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[gamermaster42]

If and when healing magic is implemented, there is a slight problem that will arise.  The ability to heal wounds without the need for material would render surgery completely pointless.  As a way to counteract that, I suggest this, using healing magic would actually increase the chance of infection.  Here's my logic: If healing magic causes the wounds of living things to mend, then this would also apply to the bacteria that is in the wound.  Thus you can end up with infected body parts that can't be cleaned off without reopening the wound, so the need for a sterile environment becomes even more important.  Therefore you have a balance of heal the dwarf the slow and safe(er) way, or rush everything and risk causing a mountain of fun.

[Rtyh-C]

Magic would likely be something really precious, rare and costly. You wouldn't use it to heal a soapmaker's slightly bruised arm, rather, you'd give your mortally wounded king a chance to live.

But I suppose your idea makes sense too. I especially like the way you explained it, 'healing' the bacteria. Maybe the same could also apply to macroscopic creatures? For example, you could cast a healing spell on your legendary squad before sending them to battle to temporarily make them stronger, or on your best mason to give him enhanced capacities and let him work better and faster.

[gamermaster42]

Well, there is another downside that I believe would arise from healing.  Technically speaking, a healing spell causes the cells to undergo rapid mitosis to fill in the damage, so healing magic would shorten the targets lifespan (due to the Hayflick Limit).  That or it would increase the chances of catching cancer, but I doubt that will be added to the game, since immortal beings (such as elves) would be reduced to a pile of tumors that would be immune to everything but cave-ins and magma.  So you can't just constantly cast healing spell after healing spell on a target, eventually something will go wrong result in fun.

Also, healing wouldn't give a burst of strength, since all it's doing is mending a creature's wounds, not pumping it full of adrenaline.

[Helari]

If there's gonna be magic, it should be extremely powerful, but also hard to obtain unless you take some adventure mode starting option to start as the wizard king.

Technically speaking, a healing spell causes the cells to undergo rapid mitosis to fill in the damage,

Or then the wizard waves his wand, there's a flashing light, the deadly wounds turn into butterflies and a double rainbow appears on the sky.

Shits magic, no need to apply science to it.

Imho magic should be as overpowered as having control over reality should be.

[therahedwig]

I wish people would actually read Threetoe's stories when it comes to magic.
It's fairly whimsical in those stories, and Toady has mention he's trying his best to come up with a system to make it as whimsical in Dwarf Fortress.

[Neonivek]

Another aspect that could be used as a weakness is simply that the target being healed would start to grow hungry from supplying his body with nutriance with the healing.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Several of these ideas make sense. My favorites are the hunger, infection, and "magic ain't free" ideas.

[Carp McDwarfEater]

I sort of like the idea of having healing magic require reagents of some sort, or an offering to some sort of supernatural being. You wouldn't use magic to heal just anybody if it required dragon bones, or something else that's expensive and hard to obtain.

[Neonivek]

Healing isn't even all that overpowered of an ability.

In a game where entire epic battles are often resolved in a single attack... and ability to seal wounds and fix broken bones is hardly an almighty ability.

I don't think it needs as much "Balancing" as you think it does. As well given that this is a simulation the balance should be contextual and not arbitrary.

If a diety gives his follower the ability to heal others by laying their hands on them, by what means should that be flawed? If there is a flaw then why? For example, perhaps the god simply speeds up healing... Thus wounds that someone could not heal are impossible (Which is another aspect to healing.)

Magic is another story but anyhow.

You have to think about how much "balance" the ability to just heal really is.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The balance is against a traditional medical system.

[Damiac]

Healing magic could also be largely temporary, to stop bleeding for example.  Use it to put a guy's arm back on after it gets chopped off, but after an hour or so, the magic wears off, so he needs surgery.

Or you could say the magic has toxic effects, so too much healing will actually kill your soldiers.   There's ways around just completely making surgery pointless.

[Laserhead]

I kind of like the idea that rather than healing wounds, magic would transfer them from one dwarf to another. Legendary axedwarf with a sucking chest wound? Hey, cheesemaker, stand in this circle!

[assasin]

I kind of like the idea that rather than healing wounds, magic would transfer them from one dwarf to another. Legendary axedwarf with a sucking chest wound? Hey, cheesemaker, stand in this circle!

I can support this.

[Leatra]

If magic is going to be a rare and difficult thing to do, we won't need anything to make sure surgery doesn't become obsolote.

And you can always add a failure chance which causes the wounds to become even worse.

[pisskop]

Even if magic were rare, simply obtaining should not allow free range over it.  I do not like how necromancers can simply raise an infinite number of corpse directly after having read a book.  Or instantly qualify as 'not living' either.  It supposed to be a process.