Healing Spirit Nerf

[Dr. Cliché]

For anyone interested, apparently Healing Spirit is going to be nerfed such that it can only ever heal a number of times equal to 1+Casting Ability Modifier (min twice).

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/191158968930926592/695251639220568144/Screenshot_20200402_134112_com.android.chrome.jpg

[Talsin]

2nd level spell doing choice-dispersed healing... It's a nerf to limit it to 6d6 for a 2nd level slot, not sure I'd punish characters for having less casting stat though. It definitely limits is usefulness out-of-combat. On the otherhand, it also multiplies out by upcasting it, so for a 3rd level slot healing for 12d6 is pretty good when you consider a fireball could torch a group for more dmg overall. Keeps it in line with healing being less number-equivalent than damage while still giving decent healing rate.

[EggKookoo]

I'm not seeing the 1 person per round limit? My copy says "Until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit's space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required)."

[Dr. Cliché]

I'm not seeing the 1 person per round limit? My copy says "Until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit's space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required)."

Oh, nevermind. Looks like I misread it.

In that case they nerfed it in entirely the wrong way IMO.

[EggKookoo]

Oh, nevermind. Looks like I misread it.

In that case they nerfed it in entirely the wrong way IMO.

Yeah, unless the fight drags out, the limit on the number of heals isn't going to have a huge impact.

[Nhym]

Out of all of the things they could nerf, they choose Healing Spirit? Sure lets lower the play rate of two of the least played classes even more! (Druid and Ranger). Unless you are specifically playing a game of attrition, I don't see why Healing Spirit was game breaking as fights in 5e presuppose the players start with full health anyway. This change is just more of an annoyance than anything.

[Zetakya]

Considering that Prayer of Healing is the same level and instantaneously restores 2d8+MOD HP to up to 6 targets... yeah that nerf is overdone.

[Dr. Cliché]

Out of all of the things they could nerf, they choose Healing Spirit? Sure lets lower the play rate of two of the least played classes even more! (Druid and Ranger). Unless you are specifically playing a game of attrition, I don't see why Healing Spirit was game breaking as fights in 5e presuppose the players start with full health anyway. This change is just more of an annoyance than anything.

I think what bothers me is that they seemed to skip over the obvious nerf (limiting it to healing one creature per round), which would have put it into line with spells like Aura of Vitality.

Instead, they put a cap on the number of times it can heal in total. Aside from being unnecessary, if they were going to do down that route it seems like they could at least have removed Concentration as well (since the duration of the spell is no longer the limiting factor).

But no, apparently Druids and Rangers just aren't allowed good spells.

[47Ace]

The nerf seems reasonable it still works in combat and the heal everyone 20d6 out of combat problem is gone.

[stoutstien]

Considering that Prayer of Healing is the same level and instantaneously restores 2d8+MOD HP to up to 6 targets... yeah that nerf is overdone.

prayer of healing has a casting time of 10 minutes which was one of the reasons why HS was considered out of line. as far as the changes go, I'm glad they did something but ill stick to my house rule for now.

[stoutstien]

Out of all of the things they could nerf, they choose Healing Spirit? Sure lets lower the play rate of two of the least played classes even more! (Druid and Ranger). Unless you are specifically playing a game of attrition, I don't see why Healing Spirit was game breaking as fights in 5e presuppose the players start with full health anyway. This change is just more of an annoyance than anything.

The popularity of rangers and druids have nothing to do with how powerful they are. they are not played because the overall flavor isn't alluring for most. druids are a powerhouse before this spell or the XGTE circles where even out and they where still the least played class by a huge margin.

[Zetakya]

prayer of healing has a casting time of 10 minutes which was one of the reasons why HS was considered out of line. as far as the changes go, I'm glad they did something but ill stick to my house rule for now.

Ok, instantaneous is the wrong term; the point is there's no spirit for intelligent enemies to banish or otherwise mess with.

Both are (or were...) intended as out of combat healing utility, which makes them comparable.

[Segev]

Personally, I'd have just changed the way it heals. Instead of giving a d6, it lets the beneficiaries spend a hit die, and roll it plus the ... oh, hey, make it plus the caster's spellcasting modifier, rather than the target's Con mod. (Sorry, that part just occurred to me.)

Anyway, make it so the people starting their turn in or passing through the square of the spirit can spend a hit die and roll it plus the caster's casting stat mod and regain that many hp. Now it's more costly, but for those with better HD (i.e. the tougher classes), it heals more. Puts a per-person limit on its healing, and makes it so that it's just borrowing ahead from healing you'd get anyway, bringing it into combat-time (or making it faster if you do it out of combat).

Upcasting could give +1 healing point per upcast level or something.

[Aett_Thorn]

Ok, instantaneous is the wrong term; the point is there's no spirit for intelligent enemies to banish or otherwise mess with.

Both are (or were...) intended as out of combat healing utility, which makes them comparable.

I don't think that Healing Spirit was ever intended to be an out of combat heal, though. That's why the problems with it were mostly in the out of combat area, where you could have the conga line of healing. This change seems to indicate that they meant for it to be an in-combat healing spell, so comparing it to a specifically out of combat spell seems weird.

[MaxWilson]

Unless you are specifically playing a game of attrition, I don't see why Healing Spirit was game breaking as fights in 5e presuppose the players start with full health anyway.

The designers may have assumed in their BOTE calculations that PCs always start with full health, but Healing Spirit made it actually true. It was extremely disruptive to a common playstyle (dungeoncrawling) which BTW is one of the easiest styles for a new DM to learn to run successfully. "Can the PCs get through this fight without losing too much HP so they can get closer to the treasure?" is an easy way to add tension to an encounter. "Can the PCs survive this fight?" is higher-stakes and not fun for all players, and "can PCs stop the bad guys from hurting NPCs/getting away with evidence/etc.?" takes more setup to get the players emotionally invested.

If you're playing a game where there's no attrition, this nerf won't even affect you. But it's nice to have the option back--and to have some corporate assurance that at least they finally recognized the balance implications and hopefully won't do this again.

It's absurd for a game like 5e to make a big deal out of giving tiny little damage bonuses as features, on the order of +4 per round per class (e.g. high-level Barbarian Rage bonus x Extra Attack x hit rate), or even 1d8 healing per spell level (Moon Druid Combat Healing), when Healing Spirit is doing an order of magnitude more healing even without exploiting the multiple-per-round cheese. I'm glad to have that design flaw fixed. It was the kind of flaw that I don't like to houserule but makes me cynical about the quality of the game design.

[Galithar]

Considering that Prayer of Healing is the same level and instantaneously restores 2d8+MOD HP to up to 6 targets... yeah that nerf is overdone.

Only if you count 10 minutes as "instantaneously". Prayer of Healing takes 10 minutes to cast and has a requirement of healing 6 different targets.

This nerf is long overdue, and I actually got excited when I saw someone post something about it in the April fool's thread and started doing the math and making my own tweaks. I actually found the balance sweet spot for me was 5+spell casting mod heals. It keeps it on par with the level 3 Aura of Vitality, which actually breaks the upcassting model. Spells of a given level are intended to be stronger then the upcast of lower level spells. In this case I wasn't okay with Aura of Vitality, a Paladin only spell taking the top healing Spell position. It still prevents it from overtaking Prayer of Healing (assuming you have a large enough party).

[Kane0]

Ugh, just errata ‘turn’ to ‘round’

[MaxWilson]

Ugh, just errata ‘turn’ to ‘round’

I did that years ago and Healing Spirit is still unpleasantly strong. When your bog-standard 5th level Moon Druid can heal 245+ HP via Healing Spirit (plus 40 more with Goodberry) on top of their own wildshape HP, even Barbarian Rage is trivialized as a class feature. No matter how much damage the party takes, the druid can heal it all and then some, over and over again. Who cares at that point if the Barbarian took only 20 HP instead of 42 HP because of Rage?

[Daphne]

It is is a very reasonable nerf, healing 6d6 with a 2nd level spell is in line with other healing spells.

And it still scales pretty well, doubling in effect every spell level above 2nd.

[Dr. Cliché]

It is is a very reasonable nerf, healing 6d6 with a 2nd level spell is in line with other healing spells.

Because God forbid anyone not have 20 wisdom from Lv3 onwards.

[Chaosmancer]

It is is a very reasonable nerf, healing 6d6 with a 2nd level spell is in line with other healing spells.

And it still scales pretty well, doubling in effect every spell level above 2nd.

Only 6d6 if you have a +5 wisdom.

So, normal druid will have 5d6 and normal ranger will have 3d6 based on my experiences.

Edit: And, don't forget, if this is being used a mass heal, then it is the entire party getting 1d6 which is worse than every other mass heal spell in the game, because that averages out to 3 hp for everyone since you don't add mod.

[HappyDaze]

Only 6d6 if you have a +5 wisdom.

So, normal druid will have 5d6 and normal ranger will have 3d6 based on my experiences.

Edit: And, don't forget, if this is being used a mass heal, then it is the entire party getting 1d6 which is worse than every other mass heal spell in the game, because that averages out to 3 hp for everyone since you don't add mod.

My game is at level 4 (almost to level 5) and our druid only has a 16 Wis. Actually, only one of our characters has a stat above 16; the rest chose feats at level 4 (the druid chose Resilient [Con] for better concentration and more hit points and the tempest cleric chose heavy armor master). The spellcasters are planning to up their casting stats next time, but they are not rushing to get to 20s.

[Tanarii]

About time.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The nerf seems reasonable it still works in combat and the heal everyone 20d6 out of combat problem is gone.

What's fun is that I once ran a campaign with stock 5e rules and except for one.

We used Final Fantasy XIII rules for healing. M among that at the end of each combat, you took a breath, and you was at full health.

You know what happened?

I could know exactly how much HP a player would have and give better challenges and players felt a lot more safe in making daring actions or putting together plans that they normally wouldn't. A lot less playing it safe was awesome.

It also made the game more brutal! Every player dropped to 0 at some point and there was a lot of butt clinching when that happened.

If you ever get the chance run this sort of game. Players can still run out of resources and in combat healing becomes a necessity.

[Chronos]

Pre-nerf, Healing Spirit was a lot better than Prayer of Healing out of combat, because it could give vastly more healing even in the best case for Prayer of Healing (exactly six wounded characters who all need the same amount).

Healing Spirit was also a lot better than Prayer of Healing in combat, because it's still pretty decent in-combat healing (very few other spells are), while PoH can't be used in combat at all.

With this change, its in-combat use is about the same as it ever was, which still leaves it as a good spell. But its out-of-combat use is now less than PoH. Which is as it should be, because out-of-combat is all that PoH has.

[MaxWilson]

With this change, its in-combat use is about the same as it ever was, which still leaves it as a good spell. But its out-of-combat use is now less than PoH. Which is as it should be, because out-of-combat is all that PoH has.

Well, in-combat use is worse now that you don't have the option to leave it running after combat too.

But if your DM allows pop-up healing, Healing Spirit is still a handy budget Regenerate (can't die unless enemy beats down all of your death saves with extra attacks).

[Captain Panda]

Honestly I hate that they did this. The spell is one of those things that the forums entered groupthink about and decided was gamebreaking. It really isn't for most types of game.

Frankly, after the spell was introduced a problem I had had in games previously actually went away: long rest spam. I know there are ways to handle that, to punish that, and I used them. But I did have to use them. When PCs could top up at a slight cost (always getting wild overkill, no one ever needed that many hp), they were much more willing to keep going with spellslots and resources expended if they were at full. If they aren't at full health, they want to hunker down... sometimes in a dungeon, sometimes with tiny hut, sometimes after just a couple fights. I hated that.

[Boci]

So what about "At the start of your turn, the spirit heals anyone standing in its square or an adjacent sqaure for 1d6. Once the spirit has healed 6 or more times, it vanishes"? With the same returns on healing for upcasting it.

Still usuable in combat but if you do placement still matters, but no congo line healing.

[Galithar]

Honestly I hate that they did this. The spell is one of those things that the forums entered groupthink about and decided was gamebreaking. It really isn't for most types of game.

Frankly, after the spell was introduced a problem I had had in games previously actually went away: long rest spam. I know there are ways to handle that, to punish that, and I used them. But I did have to use them. When PCs could top up at a slight cost (always getting wild overkill, no one ever needed that many hp), they were much more willing to keep going with spellslots and resources expended if they were at full. If they aren't at full health, they want to hunker down... sometimes in a dungeon, sometimes with tiny hut, sometimes after just a couple fights. I hated that.


It's not group think when there is actually mathematic evidence to say that Healing Spirit is unbalanced compared to all other healing spells. If you have an issue with players not having enough healing then feel free to keep it as it used to be, or what I would suggest is just houserule some easier ways to heal. That way you don't have to deal with hit point attrition. Honestly how it was originally written you might as well just say "when cast out side of combat all allies heal to full"

[MaxWilson]

Honestly I hate that they did this. The spell is one of those things that the forums entered groupthink about and decided was gamebreaking. It really isn't for most types of game.

It's not groupthink when your opinion forms about twelve seconds after reading the spell.

[Chaosmancer]

I'm going to go on a little side tangent here.

Why is pop-up healing so common in 5e?
Because healing is generally weak, healing in combat is not worth it, because you will never outheal the damage being done. Therefore, it is better not to "waste" healing, except to make sure people do not die.

If most healing spells are too weak, then why is it an issue if Healing Spirit is stronger than many other healing spells? They are below the curve of expectation anyways.

The only issue with Healing Spirit seemed to be conga line healing. Most parties I've seen with the spell don't do that anyways. What we actually do is target the most injured person, use a few charges, then heal the next person.


And, as many people have pointed out, this nerf brings healing spirit to an average of 3d6 or 4d6 healing for many parties. That is 10 to 14 points of healing on average, but also spread out over 3 to 4 rounds. Or, 1d6 to 3 to 4 party members.

This would actually cement Healing spirit as mostly being good for pop-up healing. It is worthless as a heal out of combat with these changes (just use Cure Wounds at 2nd level, you have a better average there) And a single d6 a round for only 3 rounds makes it mostly pointless to put on a mid-health target, because it won't last long enough to matter with the delay.

So, we had a spell that was a little overpowered, but gave a section of casters without really good healing some good healing (rangers and druids) and now we have a weak spell that will rarely get taken, except maybe by druids. This is not a good fix, even if you agree there is a problem, which I don't.

[Segev]

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

Yes, if you're at 0 and get healed, you're fine (ish) again! Sure, you're Prone and have to spend half your movement to get up, but the whole point of the way the rules work are that healing stabilizes and gets you back on your feet.

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

So what's the issue? Why does this seem to bother people so much?

