How powerful does healing need to be in order to justify the use of an action?

[LordShade]

Most healing spells in 5e are generally considered inferior to doing damage or preventing damage in the first place. The exception is often pop-up healing at 0 HP, which gains an action for the party, leading to the adage that "healing is worth it when it buys additional actions for the party."

Does anyone have a sense of what this threshold is, quantitatively? What healing effects (other than Healing Word and its equivalents) do you consider efficient or worthwhile? I don't think healing needs to be 1:1 to damage in order to be worthwhile, as 1 point of healing is worth more to a PC than 1 point of damage is against a monster's HP pool. Intuitively, the reason for this is that PC hit points are lower while mitigation is higher (AC, reactions), while monsters tend to have poor mitigation and huge HP pools.

I got to thinking about this for two reasons: first, I want to design a new sidekick class that is focused on healing, as a pure healbot, but I'm not exactly sure what that healing power ought to be calibrated against.

Second, browsing through MPMM, it looks to me like some of the redesigned spellcaster statblocks just have massive damage potential. There are a handful of ~CR10 creatures that can deal anywhere from 70-100 points of damage a round, which seems crazy high to me compared to earlier MM statblocks. The CR9 Shadar-kai Gloomweaver can make 3 attacks per round at +8, doing 33 damage each. The level range at which you would fight this guy varies greatly, but let's say it's 7-15... level 11-12 average? Average PC hit points would be d8+2, or roughly 86 hp? I don't know what the average AC is at level 12, but I'm guessing 19+ for all frontliners and AC 16 or so for squishies. That means that I'd expect the Shadar-kai to do about 50 points of damage in a round, dropping an unsupported PC in two rounds. Pure numbers-wise, does this sound realistic to you? How strong does a healing ability need to be to make a difference against this guy? Heal makes sense in this case, as the 70 HP would make a difference. 6d6 from a Dreams or Celestial warlock probably wouldn't.

[tenshiakodo]

Short Answer: it depends.

Long Answer: if X = one turn of attacks from monsters and your healing spell produces a result of X or less, probably better to use a spell that can disable the enemy or prevent someone from taking more hits.

A lot of this comes down to how many turns is it going to take to end the combat so everyone is out of danger, as well as initiative order.

For example, The Artful Dodger, Rogue Extraordinaire, finally annoys Warduke the Chaotic and gets put down with a multiattack.

If you healing word Dodger, he can provide more damage to hopefully send Warduke back to the 80's where he belongs. However, one more attack will surely send him right back to making death saves.

If Dodger can stand up and deal damage before anyone else can get to him (such as Warduke's Hobgoblin minions), this might be a good use of your bonus action.

If he cannot, it isn't.

Then you have to look at what your Cure Wounds X can do. If Cure Wounds X can pop Dodger up and keep him alive long enough to take on the Chaotic Superhero for another round of combat, it's the same sort of risk assessment.

But in a vacuum, if the healing spell can't do more than erase a turn's worth of damage (let alone a round's) I would suggest in finding other spells to use.

There are a few other considerations, however, such as whether or not your allies are doing anything to prevent them from taking more damage without your help. A 16 AC melee Rogue who constantly bellies up to the biggest baddest enemy might be a less useful use of resources than a sword and board Fighter who can still Second Wind (or is a member of a race that has a defensive power like, say, a Dwarf).

Also, you should always prioritize other characters with healing power in case YOU go down!

[animorte]

Healing spells that require a Bonus Action are typically a much better idea. Healing Word and Aura of Vitality are two good examples.

Basically what was just said... To directly answer your concern about the healing using an Action instead: If you have an ally that is unconscious, but their turn is shortly after yours (or at least before any opponents) that would be a good time. It brings them back into the action so they can use something from their capabilities get to safety or to lock down the enemy, especially if their class just has more reliable control than you do.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Using an action to heal also becomes less painful if you have a good bonus action that can be activated without using the attack action and isn't a second spell.

As an example the only thing I've somewhat routinely done to heal in combat was Lay on Hands with my Paladin. You could blow the lot for a lot of hp and cast a bonus action spell. My Clerics I almost never used my action; it just seemed better to keep trying to get rid of what was causing the problem with my action.

[solidork]

Pretty much all of the options I think are worth it do a lot of flat healing with little variance and/or use a resource other than what you use for fighting - the Healer feat, Lay on Hands, Life Cleric CD, Heal (the spell).

