How much healing can you get from goodberry

[Sir cryosin]

As the title says how much?

[Foxhound438]

a level of life cleric would give 40 total.

[SharkForce]

a level of life cleric would give 40 total.

and of course, without that level, 10 total. per spell slot, regardless of level used (the life cleric should actually be able to get more from higher level spells though).

[Sir cryosin]

a level of life cleric would give 40 total.

How is it 40 I thought you can only add your mod to it?

[Sir cryosin]

My party doesn't have any healing. I don't want to play a cleric but I'm looking to fine the most healing I can do with one lv1 or feat and relatively cheap

[SharkForce]

How is it 40 I thought you can only add your mod to it?

nobody adds their mod to it. the spell does not factor in your ability modifier at all.

life clerics have a level 1 ability called disciple of life. they heal an extra 2+spell level hit points any time they use a 1st level or higher spell that restores hit points to someone. for goodberry in particular, that winds up meaning each berry heals an extra 3 HP (assuming a level 1 slot is used), or 4 each, times 10 berries equals 40 HP.

edit: most bang for your buck in healing would be the healer feat. once per character per short rest. make sure you have the others chip in some money for healing kits as well as backpack space so you don't have to carry it all yourself.

[RulesJD]

You can get 131 HP from Goodberry.

1. Berries. Cast as a level 9 spell as a Life Cleric. One Berry = (1 hp) + 2 (Life Clerc) + 9 (9th level spell) = 12hp/berry x 10 berries = 120hp

2. Blessed Healer from Life Cleric. Upon casting Goodberry, Life Cleric regains 11 HP.

3. Total = 131 HP from a level 9 casting of Goodberry from a Life Cleric.

[Douche]

Be careful with goodberry abuse. My friend got kidney stones cuz all he ate was 10 goodberries a day for a month straight

[Foxhound438]

You can get 131 HP from Goodberry.

1. Berries. Cast as a level 9 spell as a Life Cleric. One Berry = (1 hp) + 2 (Life Clerc) + 9 (9th level spell) = 12hp/berry x 10 berries = 120hp

2. Blessed Healer from Life Cleric. Upon casting Goodberry, Life Cleric regains 11 HP.

3. Total = 131 HP from a level 9 casting of Goodberry from a Life Cleric.

wow, that's so much better than mass heal hehe

[MaxWilson]

wow, that's so much better than mass heal hehe

If you spent the same resources on Aura of Vitality IX, you'd get

(2d6 + 11 (Disciple of Life)) * 10 (duration: 1 minute) = 170 HP of healing.

If you spend a sorcery point to Extend it to 2 minutes, you get twice that much: 340 HP of healing.

However, spending a 9th level slot on that would be stupid when you can get almost as much healing out of regular Extended Aura of Vitality III, which is a lot cheaper.

(2d6 + 5 (Disciple of Life)) * 20 (duration: 2 minutes) = 240 HP of healing.

Plus, you don't have the diabetes issue nor the conflict with RAW. (Letting Goodberry benefit from Disciple of Life is like letting a Necromancer's Animate Undead benefit from Grim Harvest to restore HP each time the skeleton kills someone.)

[E’Tallitnics]

Another common Goodberry tactic is to expend every last spell slot you have left before a long rest to cast the spell. Since they last for 24 hours you'll have a bag of berries in the morning and all of your spells slots too!

[Orvir]

(Letting Goodberry benefit from Disciple of Life is like letting a Necromancer's Animate Undead benefit from Grim Harvest to restore HP each time the skeleton kills someone.)

While I'm not exactly a fan of the interpretation, Jeremy Crawford confirmed that it is RAI and/or RAW.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/11/discipline-of-goodberry/

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/28/goodberry-healing-rate/

[JumboWheat01]

Another common Goodberry tactic is to expend every last spell slot you have left before a long rest to cast the spell. Since they last for 24 hours you'll have a bag of berries in the morning and all of your spells slots too!

Plus no body will have to worry about eating any other food the next day! Just pop in a berry and you're good to go.

