Spare the Dying should just get rolled into Mending

[odigity]

No reason to make people need two different cantrips when cantrips quantities are so limited for most classes. I'd be far more likely to take Mending if it could do the work of both, and I like the idea of encouraging players to take cantrips that seem like they'd be popular in real life (mending, prestigitation, mage hand) instead of just combat/mechanic-based choices.

[GiantOctopodes]

Spare the dying is indeed nearly useless. It provides the same effect exactly that one use of a Healer's kit provides, which also takes one action. As such all it does is save you 5 sp. Mending, on the other hand, is remarkably useful. I suppose that it does make sense to eliminate Spare the Dying entirely and roll that into Mending, if you want everyone to take mending. Ultimately, though, I don't think it will have much impact on anything, as Clerics (the only ones who get Spare the Dying) get 5 out of 7 cantrips anyway, which means they only fail to learn 2 of them as of 10th level. Those 2 are likely to be light (if they have darkvision) or Resistance (if not) and Spare the Dying anyway. If a player wants to make an extremely sub par choice and actually learn spare the dying, instead of spending 5GP on a healer's kit, in the interest of making a 'combat / mechanic based choice' (it saves you 5sp, and the object interaction required to take the kit out, which was unlikely to be used any given turn anyway), I say you let them, and revel in their terrible decision making and optimization skills.

[odigity]

Spare the dying is indeed nearly useless. It provides the same effect exactly that one use of a Healer's kit provides, which also takes one action. As such all it does is save you 5 sp. Mending, on the other hand, is remarkably useful. I suppose that it does make sense to eliminate Spare the Dying entirely and roll that into Mending, if you want everyone to take mending. Ultimately, though, I don't think it will have much impact on anything, as Clerics (the only ones who get Spare the Dying) get 5 out of 7 cantrips anyway, which means they only fail to learn 2 of them as of 10th level. Those 2 are likely to be light (if they have darkvision) or Resistance (if not) and Spare the Dying anyway. If a player wants to make an extremely sub par choice and actually learn spare the dying, instead of spending 5GP on a healer's kit, in the interest of making a 'combat / mechanic based choice' (it saves you 5sp, and the object interaction required to take the kit out, which was unlikely to be used any given turn anyway), I say you let them, and revel in their terrible decision making and optimization skills.

Good analysis, though I wasn't thinking only of Clerics. If we roll StD's ability into Mending, it would allow it to be used by Wizards, for example. I know the arcane casters are not supposed to step on the divine caster's healing turf, but you'd think that a great and powerful wizard would figure out that superglue helps close a cut, and it's only stabilizing a dying creature, not actually healing HP, so I think it should be fine.

[Demonic Spoon]

Spare the dying is indeed nearly useless. It provides the same effect exactly that one use of a Healer's kit provides, which also takes one action. As such all it does is save you 5 sp. Mending, on the other hand, is remarkably useful. I suppose that it does make sense to eliminate Spare the Dying entirely and roll that into Mending, if you want everyone to take mending. Ultimately, though, I don't think it will have much impact on anything, as Clerics (the only ones who get Spare the Dying) get 5 out of 7 cantrips anyway, which means they only fail to learn 2 of them as of 10th level. Those 2 are likely to be light (if they have darkvision) or Resistance (if not) and Spare the Dying anyway. If a player wants to make an extremely sub par choice and actually learn spare the dying, instead of spending 5GP on a healer's kit, in the interest of making a 'combat / mechanic based choice' (it saves you 5sp, and the object interaction required to take the kit out, which was unlikely to be used any given turn anyway), I say you let them, and revel in their terrible decision making and optimization skills.


Light is still more useful than StD because even darkvision only changes darkness to dim light.

[Dalebert]

It really bothers me that it's not ranged. PF went the route of being able to use cantrips at-will before 5e and they took the "heal 1 hp" cantrip from 3.5 and made it stabilize at range but no HP healed. Cantrips are supposed to be more powerful in 5e but this isn't even comparable to the PF Stabilize cantrip. Another thing that would make it suck less is making it a bonus or reaction action.

[odigity]

It really bothers me that it's not ranged. PF went the route of being able to use cantrips at-will before 5e and they took the "heal 1 hp" cantrip from 3.5 and made it stabilize at range but no HP healed. Cantrips are supposed to be more powerful in 5e but this isn't even comparable to the PF Stabilize cantrip. Another thing that would make it suck less is making it a bonus or reaction action.

It should be both ranged and bonus action. :) That still makes it less than half as useful as Healing Word, since that would actually bring your ally back into the fight, yielding additional actions. Therefore, I don't see it being overpowered.