[Boci]

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

There are several difference between 3.5 and 5th ed that may or may not explain the difference. One of the most notable perhaps was that standing up from prone provoked an AoO in 3.5, so whilst leading someone back up to 7 hitpoints did just as well, they wouldn't neccissarily be able to jump back up and resume the fight, as an adjacent enemy could knock them right back down.

[MaxWilson]

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

Yes, if you're at 0 and get healed, you're fine (ish) again! Sure, you're Prone and have to spend half your movement to get up, but the whole point of the way the rules work are that healing stabilizes and gets you back on your feet.

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

So what's the issue? Why does this seem to bother people so much?

For me it's less the healing and more the way damage just disappears when you're already at zero. It's un-physical.

[Eragon123]

So, we had a spell that was a little overpowered, but gave a section of casters without really good healing some good healing (rangers and druids) and now we have a weak spell that will rarely get taken, except maybe by druids. This is not a good fix, even if you agree there is a problem, which I don't.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. While conga line healing extremely good, I always treated it as a role playing opportunity. As if it were a Maypole dance. Also it helped cautious parties get a move on rather than trying to rest all the time. I know there are other solutions but this was our groups.

So while I understand the need for a fix, even if I personally don’t want it, this fix is bad and it’s hilarious that the first substantial errata misses the mark so much.

[jas61292]

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

Yes, if you're at 0 and get healed, you're fine (ish) again! Sure, you're Prone and have to spend half your movement to get up, but the whole point of the way the rules work are that healing stabilizes and gets you back on your feet.

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

So what's the issue? Why does this seem to bother people so much?

The thing with pop-up healing is that its silly and unrealistic. Yes, mechanically, it works, because nothing short of being at 0 effects your ability to contribute, but it makes no sense. And when I say makes no sense, I don't just mean that it looks silly and wrong. I mean that, tactically speaking, it really shouldn't work that well.

More often than not, in my experience, when you try to challenge someone's used of pop-up healing by saying the enemies will just stab the downed person until they are dead, they try to counter that by saying that makes no sense. Why would they attack the downed person when an active threat still exists? But the answer to that is simple: because pop-up healing, or, rather, healing magic in general exists. Why wouldn't I make sure that someone is finished off and not coming back if magic (and not uncommon magic, but a common kind that almost every combat organization has at least some of) exists that can bring them right back into the fight if I don't? Really, when you think about it, waiting to heal someone until they are down should logically be incredibly risky for that very reason. No one should want to wait til their ally is down to heal them, because a smart enemy will not give them a chance to do so.

The only logical defense of pop-up healing is that it is so stupid a thing to do, that enemies will just assume that someone going down without being healed first means that the party lacks healing magic, and once that assumption is disproved, they will never make that mistake again.

Honestly, if as a DM you play enemies smart, and don't avoid lethal blows when they make logical sense, you will stop seeing nearly as much pop-up healing, without needing to change any mechanics. Personally, I have no issue with pop-up healing, when taken in this context. But if your DM refuses to target downed characters "because it is unrealistic" or whatever, and basically allows infinite pop-up without enemies adjusting strategy, it gets real old, real fast.

With regard to Healing Spirit specifically, I actually really like the change. Yes, it now operates best in combat as a multi-pop-up heal machine, but I have no problem with that (again, so long as the mechanic is not abused). Out of combat is what got the much bigger nerf, and it needed it. But it still scales really well, making it a decent choice for non-combat healing, especially once you have higher level slots.

[Segev]

For me it's less the healing and more the way damage just disappears when you're already at zero. It's un-physical.

My only recommendation here is to recontextualize hp damage above 0 as "flesh wounds" and stamina-drain. That's why there can even BE psychic damage; it's draining your mental focus on not getting lethally stabbed.

When you think of it this way, damage doesn't "disappear" at 0 hp. Instead, at 0 hp, all damage is (potentially) lethal. Being damaged at 0 hp is an auto-fail death save, and forces you back into making death saves if you'd stabilized. A melee strike at 0 is two failed death saves (due to auto-critting). These are the lethal wounds.

Even 1 point of healing turns them into flesh wounds; healing is really powerful, in "real" terms, even though it's "just hp" in game-terms.


The thing with pop-up healing is that its silly and unrealistic. Yes, mechanically, it works, because nothing short of being at 0 effects your ability to contribute, but it makes no sense. And when I say makes no sense, I don't just mean that it looks silly and wrong. I mean that, tactically speaking, it really shouldn't work that well.
More often than not, in my experience, when you try to challenge someone's used of pop-up healing by saying the enemies will just stab the downed person until they are dead, they try to counter that by saying that makes no sense. Why would they attack the downed person when an active threat still exists? But the answer to that is simple: because pop-up healing, or, rather, healing magic in general exists. Why wouldn't I make sure that someone is finished off and not coming back if magic (and not uncommon magic, but a common kind that almost every combat organization has at least some of) exists that can bring them right back into the fight if I don't? Really, when you think about it, waiting to heal someone until they are down should logically be incredibly risky for that very reason. No one should want to wait til their ally is down to heal them, because a smart enemy will not give them a chance to do so.
The only logical defense of pop-up healing is that it is so stupid a thing to do, that enemies will just assume that someone going down without being healed first means that the party lacks healing magic, and once that assumption is disproved, they will never make that mistake again.
Honestly, if as a DM you play enemies smart, and don't avoid lethal blows when they make logical sense, you will stop seeing nearly as much pop-up healing, without needing to change any mechanics. Personally, I have no issue with pop-up healing, when taken in this context. But if your DM refuses to target downed characters "because it is unrealistic" or whatever, and basically allows infinite pop-up without enemies adjusting strategy, it gets real old, real fast.
With regard to Healing Spirit specifically, I actually really like the change. Yes, it now operates best in combat as a multi-pop-up heal machine, but I have no problem with that (again, so long as the mechanic is not abused). Out of combat is what got the much bigger nerf, and it needed it. But it still scales really well, making it a decent choice for non-combat healing, especially once you have higher level slots.
As DM, I've found that taking the time to target downed foes is often leaving yourself open to more attacks, unless you've got the still-active foes in check. Now, if there's been a PC who's been a major contributor to the effectiveness of the fight, over and above the others still in it, and he's down? Absolutely they'll make sure he's finished off. Well, they'll try. Usually, they get a hit in, and then the whole party dogpiles them.

I haven't actually had a PC go down surrounded by intelligent foes. (Yes, the skeletons do turn on the stll-standing guys, because htey hate the living, and the downed ones are indeterminate.)

[MaxWilson]

More often than not, in my experience, when you try to challenge someone's used of pop-up healing by saying the enemies will just stab the downed person until they are dead, they try to counter that by saying that makes no sense. Why would they attack the downed person when an active threat still exists? But the answer to that is simple: because pop-up healing, or, rather, healing magic in general exists. Why wouldn't I make sure that someone is finished off and not coming back if magic (and not uncommon magic, but a common kind that almost every combat organization has at least some of) exists that can bring them right back into the fight if I don't?

Even without magic, there's about a 20% chance the enemy will roll a natural 20 on a death save and spontaneously pop back up. Therefore even enemies who've never encountered magic should realize the value of finishing off an enemy while it's easy.


My only recommendation here is to recontextualize hp damage above 0 as "flesh wounds" and stamina-drain. That's why there can even BE psychic damage; it's draining your mental focus on not getting lethally stabbed.

When you think of it this way, damage doesn't "disappear" at 0 hp. Instead, at 0 hp, all damage is (potentially) lethal. Being damaged at 0 hp is an auto-fail death save, and forces you back into making death saves if you'd stabilized. A melee strike at 0 is two failed death saves (due to auto-critting). These are the lethal wounds.

But the damage *does* disappear. You can stab someone an infinite number of times and the "lethal wounds" won't ever kill them as long as someone else is stabilizing them after each stab. If you time it right the person will even eventually spontaneously heal back to 1 HP, after enough lethal wounds. Healing through lethal weaponry (plus stabilization)!

You asked why people dislike it and for me, that's why. I use negative HP instead (death at -Maximum HP), which makes pop-up healing as expensive as pre-healing, so you might as well pre-heal if you can.

[Segev]

Even without magic, there's about a 20% chance the enemy will roll a natural 20 on a death save and spontaneously pop back up. Therefore even enemies who've never encountered magic should realize the value of finishing off an enemy while it's easy.

Then play it that way. It, too, is in the rules.

The odds of rolling a nat 20 on your death save are interesting, though, yes. Because you roll a minimum of 3 times, the odds that none of them are 20s on the first 3 are 85.7%. That's a 14.3% chance that you roll a nat 20, assuming you only roll 3 times. Since you can roll up to 5 times (if your first four are 2 fails and 2 successes), the odds in 6 rolls that none of them are natural 20s are 73.5%, or a 26.5% chance that you will roll a natural 20.

Of course, this is misleading, because if you roll a natural 20 before hitting the sixth roll, you'll never get there.

But it's still interesting.

I think you could safely remove the nat 20 rule and solve that problem, though. It's not like getting back up is hard if the party survives the fight.


Also, another way to prevent the nat 20 pop-up? Have your melee monsters deal non-lethal damage. They choose when they drop the enemy to 0. Those who're stable don't get to make death saves. (Again, this is somewhat odd and silly, so I think the solution is just to remove the nat-20 rule. Frankly, until this conversation, I'd forgotten all about it and am not 100% sure I'm not just "remembering" it because it was mentioned.)

[Boci]

Even without magic, there's about a 20% chance the enemy will roll a natural 20 on a death save and spontaneously pop back up. Therefore even enemies who've never encountered magic should realize the value of finishing off an enemy while it's easy.

Are death saving throws only for PCs and bosses? I thought the default rules were monsters and NPCs die at 0 hp, unless the PCs try to use none lethal, in which case death saving throws are used.

[Galithar]

Are death saving throws only for PCs and bosses? I thought the default rules were monsters and NPCs die at 0 hp, unless the PCs try to use none lethal, in which case death saving throws are used.

The default is that for non PCs the DM simply chooses whether they are dead outright or get to make death saving throws. Most DMs I know just rule that every NPC is dead immediately, or is stabilized immediately if they need them to be. I've never met a DM that rolls death saves for every NPC, though I'm sure they exist.

[Segev]

The default is that for non PCs the DM simply chooses whether they are dead outright or get to make death saving throws. Most DMs I know just rule that every NPC is dead immediately, or is stabilized immediately if they need them to be. I've never met a DM that rolls death saves for every NPC, though I'm sure they exist.

I often do.

It really frustrated my players in Hrakhmar, when the firenewts started pushing giant striders at 0 hp off the bridges into the lava.

[Galithar]

I often do.

It really frustrated my players in Hrakhmar, when the firenewts started pushing giant striders at 0 hp off the bridges into the lava.

See! I knew they existed!! Lol

I usually only do it if I know the NPC has information the party might want to give them another chance to interrogate them. I've never rolled a Nat 20 for them, and if they stabilize and the party does nothing with them I have them die anyways. Since I don't do it consistently, and though they know I do this I don't make them aware (otherwise as soon as I start rolling they would know they want to question that one) I don't want that bad guy to pop back up later. It seems cheaty/railroady to me because of how I handle it.

Which is totally off topic, but just felt like sharing.my method lol

[Chronos]

There's a school of thought that the party should be able to heal up to full after every encounter. And that's a perfectly valid playstyle. But if that's what you want, then just say so: Make a houserule that the party automatically heals up to full after every encounter. And with that houserule, all out-of-combat healing spells become completely pointless.

The problem with Healing Spirit is that it turns every game with it into that playstyle, whether the players want it or not. And then, even if you get used to that and decide you like it, when you play a game without a druid or ranger and suddenly don't have it, you're back to attrition-style, even if you don't like that.

[Chaosmancer]

There's a school of thought that the party should be able to heal up to full after every encounter. And that's a perfectly valid playstyle. But if that's what you want, then just say so: Make a houserule that the party automatically heals up to full after every encounter. And with that houserule, all out-of-combat healing spells become completely pointless.

The problem with Healing Spirit is that it turns every game with it into that playstyle, whether the players want it or not. And then, even if you get used to that and decide you like it, when you play a game without a druid or ranger and suddenly don't have it, you're back to attrition-style, even if you don't like that.

Except I've played with Healing Spirit as written and never had it where the entire party is back to full hp after every fight.

So, I can say that in my own experience, it does not turn every game into that playstyle.

[Boci]

Except I've played with Healing Spirit as written and never had it where the entire party is back to full hp after every fight.

So, I can say that in my own experience, it does not turn every game into that playstyle.

Because players don't know how to use it to full heal out of combat, or won't use it so?

[MaxWilson]

The default is that for non PCs the DM simply chooses whether they are dead outright or get to make death saving throws. Most DMs I know just rule that every NPC is dead immediately, or is stabilized immediately if they need them to be. I've never met a DM that rolls death saves for every NPC, though I'm sure they exist.

I run NPCs and PCs by the same rules--both of them get death saves... but I don't roll them right away and players don't have to either if they don't want to. Roll when it matters. For monsters this means if players go around checking to see which monsters are still alive, I will roll death saves to see how many happened to survive.

[Boci]

I run NPCs and PCs by the same rules--both of them get death saves... but I don't roll them right away and players don't have to either if they don't want to. Roll when it matters. For monsters this means if players go around checking to see which monsters are still alive, I will roll death saves to see how many happened to survive.

If you're using the RAW death saving throws then it always matters, because they can get back up on a nat 20 and either continue fighting or run away, so it will always matter, frol the 1st roll.

[Pex]

There's a school of thought that the party should be able to heal up to full after every encounter. And that's a perfectly valid playstyle. But if that's what you want, then just say so: Make a houserule that the party automatically heals up to full after every encounter. And with that houserule, all out-of-combat healing spells become completely pointless.

The problem with Healing Spirit is that it turns every game with it into that playstyle, whether the players want it or not. And then, even if you get used to that and decide you like it, when you play a game without a druid or ranger and suddenly don't have it, you're back to attrition-style, even if you don't like that.

You can always heal up with a short rest. If only one PC really needs healing spells/potions are used and move on. If nearly everyone needs healing everyone needs to short rest anyway. What probably makes this a viable option is everyone forgets or don't even know you only get back half HD spent on a long rest. People are playing you get back all. The games aren't falling apart because of this. It relieves the pressure of a need for a healbot, and healing resources are used when needed because a rest can't happen yet.

[Witty Username]

So, is the goal to solve the out of combat healing, or to control the in combat healing?