[gfishfunk]

My party doesn't have any healing. I don't want to play a cleric but I'm looking to fine the most healing I can do with one lv1 or feat and relatively cheap

To answer your question, 10 without using shenanigans. You can get more use out of the spell by expending spell slots the night before and carrying them the rest of the day, but 10 for each time you cast it.

[Desamir]

While I'm not exactly a fan of the interpretation, Jeremy Crawford confirmed that it is RAI and/or RAW.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/11/discipline-of-goodberry/

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/28/goodberry-healing-rate/

Oh, Jeremy.

[Dimers]

Oh, Jeremy.

Your phrasing made me crack up. :smallbiggrin:

[MaxWilson]

While I'm not exactly a fan of the interpretation, Jeremy Crawford confirmed that it is RAI and/or RAW.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/11/discipline-of-goodberry/

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/28/goodberry-healing-rate/

I'll buy that it's RAI, since Crawford is the authority there, but it's just plain not RAW.

[georgie_leech]

I'll buy that it's RAI, since Crawford is the authority there, but it's just plain not RAW.

How so? You cast a spell of first level or higher, it's used to restore hit points to a creature. It's not like you're animating little creatures that sacrifice themselves to give a burst of healing; comparing it to a necromancer's minions is irrelevant.

[Foxhound438]

How so? You cast a spell of first level or higher, it's used to restore hit points to a creature. It's not like you're animating little creatures that sacrifice themselves to give a burst of healing; comparing it to a necromancer's minions is irrelevant.

it is a more liberal interpretation. A conservative view would indicate that goodberry is a spell cast to create berries that happen to restore hp if eaten, and only things that have the direct effect of "when you cast this a person gains x hp" (or however the format is) get disciple of life.

[Theodoxus]

Narp - the wording of Disciple of Life is "Whenever you use a spell..." Not cast a spell. Use is very specific. Using a Goodberry restores HPs (among other advantageous things). Jeremy is quite correct in his RAI, because it is very much RAW.

[Desamir]

How so? You cast a spell of first level or higher, it's used to restore hit points to a creature. It's not like you're animating little creatures that sacrifice themselves to give a burst of healing; comparing it to a necromancer's minions is irrelevant.


Narp - the wording of Disciple of Life is "Whenever you use a spell..." Not cast a spell. Use is very specific. Using a Goodberry restores HPs (among other advantageous things). Jeremy is quite correct in his RAI, because it is very much RAW.

Necromancer's Grim Harvest feature doesn't use the word "cast" either. It says:

Once per turn when you kill one or more creatures with a spell of 1st level or higher, you regain hit points equal to twice the spell's level, or three times its level if the spell belongs to the School of Necromancy.

Let's assume that eating a goodberry (a food item created by an instantaneous spell) counts as "using a spell to restore hit points to to a creature." It follows that killing something with a zombie (a creature created by an instantaneous spell) counts as "killing a creature with a spell."

[MaxWilson]

Let's assume that eating a goodberry (a food item created by an instantaneous spell) counts as "using a spell to restore hit points to to a creature." It follows that killing something with a zombie (a creature created by an instantaneous spell) counts as "killing a creature with a spell."

Yes, exactly. And that would be ludicrous.

P.S. Applying Disciple of Life to Vampiric Touch ("regain half the HP drained plus 5 HP from Disciple of Life") would also be wrong, IMO, even though you're regaining HP with the spell--because that's not actually healing, it's vampirism. I could understand a DM ruling otherwise though, and that would make Cleric 1/Necromancer X even better than it is otherwise.

[Zalabim]

While I'm not exactly a fan of the interpretation, Jeremy Crawford confirmed that it is RAI and/or RAW.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/11/discipline-of-goodberry/

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/28/goodberry-healing-rate/

"I would allow it" is not "it's RAW/RAI," nor is it in the official sage advice answers yet. It's still just twitter.