[Vogonjeltz]

Spare the dying is indeed nearly useless. It provides the same effect exactly that one use of a Healer's kit provides, which also takes one action. As such all it does is save you 5 sp. Mending, on the other hand, is remarkably useful. I suppose that it does make sense to eliminate Spare the Dying entirely and roll that into Mending, if you want everyone to take mending. Ultimately, though, I don't think it will have much impact on anything, as Clerics (the only ones who get Spare the Dying) get 5 out of 7 cantrips anyway, which means they only fail to learn 2 of them as of 10th level. Those 2 are likely to be light (if they have darkvision) or Resistance (if not) and Spare the Dying anyway. If a player wants to make an extremely sub par choice and actually learn spare the dying, instead of spending 5GP on a healer's kit, in the interest of making a 'combat / mechanic based choice' (it saves you 5sp, and the object interaction required to take the kit out, which was unlikely to be used any given turn anyway), I say you let them, and revel in their terrible decision making and optimization skills.

It also has unlimited uses, which could be important in preventing someone from bleeding out when you've burned all your healing kit uses up. Plus, if you've run out of actual healing spells to bring someone back up, it's a good backup. It would be really unfortunate if, after a heavy fight that expended all your spell slots, someone was dying and you had not healing kit nor medical ability in the group.

[Demonic Spoon]

It also has unlimited uses, which could be important in preventing someone from bleeding out when you've burned all your healing kit uses up. Plus, if you've run out of actual healing spells to bring someone back up, it's a good backup. It would be really unfortunate if, after a heavy fight that expended all your spell slots, someone was dying and you had not healing kit nor medical ability in the group.


Characters can carry 15 * strength worth of stuff, and healing kits are what, a gold per use? "I ran out of healing kits and healing magic" seems like an incredibly niche situation. And even then, you can make an easy medicine check.

Literally the only situation where this is useful is if you're out of healing magic, you're out of healing kits due to poor planning, and it matters whether you have to make 1 or 3 checks to stabilize someone.

[symongax]

My group tend to focus on the rules supporting the Roleplay and not the other way around. A Cleric that has access to StD in real life would pretty much rely on it as a stop-gap instead of faffing with a healing kit because it would be easier to do. Can you imagine hospitals still using stiches if they could use magic instead?!

In the time in our party (lvls 1-3), StD has proved invaluble (spelling?) when our Cleric has burned through all her healing.

Sometimes I get fed up of people "optimising" the rules like DnD is an MMORPG to be exploited instead of a rule system that's supposed to at least have some loose connection to some form of reality.

[Eslin]

My group tend to focus on the rules supporting the Roleplay and not the other way around. A Cleric that has access to StD in real life would pretty much rely on it as a stop-gap instead of faffing with a healing kit because it would be easier to do. Can you imagine hospitals still using stiches if they could use magic instead?!

In the time in our party (lvls 1-3), StD has proved invaluble (spelling?) when our Cleric has burned through all her healing.

Sometimes I get fed up of people "optimising" the rules like DnD is an MMORPG to be exploited instead of a rule system that's supposed to at least have some loose connection to some form of reality.
Optimisation is not exploitation. People naturally avoid sub-par choices.

[symongax]

Optimisation is not exploitation. People naturally avoid sub-par choices.

I agree wih that only until it actually impacts roleplay. One of my biggest issues with 3.5e is that I've played with people that have the thought process of "We're lvl 10, so if I take 3lvls of xx, 3lvls of xx and 4 lvls of xx, I'll ne able to do n damage per round as well as have x feat that allows me to do x" I HATE it so much!

To a degree that's what's happening here. A character is likely to use StD because they are unlikely to want to spend 5s on an item that performs a function that they can do for free. It's the player that is making a rules based choice, overriding what a character would naturally do.

[Eslin]

I agree wih that only until it actually impacts roleplay. One of my biggest issues with 3.5e is that I've played with people that have the thought process of "We're lvl 10, so if I take 3lvls of xx, 3lvls of xx and 4 lvls of xx, I'll ne able to do n damage per round as well as have x feat that allows me to do x" I HATE it so much!
Yeah, I hated it too. People kept on optimising for damage, while any half decent build could deal damage as a side note to whatever you were really trying to achieve and trying to get feats even though most feats were useless. You only want to grab feats if you can do something like the dark chaos shuffle to swap them for better feats or if they're a pre-requisite to a prestige class you'll be taking later on.