For out of combat, this does make the spell worse, like just take a short rest and never cast this spell worse. For a 4 person 3rd level party a short rest represents about 4d8 to 12d8 healing at the cost of 0 spells, this is a 2nd level that will heal 4d6 for a third level party(quick check 2d8+3 avg 12 4d6 avg 14 so if one char is injured you are better off upcasting cure wounds most of the time). If everyone has taken around 3 damage this is spell still works and is not worth casting at all.

In combat this will not change much, your front line will be the only one taking damage, or the druid would lose concentration anyway, and combat tends to not last that long.
But hey anyone that walks into the area at full HP will waste 1d6 worth of healing, so that does make it weaker.
I should mention I do not think healing spirit is overpowered.

[Chaosmancer]

Because players don't know how to use it to full heal out of combat, or won't use it so?

Do you mean conga line healing? We never used it. Most of the time there wasn't a need for it. You had one or two heavily injured people, and you spent xd6 on one and xd6 on the other.

Only once did we have two seriously injured people, and it made since for them to hug (sharing the 5 ft space) and both get healed for the same amount.

But that was a rare occurrence, otherwise it just wasn't needed.

[Boci]

Do you mean conga line healing? We never used it. Most of the time there wasn't a need for it. You had one or two heavily injured people, and you spent xd6 on one and xd6 on the other.

Only once did we have two seriously injured people, and it made since for them to hug (sharing the 5 ft space) and both get healed for the same amount.

But that was a rare occurrence, otherwise it just wasn't needed.

You said you "never had it where the entire party is back to full hp after every fight". If you didn't need Healing Spirit, wasn't that because the party was at full HP, meaning the party was back to full hp after every fight, just not often because of healing spirit.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Do you mean conga line healing? We never used it. Most of the time there wasn't a need for it. You had one or two heavily injured people, and you spent xd6 on one and xd6 on the other.

Only once did we have two seriously injured people, and it made since for them to hug (sharing the 5 ft space) and both get healed for the same amount.

But that was a rare occurrence, otherwise it just wasn't needed.

Not needing and not using it doesn't mean it isn't a potential problem, and Healing Spirit is one of a very small list of spells* that the designers have gone above and beyond to make clear that they really dropped the ball with it.
*This is actually the only one I can even remember them making any sort of statement about, I'm just hedging my bets here and assuming at least a handful of other spells have been mentioned as either too powerful or unintentionally weak.


You can always heal up with a short rest. If only one PC really needs healing spells/potions are used and move on. If nearly everyone needs healing everyone needs to short rest anyway. What probably makes this a viable option is everyone forgets or don't even know you only get back half HD spent on a long rest. People are playing you get back all. The games aren't falling apart because of this. It relieves the pressure of a need for a healbot, and healing resources are used when needed because a rest can't happen yet.
You can't always heal up on a short rest, eventually those resources (hit die) will run dry and the need for a long rest will outweigh your ability to continue. Healing Spirit extends that window too far in my opinion.

Heck, I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't take much effort to build a highly effective adventuring party that never actually has to stop other than to sleep, and even the sleep part could be overcome with relative ease, all enabled off the back of Healing Spirit. Even their chances of dying in combat would be fairly low because unlike Hit Die, Healing Spirit is also effective combat healing.

[MaxWilson]

If you're using the RAW death saving throws then it always matters, because they can get back up on a nat 20 and either continue fighting or run away, so it will always matter, frol the 1st roll.

You are correct. I am not using RAW death saving throws. I use negative HP in fact: when you're below 1 HP, make a DC 10 Con save at the start of your turn (i.e. start of the round). If you succeed, you're now stable. Otherwise you lose 20% of your max HP and must repeat next round.

If you ever hit -Maximum HP, you're dead.

Even before I adopted negative HP, I had already tossed out the "natural 20 = heal to 1 HP rule" though, specifically because it forces you to roll death saves immediately.

[ProsecutorGodot]

You are correct. I am not using RAW death saving throws. I use negative HP in fact: when you're below 1 HP, make a DC 10 Con save at the start of your turn (i.e. start of the round). If you succeed, you're now stable. Otherwise you lose 20% of your max HP and must repeat next round.

If you ever hit -Maximum HP, you're dead.

Even before I adopted negative HP, I had already tossed out the "natural 20 = heal to 1 HP rule" though, specifically because it forces you to roll death saves immediately.

Has it ever been a problem that a character could achieve automatic success on this save? I'm curious about the full rules you've got on this as well, I might want to borrow them, Death Saves by RAW aren't very threatening in most cases and a guaranteed death in any other.

[Witty Username]

You can't always heal up on a short rest, eventually those resources (hit die) will run dry and the need for a long rest will outweigh your ability to continue. Healing Spirit extends that window too far in my opinion.

You will eventually run out of spell slots, especially if you are using at least 1 2nd level slot between every encounter. that also means you have less spells to fight combats with. Sure moon druids are using wild shapes to fight, but they need short rests more if they want to keep doing that.

I recognize that this is more a tier 1 or 2 come up, since 2nd level spell slots are not used as much at later levels. Also, I am mulling over if healing spirit is still worth it on life cleric because the disciple of life will still proc several times with this spell.

[MaxWilson]

Has it ever been a problem that a character could achieve automatic success on this save? I'm curious about the full rules you've got on this as well, I might want to borrow them, Death Saves by RAW aren't very threatening in most cases and a guaranteed death in any other.

Nope, not a problem. It guarantees that they won't bleed out, but that's all. (Honestly, it's rare for anyone to even hit zero HP anyway unless things have gone disastrously wrong and potential PPK or TPK is imminent--which means the rule is doing its job.) What kind of problems are you foreseeing?

"Full rules," I also disallow spending healing dice (nee "hit dice") on a short rest unless a Song of Rest is playing. You can spend them on a long rest, or you can regain up to half your healing dice, but not both on the same long rest. Implication: a severely-wounded creature that almost died in a fight can still be severely wounded four or five days later, instead of being fully healed an hour after the fight. I take adventure of this in scenario setup, both for "you stumble across a wounded warrior who begs for aid" type stuff, and also "you've driven off the Efreet for now--it has fled to lick its wounds and plot revenge" scenarios. (Now there's a wounded Efreet in the adventure, instead of an unwounded one as would be by RAW.)

Oh, I also allow creatures at or below zero HP to attempt to retain consciousness if they want. I don't have written rules for that but I think I usually make it a DC 15 Con save, with additional Con saves any time they exert themselves by speaking, crawling a few feet, attempting to stand, etc. Again this is mostly for the sake of the "wounded warrior" scenario/assassination aftermath last words/similar--I don't think a PC has ever used this option actually.

I think those are my full rules.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Nope, not a problem. It guarantees that they won't bleed out, but that's all. (Honestly, it's rare for anyone to even hit zero HP anyway unless things have gone disastrously wrong and potential PPK or TPK is imminent--which means the rule is doing its job.) What kind of problems are you foreseeing?
Didn't really see one, was more wondering if it was something even worth being concerned about, auto success turns some people off from the get go even if it doesn't result in anything problematic.


"Full rules," I also disallow spending healing dice (nee "hit dice") on a short rest unless a Song of Rest is playing. You can spend them on a long rest, or you can regain up to half your healing dice, but not both on the same long rest. Implication: a severely-wounded creature that almost died in a fight can still be severely wounded four or five days later, instead of being fully healed an hour after the fight. I take adventure of this in scenario setup, both for "you stumble across a wounded warrior who begs for aid" type stuff, and also "you've driven off the Efreet for now--it has fled to lick its wounds and plot revenge" scenarios. (Now there's a wounded Efreet in the adventure, instead of an unwounded one as would be by RAW.)
I assume this also disables the full heal portion of long resting as well, it would definitely help with the game feel. Our party is pretty heroic at the point of the adventure we're in (we'd better as we coast into tier 4) but it feels like we're walking in to near death situations and sleeping is enough to mend all wounds. My characters pretty heavily invested into Short Rest healing and it kind of shows how strange it can feel to heal so quickly.

I'd taken almost 500 hit points worth of damage and still we left the dungeon with me being relatively healthy.


Oh, I also allow creatures at or below zero HP to attempt to retain consciousness if they want. I don't have written rules for that but I think I usually make it a DC 15 Con save, with additional Con saves any time they exert themselves by speaking, crawling a few feet, attempting to stand, etc. Again this is mostly for the sake of the "wounded warrior" scenario/assassination aftermath last words/similar--I don't think a PC has ever used this option actually.

I'd certainly try to make use of it, although my character hasn't been knocked unconcious in a very long time. Is the consequence for failure here just that it doesn't happen or could it make things worse?

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

Yes, if you're at 0 and get healed, you're fine (ish) again! Sure, you're Prone and have to spend half your movement to get up, but the whole point of the way the rules work are that healing stabilizes and gets you back on your feet.

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

So what's the issue? Why does this seem to bother people so much?

I think it's because people go unconscious. Wake up. Go unconscious. It's more silly that anything.

People also don't know how to handle HP as a DM and think the only way to lose is via defeat via HP (or some weird DM fiat).

Make it where 0 HP is just some sort of exhaustion and then you can get knocked out (contest) or you can be killed on your third death save (if attacked the attacker can choose to knock you out on the 3rd death save faire they create).

Gotta look into this more.

[MaxWilson]

I'd taken almost 500 hit points worth of damage and still we left the dungeon with me being relatively healthy.

I'd certainly try to make use of it, although my character hasn't been knocked unconcious in a very long time. Is the consequence for failure here just that it doesn't happen or could it make things worse?

I'd be okay with taking 500 HP of damage and still being healthy if you'd been magically healed several times, but otherwise yeah, this is basically what I'm trying to prevent for both monsters and (N)PCs.

As I said I don't have written rules for trying to retain consciousness at zero HP, but I believe it's no consequence for trying and failing. But actually trying to *do* anything, even talking, risks straining your system, reopening your wounds--it's a death check, costing -20% HP in a failure and destabilizing you if you've already stabilized. And you can't take any actual combat-effective actions because you're still incapacitated--you can talk, or crawl a few feet, maybe even stand, but that's it. Think Westley in the Princess Bride when he's still recovering from being mostly dead. :)

So yes, an NPC can literally kill themself gasping out their last words to the PCs. "Avenge me! The Sommersword is safely hidden in the abbey of..." (death)

[Chaosmancer]

You said you "never had it where the entire party is back to full hp after every fight". If you didn't need Healing Spirit, wasn't that because the party was at full HP, meaning the party was back to full hp after every fight, just not often because of healing spirit.

Sorry, I'm sure we had people who were down 3 or 5 hp. But that was minor, no one spoke up, and so we went on. So, they weren't at full, but they weren't asking for healing.

You can't heal what you don't remember after all.

I hope that was more clear of what I was thinking.

[AttilatheYeon]

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

Yes, if you're at 0 and get healed, you're fine (ish) again! Sure, you're Prone and have to spend half your movement to get up, but the whole point of the way the rules work are that healing stabilizes and gets you back on your feet.

3e did much the same, except you had negative hp so you might wind up merely stabilized at slightly fewer negative hp rather than up and conscious. But usually, healing would get somebody who wasn't dead back on their feet in 3e, too.

So what's the issue? Why does this seem to bother people so much?

In 3.5 when you healed at neg hps, you immediately went to 1 or 0 (i forget which) then get healed. It was still pop up.

[Witty Username]

So, My big question. Is it worth rangers knowing healing spirit with this nerf?

[Kane0]

Well with a Wis of 16 you could get 4d6 HP out of this, compared to 2d8 +3 from upcasting Cure Wounds.

[Galithar]

If you would like to compare any of the healing for spells I threw together an AnyDice program to show it. You can modify the slot level, ability modifier, and number of targets for Prayer of Healing at the top.

Compare healing spells (https://anydice.com/program/1ac73)

Edit: Note that Aura of Vitality assumes using every bonus action for it's full duration to heal.

[MaxWilson]

So, My big question. Is it worth rangers knowing healing spirit with this nerf?

It wouldn't be high on my priority list, no. Goodberry is no-concentration and more pre-castable, and Rangers tend to be fairly constrained as to both stat points and spells known. By RAW I would probably still take it just for the combat utility of being able to pop-up heal someone repeatedly with a single bonus action, but once Conjure Animals comes online I wouldn't expect to ever cast it except in an uber-deadly fight.

[Boci]

In 3.5 when you healed at neg hps, you immediately went to 1 or 0 (i forget which) then get healed. It was still pop up.

That was 4th edition, not 3.5. In 3.5 you had to heal through the negative HP. so all healing 2 hitpoints to somone on -5 did was make them that much safer from dying, they were still unconcious.

[Chronos]

Cure Wounds probably isn't the best comparison, since everyone who can cast Cure Wounds has other, better healing options, and you only get so many spells known or prepared. If I'm a cleric or bard, I'm going to pick Healing Word instead, for the bonus action and range. If I'm a ranger or a druid, I'm going to pick Goodberry, for the larger total, the ability to dole it out one point at a time, and the ability to pre-cast it before a rest. If I'm a paladin, I'm not going to prepare any healing spell at all, but just rely on my Lay On Hands, with its flexibility to either dole out one point at a time, or to burst-heal large amounts when necessary. Sure, there are some cases where Cure Wounds are better than those other spells, but those cases come up infrequently enough compared to the cases where the other spells are better that it's probably not worth taking up a spot on your list.

[MaxWilson]

Cure Wounds probably isn't the best comparison, since everyone who can cast Cure Wounds has other, better healing options, and you only get so many spells known or prepared. If I'm a cleric or bard, I'm going to pick Healing Word instead, for the bonus action and range. If I'm a ranger or a druid, I'm going to pick Goodberry, for the larger total, the ability to dole it out one point at a time, and the ability to pre-cast it before a rest. If I'm a paladin, I'm not going to prepare any healing spell at all, but just rely on my Lay On Hands, with its flexibility to either dole out one point at a time, or to burst-heal large amounts when necessary. Sure, there are some cases where Cure Wounds are better than those other spells, but those cases come up infrequently enough compared to the cases where the other spells are better that it's probably not worth taking up a spot on your list.

Agreed, that's probably a healthier way to look at it: it's the druidic/ranger Healing Word equivalent. Takes concentration but lasts multiple rounds.

[HiveStriker]

For anyone interested, apparently Healing Spirit is going to be nerfed such that it can only ever heal a number of times equal to 1+Casting Ability Modifier (min twice).

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/191158968930926592/695251639220568144/Screenshot_20200402_134112_com.android.chrome.jpg
I think the way they went to nerf it is killing the spell.
Having the ability to heal as many creatures as you wanted was very fitting the thematic, and in-fight it was actually hard to make it THAT powerful in the first place (because you needed either grouping allies -> AOE danger, or movement coordination -> not always feasible).