[PhantomSoul]

Pretty much all of the options I think are worth it do a lot of flat healing with little variance and/or use a resource other than what you use for fighting - the Healer feat, Lay on Hands, Life Cleric CD, Heal (the spell).

And prioritising someone for whom going down is gunna have a bigger effect (loss of Rage for a Barbarian, loss of Concentration on an important Spell) or ideally for whom the healing is going to make a bigger difference than the raw HP suggests (e.g. Rage or other Resistances, high AC for statistical HP multiplication).

[Pex]

Healing isn't about getting a PC to full. It's about keeping that PC active so he can do something. Healing means one more round that PC gets to do something to end the combat. Healing someone from 10 hit points to 25 only for the someone to go back to 11 hit points on the enemy's turn wasn't a waste. That healing meant the PC didn't drop so he gets to do something. There's also a gamble. Maybe when the bad guy goes he misses his attacks on the PC you healed. That healing became an insurance against the PC dropping later in the combat. If the combat ends without the PC taking more damage it was an out of combat healing resource used in combat.

Healing is a teamwork action. If you can do something important/effective instead of healing that's fine. That's not always the case. No one should be relegated to only healing, but when one does do healing it's effective. The thread question though is how much. The answer is it depends on the level of the party. 1st level Cure Wounds at level 3 is fine. When the party is 12th level make that a 3rd level Cure Wounds at least.

[ProsecutorGodot]

We actually had an instance in our game this past saturday where the answer was "enough to be conscious". The Bard got the business end of a pretty hefty shark bite attack, taking 28 damage on their 24 hit point character. The Cleric used an action to heal them, their turn came next and with the groups combined effort the shark died before it had a chance to down anyone else.

So the actual answer is really "it depends" and the reason it depends is because healing is really just insurance against losing a turn. If the heal doesn't result in a net loss of the groups action economy, it was worth it.

[Kane0]

Enough to
A) preserve the action economy of the subject(s)
B) counteract the action economy and resource expenditure of the hostile(s)

[Leon]

As much or as little as you think you'll need at the time for whatever it is your doing

[sambojin]

This is what makes Conjure Woodland Beings such a good "healing spell". Because even bad healing is nice when you have more actions to do it with. It doesn't really matter if it's Pixies or Dryads or Alseids doing it, they're not using your action to do so.

This goes for Summon Fey as well (you're casting "dispense healing potions" just as much as "Summon shortsword dude").

If your DM lets you feed Goodberries to downed PCs, this is also handy, because it allows you to split your action economy across the entire party, and your intelligent summon's actions. And even leftover spell slots from the day before as well.

Other than that, as mentioned, anything that is bonus action repeatable, or just bonus action usable. Ie: Healing Word, Healing Spirit (even nerfed), or Aura of Vitality. Big heals, such as Heal, also fit here.


If I were to make a heal-bot follower, it'd essentially be a Life Cleric 1/Druid X thing. Maybe without wildshape, or druid subclass gimmicks. Chunk down the spell list to lockdown, advantage givers, non-beast summons, all the healing spells from such a MC, put it on half-caster progression, and call it a day. It'd do what it's meant to do, which is heal really well. I'll write something up later on :)

So yeah, calibrate it against a Life1/Druid X build, the best healer in the game. And then half-caster progression it and cull the spell list. Still a prepared caster though, so it can fulfill a slightly different lockdown or buffer or back-up summoner role if you want it to, on any given day.

[animorte]

Another point that was mentioned on another thread about a full team of healers. Often preventing the damage in the first place can be a more powerful supportive option. If that's the kinds of character you want to play, that's awesome! Remember, there's a lot more to health than just healing. I think temporary HP and battlefield control are the two best examples.

[LordShade]

If I were to make a heal-bot follower, it'd essentially be a Life Cleric 1/Druid X thing. Maybe without wildshape, or druid subclass gimmicks. Chunk down the spell list to lockdown, advantage givers, non-beast summons, all the healing spells from such a MC, put it on half-caster progression, and call it a day. It'd do what it's meant to do, which is heal really well. I'll write something up later on :)

Thanks, this is helpful. I was thinking along the same lines. Mainly I was wondering, how strong do its healing abilities need to be? If its base resource is Aura of Vitality at 2d6+4 with a bonus action, and it has some kind of burst 1d6/level type of main heal, that might be good enough. I could give it a couple of other buffs and a mild CC as you suggest and call it a day.