The argument against allowing it is that disciple of life triggers on using a spell to restore hp, and Goodberries are used when they're eaten. So a Life Cleric who eats a goodberry gets additional HP, but not anyone else. Obviously, if you allow using your action to feed a berry to another creature, then it could be applied that way. I'm sure that's somebody's fetish.

Edit: Though I do think it's intended right now (as recently as Jan 21st this year), and will likely make it into official sage advice someday if necessary.

[MaxWilson]

Edit: Though I do think it's intended right now (as recently as Jan 21st this year), and will likely make it into official sage advice someday if necessary.

It's already in the Sage Advice Compendium. For whatever that's worth.


If I’m a cleric/druid with the Disciple of Life feature,
does the goodberry spell benefit from the feature? Yes.
The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore
4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with
a 1st-level spell slot.

Either he's answering from a RAI perspective (he says he does that sometimes) or he is just wrong. Which also happens, as he acknowledges occasionally and again in this month's column.

[Wymmerdann]

Killing "with" a spell as per the Grim Harvest feature is not rigorously defined and should be up to reasonable discussion at the table. One presumes it would apply to instant damage effects [especially since this denotes a broad range of necromancy spells that deal dice of damage to specific foes]. If one is to exclude the example of zombie-kills, then they're doing it on grounds of balance in play rather than having arrived at an "obviously" more reasonable interpretation of the word "with", which could reasonably be read as "by direct and immediate way of" or "by direct or indirect, immediate or delayed way of".

"[U]sing" a spell to heal as per the Disciple of Life feature is also not rigorously defined. For example, a mage hand that feeds a healing potion to a party member is used to heal, and ought reasonably fit within the definition unless the range of spells the affect applies to or the means by which they deliver healing [direct/indirect immediate/delayed]. IMO, better proofing of the text would have limited it to healing spells, though some spells of other schools or disciplines [such as vampiric touch] might explain why this was not done. Ambiguity is the price of equivocation. The fact that "healing spells" are mentioned in the previous sentence doesn't help, since that reads as a thematic description of the power and when it comes into play.


By way of contrast, 4e tended to use keywords attached to powers to more specifically address where and how certain benefits came into play [although the system also had trouble around the use of loose terms such as "use" or "carry"].

MaxWilson, I like your referal to the Vampiric Touch for thematic reasons, but I think it constitutes an example of the Special Pleading fallacy, since you're arguing that Necromantic Healing isn't "real healing", which there doesn't seem to be any RAW or RAI support for to my reading of the released books.

Arguing about RAI gets a bit messy depending on what your interpretive approach to it is, and seeing designers try to justify synergies they hadn't anticipated is frankly a little nauseating.

[MaxWilson]

MaxWilson, I like your referal to the Vampiric Touch for thematic reasons, but I think it constitutes an example of the Special Pleading fallacy, since you're arguing that Necromantic Healing isn't "real healing", which there doesn't seem to be any RAW or RAI support for to my reading of the released books.

Arguing about RAI gets a bit messy depending on what your interpretive approach to it is, and seeing designers try to justify synergies they hadn't anticipated is frankly a little nauseating.

"Special Pleading is a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while taking herself (or those she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption."

That really has nothing to do with my ruling on Vampiric Touch. I said parenthetically that I would disallow Disciple of Life for Vampiric Touch, for reasons unrelated to anything else under discussion (Goodberry, "use a spell", etc.). That's not special pleading of any kind. If anything, I'm being harder on myself than necessary, since I'd actually really like to use Vampiric Touch this way and think it's cool--but I also would rule it to be illegal.

Special pleading would be if I said that Disciple of Life should work to boost the HP that Necromancers regain through Grim Harvest when their zombie kills a 2 cp chicken, so that each chicken results in 29 HP of healing at zero spell point cost. ;-)

[JackOfAllBuilds]

Grim Harvest also specifically mentions YOU kill the enemy. You are not the creatures you command. So if we overlook the necromancy spell requirement, you also wouldn't get it from dominated, summoned, or conjured creatures. You would with a conjured spell effect like mordenkainen's sword (were it necromancy)

Also regarding the sage advice articles/compendium:
"If I’m a cleric/druid with the Disciple of Life feature, does the goodberry spell bene t from the feature? -- Yes. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, *assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level spell slot*."