The main problem of this spell was the 10mn long duration providing an awesome total amount of healing outside combat.

Just reducing max duration to 1mn, possibly saying that EACH creature could not be healed with spell more than 1 + WIS mod per cast on top would have been largely enough.

This nerf makes it lose the niche which was "occasionally mass heal". And in spite of it being such an amazing spell to use, in fight most Druids (and Rangers) would prefer spending concentration on something else.

[Dr. Cliché]

The main problem of this spell was the 10mn long duration providing an awesome total amount of healing outside combat.

Just a point but the spell had a 1-minute duration even before the nerf.

[Pex]

Cure Wounds probably isn't the best comparison, since everyone who can cast Cure Wounds has other, better healing options, and you only get so many spells known or prepared. If I'm a cleric or bard, I'm going to pick Healing Word instead, for the bonus action and range. If I'm a ranger or a druid, I'm going to pick Goodberry, for the larger total, the ability to dole it out one point at a time, and the ability to pre-cast it before a rest. If I'm a paladin, I'm not going to prepare any healing spell at all, but just rely on my Lay On Hands, with its flexibility to either dole out one point at a time, or to burst-heal large amounts when necessary. Sure, there are some cases where Cure Wounds are better than those other spells, but those cases come up infrequently enough compared to the cases where the other spells are better that it's probably not worth taking up a spot on your list.

I agree. I find myself personally disappointed when I learn another player prepared Cure Wounds but not Healing Word when they could have. It's all about the action economy. I'm glad for the healing for who ever gets it, but I still want the character to do something else in the fight even if it's just a cantrip. Bonus action heal at range is a big deal. Save a fellow PC from death saves. Wonderful. Thank you. Now, also help get the fight over with so no one else needs to make death saves. If for whatever reason all you can do is your action to heal, which is fine, I'd rather you cast Spare The Dying and use your spell slot for something else. You save the PC (or NPC) this round. It is an important worthwhile thing to do. Next round you cast Guiding Bolt or Dissonant Whispers or something significant that'll be more effective than Cure Wounds. We'll heal up after the fight. If you want to use Cure Wounds then great.

[Chaosmancer]

So, My big question. Is it worth rangers knowing healing spirit with this nerf?

No, I don't think it is. Which is sad, because I liked Rangers actually having a decent healing option.

I know everyone talks about Goodberry, but it is 1 hp, that isn't worth anything except for getting people up on their feet. Healing Spirit allowed them to actually get people back from low hp to high hp.

[Anymage]

No, I don't think it is. Which is sad, because I liked Rangers actually having a decent healing option.

I know everyone talks about Goodberry, but it is 1 hp, that isn't worth anything except for getting people up on their feet. Healing Spirit allowed them to actually get people back from low hp to high hp.

1d6hp per round is not a lot in combat. Helps a little if you can position yourself so more party members can use it, but it still won't be enough to keep anyone on their feet too much longer. (Ignoring pop up healing for the moment.)

1hp per round is garbage in combat, but nobody uses goodberry for in combat healing. It's a good way to turn yesterday's unused spell capacity into today's out of combat recovery. Being able to carry over what would otherwise be wasted resources into a bit more sustainability is not a bad move.

[Chronos]

If you allow folks to feed goodberries to unconscious allies, like with healing potions, then it's useful in-combat for pop-upping. It still takes an action, but it can be anyone's action, and it's very efficient on spell slots.

And out of combat, even without Life Cleric, it's a lot of healing.

[stoutstien]

If you allow folks to feed goodberries to unconscious allies, like with healing potions, then it's useful in-combat for pop-upping. It still takes an action, but it can be anyone's action, and it's very efficient on spell slots.

And out of combat, even without Life Cleric, it's a lot of healing.

Best healing from a lv 1 slot outside of a lv 5 alchemist who get double mod to
thier healing spells and at lv 9 can heal 2d4+int with 2d6+int THP with EE.

[47Ace]

What's fun is that I once ran a campaign with stock 5e rules and except for one.

We used Final Fantasy XIII rules for healing. M among that at the end of each combat, you took a breath, and you was at full health.

You know what happened?

I could know exactly how much HP a player would have and give better challenges and players felt a lot more safe in making daring actions or putting together plans that they normally wouldn't. A lot less playing it safe was awesome.

It also made the game more brutal! Every player dropped to 0 at some point and there was a lot of butt clinching when that happened.

If you ever get the chance run this sort of game. Players can still run out of resources and in combat healing becomes a necessity.

There is nothing wrong with playing that way and that sounds kinda cool. Who knows I may try it sometime. That doesn't change the fact that as implemented the spell gave by far the best healing in the game for its level far above what anything else could do, and wasn't given to the healing class, and it affects how some people play the game (where health is a fundamental resource), and there is no warning about these effects. If what you mentioned was a new optional rule, or this spell was a new optional rule that even clerics got then it would be different. The problem with this spell is that if fundamentally changed two core assumptions of the game, hp attrition has to be managed and clerics are the best healers, with no warning and as this change shows by mistake.

[stoutstien]

Out of all of the things they could nerf, they choose Healing Spirit? Sure lets lower the play rate of two of the least played classes even more! (Druid and Ranger). Unless you are specifically playing a game of attrition, I don't see why Healing Spirit was game breaking as fights in 5e presuppose the players start with full health anyway. This change is just more of an annoyance than anything.


There is nothing wrong with playing that way and that sounds kinda cool. Who knows I may try it sometime. That doesn't change the fact that as implemented the spell gave by far the best healing in the game for its level far above what anything else could do, and wasn't given to the healing class, and it affects how some people play the game (where health is a fundamental resource), and there is no warning about these effects. If what you mentioned was a new optional rule, or this spell was a new optional rule that even clerics got then it would be different. The problem with this spell is that if fundamentally changed two core assumptions of the game, hp attrition has to be managed and clerics are the best healers, with no warning and as this change shows by mistake.
as much as the pre-errta healing spirit was out of line compared to other options it didn't remove clerics as the best healers. clerics never have been the best healers in 5e. best class for bringing back the dead maybe.

[HiveStriker]

Just a point but the spell had a 1-minute duration even before the nerf.
Oh, my bad then I have mixed it up with another spell.

Well then, I understand why it was harder to reduce, but just limiting the number of times each creature could be healed was better imo. Ah well../

[Witty Username]

as much as the pre-errta healing spirit was out of line compared to other options it didn't remove clerics as the best healers. clerics never have been the best healers in 5e. best class for bringing back the dead maybe.

I think life cleric multi classes with ranger and druid may have there (and nerfed by the healing spirit changes).

The wizard's ability to guarantee safe resting with rope trick and tiny hut is hard to compete with though, out of combat anyway.

[Segev]

I think life cleric multi classes with ranger and druid may have there (and nerfed by the healing spirit changes).

The wizard's ability to guarantee safe resting with rope trick and tiny hut is hard to compete with though, out of combat anyway.

The best way I know to deal with it is to either interrupt the 10 minute casting time with a random encounter, or to have one set up ambush. I haven't really done so, though, because it feels cheap.

[sithlordnergal]

Personally, I've never actually had a problem with Healing Spirit. Sure, it's useful for both combat healing and out of combat healing, but that's really not that broken. It can heal an average of about 35 out of combat, but again that's not exactly an issue to me. That just means the party is able to continue longer before I allow them to have a long or short rest.

As for the comparison to Prayer of Healing, lets be honest here. Prayer of Healing has always been a bad spell, long before Healing Spirit ever came around. I have been playing 5e for quite a long while, and I have never seen Prayer of Healing used in any situation, and I can't say I would ever recommend Prayer of Healing to anyone. Maybe, maybe, if there was only 10 minutes to do a thing, you didn't have potions of healing, and didn't have any other option at all...maybe. But that's sort of an edge case that has never come up. I find in gameplay, if players had enough time to spend 10 minutes healing, they generally downed potions or took a Short Rest. Comparing Healing Spirit and Prayer of Healing to claim that Healing Spirit is OP is like saying Chromatic Orb is too strong because its a better spell than Witch Bolt, or that Toll of the Dead is too strong because its better than Poison Spray.

[HiveStriker]

Personally, I've never actually had a problem with Healing Spirit. Sure, it's useful for both combat healing and out of combat healing, but that's really not that broken. It can heal an average of about 35 out of combat, but again that's not exactly an issue to me. That just means the party is able to continue longer before I allow them to have a long or short rest.

As for the comparison to Prayer of Healing, lets be honest here. Prayer of Healing has always been a bad spell, long before Healing Spirit ever came around. I have been playing 5e for quite a long while, and I have never seen Prayer of Healing used in any situation, and I can't say I would ever recommend Prayer of Healing to anyone. Maybe, maybe, if there was only 10 minutes to do a thing, you didn't have potions of healing, and didn't have any other option at all...maybe. But that's sort of an edge case that has never come up. I find in gameplay, if players had enough time to spend 10 minutes healing, they generally downed potions or took a Short Rest. Comparing Healing Spirit and Prayer of Healing to claim that Healing Spirit is OP is like saying Chromatic Orb is too strong because its a better spell than Witch Bolt, or that Toll of the Dead is too strong because its better than Poison Spray.
I'll have to +1000 that. Nicely said.

[stoutstien]

I think life cleric multi classes with ranger and druid may have there (and nerfed by the healing spirit changes).

The wizard's ability to guarantee safe resting with rope trick and tiny hut is hard to compete with though, out of combat anyway.

Oh I was thinking lore bard sniping Aura of vitality (dragon-marked halfling would probably allow clerics that have a shot now), circle of power, and what ever else they want combined with the general medication provided by cutting words.
Fluff aside, clerics are fairly balanced, IMO one if the better done classes, with a edge leaning towards dealing damage.

[kazaryu]

I did that years ago and Healing Spirit is still unpleasantly strong. When your bog-standard 5th level Moon Druid can heal 245+ HP via Healing Spirit (plus 40 more with Goodberry) on top of their own wildshape HP, even Barbarian Rage is trivialized as a class feature. No matter how much damage the party takes, the druid can heal it all and then some, over and over again. Who cares at that point if the Barbarian took only 20 HP instead of 42 HP because of Rage?

how is a 5th level druid casing an 8th level healing spirit? to be more specific...a 5th level moon druid (with the proposed nerf of swapping turn for round) could only heal a max of 20d6...or a whopping 70hp.(sorry, max is the wrong word, average). now, considering you say 40 points from goodberry im assuming there's actually a level of life cleric in there? which then makes it an average of 120 (for a 3rd level spell slot. the actual calculation would be 35/spell level with no life cleric dip or 75+45/spell level.). casting beacon of hope obviously makes those numbers go up substantially.

this is because the proposal would make it so that the healing spirit can only heal 1/round total. not 1/round/person. this is actually a fairly reasonable numbers. in line with similar options (although perhaps slightly stronger still due to being able to more easily direct the healing to those that need it more.

[kazaryu]

Personally, I've never actually had a problem with Healing Spirit. Sure, it's useful for both combat healing and out of combat healing, but that's really not that broken. It can heal an average of about 35 out of combat, but again that's not exactly an issue to me. That just means the party is able to continue longer before I allow them to have a long or short rest.

to be clear, its an average of 35 *per person* at its lowest level if you go by RaW. which is enough to max out from 1hp the entire party, generally as high as lvl 5. Im not saying that that means you should take issue with it. i definitely get the difference between something that is 'op' and something that is 'broken'. but its still a substantial difference.



As for the comparison to Prayer of Healing, lets be honest here. Prayer of Healing has always been a bad spell, long before Healing Spirit ever came around. I have been playing 5e for quite a long while, and I have never seen Prayer of Healing used in any situation, and I can't say I would ever recommend Prayer of Healing to anyone. Maybe, maybe, if there was only 10 minutes to do a thing, you didn't have potions of healing, and didn't have any other option at all...maybe. But that's sort of an edge case that has never come up. I find in gameplay, if players had enough time to spend 10 minutes healing, they generally downed potions or took a Short Rest. Comparing Healing Spirit and Prayer of Healing to claim that Healing Spirit is OP is like saying Chromatic Orb is too strong because its a better spell than Witch Bolt, or that Toll of the Dead is too strong because its better than Poison Spray.

Now this part i do agree with, at least to an extent. i disagree with you that prayer of healing is weak. its not. however, the style of game that prayer of healing is designed for (i.e. 6-8 fairly intensive encounters/long rest) is not super common. Which is why it doesn't get used much. However, its also important to understand what other people are saying.

healing spirit is objectively overpowered. its potential for healing is far far greater than anything else even close to its spell level (the actual best comparison is paladins aura of vitality...and prayer of healing destroys it. that is, by definition, overpowered. You cannot make a sound argument that this isn't true.


however that doesn't mean that heling spirit is harmful to overall gameplay (i.e. broken). because its just not for most games. as you point out. or at least for alot of games. healing spirit is only harmful if someone is playing in a game where HP is meant to be a fairly restrictive resource in the long term (as opposed to just the short term of a combat). However, this point, by necessity, is a subjective one. in *your* game healing spirit isn't broken. which is fine. but you can't assume that everyone plays the same way you do.

[MaxWilson]

I think life cleric multi classes with ranger and druid may have there (and nerfed by the healing spirit changes).

Still need Sorc 3 though to be the best. Extended Spell doubles output from Aura of Vitality and Healing Spirit v1.0.


The best way I know to deal with it is to either interrupt the 10 minute casting time with a random encounter, or to have one set up ambush. I haven't really done so, though, because it feels cheap.

On phone so please pretend this text is in purple:

It's not cheap if a previous encounter left an enemy force in being. E.g. if the PCs killed a Wraith and turned its two Specters, it's not cheap for the Specters to have a chance of coming back.

(Also, really ten minutes is a lot of time, and it's not even cheap to roll wandering monster checks on a more frequent basis, e.g. one d20 per five minutes and a natural 1 is an encounter.)


how is a 5th level druid casing an 8th level healing spirit? to be more specific...a 5th level moon druid (with the proposed nerf of swapping turn for round) could only heal a max of 20d6...or a whopping 70hp.(sorry, max is the wrong word, average). now, considering you say 40 points from goodberry im assuming there's actually a level of life cleric in there? which then makes it an average of 120 (for a 3rd level spell slot. the actual calculation would be 35/spell level with no life cleric dip or 75+45/spell level.). casting beacon of hope obviously makes those numbers go up substantially.

this is because the proposal would make it so that the healing spirit can only heal 1/round total. not 1/round/person. this is actually a fairly reasonable numbers. in line with similar options (although perhaps slightly stronger still due to being able to more easily direct the healing to those that need it more.