[sambojin]

I edited my post above. Prepared half caster, with a culled but full spell list is the answer. I'll write something up tomorrow'ish. Seems pretty easy.

Cantrips:
Guidance
Produce Flame
Sacred Flame
Thaumaturgy
(It knows all four)

Level1:
Bless
Ceremony
Cure Wounds
Detect Magic
Entangle
Faerie Fire
Good Berry
Guiding Bolt
Healing Word
Heroism
Sleep
(A good mix, and even an attack spell with a rider)

Lvl2:
Aid
Beast Sense
Enhance Ability
Healing Spirit
Hold Person
Lesser Restoration
Locate Animals or Plants
Locate Object
Pass without Trace
Shatter
Spider Climb
Web
(Heals a bit more, but plenty of utility and lockdown and a damage spell)




...... (To be finished soon. But yeah, a full list prepared half caster seems to be the funnest and least janky way of doing it)

[clash]

Take the existing heading options and add 1d8 per spell level. What you get is a fairly effective use of your action.

[Frogreaver]

If the concern is action resource and not spell slot resource, then I'd suggest an action heal spell in your highest level slots is generally well worth the action cost. Though it may not be worth the spell slot.

1d8 + mod = 9.5
2d8 + mod = 14
3d8 + mod = 18.5
4d8 + mod = 23
5d8 + mod = 27.5

Generally speaking a cure wounds can heal a martial about 1/3 of his max hp or a wizard about 1/2 of his.

Healing in combat is best viewed as risk mitigation, though there are some additional benefits. If you healed someone in combat and they didn't need it due to being missed, then it still carries over to the next encounter. It wasn't wasted.

It's my experience that a Cleric that opens combat with bless and conserves their higher level slots primarily for in combat healing via cure wounds and mass cure wounds is a strong character.

[LudicSavant]

Things like Life Clerics already are good enough at spending in-combat Actions on it. And things like Light or Tempest Clerics are not supposed to be healbots, by design -- their heals are situationally useful, and that's all they need to be.


I don't think healing needs to be 1:1

You would be right about this. For example, check out Darkest Dungeon, where you very much do not outheal monster damage (well, usually), and non-combat healing isn't allowed, yet it's still quite valuable even at high levels of optimization, even high-end PvP play (speaking as someone who used to host tournaments for Darkest Dungeon :smalltongue:).

So, here are just a few of the many reasons healing does not have to (and for that matter, should not) outheal damage to be worth it:

1) Enemies don't hit 100% of the time. Healing does.
2) Enemy damage faces substantial mitigation. Healing doesn't.
3) There is more than one person in the party. You should not expect a fraction of the action economy of 1/4th of the party to undo 100% of Team Monster's output (or if they do, you should at least expect it to take some serious resources, like Mass Heal), especially not when they're only using *part of* their action economy (for example, that Life Cleric can still be using their bonus action to cast a spell and be Concentrating on Summon Celestial on the same turn they use their Channel Divinity. That Wizard administering someone a Life Transference can *also* have their familiar administer a potion. And so forth).
5) (as a simplified example just to illustrate a principle) If an enemy does 60 damage with an action, and an ally has 110 points of hp, then you only need to do over 10 points of damage to make the enemy take 150% as many actions to take out the teammate.
6) Death gates exist, and this makes AoE heals (including those that take an Action) and tiny, action-efficient heals more valuable than they would otherwise be. However, this doesn't mean that you can just safely wait for a character to go down without consequence -- if you're playing at tactical tables, enemies are very good at finishing people off, or bypassing death gates in the first place, or rendering people un-revivify-able. It is NOT a safe choice in many enemy matchups. Even something as simple as multiattack can blow through a Healing Word and finish someone off.
7) Yo-yoing comes with action economy consequences. The PC in question may lose their turn depending on the way the initiative order lines up. They have to get up from Prone. They lose whatever they were Concentrating on, as well as effects like bladesinging or rage or other such things that turn off when you're incapacitated. Smart/ruthless enemies will leverage a tempo advantage. And that's assuming they even afford you the opportunity to yo-yo at all instead of efficiently executing the party member

So if all of this is true, where does the "healing in combat is bad" stereotype come from?

Well, like many stereotypes, it comes from taking something true, and then wildly overgeneralizing until it is very untrue. For example, "Most of the time, Clerics should not cast Cure Wounds in combat" is a true statement. "Combat healing is bad" is an untrue one, because stuff like Heal, Mass Heal, Life Transference, Lay on Hands, all of the Life Cleric features, Peace Cleric Channel Divinity, and so forth all are already worth taking and using in the correct situation.

