Break a Leg

I was just eating some gummy bears and bit my tongue. And you know what? It hurt. Now imagine a wolf biting your arm. That would hurt quite a bit, yeah? So why didn't your character say anything about it? The vast majority of living critters have functioning nervous systems. These things sense pain, which turns out to be a good thing. Pain tells you when things are wrong. It's the difference between "Huh, something's tugging on my arm," and "Holy deity! Bleeping cursewords! WOLF!"

See what happened there?

When people are in that much pain, they're kinda vocal about it. They scream, and shout, and invent all sorts of fun new uses for curse words. This lets other people know that something's up (your life span, for instance).

I fully understand that it's a pain to type while in combat. It's much more prudent to type in 55832 (your personal favorite rotation for "slash slash maim kill eviscerate") than "Woe is me! Oh holy Shandrook, who art the patron deity of the rare but lovely yellow-bellied pansy, why is there a dragon chewing on my face?!" Mostly because if there were a dragon chewing on your face, you'd die while typing that. But how hard would it be to make a couple macros to the tune of "AARGH!" "Ouch!" "#$%#ing dragon!" and just hit the buttons when your health gets low?

"But Kittious! Nobody does that!"

Well no, they don't. That's the point. We send our heroes out fighting all day, realistically accumulating a large number of wounds, and they say not a word. For a group of people who like to point out when things don't make sense, this is a weak point.

"But Kittious! We have healers!"

I hope they're very attentive healers, because if they're not watching your every move and you don't indicate that you've been hurt, they're not going to know about it. Furthermore, have you ever had to recover from a serious wound? Something like surgery or broken bones? Prolonged recovery hurts like crazy. Imagine how it feels to cram all of that into a few seconds of a healing spell.

"Ouch."

There ya go. Now get back out on that battlefield and make the other guys put this to use. ;)