5th level druid has two 3rd level slots for Healing Spirit III x2 for 40d6 (140) and three 2nd level slots for Healing Spirit x 3 for 30d6 (105). I don't know why you're assuming a Healing Spirit VIII. There isn't one.

And I'm explicitly discussing Healing Spirit v1.0 (nerfed to once per round) not v2.0, as you can see by looking at the context of the discussion.


to be clear, its an average of 35 *per person* at its lowest level if you go by RaW. which is enough to max out from 1hp the entire party, generally as high as lvl 5. Im not saying that that means you should take issue with it. i definitely get the difference between something that is 'op' and something that is 'broken'. but its still a substantial difference.

By RAW it's actually at least double that if the PCs go full cheese, which is why "RAW" is not a compliment. If they all move through the spirit on their turn and then ready an action to move through on someone else's turn (e.g. guy next in the alphabet), that's 20d6 (70) healing per person in the party from a level 2 slot.

But even if you nerf that cheese and restrict to 1/round it is (pretend this is in purple) still too strong and trivializes other class features like Rage, Second Wind, Lay On Hands, and Defense Style.

[HiveStriker]

Still need Sorc 3 though to be the best. Extended Spell doubles output from Aura of Vitality and Healing Spirit v1.0.



On phone so please pretend this text is in purple:

It's not cheap if a previous encounter left an enemy force in being. E.g. if the PCs killed a Wraith and turned its two Specters, it's not cheap for the Specters to have a chance of coming back.

(Also, really ten minutes is a lot of time, and it's not even cheap to roll wandering monster checks on a more frequent basis, e.g. one d20 per five minutes and a natural 1 is an encounter.)



5th level druid has two 3rd level slots for Healing Spirit III x2 for 40d6 (140) and three 2nd level slots for Healing Spirit x 3 for 30d6 (105). I don't know why you're assuming a Healing Spirit VIII. There isn't one.

And I'm explicitly discussing Healing Spirit v1.0 (nerfed to once per round) not v2.0, as you can see by looking at the context of the discussion.



By RAW it's actually at least double that if the PCs go full cheese, which is why "RAW" is not a compliment. If they all move through the spirit on their turn and then ready an action to move through on someone else's turn (e.g. guy next in the alphabet), that's 20d6 (70) healing per person in the party from a level 2 slot.

But even if you nerf that cheese and restrict to 1/round it is (pretend this is in purple) still too strong and trivializes other class features like Rage, Second Wind, Lay On Hands, and Defense Style.
I still fail to see where the problem is here.
If that Druid uses Healing Spirit upcast, yeah, party can go into next combat full HP, but Druid won't have any Conjure Animals / Wind Wall / insert great spell here.
So yeah, your buffed party's staying offense significantly more than if you had any other healer. It won't change anything about spent uses of rage, spell slots, or whatever else. It's a nice boost, possibly a big boost if/when the party start taking that into account strategizing to push their bodies and be more agressive and less "consumptive" because they know heal will be easier after. But it will require at least that to start making it a difference enough that DM has to scratch his head and actually overhaul his encounters.

Besides, everyone always say since years that healing spells are too miserable in effect to be worth anything else than emergency pop from 0 HP. Well, at least that one makes the slot far worthy enough. :)
Many people around here also tend to say (although it's not my personal experience) that gold flows endlessly from level 7-8 onwards unless you live like a king and spend time on luxurious components or magic items. So any group could simply hog a few dozen potions: it takes a bit more time, it costs much in gold, but it's overall a very small resource expenditure for similar result. At higher level, you also have more ways to ensure a short rest.
In other words it's a big boost in staying power at level 5 but naturally flattens over the level progression.

Finally, if you play with a group which considers this hunga bunga line up something natural to exploit to the utmost, I daresay you have a larger problem than the spell, namely the whole mindset.

What you describe is not even cheesy in a fight, since you'd need to spend your Action which you could have used on something more useful.
So the only true potential gripe require...
a) cheesy abusive mindset,
b) DM agreeing that you still make an Initiative count and turn order even outside fight (which any reasonable DM could overrule: no conflict, so no Initiative and rounds, just roll 10 times the number of dices corresponding to the cast, done.
c) DM not reflecting that abuse in-world (if the group ALWAYS does that, unless they kill everybody everytime and otherwise ensure no witness, hostile factions are bound to adapt sooner or later: ambushing people, harassing, focusing on the Druid, or simply starting hiring people that can cast it themselves etc).

Really, I don't feel there is an unbalance big enough to warrant a nerf with that spell (although your houserule is always a nice "safety net" to use)...
.
.
.
Until you start getting into multiclassing realm. That is what makes it breaking power.
Life Cleric + Healing Spirit on a short-rest slot is definitely over the top. ^^
(On that note, I'll put that here for people who like good examples of teamplay: Druid with 3rd level Healing Spirit, Cleric with Beacon of Hope. Enjoy ;))

[kazaryu]

5th level druid has two 3rd level slots for Healing Spirit III x2 for 40d6 (140) and three 2nd level slots for Healing Spirit x 3 for 30d6 (105). I don't know why you're assuming a Healing Spirit VIII. There isn't one.

And I'm explicitly discussing Healing Spirit v1.0 (nerfed to once per round) not v2.0, as you can see by looking at the context of the discussion.


im assuming that it was an 8th level spell slot...because it doesn't make any sense to complain about the healing a druid can do using literally every one of their spell slots. or are you now gonna complain about the 441 healing a lvl 5 life cleric (~361 if not life cleric) can do without even dipping into their lvl 1 spell slots? or the 160 extra healing they can get if they instead go lvl 4 life/lvl 1 druid and then spend all their lvl 1 slots on goodberry?

aggregating *all* of the healing a druid can create using all of their spells is silly. because they're trading literally all of their spells (which is their primary contribution) in order to keep the party going....thats not something to complain about, thats literally how balance works.



By RAW it's actually at least double that if the PCs go full cheese, which is why "RAW" is not a compliment. If they all move through the spirit on their turn and then ready an action to move through on someone else's turn (e.g. guy next in the alphabet), that's 20d6 (70) healing per person in the party from a level 2 slot.


oooo, good point. although the point stands that its a stupid high amount of healing relative to other options at that level



But even if you nerf that cheese and restrict to 1/round it is (pretend this is in purple) still too strong and trivializes other class features like Rage, Second Wind, Lay On Hands, and Defense Style.

-second wind- bonus action feature to be used as an emergency heal in combat. not sure how out of combat healing trivializes this
-lay on hands-action feature, primarily used for in combat. not nullified by out of combat healing. also bursts far far more than healing spirit can match. can also be used to remove conditions, which healing spirit cannot
-rage i mean....no? without rage the barbarian is far more likely to die before they can reach out of combat healing....
-defense-right..because on-hit effects don't exist.

[LudicSavant]

Why is there no errata page for this?

[47Ace]

I still fail to see where the problem is here.
If that Druid uses Healing Spirit upcast, yeah, party can go into next combat full HP, but Druid won't have any Conjure Animals / Wind Wall / insert great spell here.
So yeah, your buffed party's staying offense significantly more than if you had any other healer. It won't change anything about spent uses of rage, spell slots, or whatever else. It's a nice boost, possibly a big boost if/when the party start taking that into account strategizing to push their bodies and be more agressive and less "consumptive" because they know heal will be easier after. But it will require at least that to start making it a difference enough that DM has to scratch his head and actually overhaul his encounters.

So you admit is has the potential to be a problem in some games pre-nurf.


Besides, everyone always say since years that healing spells are too miserable in effect to be worth anything else than emergency pop from 0 HP. Well, at least that one makes the slot far worthy enough. :)

OK the solution to healing being poor is not to give a small subset of the healing classes a spell that more the balance the other way. The solution is to systemically give all of the healing classes new healing spells that are comparable to cure wounds at class levels 1 and 2 or heal when you get it at level 11.


Many people around here also tend to say (although it's not my personal experience) that gold flows endlessly from level 7-8 onwards unless you live like a king and spend time on luxurious components or magic items. So any group could simply hog a few dozen potions: it takes a bit more time, it costs much in gold, but it's overall a very small resource expenditure for similar result. At higher level, you also have more ways to ensure a short rest.
In other words it's a big boost in staying power at level 5 but naturally flattens over the level progression.

OK but the level 2-5/6 range is the area that best replicates classic dungeon crawls so the area where the spell causes problems is also the area where its problems are the least welcome.


Finally, if you play with a group which considers this hunga bunga line up something natural to exploit to the utmost, I daresay you have a larger problem than the spell, namely the whole mindset.

I have never and will never understand these arguments. To me this sound equivalent to saying "Its silly and abusive of biology that we use antibiotics to treat all bacterial infections we should only use it to treat the infection it was original meant to treat. Yes treating healing spirit like that lead to ridicules images but it is also a result of a direct reading of the spell. Yes it can be house ruled into responsibility but that does not mean it was not a problem or that a fix was not needed.


What you describe is not even cheesy in a fight, since you'd need to spend your Action which you could have used on something more useful.
So the only true potential gripe require...
a) cheesy abusive mindset,

A cheesy abusive mindset is trying to argue that you can twin fireball because, because it targets a single point in space not multiple creatures. That is an argument that is clearly against the plain English intended reading and intended use of the spell. If you are arguing that making a spell do what it clearly can do is a cheesy abusive mindset then I really don't get that. If you are arguing that this healing ability is not intended then, given that it is not clear from the spell description you are arguing that this change (or a similar one) is needed.


b) DM agreeing that you still make an Initiative count and turn order even outside fight (which any reasonable DM could overrule: no conflict, so no Initiative and rounds, just roll 10 times the number of dices corresponding to the cast, done.

Sure if in your world you can have a super heal or if one person wrestles a squirrel you have a super duper heal go for it its your world.


c) DM not reflecting that abuse in-world (if the group ALWAYS does that, unless they kill everybody everytime and otherwise ensure no witness, hostile factions are bound to adapt sooner or later: ambushing people, harassing, focusing on the Druid, or simply starting hiring people that can cast it themselves etc).

To me this sounds a lot like the spell is fine the DM just hast to fundamentally change the way his world works. Or in other words this spell should come with a caution this spell may fundamentally effect how you games play allow with caution. Also, for the record in my experience default in D&D is you kill everyone.



Really, I don't feel there is an unbalance big enough to warrant a nerf with that spell (although your houserule is always a nice "safety net" to use)...

Except lots of people do including Crawford who suggested as much shortly after Xanathars came out and this problem was realized.


Until you start getting into multiclassing realm. That is what makes it breaking power.
Life Cleric + Healing Spirit on a short-rest slot is definitely over the top. ^^
(On that note, I'll put that here for people who like good examples of teamplay: Druid with 3rd level Healing Spirit, Cleric with Beacon of Hope. Enjoy ;))

No its still out of line without muliticlassing.

To re-alliterate the problems with this spell:
1. It is dramatically out of line with other healing spells already in the game.
2. It was not paired with any remotely comparable new healing spells for the other healing capable classes making rangers and druids far better at healing then anyone else.
3. It fundamentally affected the ability of games to be run in a certain style that was previously supported. One where resources including in particular HP have to be rationed as you explore dungeons and ruins and other strange locals. Classic D&D.
4. It did all of this in a way that appears to have been (and we now know to be) accidental.


Oh and just to be clear here I am not saying that the play style enabled by the un-nurfed healing spirit is wrong or not D&D. I am saying that it should have be supported by either a) giving all healing capable classes similar spells (with a warning about how they change the game) or b) publishing an optional rule that you just heal to full after combat. I would much prefer b, to be honest I may experiment with playing like that.

[Lyracian]

Why is there no errata page for this?
It is in the latest Errata document released. Buried in part of the Sage Advice.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/XGtE-Errata.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1VZAQSfKCSJy56cLPerVJ3a34CrS 11lMfEhUR2idfr-qZb9DLFRb018nE

[MaxWilson]

im assuming that it was an 8th level spell slot...because it doesn't make any sense to complain about the healing a druid can do using literally every one of their spell slots. or are you now gonna complain about the 441 healing a lvl 5 life cleric (~361 if not life cleric) can do without even dipping into their lvl 1 spell slots? or the 160 extra healing they can get if they instead go lvl 4 life/lvl 1 druid and then spend all their lvl 1 slots on goodberry?

I think looking at aggregate healing of a life cleric throughout the day is a reasonable way to analyze how much easier they make the adventuring day, but I would have three criticisms of that Life Cleric that don't apply to the Moon Druid:

(1) If, as I assume, you're relying on Prayer of Healing to get these numbers, Prayer of Healing doesn't distribute healing effectively so you're unlikely to actually get these numbers in practice. (If you're relying on some other spell which heals individuals instead of groups, please explain, I'd be glad to listen and learn!)

Life Cleric's Channel Divinity option is also inefficient BTW for healing because it only heals up to half HP so you won't get anywhere near full effectiveness out of it unless someone in your party is already on the verge of death. But at 5th level that's only 75 HP of healing so I assume you're not really relying on it.

(2) Prayer of Healing is also almost as slow as resting.

(3) You wind up not doing much of anything with your actions because you're saving all of your spell slots for post-combat healing.

A bog-standard Healing Spirit v1.0 Moon Druid on the other hand does his normal combat thing in wildshape as a Giant Octopus or whatever, then efficiently heals whoever actually got damaged during the fight, then does it again. (And he's got yesterday's Goodberries as well if he wants to.) He's not even a specialized healer, he's a combat specialist who just happens to trivialize Lay On Hands and Second Wind and Rage etc. as a side effect. Again, who cares whether the tank takes 42 HP or only HP due to Rage when the Moon Druid can just heal 30-40 HP as a second-level spell? Prayer of Healing doesn't do that.

The Moon Druid certainly can and will dedicate part of his spell loadout to other spells like Conjure Animals instead of Healing Spirit, but he's still got so much healing that the party will never even use it all, especially at higher levels.

Anyway, that is why I think it is reasonable to look at total available HP when measuring the Moon Druid's utility, and why it's a good thing that Healing Spirit v2.0 no longer does that.


-second wind- bonus action feature to be used as an emergency heal in combat. not sure how out of combat healing trivializes this
-lay on hands-action feature, primarily used for in combat. not nullified by out of combat healing. also bursts far far more than healing spirit can match. can also be used to remove conditions, which healing spirit cannot
-rage i mean....no? without rage the barbarian is far more likely to die before they can reach out of combat healing....
-defense-right..because on-hit effects don't exist.

Maybe it's a playstyle difference, but while I agree about Second Wind (you can use it in combat, especially at low levels before better bonus actions come online), I don't see Lay On Hands as an action as something that's particularly useful during combat--it's not a good use of an action. Rage... when I see PCs die it is most often due to some crippling and surprising condition, like Hold Person, or getting surrounded by monsters and ripped apart. I guess I see your point w/rt the "ripped apart" scenario but where I'm coming from is that Rage isn't enough to save you in those situations, so IME it just functions to inflate your effective HP total in moderately-tough fights.

