That's how I read it as well. Your compromise, Olaf, makes it much harder to have healing; it's only accepted widely now because it's in the rules. Make it a special case, and any time anyone tries to use it, it will be much harder to get everyone on the same page. I see healing being forgotten very quickly, with your idea.
In Aidan's first post, he gave a few reasons for getting rid of healing that I think we should discuss more specifically. He said it confuses people, is rarely used, and makes us look larpy.
To Aidan's first point, how many of you have encountered confusion around the healing rules? The times I've used it people have been surprised, but they understood what was happening. Have other people noticed confusion (I'm guessing there was in incident, Aidan, that prompted you to start this thread)?
Secondly, people's responses here have shown that healing is less scenario-specific and more frequently used than Aidan's post suggested, and many people have argued that infrequent use is not itself a good reason to cut healing from our rules, as the people that do use healing are enjoying this aspect of the game.
To the last point, I have played another larp with magic, and there is a wide gulf of difference between Dagorhir's healing poem and the kind of stuff you can do in that game (teleporting is so ridiculous!). Do people think that healing hurts Dagorhir's image by making us look like a tappy magic larp (especially when it's not used by the majority of our fighters)?
On the other hand, I can think of at least two disadvantages to removing healing.
First, it would impose the will of the majority on a minority that's having fun doing something in Dagorhir that isn't ruining anyone else's fun. This seems counter to the way we like to do things in Dagorhir - unless the minority's fun is messing up everyone else's gameplay, we should leave it be, and not try to flatten Dagorhir by removing something that so many (albeit a minority) enjoy.
Second, it would remove the one nod to fantasy that we have in our rules. Dagorhir is a fantasy game, and while we keep our focus mostly on fighting, it's good to have a small nod to magic (while avoiding the larpy trap of slinging fireballs at each other) to tie us to our roots. Tolkien's elves have magical healing abilities, CS Lewis has a magic cordial that can heal wounds, and healing is a central element of many of the other fantasy traditions that we draw on for our characterization and roleplay. It's even an element of real-world myths and legends. If we eliminate healing, we take a step closer to being a bunch of stick jocks or history snobs. If anything, I think we need *more* healing (which is why I, as a recovering history snob rediscovering the fantasy in Dagorhir, have been trying to use it more often).
As a final point, making the healing rules 'scenario specific' would, I think, effectively kill them. I've explained why I think this above; I doubt that many event coordinators care enough about healing to explain all the rules before every battle. Take it from the rules, and I think most people will forget about it. And the whole point of healing is that it can be used when the time is right, and while the healers with little white bandages that Athron introduced at Rag 23 were fun, that kind of single-scenario healing doesn't compare with the ability we have now for any fighter with a healing poem to set his weapons down and risk death to heal his comrade's wounds.
This all boils down to the question, why should we change the rules? We've gone along with healing for more than thirty years, and I don't think we should casually write it off as an irrelevance, if for no other reason than the upset comments in this thread. I think we need a good reason to remove them from the rules, and I'm not convinced that we have that.
TL;DR: I agree with Stylgar