The last line after the comma would suggest the DoL feature would improve the healing if the spell is cast with a higher slot

[Wymmerdann]

Right, that wasn't intended to be a shot at you personally, and I apologize for my unclear language.

I took it to be a special pleading against Vampiric Touch, because its use falls within the category "using a spell to heal" and the reasons why we would reject that reading rely on a pleading of evidence that is "special" in the sense that it isn't readily apparent to the rules as laid out in the player's handbook. For instance, the healing effect is not causally indirect to the use of the spell in the way that animating a zombie to kill is an indirect use of necromancy to kill, [in a way that finger of death is not].


Apologies for the injudicious invocation of fallacies :D

[Wymmerdann]

Grim Harvest also specifically mentions YOU kill the enemy.

Keep in mind that we, in a world where magic is not readily accessible, have amassed thousands of texts about the role of agency and responsibility, and that it is something that rigorously trained professionals are paid to argue about in court at great expense.

For instance, if a necromancer is tricked into eating hallucinogenic mushrooms by one of his friends, do he and his friends split the healing from the rogue Fingers of Death that might thereby transpire, or does the irresponsible friend get them all?

In settings where gods can yank their divine powers away from their clerics [which is some but not all], but undead minions have no way to resist their arcane necromancers' commands, the quoted line of reasoning might take us to a conclusion that all of an undead minions' kills are caused by the necromancer, but not of the cleric's kills with flamestrike are caused by the mortal servant [being instead the responsibility of the god who allowed their powers to be thus used].


Relying on the distinction in this way seems to leave matters unsettled.

[MaxWilson]

Grim Harvest also specifically mentions YOU kill the enemy.

Disciple of Life also mentions that YOU use a spell to heal. Not a zombie that you created, not a berry that you created, you.

Same standard in both places.

BTW, there is no necromancy requirement with Grim Harvest. It just works better with Necromancy.


I took it to be a special pleading against Vampiric Touch, because its use falls within the category "using a spell to heal" and the reasons why we would reject that reading rely on a pleading of evidence that is "special" in the sense that it isn't readily apparent to the rules as laid out in the player's handbook. For instance, the healing effect is not causally indirect to the use of the spell in the way that animating a zombie to kill is an indirect use of necromancy to kill, [in a way that finger of death is not].

[checks books]

I had imagined that healing spells like Cure Wounds and Aura of Vitality called out their healing as healing, whereas Vampiric Touch only says you "regain hit points." But after consulting with the books, I see that Cure Wounds uses the same language as Vampiric Touch and almost the same language as Disciple of Life ("restore" vs. "regain", which is clearly just a case of transitive vs. intransitive verb usage). I'm altering my ruling, and Life Clerics are now unusually good at efficiently sucking the life out of other people. In theory you could have a Life Cleric Necromancer who casts Vampiric Touch V to inflict 5d6 damage, regaining half of that plus 7 as healing (7+(5d6/2)) and a bonus 15 HP of healing on a kill. Since Life Clerics are already pretty tanky, and Necromancer adds Shield on top for AC 25, that gives you someone who's already pretty good at sucking the life out of you faster than you can damage him back. All he needs now is a Rogue/Bladesinger buddy who can slam you to the ground and pin you there helplessly while the Necromancer does his thing.

[Theodoxus]

I personally don't think from the wording that Grim Harvest would work with automatons [undead, golem, dominated, conjurations], but I also don't see a particular drawback if they did. From my experience, Wizards in general don't get hit much. They kind of try not to, really hard. Granted, if they went Life Cleric and felt more comfortable (and had the strength, or didn't care about being slow - to wear heavy armor) wading into melee range, sure, I could see the need for gratuitous use of Grim Harvest (especially by their pets)... I don't know about your table, but mine isn't overly 'kill savvy' - people aren't shouting out 'let me kill it, I need x ability to activate so I get HPs' (or more often temp HPs). In this scenario, where a zombie killing would trigger Grim Harvest... would you rule that a Battlemaster using Commander's Strike on the zombie would use the Necromancer's reaction, or the zombies? If the necro had already used GH on his round, would the zombie be using it's own turn? Hmm.. I think if the zombie(s) had their own initiative, so were attacking on their own round, and not the necromancers, GH would be very strong. Still probably not OP, given above, but very strong...