What I'm trying to say is that in my experience, in truly deadly fights, numerical tweaks like +1 to AC from Defense style and half damage from Rage tend not to matter as much as spells and tactics. In non-truly-deadly-fights, it's an attrition-based numbers game, and Healing Spirit obviates attrition.

What about your experience leads you to believe that Defense/Rage/Lay On Hands/Second Wind are still important when nigh-unlimited healing is available? E.g. which on-hit effects are you most worried about?

[Benny89]

I really don't understand the reason to nerf this spell. Druid already has insane amount of goodberries every day to sustain party. And all it takes is 1 level dip in Life Cleric to have hundreds of HP to heal between encounters.

Healing spirit is great, but if druid in my party wanted to exploit super healing betwee encounters - he would use goodberries one which is slot free because they last after you finish long rest and save his spells for better use in combat.

Healing Spirit is great because it's unique. Same as Shepherd Spirit Totems.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm going to go on a little side tangent here.
Why is pop-up healing so common in 5e?
Because healing is generally weak, healing in combat is not worth it, because you will never outheal the damage being done. Therefore, it is better not to "waste" healing, except to make sure people do not die.
If most healing spells are too weak, then why is it an issue if Healing Spirit is stronger than many other healing spells? They are below the curve of expectation anyways.

Why does "pop-up healing" bother people so much? It's literally in the rules, and yet I see people opening comments on healing with lines like, "If your DM allows pop-up healing," as if it's a weird interpretation of the rules and there's an obvious alternative that isn't a house rule.

I see pop-up healing as problematic because it is the case of a rules interaction (most of which coming from rule changes from previous editions made for the sake of simplicity or the like*, rather than because the emergent gameplay style was specifically a goal) incentivizing a style of play that isn't actually simpler, and in fact rather reckless and unstrategic in any other context. In challenging encounters, you are skating along a razor's edge. If you press your luck a little too far, boom, you are down. But wait, the party healer(s) can get you back up, perhaps even with a bonus action. Oh wait, they got stunned or something, and some monster got in two melee hits, so you're dead. No problem, that's what revivify is for! I mean, every problem has a solution there in the rules, and this contingency/preparedness cycle is it's own form of strategic thinking and a challenge onto itself, but it's certainly not less complex, and it certainly seems to have created as many issues as it resolved.
*It is my supposition that the not dealing with negative hp, and healing ex. 2 hp to someone who is down just brings them up to 2 hp is addressing 3e. 3e kept the dead-at-minus-ten rule was held over from AD&D 2e, despite damage scales being wildly different (making determining when your fighter really needed to retreat a complex calculation that changed as you levelled), plus the whole negative numbers creating wacky interactions like drown-healing.

In general, I think it is... okay. As in just okay. I'd rather they have figured something else out, but it works and is its own form of strategy. I'd probably like it more if I thought it was a deliberate decision.

As to the Healing Spirit fix, I'm glad that the conga-line is removed, as that makes the game play very different based on whether your DM lets that happen/let's the extreme permutations (readied actions and/or dragging each other through the space, etc.) happen or not. I really dislike that this punishes low(er) wisdom casters so much more (rangers in particular, but also makes playing 'roll-for-stat and pick synergized race' that much more divergent from array and flavorful-race). I do wish the designers would just declare what they intend the spell to do, so I can at least judge how well they accomplish that goal (since I'll be using my own implementation anyways).

[LudicSavant]

It is in the latest Errata document released. Buried in part of the Sage Advice.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/XGtE-Errata.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1VZAQSfKCSJy56cLPerVJ3a34CrS 11lMfEhUR2idfr-qZb9DLFRb018nE

Thanks for that.

[Segev]

I see pop-up healing as problematic because it is the case of a rules interaction (most of which coming from rule changes from previous editions made for the sake of simplicity or the like, rather than because the emergent gameplay style was specifically a goal) incentivizing a style of play that isn't actually simpler, and in fact rather reckless and unstrategic in any other context. In challenging encounters, you are skating along a razor's edge. If you press your luck a little too far, boom, you are down. But wait, the party healer(s) can get you back up, perhaps even with a bonus action. Oh wait, they got stunned or something, so you're dead. No problem, that's what revivify is for! I mean, every problem has a solution there in the rules, and this contingency/preparedness cycle is it's own form of strategic thinking and a challenge onto itself, but it's certainly not less complex, and it certainly seems to have created as many issues as it resolved.

This got me thinking a little bit. In the Borderlands series (and I'm sure other games), there is the "fight for your life" mechanic: when you're at 0 hp, you are staggering around and can get back a smidgen of hit points (and stop being staggared) if you kill something else. This is a very PC-centric mechanic, since no NPCs get this fighting second chance, but it's there, and encourages a play-style that's just a little bit reckless and tries to take one more with you if you are possibly about to go.

Personally, I don't see how pop-up healing in 5e is any more out of place than it was in 3e or even 2e, or any edition where not-being-dead at 0 hp was a thing.

But. If you want it to "feel" differently than "I'm down, now I'm back up," you could take 3e's Staggered condition and reinstitute it. This is actually pure buff: things that hit 0 hp now are Staggered rather than Unconscious and Dying. The goal of this mechanic would be to make the "dying" time feel more dramatic by letting characters act during it, albeit acting in a more limited manner. Probably something like 0 ft. movement for all speeds, and spending a hit die to roll it and add your Con mod to get feet of land speed (or swim speed if you have one). No fly or climb or burrow. And one action, with no bonus actions (or one action or bonus action, but not both, depending how you tabluate that).

For added tactical planning, you can either spend an action "stabilizing" (which means that a success on your death save counts towards the 3 you need to stabilize) or not (which means a success on your death save means you're not one more failed save towards death, and that you don't have to start over "stabilizing").

The problems with this are twofold: 1, it's pure buff, since you can keep acting, and 2, it means the first thing anybody does is pop a healing potion or goodberry or something when they start their turn at 0 hp, thus "popping up" without ever having gone down.

Threefold: it steps on a mid-to-high-level barbarian (maybe berserker only?)'s toes with regards to keeping fighting while at 0 hp.

[Willie the Duck]

Personally, I don't see how pop-up healing in 5e is any more out of place than it was in 3e or even 2e, or any edition where not-being-dead at 0 hp was a thing.

It certainly is more different back in 1e where anything past -3hp and you are spending serious bedrest recuperating. However, in both 2e and 3e, being at 0 - -10* is so close enough to dead that you are going to try to retreat (/your friends are going to drag you away from the fight, not give you one small heal and sending you back into the fray).
*or even low positive hit points, particularly at higher levels in 3e, where you might be at 4 hp, but each hit from the enemy is going to do 14+ damage.

[jas61292]

It certainly is more different back in 1e where anything past -3hp and you are spending serious bedrest recuperating. However, in both 2e and 3e, being at 0 - -10* is so close enough to dead that you are going to try to retreat (/your friends are going to drag you away from the fight, not give you one small heal and sending you back into the fray).
*or even low positive hit points, particularly at higher levels in 3e, where you might be at 4 hp, but each hit from the enemy is going to do 14+ damage.

This is the key. What makes pop up healing "viable" in 5e is not that there is no difference between being at 1 and 100 HP, which was true in past editions. That is a necessary condition, but not sufficient to make pop up viable. What you also need though is for hitting 0 HP to not actually be all that likely to kill you. In my experience with 3rd edition, pop up was never a thing because if you are at 0, you are close to dying. Getting someone back up to 1 does not mean they can keep fighting. It means they can flee. In 3e a solid hit on someone in the single digits can likely kill them. In 5e, unless the character is very low level or the hit is absurdly powerful, no one hit will kill you while you are still up. That is what makes the pop up viable.

Now, of course, I put viable in quotes at the start because I don't think it really is all that viable. Pop up will only ever work out if the DM plays things... generously. It should be basic strategy in a world where pop up healing is possible to make sure it never happens, if you can. Confirming kills is not the DM being mean, its the DM playing enemies that know about healing as if they do, in fact, know about healing. Or, in the case of a lot of non-intelligent creatures, playing them realistically. The wolf pack that downs a player doesn't abandon the body to fight other players. They drag the body away, probably confirming the kill in the process, while the others cover their escape. Are there situations where a DM should realistically not confirm kills so that pop up works? Yeah, definitely. But enemies that are smart should not fall for it, and enemies that are instinctual should follow those instincts, wherever they lead.

[MaxWilson]

Personally, I don't see how pop-up healing in 5e is any more out of place than it was in 3e or even 2e, or any edition where not-being-dead at 0 hp was a thing.

In AD&D 2nd Edition, going to 0 HP wipes all of the spells out of your memory and makes you incapable of further adventuring until you get some bed rest.

[Pex]

Now, of course, I put viable in quotes at the start because I don't think it really is all that viable. Pop up will only ever work out if the DM plays things... generously. It should be basic strategy in a world where pop up healing is possible to make sure it never happens, if you can. Confirming kills is not the DM being mean, its the DM playing enemies that know about healing as if they do, in fact, know about healing. Or, in the case of a lot of non-intelligent creatures, playing them realistically. The wolf pack that downs a player doesn't abandon the body to fight other players. They drag the body away, probably confirming the kill in the process, while the others cover their escape. Are there situations where a DM should realistically not confirm kills so that pop up works? Yeah, definitely. But enemies that are smart should not fall for it, and enemies that are instinctual should follow those instincts, wherever they lead.

This is where realism can interfere with fun. At this point every PC who drops is dead because the bad guy will "double-tap". It makes for a deadly campaign. This is a preference style not an ought to be.

[Willie the Duck]

This is where realism can interfere with fun. At this point every PC who drops is dead because the bad guy will "double-tap". It makes for a deadly campaign. This is a preference style not an ought to be.

Right, and also 'realism' interfering with realism*. All of which was at least tangentially part of my point -- a confluence of the game rules has incentivized** a playstyle I don't know anyone was really trying to incentivize, aren't fun for everyone, and are contradictory to that for which the designers were going, if my gut is correct.
*which is to say, IRL confirming a kill while someone else is still swinging a deadly weapon at your head is suboptimal strategy, but in 5e if you just dropped the barbarian, and some guy with a mace and holy symbol is running up to you, you ignore them and dedicate your action to confirming that the dropped barbarian is indeed dead.
**regardless of whether people actually play that way.

[kazaryu]

I think looking at aggregate healing of a life cleric throughout the day is a reasonable way to analyze how much easier they make the adventuring day, but I would have three criticisms of that Life Cleric that don't apply to the Moon Druid:

(1) If, as I assume, you're relying on Prayer of Healing to get these numbers, Prayer of Healing doesn't distribute healing effectively so you're unlikely to actually get these numbers in practice. (If you're relying on some other spell which heals individuals instead of groups, please explain, I'd be glad to listen and learn!)

Life Cleric's Channel Divinity option is also inefficient BTW for healing because it only heals up to half HP so you won't get anywhere near full effectiveness out of it unless someone in your party is already on the verge of death. But at 5th level that's only 75 HP of healing so I assume you're not really relying on it.

(2) Prayer of Healing is also almost as slow as resting.

yes, prayery of healing. no, not channel divinity (i'd actually not even thought of that). and sure, its slower, but generally speaking if you have time to spend 1 minute healing, you have time to spend 10 minutes healing. obviously its less directed healing, and i did address that. but then..the total value is ALOT higher. so even if you cute the life clerics out of combat healing down half to account for this, its *still* on par with the druid. and if anyone is below half, why not drop a channel divinity to get them up to half before doing any other healing. its a short rest resource. easily on par by all accounts. i respectfully suggest that you just suffer from confirmation bias in this regard.


(3) You wind up not doing much of anything with your actions because you're saving all of your spell slots for post-combat healing.

speaking as a person thats played a cleric...i disagree rather strongly. you do literally just as much with your action as the druid. the druid what...makes an attack with their wildshape. and you *gasp* make an attack (or cast a cantrip). or you cast spirit guardians, plug up a hole, and then dodge. still completely on par with the druid.



A bog-standard Healing Spirit v1.0 Moon Druid on the other hand does his normal combat thing in wildshape as a Giant Octopus or whatever, then efficiently heals whoever actually got damaged during the fight, then does it again. (And he's got yesterday's Goodberries as well if he wants to.) He's not even a specialized healer, he's a combat specialist who just happens to trivialize Lay On Hands and Second Wind and Rage etc. as a side effect. Again, who cares whether the tank takes 42 HP or only HP due to Rage when the Moon Druid can just heal 30-40 HP as a second-level spell? Prayer of Healing doesn't do that.

when did we switch to discussing v1.0 healing spirit...this entire discussion has always been about post nerf healing spirit.



Maybe it's a playstyle difference, but while I agree about Second Wind (you can use it in combat, especially at low levels before better bonus actions come online), I don't see Lay On Hands as an action as something that's particularly useful during combat--it's not a good use of an action. well...no. its not usually. nor is it meant to be *usually* a good use of an action. what it *is* is a massive burst of healing to someone that needs it in a desperate situation. *see below for an example of exactly that type of situation*.


Rage... when I see PCs die it is most often due to some crippling and surprising condition, like Hold Person, or getting surrounded by monsters and ripped apart. I guess I see your point w/rt the "ripped apart" scenario but where I'm coming from is that Rage isn't enough to save you in those situations, so IME it just functions to inflate your effective HP total in moderately-tough fights.

What I'm trying to say is that in my experience, in truly deadly fights, numerical tweaks like +1 to AC from Defense style and half damage from Rage tend not to matter as much as spells and tactics. In non-truly-deadly-fights, it's an attrition-based numbers game, and Healing Spirit obviates attrition.

so you're saying that either a fight is too deadly for rage to be effective....or its not deadly enough to be effective? like..there's no in between. well, in that case let me tell you in response to this


What about your experience leads you to believe that Defense/Rage/Lay On Hands/Second Wind are still important when nigh-unlimited healing is available? E.g. which on-hit effects are you most worried about?
that is my experience. having actually played in a game, as a barbarian, where i only survived because of my rage. (i mean, it was alot of things, tactics, an all that. but had i not been raging, i would have died. in fact, my rage saved the party from a TPK.

party got ambushed by some yuan-ti. one of them hit us with an AoE sleep. i was the only one that survived, then won initiative (yay advantage!). first turn: asking my DM which of them seems to be the leader. based on what my character knew (which...i mean who knows, may have been wrong) i grabbed the 'leader' and chucked them off a cliff. tanked for a round. then grabbed another snake **** and tossed *them* off a cliff. by the third round i'd finally been knocked unconcious....and my party was finally able to wake up.

now you may ask 'why didn't you wake anyone up with your action. simple. Kor'tun didn't know that that would work. Kazaryu didn't know if that would work. if i tried to wake them up and failed...i've now wasted a turn. so i instead focused on drawing as much aggro to myself as possible to give the party time to recover. and only survived because of rage (and then the paladins lay on hands)

furthermore: you're assuming that every party has a druid thats willing to give up essentially all of their spell slots for that? ok, so thats more experience: playing in a party where the druid didn't only use their spell slots for healing (or in a party that didn't have a druid.) point being that yes: if you have a character thats built to specialize in a particular thing (yes, this includes life clerics). its going to somewhat obfuscate the usefulness of particular class features that also do that thing, as a fringe benefit.

