This post regards specifically magical Healing and not any form of natural or the Skill: Healing Skill

Death in most mortal realms is a constant companion that gives spice to any worthy risk. However, due to the amount of ease in Pathfinder to acquire healing this risk has been mitigated. Instead, a player is only concerned with how fast the healing can begin rather than IF healing will be available. Most GM's usually increase the level of risk in response to the ease of which healing is available...  which escalates into combats that become needlessly powerful all too quickly.  It also takes the decision to commit an actual risk away from the player and places it in the hands of the GM to an unnatural degree on the known reward to risk ratio balance beam.

Rather than raise the risk of every encounter the following rules add some variety to the kind and the amount of possible healing and determines the sort of healing available by class.  This information should be considered public to your characters as well as to your players - except where noted otherwise.  You are unlikely to truly understand the limits mentioned unless you are from that class.  I will probably present how the magic is used 'in-game' but each character should explain how such spells appear as is suitable to your character's beliefs or how he decides they should appear. This rule change describes effects in the game world in deviation to the RAW ... it may NOT have always been this way. You may decide that your character believes that magic has evolved or change since the Cataclysm ... you would not be the only person to believe this as true.

*General Definition:*  Standard Cure spells, which I will refer to as 'Battlefield Healing' in the future, erase the wound from the flesh of the subject as though the flesh had never been harmed. Any residual damage that may remain after these effects end on the target is the equivalent of internal damage.  Natural Healing leaves scars as will Regeneration; although, 'scars' from regeneration appear to be new flesh as opposed to the discoloration of hypertrophic scarring.

1. *Bards* - Bards do not dispense general cure type spells, instead they have the ability to enhance the native healing of the subject.  Most people feel fairly comfortable with this ability although they still look at in wonder.  Bards literally enhance the subject natural healing with Fast Healing which will help the target to certain maximums; it won't work on certain sources of damage, and the bard must continue performing to the subject for the duration of the effect. The Bards variant is a ranged touch attack that operates at a maximum of the Bards level in feet away from the subject. This effect is but one of the many secrets Bards are assumed to have learned and been changed by, implicitly stating that true knowledge isn't just known but alters the subject that knows it.

2. *Druids* - Druids do not have access to 'Battlefield Healing', either but wield a more powerful version of the mechanic Bards uses. They need not concentrate on the effect for it to continue but are still constrained by the same limitations. The effect _ does_ require them to touch the subject targeted. Little else of what a druid is truly capable of can be considered public knowledge. Much of the knowledge which is hinted at by the existence of bardic lore is unspoken and moderately feared in these verdant sages.

3. *Witches* -  Witches wield a form of healing that relies on wound transfer from the subject to the witch.  This wounds transferred in this manner can be healed at an advanced rate but still place the witch in danger of death with greater ease.   Essentially, BECAUSE of the 'apparent' and visible transfer of wounds is so well known, witches and their abilities are accepted by the public - as no other spellcasting class IS accepted. Commoners will, instead of treating them broadly as spell-casters (who are, of course, not to be trusted); witches are viewed, and treated, as individuals.  The generic term for those who practice 'the craft' are often called upon for their wisdom - and that is how they are called - 'Wisdom', 'Wisewoman', ['Greisin', 'Frau', and 'Magd' - the dedicated triune, or 'coven'],  or La Dame Sage (all feminine). Shaman. [Not publicly known: The wounds transferred is equal to half of the amount healed and is converted to subdual and can be healed in the normal manner. Only 'casted spells' are subject to wound transfer rules._ *Hexes operate as Battlefield Healing*.]

4. *Inquisitors* & *Paladins* -  Any healing performed by any effect under the Divine umbrella is treated as Battlefield Healing.

5. *Alchemists* -  True to the original impetus for the scholarly pursuit of alchemy. The ability to heal is based on an effort to transform rather than to divinely heal.  Most people believe that unguents, formulae, extracts, and distillations produced by Alchemists are drawn from the Wyld and subjected to any various tests.  It is only the most stable of reproducible schemas which are released as standard alchemical creations.  Regardless of many effects, alchemists are perceived as scientists. [Not publicly known: An alchemist's formulae is a mixture of effects between the Witch's effect and the Druid. This 'cure all' can be a potent transformation subverting lethal wounds into a subdual and then attribute a higher rate of healing to a very limited period of time.]