To a degree that's what's happening here. A character is likely to use StD because they are unlikely to want to spend 5s on an item that performs a function that they can do for free. It's the player that is making a rules based choice, overriding what a character would naturally do.
Well, no. A character would not want to use StD because it's wasting a cantrip slot on something you can already do the exact same thing with a cheap item, they'd want to instantly mend broken items or summon righteous fire instead.

[Asylum]

Well, 1 use of a Healing kit is worth a full day (at a modest level) at your local inn. Or 2,5 gallon of Ale (9,5 liters!!!). Or 5 ladders. Or 10 darts. Or 250 sling bullets.

And if you'd need to stabilize adventurers multiple times a day, picking StD as one of your cantrips seems very reasonable. Something a person in that kind of a world is very likely to do.

DMs inflating the economy with endless amounts of gold is a different story.

[GWJ_DanyBoy]

There's also the medicine skill.

[Demonic Spoon]

My group tend to focus on the rules supporting the Roleplay and not the other way around. A Cleric that has access to StD in real life would pretty much rely on it as a stop-gap instead of faffing with a healing kit because it would be easier to do. Can you imagine hospitals still using stiches if they could use magic instead?!

In the time in our party (lvls 1-3), StD has proved invaluble (spelling?) when our Cleric has burned through all her healing.

Sometimes I get fed up of people "optimising" the rules like DnD is an MMORPG to be exploited instead of a rule system that's supposed to at least have some loose connection to some form of reality.


In any D&D (5) universe, there exists containers of medicine that can, within 6 seconds, take someone from bleeding out to stable. And it can be done with no chance of failure by even the most uneducated slob.

That isn't just game mechanics, that's how the world works. Having the ability to do the same thing, minus the materials cost, but plus giving up a cantrip, might be appealing, say, in a proper army, where you might not have hundreds or thousands of healing kit uses on hand to mend someone. It might also not be appealing if the healer in question is skilled in mundane healing (medicine proficiency) and can easily make a DC 10 check.

However, from the perspective of adventurers, who will ever need to do it a few times a day at most, and who beyond the earliest level typically have enough wealth that 1 GP is a drop in the bucket, that is not a compelling reason.

[Dalebert]

I didn't even know of the existence of the mundane version of this cantrip for 1 gp before this thread. I really need to sit down with the books some day and just read them front to back, something I haven't been able to make myself do just yet.

Given that information, this cantrip seems like such a joke. I'm definitely making it ranged and a bonus action in my games. I don't really think it makes sense to combine it with Mending though. I kind of feel like Mending should be a ritual 1st level spell. It's handy but I can't imagine using up a cantrip slot for it.

[Demonic Spoon]

I wonder if ranged and bonus action would be too good, since Clerics don't get a whole lot else to use their bonus action on.

I think the problem is the healing kit. The healing kit doesn't just obsolete StD, it also obsoletes the Medicine skill. Remove the healing kit altogether or turn it into a tool that enables/enhances use of Medicine.

[Dalebert]

I wonder if ranged and bonus action would be too good, since Clerics don't get a whole lot else to use their bonus action on.

Hmm... maybe. I guess there's something to that. Someone being on the verge of death should be serious enough to have meaningful consequences.


I think the problem is the healing kit. The healing kit doesn't just obsolete StD, it also obsoletes the Medicine skill. Remove the healing kit altogether or turn it into a tool that enables/enhances use of Medicine.

This. I still very strongly think StD should be ranged though, even if you appropriately nerf mundane methods of stabilizing. Again, the PF cantrip was, and the 3.5 cantrip healed a point, and cantrips are intended to be much more powerful in 5e.

It makes sense to treat a medical kit like any other tool. You need proficiency with it and it enhances your ability, whether you have proficiency in medicine or just have a knack for it (due to your relevant ability score).

That said, I'm concerned about the game consequences of a big mundane nerf. You could easily go from being able to function reasonably without a devoted healer to being severely gimped without one. It might be more realistic, but realism is often sacrificed for fun and playability. And that makes me lean toward wanting to de-nerf healers instead of nerfing mundane healing.

[Demonic Spoon]

That said, I'm concerned about the game consequences of a big mundane nerf. You could easily go from being able to function reasonably without a devoted healer to being severely gimped without one. It might be more realistic, but realism is often sacrificed for fun and playability.


the above change provides a great opportunity to provide a new use for the Medicine skill to get around that problem. I use this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?380538-5E-Changes-to-Wisdom(Medicine)).

[odigity]

I wonder if ranged and bonus action would be too good, since Clerics don't get a whole lot else to use their bonus action on.


Hmm... maybe. I guess there's something to that. Someone being on the verge of death should be serious enough to have meaningful consequences.

