Healing spells and Druid's sharing spells

[Lord_Kimboat]

I was wondering. Can a Druid cast a cure spell on himself and his animal companion at the same time. The RAW state:

Share Spells (Ex): At the druid's option, she may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) she casts upon herself also affect her animal companion. The animal companion must be within 5 feet of her at the time of casting to receive the benefit. If the spell or effect has a duration other than instantaneous, it stops affecting the animal companion if the companion moves farther than 5 feet away and will not affect the animal again, even if it returns to the druid before the duration expires.
Additionally, the druid may cast a spell with a target of “You” on her animal companion (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A druid and her animal companion can share spells even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion's type (animal).

So, if a Druid is down 10hp and his animal companion is down 6, can he cast cure light wounds and cure both of them at the same time?

[Quietus]

Yep, just makes the druid that much stronger, doesn't it?

[Fax Celestis]

Apparently, yes.

[OneWinged4ngel]

Of course!

The more you learn the rules, the more you'll realize that druids can do... pretty much everything very effectively.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The Sage has ruled (RotG and maybe the FAQ?) that sharing a healing spell actually means sharing. So you can share the amount of hp the spell will heal between you, but you do not get twice that amount.

[OneWinged4ngel]

The Sage has ruled (RotG and maybe the FAQ?) that sharing a healing spell actually means sharing. So you can share the amount of hp the spell will heal between you, but you do not get twice that amount.

It seems like he pretty much pulled that out of nowhere... :smallconfused:

The actual rules text seems pretty clear that that's not the case, and last I checked the Sage wasn't actually an "official" source. After all, it's not like he hasn't made a good deal of mistakes before...

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

The FAQ is official, the RotG article series are not, but they do say something about RAI and give suggestions for house rules.

Whether it was official is not the point, however.

You are of course correct, he did pull it out of nowhere.

Maybe it was an attempt to clear up the possible abuse of an ability that could have been written more clearly?
Maybe it was a suggestion people should consider implementing as a house rule to improve game balance?

Maybe he just wanted to give people that complain about game balance a chance to also complain about the less than official suggestions to remedy that?

[Jasdoif]

The Sage has ruled (RotG and maybe the FAQ?) that sharing a healing spell actually means sharing. So you can share the amount of hp the spell will heal between you, but you do not get twice that amount.I saw nothing of the sort in the FAQ.

[TheOOB]

It seems like he pretty much pulled that out of nowhere... :smallconfused:

The actual rules text seems pretty clear that that's not the case, and last I checked the Sage wasn't actually an "official" source. After all, it's not like he hasn't made a good deal of mistakes before...

The Sage isn't official, but he's about as close as you can get without being official. He was a lead designer on 3rd edition, his opinion counts for something.

[de-trick]

Thats the sweetest thing ever, no longer shall we have to cast 2 spells to heal us and are furry friends, no longer shall the world have to split its healing resources on casting 2 heal spells for a druid and his animal companion

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

I saw nothing of the sort in the FAQ.

I did not think so, but you do get yourself a spot on the popcorn list for checking. (Not at the top mind you :-p)

[OneWinged4ngel]

The FAQ is official, the RotG article series are not, but they do say something about RAI and give suggestions for house rules.

Whether it was official is not the point, however.

You are of course correct, he did pull it out of nowhere.

Maybe it was an attempt to clear up the possible abuse of an ability that could have been written more clearly?
Maybe it was a suggestion people should consider implementing as a house rule to improve game balance?

Maybe he just wanted to give people that complain about game balance a chance to also complain about the less than official suggestions to remedy that?


The Sage isn't official, but he's about as close as you can get without being official. He was a lead designer on 3rd edition, his opinion counts for something.

Yeah, but the ruling is very... messy. I'm all for fixing up rules to make the druid more reasonable (I use the shapechange variant from PHB II, for one), but saying that share spells gives you only part of the spell for a specific effect is just silly. And if it works on all effects, it's even sillier. What happens when I share Trollform with my familiar? Does he only become half a troll? What if I share vigor? Do I switch off who gets fast healing 1 every turn? If buffs actually work in a sensible fashion, vigor is a buff (not a direct healing sort of thing) and thus would get around the restriction. Also, the Sage's response in this instance has absolutely *no* basis in the actual written text.

The actual rule is very clear: At the druid's option, she may have any spell (but not any spell-like ability) she casts upon herself also affect her animal companion.

Not "kind of" affect, not even "some weird sort of synergy where they count as the same person" affect. Nope, it just affects them.

The Sage just seems to be pulling an ill-thought-out house rule out of his *** right here, quite frankly. I'd be happy to hear of any rulings from an official source, but the Sage has made his share of mistakes in the past.


I saw nothing of the sort in the FAQ.

I, too, have been unable to find this in the FAQ. Though it is in RotG.

And I just can't for the life of me understand how the player is supposed to come up with that interpretation from the rules, nor how you are supposed to figure out how many of the commonly shared spells work under his interpretations (which seem to have rather random things like "your familiar loses images when you do")