[HiveStriker]

So you admit is has the potential to be a problem in some games pre-nurf.

OK the solution to healing being poor is not to give a small subset of the healing classes a spell that more the balance the other way. The solution is to systemically give all of the healing classes new healing spells that are comparable to cure wounds at class levels 1 and 2 or heal when you get it at level 11.

OK but the level 2-5/6 range is the area that best replicates classic dungeon crawls so the area where the spell causes problems is also the area where its problems are the least welcome.

I have never and will never understand these arguments. To me this sound equivalent to saying "Its silly and abusive of biology that we use antibiotics to treat all bacterial infections we should only use it to treat the infection it was original meant to treat. Yes treating healing spirit like that lead to ridicules images but it is also a result of a direct reading of the spell. Yes it can be house ruled into responsibility but that does not mean it was not a problem or that a fix was not needed.

A cheesy abusive mindset is trying to argue that you can twin fireball because, because it targets a single point in space not multiple creatures. That is an argument that is clearly against the plain English intended reading and intended use of the spell. If you are arguing that making a spell do what it clearly can do is a cheesy abusive mindset then I really don't get that. If you are arguing that this healing ability is not intended then, given that it is not clear from the spell description you are arguing that this change (or a similar one) is needed.

Sure if in your world you can have a super heal or if one person wrestles a squirrel you have a super duper heal go for it its your world.

To me this sounds a lot like the spell is fine the DM just hast to fundamentally change the way his world works. Or in other words this spell should come with a caution this spell may fundamentally effect how you games play allow with caution. Also, for the record in my experience default in D&D is you kill everyone.

Except lots of people do including Crawford who suggested as much shortly after Xanathars came out and this problem was realized.


No its still out of line without muliticlassing.

To re-alliterate the problems with this spell:
1. It is dramatically out of line with other healing spells already in the game.
2. It was not paired with any remotely comparable new healing spells for the other healing capable classes making rangers and druids far better at healing then anyone else.
3. It fundamentally affected the ability of games to be run in a certain style that was previously supported. One where resources including in particular HP have to be rationed as you explore dungeons and ruins and other strange locals. Classic D&D.
4. It did all of this in a way that appears to have been (and we now know to be) accidental.


Oh and just to be clear here I am not saying that the play style enabled by the un-nurfed healing spirit is wrong or not D&D. I am saying that it should have be supported by either a) giving all healing capable classes similar spells (with a warning about how they change the game) or b) publishing an optional rule that you just heal to full after combat. I would much prefer b, to be honest I may experiment with playing like that.

On the bolded part: not at all. It's called simply having a living world. Would be the same if the party always made a habit of opening up every encounter with Fireball: after some points enemies would have counters.
Or having always the Cleric get into fight paired with a Fighter while sustaining Spirit Guardians and Warding Bond. Past some point enemy faction, the most structured and intelligent at least, would start devising strategies against that.

And yes, it's cheesy to make a bongaline to abuse a system that is just a palliative to abstract simultaneity of time for combats only, it's immersion breaking for some people such as me and my friends.
But cheesy =/= overpowered. As I said, Healing Spirit does not change ANYTHING on the fact you consumed spell slots or rages. So only in the case of a party with 80% of martials relying on sturdiness to win would you see a net difference. Except it also means spellcasting in weak for them, so there will be many situations in which they can easily be defeated anyways.
In a party with mostly casters, well, if they don't have spells left, they won't tank so they will be useless all the same.
Only case where the "surplus" of Healing Spirit can make a difference is when the DM designed an encounter expecting party to be on low HP and Healing Spirit allow them to enter near full HP. How often will that happen? One time, a few times? If you really feel this is gonna be a problem to manage, houserule it as you want.
From what I saw, it's not a big deal around me. Notably because we are speaking of a Druid here (class with low AC, low concentration) or a Ranger (few slots, hard opportunity cost) (FIY I tried myself both kind of groups up to level 7: heavy martial with friends who disliked magic, only one was Ranger, group with Fighter, Barbarian, Druid and Evoker Wizard. The main thing it changed is that sometimes I used Healing Spirit so we could avoid trying to get a short rest, while warning party that they couldn't count on me as usual on the next fight: it was a common decision to trade-off powerful spell for HP, but not one we made often.).

It's not overpowered by RAW in most games because in most games people play normally (= not using conga line outside fight with ready action to double output).
It is definitely a league above other healing spells, that's for sure, but that was just a reminder that healing is ill in 5e in the first place.
In practice bunga healing during fight would be so hard to manage usually that if you actually do it, it probably means party used environment well (narrow corridor) or devised a tactic to give themselves time enough without providing chance to enemies to blast them while they are all neatly packed.
So I wouldn't care less they succeed in restoring massive HP because they were smart enough to make the most of the circumstances.

However, it is a spell that provide interesting enough benefits to set up tanking strategies like a Cleric could do with Warding Bond, except at a higher opportunity cost (mainly because concentration). It was also a spell giving a great value to Ranger as the versatility master of martials (which had no chance to make it overpowered even in utmost case considering how very few slots they have), especially for Beastmaster.

Making it so limited, with a tie with WIS mod on top of that, ruins the whole interest of the spell. Let's remind you're still rolling for the heal after all, and you don't add the WIS mod to restoration either.
Even with a 18 WIS at level 5-6, it means 5*6 so an average of 17.5
Aid can distribute 15 HP on three people, guaranteed, with maximum HP increase on top of that.
A level 6 Life Cleric can land 2*5*6=60 HP distributed any way he likes as long as he doesn't get over max HP of targets: in practice, in a party of 4, you ensure everyone is more than half-HP on a short rest.
Level 2 Cure Wounds heal an average of 14 but doesn't require concentration.

I wouldn't mind if the number of "uses" scaled with upcast, or or was linear with class level (imo the most sensible choice), or at least if you had a much higher floor number.
For example, number of uses being twice the spell level, or 5+proficiency mod, or 3+WIS mod but you add 2 uses for every upcast level.

[MaxWilson]

when did we switch to discussing v1.0 healing spirit...this entire discussion has always been about post nerf healing spirit.

Huh. From my perspective, it has always been a discussion of nerfed Healing Spirit v1.0 and how limiting healing to 1/round is not enough. I've said so multiple times. I guess maybe that explains why you thought 8th level spells were needed?

Apparently we were having completely different conversations.

[Tanarii]

On pop up healing: Would it help if being at 0 hps was envisioned as being on your knees and unable to do anything, but still not flat down? As long as the conditions of the Unconscious condition are enforced that could work. And Prone (which is part of Unconcious) explicitly can include being on your hands and knees, per the accompanying picture on PHB page 292. (It'd also require ignoring the Unconcious picture which shows someone splayed in their back. :smallamused: )

Certainly it'd make attacking Unconscious PCs, if the it would make sense for the enemy of course, make a little more sense. And the sudden pop up return might be easier to visualize.

[kazaryu]

Huh. From my perspective, it has always been a discussion of nerfed Healing Spirit v1.0 and how limiting healing to 1/round is not enough. I've said so multiple times. I guess maybe that explains why you thought 8th level spells were needed?

Apparently we were having completely different conversations.

not at all, when you said healing spirit v1.0 it made it seem like you swapped back to unnerfed for some reason. so we were having the same conversation. just a minor communication glitch that doesnt' affect the rest of my post in any meaningful way.

[47Ace]

Snip long post.


I think we are actually on the same page here mostly. I was mostly arguing that the spell needed a nerf not about if the nerf was perfect.

I do still feel that attacking the party in the minute they are spending healing after combat is a bit extreme and metagamy. If the game wanted to make round combat only then it should do so clearly and it has probably been long enough to avoid the complaints of that being too much like 4e. Now I don't think that I am going to convince you of there opinions one way or another I am just clarifying these for the record.

Not about the effects of the nerf, You make some decent points. I think they had originally talked about limiting it by proficiency bonus and I do think that may have been better. I don't know why they didn't do that but, I think it may have been because to my knowledge no other spell has effects bases off of proficiency bonus (besides DC) and they wanted to be consistent. I think 2 plus proficiency bonus would be reasonable but, probably also good enough clerics and paladins would deserve a new comparable spell. Over all biased off of the numbers you posted I think the spell is currently OK but wouldn't complain if it was another d6 or so of healing. Yes it is quite close to the cure wounds out put but, it is at range and over time effects being comparable/inferior to instantaneous effects is a common spell design problem. (I don't have a problem with this changing in particular if the improvements are applied to all new spells.) I will point out that well you don't get more healing effects uses at higher level casts you do get an extra d6 each time which is twice as much healing with a 3rd level slot. This is still one of the best upcasting spells in the game.

[Witty Username]

Now, of course, I put viable in quotes at the start because I don't think it really is all that viable. Pop up will only ever work out if the DM plays things... generously. It should be basic strategy in a world where pop up healing is possible to make sure it never happens, if you can. Confirming kills is not the DM being mean, its the DM playing enemies that know about healing as if they do, in fact, know about healing. Or, in the case of a lot of non-intelligent creatures, playing them realistically. The wolf pack that downs a player doesn't abandon the body to fight other players. They drag the body away, probably confirming the kill in the process, while the others cover their escape. Are there situations where a DM should realistically not confirm kills so that pop up works? Yeah, definitely. But enemies that are smart should not fall for it, and enemies that are instinctual should follow those instincts, wherever they lead.

That depends on the goals and mindset of the enemies. For example, a group of bandits may on seeing a PC downed may try to grab what gear they can and run. Also, Intelligent enemies may intentionally leave PC's down to waste the healer's spells/actions, or target the healer first anyway.

[MaxWilson]

not at all, when you said healing spirit v1.0 it made it seem like you swapped back to unnerfed for some reason. so we were having the same conversation. just a minor communication glitch that doesnt' affect the rest of my post in any meaningful way.

I think there are other glitches too. For example, you said,


speaking as a person thats played a cleric...i disagree rather strongly. you do literally just as much with your action as the druid. the druid what...makes an attack with their wildshape. and you *gasp* make an attack (or cast a cantrip). or you cast spirit guardians, plug up a hole, and then dodge. still completely on par with the druid.

but I was talking about what you can do when you've dedicated your spell slots to keeping the party healthy. A Moon Druid can still wildshape, but a Life Cleric obviously cannot Spirit Guardians without using spell slots.


yes, prayery of healing. no, not channel divinity (i'd actually not even thought of that). and sure, its slower, but generally speaking if you have time to spend 1 minute healing, you have time to spend 10 minutes healing. obviously its less directed healing, and i did address that. but then..the total value is ALOT higher. so even if you cute the life clerics out of combat healing down half to account for this, its *still* on par with the druid. and if anyone is below half, why not drop a channel divinity to get them up to half before doing any other healing. its a short rest resource. easily on par by all accounts. i respectfully suggest that you just suffer from confirmation bias in this regard.

I don't agree that "if you have time to spend 1 minute healing, you have time to spend 10 minutes healing", especially since you don't actually have to spend the one minute healing standing around doing nothing. If you've just literally or metaphorically kicked down a gate and killed some guards while the others ran for help, the difference between 1 minute (spent advancing further into the stronghold) and 10 minutes is quite large, and 10 minutes could result in you having had no healing at all when the counterattack arrives.

I looked for where you addressed the distribution problem, but I didn't see it. In a normal adventuring scenario where damage tends to land disproportionately on one or perhaps two PCs in each combat, Prayer of Healing will wildly underperform its theoretical maximum.

There's an enormous practical difference between "druid heals the Barbarian for 70 HP of damage in preparation for the counterassault, whereupon the druid changes back into a (hopefully Mage Armored) Giant Octopus and goes one-on-one with an Orog, takes it mostly out of combat by restraining it, and then continues to hold a chokepoint against the rest of the orcs by Dodging", vs. "the cleric starts trying to heal the Barbarian 18 HP in preparation for the next assault plus 7 HP on the wizard and 12 HP on the cleric himself, may or may not finish before the counterassault occurs, and spends the counterassault spamming nigh-irrelevant Sacred Flame in order to save spell slots for more Prayers of Healing out of combat." It just isn't feasible for the cleric to behave this way! He must spend slots on Spiritual Weapon or Sacred Guardians or both if he wants to stay relevant, and his total contribution to healing will be much, much smaller than the Healing Spirit v1.0 Moon Druid.


speaking as a person thats played a cleric...i disagree rather strongly. you do literally just as much with your action as the druid. the druid what...makes an attack with their wildshape. and you *gasp* make an attack (or cast a cantrip). or you cast spirit guardians, plug up a hole, and then dodge. still completely on par with the druid.

when did we switch to discussing v1.0 healing spirit...this entire discussion has always been about post nerf healing spirit.

Hopefully we've cleared this up so I'm going to ignore it now.


well...no. its not usually. nor is it meant to be *usually* a good use of an action. what it *is* is a massive burst of healing to someone that needs it in a desperate situation. *see below for an example of exactly that type of situation*.

so you're saying that either a fight is too deadly for rage to be effective....or its not deadly enough to be effective? like..there's no in between. well, in that case let me tell you in response to this

I don't know what you mean by "effective", but I am saying that when massive healing capabilities are available and cheap, the scenarios where Rage would otherwise be valuable (reducing attrition, turning some otherwise-Deadly fights into less-Deadly fights) narrow and Rage becomes less important (now mostly good only for turning uber-Deadly fights against meatsack monsters into survivable fights, and most DMs don't even run uber-Deadly fights, and the ones who do probably don't run them purely against meatsack monsters).


that is my experience. having actually played in a game, as a barbarian, where i only survived because of my rage. (i mean, it was alot of things, tactics, an all that. but had i not been raging, i would have died. in fact, my rage saved the party from a TPK.

party got ambushed by some yuan-ti. one of them hit us with an AoE sleep. i was the only one that survived, then won initiative (yay advantage!). first turn: asking my DM which of them seems to be the leader. based on what my character knew (which...i mean who knows, may have been wrong) i grabbed the 'leader' and chucked them off a cliff. tanked for a round. then grabbed another snake **** and tossed *them* off a cliff. by the third round i'd finally been knocked unconcious....and my party was finally able to wake up.

now you may ask 'why didn't you wake anyone up with your action. simple. Kor'tun didn't know that that would work. Kazaryu didn't know if that would work. if i tried to wake them up and failed...i've now wasted a turn. so i instead focused on drawing as much aggro to myself as possible to give the party time to recover. and only survived because of rage (and then the paladins lay on hands)

That just sounds like "turning some otherwise-Deadly fights into less-Deadly fights". PCs got unlucky, Rage kept you alive long enough to make an extra round of attacks while the other PCs were unconscious. If you hadn't had Rage, it sounds like the PCs would have taken some auto-crits and woken up, and there also would have been one more snake attacking them. If Healing Spirit v1.0 had been in play they would have then healed you back up to full HP afterwards, and perhaps you wouldn't even remember this story because there were no real consequences to almost dying!

