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Healing and Recovery

Damage, wounds, and death happen when opponents attack successfully — or when characters meddle with poison, fire, acid, or anything remotely dangerous. Damage from most attacks is measured in Hit Points (HP).

Hit Points

Each character has a current and a maximum HP total. Each hit subtracts from current HP; at 0, the character is dead.

Body-destroying effects are permanent

Characters whose bodies are destroyed by the effect that killed them — Disintegrate, massive damage from a single melee attack, etc. — remain forever dead, beyond hope of resurrection. Their portrait is removed from the sidebar rather than greyed out.

Natural healing

Available to all characters regardless of class:

  • +1 HP per 8-hour rest period.
  • Resting in a rented inn room restores more — the better the room, the better the recovery.
  • Camping in the wild still allows spell memorization but restores fewer HP.
  • Characters with Constitution 20+ also regenerate HP at a constant rate while not resting — see Ability Scores → Constitution.

Rest is interruptable

You can only rest if there are no enemies within visible range. Some creatures may attack your party mid-rest — if that happens, you will not heal or memorize spells.

Magical healing

Healing spells, potions, and magical devices speed the process considerably — wounds close instantly and vigor is restored.

  • Use them during combat or in preparation for a dangerous encounter.
  • Opponents have access too — an evil high priest will likely have healing spells for their followers.
  • Healing cannot exceed maximum HP for the character — temporary HP from spells like Aid or Boon of Lathander is a separate pool.

Cast healing on rest

In the Gameplay Options menu you can configure "cast healing spells on rest" — any unused healing spells will be cast at rest time. Combine with "heal on rest" to keep resting until everyone is at full HP.

Raising the dead

Curative spells have no effect on dead characters. They can be returned to life only with:

  • Raise Dead spell — restores the body. The newly raised character has only 1 HP and needs further healing.
  • Resurrection spell — restores the body and to full HP.
  • A device that produces one of these effects.

If your party has no priest of sufficient level, temples will perform the service for a fee.

Source: iwdee/original_manuals/IWDEE - Mastering Melee & Magic.pdf — "Combat Effects and Recovery", "Healing and Hit Points", "Natural Healing", "Magical Healing", "Raising the Dead".