No, no, no. See my earlier post:


It should be both ranged and bonus action. :) That still makes it less than half as useful as Healing Word, since that would actually bring your ally back into the fight, yielding additional actions. Therefore, I don't see it being overpowered.

Unless you're a Sorcerer or Tome Warlock, you're stuck with 2-3 cantrips for most of your career. If you choose to spend one on StD, it should do it's damn job to justify it's cantrip slot. Without being both a bonus action and ranged, there is zero reason to ever consider it. (barring the army medic example above, which is not a typical PC role)

[Dalebert]

I wonder if ranged and bonus action would be too good, since Clerics don't get a whole lot else to use their bonus action on.

This struck me as odd when I first read it and it still does. You're using it as a reason NOT to give them a useful bonus action but I'm inclined to see it as a reason TO give them a useful bonus action.

[Demonic Spoon]

This struck me as odd when I first read it and it still does. You're using it as a reason NOT to give them a useful bonus action but I'm inclined to see it as a reason TO give them a useful bonus action.

The point being that if the class has nothing else to use a bonus action on, the spell is basically being cast for free.

Which is fine, but it does make the spell more potent, and means that death saves cease to be a thing for anyone in a cleric's party if the cleric has StD. That's probably more powerful than other clerics.

[Dalebert]

The point being that if the class has nothing else to use a bonus action on, the spell is basically being cast for free.

Which is fine, but it does make the spell more potent, and means that death saves cease to be a thing for anyone in a cleric's party if the cleric has StD. That's probably more powerful than other clerics.

I get that you're trying to make me feel bad about that but I'm just not sure I do, at all. As it is, they're already not much of a thing for any halfway well-prepared party. How often does someone drop and how rare will it be that no one has healing word or cure wounds (with a familiar) or a medicine kit the uses of which have been distributed between members so whomever is near the fallen member can use one, etc.? It's like Odigity said. This cantrip needs meat to it to justify the space it's taking up on a limited cantrip list. The alternative is nerfing mundane heals and that scares me more than making clerics more useful and giving them some kind of reason to maybe take this one. Even if my DM makes it ranged and bonus action, I'm still going to favor higher level spells for dealing with this situation. It still won't end up in my lock's tome.

[Demonic Spoon]

I get that you're trying to make me feel bad about that but I'm just not sure I do, at all. As it is, they're already not much of a thing for any halfway well-prepared party. How often does someone drop and how rare will it be that no one has healing word or cure wounds (with a familiar) or a medicine kit the uses of which have been distributed between members so whomever is near the fallen member can use one, etc.? It's like Odigity said. This cantrip needs meat to it to justify the space it's taking up on a limited cantrip list. The alternative is nerfing mundane heals and that scares me more than making clerics more useful and giving them some kind of reason to maybe take this one. Even if my DM makes it ranged and bonus action, I'm still going to favor higher level spells for dealing with this situation. It still won't end up in my lock's tome.

I've already addressed this. This is a problem with the healing kit and not with StD. Making StD effectively passive is not the answer.

[odigity]

...death saves cease to be a thing for anyone in a cleric's party if the cleric has StD.

Good.

You spent a precious cantrip slot on it, you're alive, concscious, within range, and not gagged or restrained? Congrats, you get to prevent a dying comrade from continuing to die (until someone damages him again). Totally reasonable. Just means if you want to truly kill a PC, then you have to kill the cleric first.

PCs shouldn't generally being dying without a TPK anyway, except in a cases of extreme wrecklessness that would cause you to take enough damage in a single attack for an insta-kill.

[Dalebert]

I've already addressed this. This is a problem with the healing kit and not with StD. Making StD effectively passive is not the answer.

Even if you "fix" healing kits to make more sense, it would still need to be a bonus action and ranged to even justify its existence as a cantrip. I think the strongest point for this was made by Odigity. It's competing with Healing Word. About the only time someone would use even the de-nerfed version is in a desperate situation like when they had no slots for HW or for whatever reason just really had to prepare other spells in all their slots. Even then it's difficult to justify a precious cantrip space forever for it.

I know a LOT of cantrips as a tome lock dipping bard, and even I am not wasting space on this steamy poo and I have no plans to change even if it's de-nerfed.

[Fralex]

Interestingly enough, spare the dying used to be a ranged, bonus action cantrip that also restored the ally to 1 HP. I remember a bunch of people complaining it was too powerful in the playtests. Maybe they overcompensated a little...

