Cantrip idea: Cure Minor Wound (no 's')

[Cikomyr2]

Maybe it's broken, let me know.

Cure Minor Wound
Evocation Divination

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: V S
Duration: Up to 1 minute Instantaneous
Classes: Cleric, Druid
You touch one willing creature. You automatically cure the last hit point lost by the creature. If that hit point had previously been restored by any healing, the spell has no effect.
If the target is at 0 HP, the spell has no effect. If the target is dying and non-stabilized, the spell has no effect.



(basically, Shadowrun Returns - healing of 1 HP)

edit: changed the duration. It didn't make sense, I copy-pasted the template from Guidance, sorry XD

[Dork_Forge]

I'm confused at the point of this, an entire minute for a single hit point isn't really broken, the clause about that hp not being restored by other healing previously would be fiddly and hard to track.

Why do you feel like a healing cantrip is needed?

Does Shadowrun have the same generous rest healing that 5e does?

[Protolisk]

Format wise: Typically "up to" style durations are concentration spells. Does this require concentration?

Nevermind, that was fixed while I was writing. Format, its fine.



Gameplay issue: Cantrips have been specifically not used for hit point regeneration, temporary or otherwise. Big issue I can see is that this makes yo yo healing even easier and not require any resources, which I don't think is healthy for 5e. Yo yo healing is bad enough as it is, but at least spending a spell slot cuts down on it.

Outside of yo yo healing, 1 hit point is miniscule. It only really matters at, well, 0 and 1 hp, since anything above 1 you can view them as nearly equal. Someone at 2 hp is basically just as likely to fall unconscious as a 1 hp character, since many attacks deal 1dx +1 damage. The larger the health, the less a single point of difference makes.

So it either is basically nothing, or makes yo yo healing, an already notorious pkaystyle, more effective. It'd get a thumbs down from me.

[Cikomyr2]

Why do you feel like a healing cantrip is needed?

The idea that one of the group can always bring back the other guys from the grip of death, even when they have exhausted all other resource, sounds thematic to me.

Also would allow cool NPC interactions, since you always have a 1-hp healing to help save people. But then, I guess that's what Spare the Dying is for.

Ok, I want to make it different than Spare the Dying. I will update the spell description above.



Does Shadowrun have the same generous rest healing that 5e does?

I haven't really played Shadowrun outside of the video games. It was just to compare mechanically.

[Segev]

If you want an at-will heal that is more than stabilizing a dying creature, you can do it by tapping a resource that isn't the caster's own:

Healing Surge
Necromancy Cantrip
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, S
Range: Touch
Duration: Instantaneous
You touch a creature and pull forth its own life energy to rejuvenate it and prepare it for immediate battle. The creature may expend and roll one hit die, and add its Constitution modifier to the result. The creature heals that many hit points.

[sophontteks]

Oh you can frame it after the friends cantrip where you heal someone, and then 1 minute later they die.

[Dork_Forge]

The idea that one of the group can always bring back the other guys from the grip of death, even when they have exhausted all other resource, sounds thematic to me.

Also would allow cool NPC interactions, since you always have a 1-hp healing to help save people. But then, I guess that's what Spare the Dying is for.

Ok, I want to make it different than Spare the Dying. I will update the spell description above.

Spamming something repeatedly so it regens a meaningful amount of health seems more gamist than thematic to me personally.

If it can't bring someone up, then it's basically fiddly between encounter top up healing, even in that role I'm not sure it's worth using limited cantrips known for.



I haven't really played Shadowrun outside of the video games. It was just to compare mechanically.

In general video games make a poor comparison for mechanics to D&D, partly because the computer can handle things in the background that are clunky or not fun at the table.

A cantrip to allow someone to spend a hit die is probably your best option like Segev suggested, though that runs into the problem of your cantrip being situationally useful based on someone elses resources.

[Anymage]

Shadowrun has slow healing built into the system, so being able to top someone off with multiple cure spells is very much against genre expectations. That's why any magical healing prevents further magical healing. Trying to port that to D&D would massively shift the expected encounter schedule, in ways that would either change the game into something massively different or else quickly lead to a TPK. You could try to shift around the resource recovery in D&D, but that's a very different discussion and much bigger than a cantrip.

I guess I have two questions for you before I can give any meaningful advice. First, in what situations do you see this cantrip being used differently from Spare The Dying, such that it would be worth taking in a cantrip known slot. Second, if your goal is to make your magic guys feel magical beyond their spell slots, refluffing might be more your speed. Your Intelligence(Investigation) check might well be a minor tracking charm that leads your pendant towards an interesting find. Your Wisdom(Medicine) check might well involve infusing them with a small amount of positive energy. Working from a baseline of skills instead of cantrips means you're never tapped out, and won't have to worry as much about opportunity costs of picking your option over something else.

[Samayu]

Sounds like an ability for a low-level NPC. A healer with the gift And then you can just say it works on a person only once per day, or something like that.