[Psyren]

Does anyone have a sense of what this threshold is, quantitatively?

In a vacuum? No, it depends too much on your DM's encounter design. There are also qualitative factors, such as how your DM makes enemies behave in combat (such as targeting downed allies with attacks vs. moving on to other targets as soon as someone is KO'ed.)

The best we can really do is a rule of thumb, like this one:


Enough to
A) preserve the action economy of the subject(s)
B) counteract the action economy and resource expenditure of the hostile(s)

[Unoriginal]

Healing isn't about getting a PC to full. It's about keeping that PC active so he can do something.

This.

Healing a PC from 140 HPs to 150 HPs isn't likely to make much of a difference. Healing one from 0 HP to 10 HP is much more significant (to go into extreme examples).

[Pildion]

Most healing spells in 5e are generally considered inferior to doing damage or preventing damage in the first place. The exception is often pop-up healing at 0 HP, which gains an action for the party, leading to the adage that "healing is worth it when it buys additional actions for the party."

Does anyone have a sense of what this threshold is, quantitatively? What healing effects (other than Healing Word and its equivalents) do you consider efficient or worthwhile? I don't think healing needs to be 1:1 to damage in order to be worthwhile, as 1 point of healing is worth more to a PC than 1 point of damage is against a monster's HP pool. Intuitively, the reason for this is that PC hit points are lower while mitigation is higher (AC, reactions), while monsters tend to have poor mitigation and huge HP pools.

I got to thinking about this for two reasons: first, I want to design a new sidekick class that is focused on healing, as a pure healbot, but I'm not exactly sure what that healing power ought to be calibrated against.

Second, browsing through MPMM, it looks to me like some of the redesigned spellcaster statblocks just have massive damage potential. There are a handful of ~CR10 creatures that can deal anywhere from 70-100 points of damage a round, which seems crazy high to me compared to earlier MM statblocks. The CR9 Shadar-kai Gloomweaver can make 3 attacks per round at +8, doing 33 damage each. The level range at which you would fight this guy varies greatly, but let's say it's 7-15... level 11-12 average? Average PC hit points would be d8+2, or roughly 86 hp? I don't know what the average AC is at level 12, but I'm guessing 19+ for all frontliners and AC 16 or so for squishies. That means that I'd expect the Shadar-kai to do about 50 points of damage in a round, dropping an unsupported PC in two rounds. Pure numbers-wise, does this sound realistic to you? How strong does a healing ability need to be to make a difference against this guy? Heal makes sense in this case, as the 70 HP would make a difference. 6d6 from a Dreams or Celestial warlock probably wouldn't.

In Combat, I really only use healing spells on down PCs. I use Healing Word if possible or Cure Wounds if its all I have. the spell Heal is powerful enough to use in combat but otherwise, I do all my healing after the fighting. The healing spells are just not efficient enough to justify using them in combat. Obvious exception being the Life Cleric, with Supreme Healing.

[Frogreaver]

I think we can all agree that top off healing isn’t Normally useful in combat. That’s healing where someone is slightly injured and you top them off.

I think we can also agree that if downed characters aren’t targeted then you just need to heal enough to bring them back to consciousness. 1 hp healing here for the least action cost is all you ever need.

Which brings us to the scenario where downed PCs will be targeted. In that case you’ll probably want to keep them from being downed in the first places, though there are a few exceptions like team enemy not having enough attacks to down and kill them before they can get healed. In this scenario healing is great but only if it comes in large enough chunks to matter. How big does a large enough chunk need to be? Enough to likely keep the character from being downed and attacked while downed this round and hopefully enough to keep the character from being downed at all. Anything more than that is just gravy.




Second, browsing through MPMM, it looks to me like some of the redesigned spellcaster statblocks just have massive damage potential. There are a handful of ~CR10 creatures that can deal anywhere from 70-100 points of damage a round, which seems crazy high to me compared to earlier MM statblocks. The CR9 Shadar-kai Gloomweaver can make 3 attacks per round at +8, doing 33 damage each. The level range at which you would fight this guy varies greatly, but let's say it's 7-15... level 11-12 average? Average PC hit points would be d8+2, or roughly 86 hp? I don't know what the average AC is at level 12, but I'm guessing 19+ for all frontliners and AC 16 or so for squishies. That means that I'd expect the Shadar-kai to do about 50 points of damage in a round, dropping an unsupported PC in two rounds. Pure numbers-wise, does this sound realistic to you? How strong does a healing ability need to be to make a difference against this guy? Heal makes sense in this case, as the 70 HP would make a difference. 6d6 from a Dreams or Celestial warlock probably wouldn't.