If you're trying to prove that Healing Spirit v1.0 with a once-per-round limitation isn't overpowered, you're doing the opposite. A Life Cleric in that situation would not have been able to heal you back to full nearly as easily.


furthermore: you're assuming that every party has a druid thats willing to give up essentially all of their spell slots for that? ok, so thats more experience: playing in a party where the druid didn't only use their spell slots for healing (or in a party that didn't have a druid.) point being that yes: if you have a character thats built to specialize in a particular thing (yes, this includes life clerics). its going to somewhat obfuscate the usefulness of particular class features that also do that thing, as a fringe benefit.

No, I'm pointing out that a bog-standard Moon Druid has the option (pre-nerf) to obviate HP attrition for the whole party as an afterthought. "Can" != "must". If a game includes a brokenly-strong dominant strategy which trivializes other game elements when used, and a given play group happens not to use that strategy, that's lucky for that play group, but it doesn't excuse poor game design for creating that dominant strategy in the first place.

It's possible we're talking about different things here after all. You don't seem to be discussing game design at all, and at this point you're apparently not talking about Prayer of Healing either or you would immediately have spotted how the Barbarian example undercuts your argument.

[jas61292]

This is where realism can interfere with fun. At this point every PC who drops is dead because the bad guy will "double-tap". It makes for a deadly campaign. This is a preference style not an ought to be.

I disagree. Yes, it makes dropping more deadly. But this only makes the campaign itself more deadly if the players refuse to adapt to the play style. If a player is willing to accept that sometimes using a level 2 Cure Wounds on someone at 10 HP is actually more likely to keep them alive (and thus the better move) than a level 1 Healing Word when they are at 0, then the campaign can proceed as normal. No more or less deadly, just with a different "normal" method of HP management.

Of course if, despite knowing that enemies are likely to attack downed players, you still rely entirely on Healing Word for pop up healing instead of either using other methods of healing, fleeing when you get weak, or just playing different strategies all together, then that is on you. It might be a mismatch of player and gamestyle, but it does not make the game style less legitimate or fun (in the abstract sense).

Personally, I just disagree with the somewhat implied notion that one style is more fun than the other. Its not a punishment or anything. Its NPCs acting logically, and the players needing to play with that in mind.


That depends on the goals and mindset of the enemies. For example, a group of bandits may on seeing a PC downed may try to grab what gear they can and run. Also, Intelligent enemies may intentionally leave PC's down to waste the healer's spells/actions, or target the healer first anyway.

This is true. I'm not trying to say that there is one strategy that fits all enemies. Rather, I'm just saying that, what seems to be the general assumption on forums is that enemies will never, ever attack a downed PC, and that pop up healing thus always works. That is not at all realistic, and I think it is silly for that to be the default assumption. And if, as a DM, you do not let that be the default assumption, pop up healing will not be as big a thing as online discussions make it seem.

[Pex]

I disagree. Yes, it makes dropping more deadly. But this only makes the campaign itself more deadly if the players refuse to adapt to the play style. If a player is willing to accept that sometimes using a level 2 Cure Wounds on someone at 10 HP is actually more likely to keep them alive (and thus the better move) than a level 1 Healing Word when they are at 0, then the campaign can proceed as normal. No more or less deadly, just with a different "normal" method of HP management.

Of course if, despite knowing that enemies are likely to attack downed players, you still rely entirely on Healing Word for pop up healing instead of either using other methods of healing, fleeing when you get weak, or just playing different strategies all together, then that is on you. It might be a mismatch of player and gamestyle, but it does not make the game style less legitimate or fun (in the abstract sense).

Personally, I just disagree with the somewhat implied notion that one style is more fun than the other. Its not a punishment or anything. Its NPCs acting logically, and the players needing to play with that in mind.



This is true. I'm not trying to say that there is one strategy that fits all enemies. Rather, I'm just saying that, what seems to be the general assumption on forums is that enemies will never, ever attack a downed PC, and that pop up healing thus always works. That is not at all realistic, and I think it is silly for that to be the default assumption. And if, as a DM, you do not let that be the default assumption, pop up healing will not be as big a thing as online discussions make it seem.

Actually, you agree. It's a style preference.

What we likely disagree on is which style preference we prefer.

[Tanarii]

Rather, I'm just saying that, what seems to be the general assumption on forums is that enemies will never, ever attack a downed PC, and that pop up healing thus always works. My forums experience has been that there a large number of forum DMs that expect that enemies may attack downed PCs under certain circumstances. Certainly there are those vocally against it, but I don't think it's a forum assumption by any means. There are also those vocally for it for that matter.

[jas61292]

My forums experience has been that there a large number of forum DMs that expect that enemies may attack downed PCs under certain circumstances. Certainly there are those vocally against it, but I don't think it's a forum assumption by any means. There are also those vocally for it for that matter.

When I say it is an assumption, I don't mean that people are vocally for pop up healing, insisting downed PCs are never attacked. Rather I mean, they quietly assume it, and it is only the occasional vocal person such as myself who challenges that base assumption. If it wasn't generally accepted that downed PCs don't get attacked, I just don't believe we would have the general belief that Healing Word and other such pop up spells are the best methods of healing.

[Pex]

If I remember to I will try to make a mental note what happens in games I play when a PC is downed. I can say they have been attacked, but I know it's not often. It's all a blur, but my impression is a good number of times it doesn't happen because another PCs gets the bad guy's attention. This isn't by class ability but rather the DM not metagaming. Even though a particular character may not have a game mechanic means to prevent the bad guy from attacking the downed PC or stopping him from moving to attack a squishy in the general sense, when said PC manages to do great harm to the bad guy the bad guy will fight back. So what happens is bad guy drops a PC, another PC attacks that bad guy, that bad guy fights back ignoring the downed PC. I can also say PCs have died in the games I'm in, plural in the present. I know none of the DMs go out of their way to do it, but it happened. It happens even with pop-up healing. Sometimes combat circumstances is such another PC can't heal the downed PC in time despite Healing Word. It's also happened because the downed PC was attacked. What happens is monster gets two attacks. The DM rolls both at the same time and both hit. The first hit is what dropped the PC, so the second hit counts as one failed death save. The PC can die in two rounds if he's unlucky and don't roll that 1.

[kazaryu]

but I was talking about what you can do when you've dedicated your spell slots to keeping the party healthy. A Moon Druid can still wildshape, but a Life Cleric obviously cannot Spirit Guardians without using spell slots.

nope. a druid just wildshaping without dropping a concentration spell is easily on par with a cleric dedicating their action to casting cantrips or (depending on level) making weapon attacks. obviously there's gonna be slightly different power spikes in there as they level. but their overall contribution to combat is gonna be about the same (i.e. subpar).



I don't agree that "if you have time to spend 1 minute healing, you have time to spend 10 minutes healing", especially since you don't actually have to spend the one minute healing standing around doing nothing. If you've just literally or metaphorically kicked down a gate and killed some guards while the others ran for help, the difference between 1 minute (spent advancing further into the stronghold) and 10 minutes is quite large, and 10 minutes could result in you having had no healing at all when the counterattack arrives.


you took that quote out of context. i said 'most of the time'. and i still do. there are a few fringe situations where healing spirits shorter duration is better. but then there are other siutations where prayer of healing gives more healing (i.e. y'all just ate a fireball last fight. everyone benefits from the what...17-18 healing that 1 prayer of healing does?



I looked for where you addressed the distribution problem, but I didn't see it. In a normal adventuring scenario where damage tends to land disproportionately on one or perhaps two PCs in each combat, Prayer of Healing will wildly underperform its theoretical maximum.


that only happens when enemies are being run unintelligently. i.e. in situations that aren't actually deadly.



There's an enormous practical difference between "druid heals the Barbarian for 70 HP of damage in preparation for the counterassault, whereupon the druid changes back into a (hopefully Mage Armored) Giant Octopus and goes one-on-one with an Orog, takes it mostly out of combat by restraining it, and then continues to hold a chokepoint against the rest of the orcs by Dodging", vs. "the cleric starts trying to heal the Barbarian 18 HP in preparation for the next assault plus 7 HP on the wizard and 12 HP on the cleric himself, may or may not finish before the counterassault occurs, and spends the counterassault spamming nigh-irrelevant Sacred Flame in order to save spell slots for more Prayers of Healing out of combat." It just isn't feasible for the cleric to behave this way! He must spend slots on Spiritual Weapon or Sacred Guardians or both if he wants to stay relevant, and his total contribution to healing will be much, much smaller than the Healing Spirit v1.0 Moon Druid.

there is, but thats also a fringe case. it *might* come up, but generally won't. the fact that you insist on this scenario is just more indication of confrimation bias. which is, i mean fair enough. we all realistically only have our own experiences to worry about.



I don't know what you mean by "effective", but I am saying that when massive healing capabilities are available and cheap, the scenarios where Rage would otherwise be valuable (reducing attrition, turning some otherwise-Deadly fights into less-Deadly fights) narrow and Rage becomes less important (now mostly good only for turning uber-Deadly fights against meatsack monsters into survivable fights, and most DMs don't even run uber-Deadly fights, and the ones who do probably don't run them purely against meatsack monsters).

That just sounds like "turning some otherwise-Deadly fights into less-Deadly fights". PCs got unlucky, Rage kept you alive long enough to make an extra round of attacks while the other PCs were unconscious. If you hadn't had Rage, it sounds like the PCs would have taken some auto-crits and woken up, and there also would have been one more snake attacking them. If Healing Spirit v1.0 had been in play they would have then healed you back up to full HP afterwards, and perhaps you wouldn't even remember this story because there were no real consequences to almost dying!

If you're trying to prove that Healing Spirit v1.0 with a once-per-round limitation isn't overpowered, you're doing the opposite. A Life Cleric in that situation would not have been able to heal you back to full nearly as easily.

yes, turning what would have been a tpk into *not* a tpk is exactly what im talking about. the fact that 5e encounter design assumes the party is at full hp, indicates that the barbarian's rage *primary* purpose isn't to 'reduce attrition'. its to keep you alive in the short term so that you can survive long enough to reach out of combat healing. how much HP i was at afterwards didn't factor into that.

now, this also seems to point to a very different approach to gameplay. and in fact, it reinforces my OP.


however that doesn't mean that heling spirit is harmful to overall gameplay (i.e. broken). because its just not for most games. as you point out. or at least for alot of games. healing spirit is only harmful if someone is playing in a game where HP is meant to be a fairly restrictive resource in the long term (as opposed to just the short term of a combat). However, this point, by necessity, is a subjective one. in *your* game healing spirit isn't broken. which is fine. but you can't assume that everyone plays the same way you do.


the idea being that, yes, out of combat healing (in general) is at its strongest in a type of game where HP is meant to be a consistent long term resource. which i feel fairly confident in saying is the type of game you run. But thats like saying 'omg subtle spell is OP because a sorcerer can subtle spell suggestion and therefore make social skills useless'. its true...but only in a game where social skills are the main focus. a sorcerer being able to subtle cast suggestion doesn't really matter ina dungeon crawl. *suggestion* by itself can matter in a dungeon crawl, but subtle casting it is just :shrug:.



No, I'm pointing out that a bog-standard Moon Druid has the option (pre-nerf) to obviate HP attrition for the whole party as an afterthought. "Can" != "must". If a game includes a brokenly-strong dominant strategy which trivializes other game elements when used, and a given play group happens not to use that strategy, that's lucky for that play group, but it doesn't excuse poor game design for creating that dominant strategy in the first place.

the problem here is that you're assuming that most games get broken by this, but they don't. as i pointed out earlier, a moon druid wildshaping without casting a concentration spell (thus saving their spell slots for out of combat healing) is objectively not contributing as much as they could to a combat. they're trading a combat resource for an out of combat resource. thats balance. like...by definition. Now, if you think the moon druids contribution to combat is *too much* with just their wild shape. thats fair. but thats a complaint about wildshape, not the out of combat healing.



It's possible we're talking about different things here after all. You don't seem to be discussing game design at all, and at this point you're apparently not talking about Prayer of Healing either or you would immediately have spotted how the Barbarian example undercuts your argument.

the game *isn't* designed around HP as a longterm resource. if it was, then individual encounter design would't assume the party is at full HP. you are, of course, free to play the game as though it is designed around HP as a long term resource. but then you're going to have to deal with the oddities that come with playing the system contrary to its design

[MaxWilson]

nope. a druid just wildshaping without dropping a concentration spell is easily on par with a cleric dedicating their action to casting cantrips or (depending on level) making weapon attacks. obviously there's gonna be slightly different power spikes in there as they level. but their overall contribution to combat is gonna be about the same (i.e. subpar).

No. This is objectively false, both by experience and by numbers and capabilities. A cleric's spell-less contributions to combat are not on par with a Moon Druid's spell-less contributions to combat. To use your own example: if the Barbarian had been a spell-less cleric, he would have gone down even faster than the Barbarian did, whereas a Moon Druid would have done even better defensively (more effective HP) and somewhat worse offensively (probably not as good at pushing Yuan-ti off cliffs, especially since I gather this was at level 3-4, but better opportunity attacks with built-in restraining--you didn't say how many Yuan-ti there were so it's hard to be more specific).


that only happens when enemies are being run unintelligently. i.e. in situations that aren't actually deadly.

Your own example of a so-called "near TPK" shows this to be untrue. I'm skeptical that it was actually a near TPK, based on what you describe (sounds like even without Rage the party would have recovered on the third round, a point which BTW you failed to address in any way), but you're in the position of simultaneously claiming that it wasn't actually deadly and that it was a near TPK.