[Jerrykhor]

Healing cantrips are not Okay! Repeat after me, Healing cantrips are not okay!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I thought this was going to be, "Completely heal an amount equal to the last amount of damage the target was dealt."

i.e. someone gets hit with a Disintegrate for 80 damage, this spell puts it back as long as that's the last time they took damage. Took a big hit but then stepped on a caltrop? Too bad, the spell can only undo the caltrop because that's the last damage you took.

[Cybren]

What if I healed one of my other missing hit points but not the last hit point I lost

[Asmotherion]

As a DM, I'd be OK with a cantrip that cures 1 HP, as long as we had established 2 things in my campain:

A) HP is not Wounds. HP is like your Energy to keep fighting/keep yourself Unconcious. It is related to wounds, but is not, itself, wounds.
B) A wound system would have been established in the game in question. How and when you get wounds, what those wounds do etc. What magic cures wounds, and what magic simply cures HP. That sort of thing.

I have no problem with PCs recovering to full HP when out of Battle. That just means I can be more free with not holding any blows.

[Segev]

Healing cantrips are not Okay! Repeat after me, Healing cantrips are not okay!

I still think a healing cantrip that merely lets you expend and roll a hit die to regain hit points would be fine.

[x3n0n]

Mechanically, is this the same effect? I was struggling to parse the original.

"You touch a creature; if that creature is neither dead nor dying and has not regained any hit points since it last took damage, it regains 1 hit point. This spell has no effect on an undead or a construct."

If so, it's limited in scope, so it's *probably* not broken, but it means a strange hazard that deals (say) 1 poison damage per minute becomes moot.

Best uses I see in a normal game:
* Waking a stabilized character in less than 1d4 hours
* Fixing effects like caltrops ("[harmful thing] until the creature regains at least 1 hit point.")
* Life extension for creatures with less than 20ish max HP

I would need to think more about Segev's suggestion to allow HD outside a short rest. If so, I'd want it to take 1 minute instead of 1 action.

[Anymage]

I have no problem with PCs recovering to full HP when out of Battle. That just means I can be more free with not holding any blows.

If you want the PCs to be at full strength for each fight, just top off their hit points when they can have a breather instead of forcing someone to spend a cantrip slot towards that goal. Tie it to hit dice (which people always seem to forget about), or just fiat declare they all come back. There's also the Epic Heroism or whatever it's called rest rule for if you want the PCs to have full/nearly full resources for whatever you do.

I just really dislike the idea that a whole playstyle should hinge on a player having to make a mandatory pick.

[Strigon]

I still think a healing cantrip that merely lets you expend and roll a hit die to regain hit points would be fine.

It would probably be okay in terms of balance, but that's still sort of beyond the scope of cantrips.
Cantrips in 5e are, as far as I know, entirely at-will spells. They have no cost beyond that of their action, which is basically what makes a cantrip a cantrip, and the problem with healing cantrips is that at-will healing is unbalanced. Sure, you can fix that by adding a cost to the cantrip, but then it isn't really a cantrip anymore. It feels more like a class feature that happens to take one of your cantrip slots than a low-level, at-will spell.

[Segev]

It would probably be okay in terms of balance, but that's still sort of beyond the scope of cantrips.
Cantrips in 5e are, as far as I know, entirely at-will spells. They have no cost beyond that of their action, which is basically what makes a cantrip a cantrip, and the problem with healing cantrips is that at-will healing is unbalanced. Sure, you can fix that by adding a cost to the cantrip, but then it isn't really a cantrip anymore. It feels more like a class feature that happens to take one of your cantrip slots than a low-level, at-will spell.

I agree that the point of a cantrip is the spammability. However, you CAN spam this cantrip, provided there are enough people who need the help.

Honestly, maybe this should just be rolled into spare the dying, which is already on the edge of being useless.

[paladinn]

I agree that the point of a cantrip is the spammability. However, you CAN spam this cantrip, provided there are enough people who need the help.

Honestly, maybe this should just be rolled into spare the dying, which is already on the edge of being useless.

It's only useless if you're not the one dying:)

I think Spare the Dying is the only "healing cantrip" I would allow. Anything more is too spammable.

[Segev]

It's only useless if you're not the one dying:)

I think Spare the Dying is the only "healing cantrip" I would allow. Anything more is too spammable.

Even one that just lets the target expend and roll a hit die?

I think spare the dying is next to useless because anybody can take an action to stabilize a dying ally.

[Anymage]

Recreating 4e's Healing Word and various other surge spender enablers is better than trying to recreate 3.5's Cure Minor Wounds, but it still interfaces poorly with 5e.

First, as noted, if you want people to be able to spend their healing surges faster between encounters you just let them spend healing surges faster between encounters. You don't mandate a cleric (or druid or other healing capable class) and ask them to spend a cantrip known slot just to enable this.

