most diseases would be a thing of the past - the moment you start to cough you could just get the Cleric to magic your disease away.

Of course, Clerics may charge for their services, which would make them out of reach for the poor or average commoner. But this market would be rendered obsolete by a single charitable, "lawful good" type Cleric willing to offer his services for free. Furthermore, if a commoner suffered a broken arm, and a Cleric condemned him to life as a cripple by insisting on being paid to heal him (something that would take moments of his time and cost him virtually nothing), I don't imagine that Cleric would be particularly welcome in the community for long.

So in a nutshell, given that even a low level priest is probably not uncommon in most villages, let alone big cities, how can the presence of crippled, diseased or unhealthy people be justified? Are the streets in D&D remarkably absent of people with limps, broken bones, bad backs, the hungry, the blind and the sick?