OTOH, it is becoming readily apparent that I am more 'rules light' when it comes to player agency than a lot of y'all. I find allowing players to have interesting combinations and synergies brings them more enjoyment, than my having a heavy boot and denying them - which gives me no pleasure at all.

[Desamir]

Disciple of Life also mentions that YOU use a spell to heal. Not a zombie that you created, not a berry that you created, you.

Same standard in both places.

Along the same lines, we shouldn't be using our own hands to drink potions anymore, when we can get our Unseen Servant to feed them to us and regain an extra 4 hit points.

[MaxWilson]

I personally don't think from the wording that Grim Harvest would work with automatons [undead, golem, dominated, conjurations], but I also don't see a particular drawback if they did. From my experience, Wizards in general don't get hit much. They kind of try not to, really hard.

Experiences vary. In my experience, Fighter 1/Necromancer X is already a very popular and durable tank build (superior to a Bladesinger at early levels, with less MAD) due to AC 21 + Shield spell + Blur or Grim Harvest Vampiric Touch or Evard's Black Tentacles. If on top of that you also add "can regain ridiculous amounts of HP every time a skeleton shoots an arrow" you're now looking at "brokenly good." And even more important, you're looking at "ridiculously implausible" and "breaks my suspension of disbelief."

The Cool Theory of Literature implies that a game of D&D 5E is a vehicle designed to fit in as much as possible of what the players think is cool. Ludicrous healing cheese on a Necrotank by willfully perverting the rules is not cool to me. Will not fly at my table, and neither will Greatberry.

Addendum: if you were expecting to experience ludicrous healing, and you had a level in cleric already, it would be tempting and perhaps logical to hit Life Cleric 3/Necromancer 6 so that you could Warding Bond your party tank. Ludicrous healing negates the single biggest downside to that spell, which is that you take as much damage as the warded individual. Now I can heal myself without even spending an action, I just use my bonus action to have a zombie kill a 2 cp chicken in a sack.

[BladeWing81]

If you spent the same resources on Aura of Vitality IX, you'd get

(2d6 + 11 (Disciple of Life)) * 10 (duration: 1 minute) = 170 HP of healing.

If you spend a sorcery point to Extend it to 2 minutes, you get twice that much: 340 HP of healing.

However, spending a 9th level slot on that would be stupid when you can get almost as much healing out of regular Extended Aura of Vitality III, which is a lot cheaper.

(2d6 + 5 (Disciple of Life)) * 20 (duration: 2 minutes) = 240 HP of healing.

Plus, you don't have the diabetes issue nor the conflict with RAW. (Letting Goodberry benefit from Disciple of Life is like letting a Necromancer's Animate Undead benefit from Grim Harvest to restore HP each time the skeleton kills someone.)
I think the real benefit of the goodberry is that once you cast it, it last for 24 hours making them great for dungeon crawling.
what I didn't know was that you could cast goodberry at higher levels or that you could cast it at higher levels being a cleric with the magic initiate feat. I was under the impression that it was just giving you a lvl 1 druid spell with one slot to cast it.

[georgie_leech]

I think the real benefit of the goodberry is that once you cast it, it last for 24 hours making them great for dungeon crawling.
what I didn't know was that you could cast goodberry at higher levels or that you could cast it at higher levels being a cleric with the magic initiate feat. I was under the impression that it was just giving you a lvl 1 druid spell with one slot to cast it.

Once you have a level of Druid you can cast it from any slot. While the feat is an option, you get far more Goodberries out of a level dip than a feat, and if you don’t take more than a single level, you don't even lose out on a feat by level 20.