[Demonic Spoon]

I suppose my issue with it has less to with it being overpowered as a bonus action and more with it effectively removing a game mechanic

[GiantOctopodes]

I suppose my issue with it has less to with it being overpowered as a bonus action and more with it effectively removing a game mechanic

This whole conversation is very much a non-issue in my campaign because we *have* completely eliminated the dying rolls mechanic. It also only takes a single action by an adjacent opponent to coup de grace you and instantly kill you, so I'm not sure if it's actually more or less deadly than it would otherwise be (no one sparing an action for you to not die in at minimum 3 rounds seems more like a combination of negligence and bad luck than anything particularly deadly to me). Just like encumbrance (which I follow more of the Deathwatch philosophy of carrying 3 "hands" worth of armament, whereas others prefer to be able to carry doubles of every item in the PHB on each character), it's all a matter of personal preference.

[Vogonjeltz]

Characters can carry 15 * strength worth of stuff, and healing kits are what, a gold per use? "I ran out of healing kits and healing magic" seems like an incredibly niche situation. And even then, you can make an easy medicine check.

Literally the only situation where this is useful is if you're out of healing magic, you're out of healing kits due to poor planning, and it matters whether you have to make 1 or 3 checks to stabilize someone.

Perhaps my characters are just cash strapped, but we don't have the gold to blow on excess expendables (Plate armor doesn't come cheap).

[Dalebert]

Perhaps my characters are just cash strapped, but we don't have the gold to blow on excess expendables (Plate armor doesn't come cheap).

I certainly wouldn't call 1 gp a pop "avoid certain death" kits "excess", but if you don't have a the gold for it now, surely you will after one more adventure encounter.

[Vogonjeltz]

I certainly wouldn't call 1 gp a pop "avoid certain death" kits "excess", but if you don't have a the gold for it now, surely you will after one more adventure encounter.

Perhaps, but that's money going somewhere besides actual purchasing goals. Considering that this edition is noted for having a higher lethality rate, spare the dying is capable of having quite the work out, saving a significant amount of gold.

[BigONotation]

Healing kit takes 1 minute per use when I DM. Six seconds to stable (healing kit use now) is magic, not mundane.

[Dalebert]

Perhaps, but that's money going somewhere besides actual purchasing goals. Considering that this edition is noted for having a higher lethality rate, spare the dying is capable of having quite the work out, saving a significant amount of gold.

If you feel giving up a cantrip slot to save a few gp a session (as in single digits) is a worthwhile trade, your DM is a stingy B* who needs to lrn2 treasure. :smallsmile:

[GiantOctopodes]

If you feel giving up a cantrip slot to save a few gp a session (as in single digits) is a worthwhile trade, your DM is a stingy B* who needs to lrn2 treasure. :smallsmile:

To be fair, one of the first character concepts I made for 5e was a stingy miser with an insatiable thirst for gold, one who would only stay in poor inns and would try to haggle down the cost of the room, who would never use any consumables and sell any he could get his hands on, etc. He was the definition of penny wise and pound foolish, but it was in its own way enjoyable. If someone wants to pinch those pennies to get plate 3 sessions earlier, it seems like a totally acceptable standpoint from my perspective.

[Dalebert]

To be fair, one of the first character concepts I made for 5e was a stingy miser with an insatiable thirst for gold... He was the definition of penny wise and pound foolish, but it was in its own way enjoyable. If someone wants to pinch those pennies to get plate 3 sessions earlier, it seems like a totally acceptable standpoint from my perspective.

You said it yourself--penny wise and pound foolish. That admittedly does sound fun to role-play but you're admitting he wasn't actually smart about money. We're discussing the merit of a cantrip and the case being made is it will save you a gp here and there. You have to consider the opportunity cost--in this case another cantrip that might actually make a difference at some point or many.

Consider this. Keep in mind that as you level, the amount of treasure you'll be finding will be steadily and dramatically increasing. Your DM tells you you can add more cantrips to your list of cantrips known. The only catch is you have to deduct, say, 5gp per extra cantrip out of the total loot of every adventure for the rest of your character's career. How many will you take? If your answer is anything but zero then this is a very poor argument for the value of this cantrip as-is. Here's another way to look at it. Your DM offers you an extra 5gp into the party treasure per adventure for every cantrip slot that you give up forever. How many do you give up?

That's the substance of this argument--that this cantrip slot, given up FOREVER, is somehow worth it just for that extra few gp each adventure. Another thing that maybe hasn't be emphasized enough--if you distribute med kits to everyone, than anyone who is nearby the fallen teammate and has a free action can stabilize whereas the cantrip requires the cleric to drop everything, get to him, and do it. It's significantly inferior to the mundane method in all respects except for the trivial cost of the consumables.