Riffing off my last post,

If you can heal enough such that it takes 2 of its 3 attacks to down a pc then that pc can’t be killed this turn by that creature.

If the ally is at 0 You’d probably want to heal for 40+ hp to accomplish that. The heal spell, life cleric channel divinity or Paladin lay on hands is really the only way to accomplish that.

However if the pc has 20 hp left after that things turn you can heal for 20ish and be good. A third or 4th level cure wounds is probably good enough here.

[heavyfuel]

You ask about justifying an action, but you have to justify so much more than that. A Cure Wounds spell requires: Your Action + a Spell Slot + a Prepared/Known Spell + Movement (because of touch range) + your own HP (in case you provoke an OA).

And if all of that can be undone by a single monster attack, it's not going to be worth it. If you heal someone for 1d8+3, and a Bugbear hits them for 2d8+2, it's not justified to preemptively heal them (as opposed to healing them only once they have dropped to 0 HP).

To justify preemptively healing, I think you'd need to heal - at least - slightly more HP than an enemy attack action deals, preferably using d4s instead of d8s for a better distribution.

If a Bugbear (CR 1) hits for an average of 11 damage, healing 4d4+3 is pretty likely (~74% chance) to heal at least 12. If a Bulette (CR 5) hits for an average of 30, you should heal for 12d4+4 (~81% chance of healing at least 31)

So the formula is pretty simple. Cure Wounds should heal for 4d4*spell level + Spellcasting Mod


Also, since yoyo healing is a thing, healing even 1 HP is amazing when the alternative is having a PC out of the fight. That means that even something like Cure Wounds - an absolutely garbage of a spell in any other circumstance - is useful for bring back a PC from 0 HP.

[Unoriginal]

However, it must be noted that being sent to 0 hp inflicts the prone condition as well in most cases, and so depending on turn orders and positioning, avoiding getting prone in the first place is better than getting healed from 0.


This factor is significant against relatively low-accuracy enemies in number, who would benefit a lot from their advantage to hit.

Ex: Two orcs are more of a threat against a prone AC 20 HP 20 PC than against a non-prone AC 20 HP 13 PC (if you forgive my no-book-available napkin math).

[loki_ragnarock]

This.

Healing a PC from 140 HPs to 150 HPs isn't likely to make much of a difference. Healing one from 0 HP to 10 HP is much more significant (to go into extreme examples).

... I mean, it depends. (The consistent chorus of the whole thread, I suppose; triage is a thing.) The first part I generally agree with, the second part I kind of also agree with. If 10 hp is all you're able to heal, this is undeniably true, but 10 hp still might not be enough to be meaningful. There's nothing in specific in the quoted content I particularly disagree with, and I'm not trying to call out anything in it, but I think this sort of serves as a segue to the jarring nature of pop-up healing efficiency for me.

If your character goals are to preserve action economy to try and burn down the enemy as quickly as possible? Sure. Get that one up to get that one down.
If your character goals are to preserve the lives of your fellow party members? That shadar-kai in the example could drop and kill the refreshed character next round, doing 33 points on the first hit and having two follow up melee attacks to auto crit and blow through death saves; it might miss, but do you bank the life of your friend on that? Death could negatively impact action economy efficiency over time, beyond the confines of that particular encounter to the next several set of encounters, but more than that... you're gambling on your friend's life over an argument of peak efficiency. That's sort of where the... I don't know, the humanity of it as a strategy rings false.
From a character perspective of trying to ensure your boy lives to see another day, I feel like in that specific scenario you'd want to throw 34 points of healing his way, just to further insulate against the potential of having to knock on his wife's door later. The enemy could still crit and send you there anyway, but at that point you just gotta accept that it was his time and you did everything you could.

It's not peak efficiency, sure, but it seems more true to many in-character motivations. I'm sure there's plenty of pure tacticians out there in Faerun who would answer otherwise, but I'm sure there's plenty others who just want the people they care about to live another day.
So I suppose my answer to the OP would be "the exact amount required to prevent death in a given context." It fits the character motivation for healing more on the nose than the mechanical motivation for healing.