Second, 4e's surges scaled rather well with HP. The value of an individual hit dice does not. Letting someone spend just one HD off of a cantrip means it's basically just another CLW at low levels, and only good for yo-yoing as you get higher up. I do think that surges and making healing availability more dependent on the character being healed than on the caster's spell slots were good 4e-isms, but you'd need to do more work to make them work well in a 5e setting.

Edit to add: You're right that the characters most likely to pick up Spare The Dying are likely to have high Wis, and that medicine isn't too unlikely as a skill pick. Those give you a 90% chance of success going into tier two, and quickly hits autosuccess territory. That says more about the design space of making spells that overlap with skill use than it does about the viability of a healing cantrip.

[Segev]

Recreating 4e's Healing Word and various other surge spender enablers is better than trying to recreate 3.5's Cure Minor Wounds, but it still interfaces poorly with 5e.

First, as noted, if you want people to be able to spend their healing surges faster between encounters you just let them spend healing surges faster between encounters. You don't mandate a cleric (or druid or other healing capable class) and ask them to spend a cantrip known slot just to enable this.By this logic, if you want people to be able to repair damaged materials faster, you should just let them use the crafting toolkits to do so rather than making somebody waste a cantrip on mending. If you want people to be able to clean things up faster, you should just let them clean a square foot as an action rather than making them waste a cantrip on prestidigitation.

Sometimes, you want to permit something if people wish to invest in it, but don't want to make it a universally-free thing.


You're right that the characters most likely to pick up Spare The Dying are likely to have high Wis, and that medicine isn't too unlikely as a skill pick. Those give you a 90% chance of success going into tier two, and quickly hits autosuccess territory. That says more about the design space of making spells that overlap with skill use than it does about the viability of a healing cantrip.
Yes and no. What it says about it is not (as I think you're implying, and I'm definitely inferring from what you're saying) that you shouldn't have spells that do things that can also be done with skills, but that you shouldn't have either be entirely eclipsed by the other. All it would take to make spare the dying more worthwhile would be to give it a range of 30, maybe 60 feet. Now the investment of the cantrip lets you stabilize somebody you can't get to (or without having to run into combat to get to them). Alternatively, spare the dying could only target creatures at 0 hp that are not yet dead, and restore exactly 1 hp to them. This would make it viable for pop-up healing without making the creatures too much out of danger.

[Nifft]

Oh you can frame it after the friends cantrip where you heal someone, and then 1 minute later they die.

You get quest XP for saving the target, and then 1 minute later you get regular XP for slaying the target.

It's a flawless spell.

[Anymage]

Sometimes, you want to permit something if people wish to invest in it, but don't want to make it a universally-free thing.

Recovering hit points is significantly more important for most campaigns than repairing an item or making camp. At some point an option becomes so good to the point of feeling mandatory. At that point it becomes a question of which player devotes a character's ability slot to the party utility ability.



Yes and no. What it says about it is not (as I think you're implying, and I'm definitely inferring from what you're saying) that you shouldn't have spells that do things that can also be done with skills, but that you shouldn't have either be entirely eclipsed by the other. All it would take to make spare the dying more worthwhile would be to give it a range of 30, maybe 60 feet. Now the investment of the cantrip lets you stabilize somebody you can't get to (or without having to run into combat to get to them). Alternatively, spare the dying could only target creatures at 0 hp that are not yet dead, and restore exactly 1 hp to them. This would make it viable for pop-up healing without making the creatures too much out of danger.

It's more that I think that a lot of the time, people thinking up spells don't really think about skills in general. Spells that enhance a skill's use are totally cool. Spells whose full function is an autosuccess on a skill check, less so.

[Damon_Tor]

If I were to design a "warlord" for 5e I would give him an unlimited-use "Inspiring Word" bonus-action ability which would allow one ally to spend a hit dice to recover HP as a reaction as long as they can hear the warlord.

The ability would be limited by his allies' hit dice, putting a daily limit on the healing. It would also require the allies to be able to hear the warlord and to take reactions, which would prevent it from working on unconscious allies or on allies with certain status conditions.

[DwarfFighter]

I still think a healing cantrip that merely lets you expend and roll a hit die to regain hit points would be fine.

Catnap compresses a Short Rest into 10 minutes for up to three willing creatures, usable once between long rests and is a 3rd level spell.

I remain skeptical of this homebrew.

-DF

[Amnestic]

Catnap compresses a Short Rest into 10 minutes for up to three willing creatures, usable once between long rests and is a 3rd level spell.

I remain skeptical of this homebrew.

-DF

A short rest is more than just expending hit dice for healing.

[Vogie]

You could just as easily

use the Healing Surge variant from the DMG
give everyone the Dwarven Fortitude feat (Spend hit die to heal when you make the dodge action)
What I did for one of my games is introduced the "Potion of Healing Surge", which would have different effects based on who used it. Sure, they all went to the Barbarian, at first, but over a course of the campaign, nearly everyone either used one or administered it to another.