My main character has some conjury, and does some healing with it when necessary, so I pay attention to the way different people handle it.
Building on what Nero said, one of the things I've seen that I really like is the idea that magical healing is normally the equivalent of primary treatment - setting a bone, bandaging a wound (but better, because the skin closes), performing life-saving surgery - that is normally followed by a period of "regular" healing, but that it can be used in an emergency to "force" the issue. The tradeoff is that if you use magical healing to force heal an injury completely, it won't heal as well. Force healing a broken bone so that a fighter can immediately return to combat will result in a weakened bone that is prone to rebreak. Strenuous activity might make a force-healed laceration tear open again. In addition, the force-healed person's body is running all the more on reserves, so when they finally do run out of steam, they'll require an extended period of recuperation to fully heal.
Building on what Nero said, one of the things I've seen that I really like is the idea that magical healing is normally the equivalent of primary treatment - setting a bone, bandaging a wound (but better, because the skin closes), performing life-saving surgery - that is normally followed by a period of "regular" healing, but that it can be used in an emergency to "force" the issue. The tradeoff is that if you use magical healing to force heal an injury completely, it won't heal as well. Force healing a broken bone so that a fighter can immediately return to combat will result in a weakened bone that is prone to rebreak. Strenuous activity might make a force-healed laceration tear open again. In addition, the force-healed person's body is running all the more on reserves, so when they finally do run out of steam, they'll require an extended period of recuperation to fully heal.