[Frogreaver]

You ask about justifying an action, but you have to justify so much more than that. A Cure Wounds spell requires: Your Action + a Spell Slot + a Prepared/Known Spell + Movement (because of touch range) + your own HP (in case you provoke an OA).

And if all of that can be undone by a single monster attack, it's not going to be worth it. If you heal someone for 1d8+3, and a Bugbear hits them for 2d8+2, it's not justified to preemptively heal them (as opposed to healing them only once they have dropped to 0 HP).

To justify preemptively healing, I think you'd need to heal - at least - slightly more HP than an enemy attack action deals, preferably using d4s instead of d8s for a better distribution.

If a Bugbear (CR 1) hits for an average of 11 damage, healing 4d4+3 is pretty likely (~74% chance) to heal at least 12. If a Bulette (CR 5) hits for an average of 30, you should heal for 12d4+4 (~81% chance of healing at least 31)

So the formula is pretty simple. Cure Wounds should heal for 4d4*spell level + Spellcasting Mod


Also, since yoyo healing is a thing, healing even 1 HP is amazing when the alternative is having a PC out of the fight. That means that even something like Cure Wounds - an absolutely garbage of a spell in any other circumstance - is useful for bring back a PC from 0 HP.

Let’s say you have 10 hp with max of 21. If the bugbear hits you there’s a good chance you drop. Healing in this scenario for 1d8+3 greatly decreases the liklihood the pc drops.

But it’s still not worth it… why? Because the bugbear has no chance to kill the pc as long as they have a single hp healed per turn.

For more in combat healing to be worth it there must be some threat now or in the future that the downed pc will take enough attacks to kill him before he can be healed.

[heavyfuel]

Let’s say you have 10 hp with max of 21. If the bugbear hits you there’s a good chance you drop. Healing in this scenario for 1d8+3 greatly decreases the liklihood the pc drops.


One can always find a scenario where healing for ridiculously small amounts of HP is worth it.

You just increase the numbers and you'll how silly this is. "Let's say you have 80 hp with a max of 91. If the *insert creature* hits you, you'll drop. Healing for 1d8+3 greatly decreases the likelihood the PC drops". And yet, I don't think many Tier 3 Clerics are spending their in-combat action casting level 1 Cure Wounds.

This doesn't mean that spending an action + movement + spell known/prepared + possibly provoking an OA for 1d8+3 healing is worth it.

Not to mention, if you have 21 HP to begin with, a Bugbear is probably not the highest threat, and healing 1d8+3 is not spending your highest level slot.

[Sorinth]

It's probably best viewed in an action economy sense, if spending an action healing erases the enemies damage for that round then you've effectively spent your action to negate the enemy's action. This is something many spells do so at 1:1 it compares very favourably with those spells because the enemy doesn't have a save.

But there's no easy answer to your question because healing cost spells slots, and so there's the opportunity cost to consider.

[Frogreaver]

One can always find a scenario where healing for ridiculously small amounts of HP is worth it.

You just increase the numbers and you'll how silly this is. "Let's say you have 80 hp with a max of 91. If the *insert creature* hits you, you'll drop. Healing for 1d8+3 greatly decreases the likelihood the PC drops". And yet, I don't think many Tier 3 Clerics are spending their in-combat action casting level 1 Cure Wounds.

This doesn't mean that spending an action + movement + spell known/prepared + possibly provoking an OA for 1d8+3 healing is worth it.

Not to mention, if you have 21 HP to begin with, a Bugbear is probably not the highest threat, and healing 1d8+3 is not spending your highest level slot.

The point was that a first level cure wounds does heal enough hp to be worth it in the right circumstance. Specifically a circumstance meeting all the criteria you supplied. I guess I should say thanks for providing some additional scenarios.

I’ve already spoken about top off healing not generally being worth it and how you probably want your heal action to heal at least 1/3 of a characters hp.

I’m not sure we disagree to such a large extent as your responding to my post makes it appear we do.

[LordShade]

To justify preemptively healing, I think you'd need to heal - at least - slightly more HP than an enemy attack action deals, preferably using d4s instead of d8s for a better distribution.

If a Bugbear (CR 1) hits for an average of 11 damage, healing 4d4+3 is pretty likely (~74% chance) to heal at least 12. If a Bulette (CR 5) hits for an average of 30, you should heal for 12d4+4 (~81% chance of healing at least 31)

So the formula is pretty simple. Cure Wounds should heal for 4d4*spell level + Spellcasting Mod



This is helpful. So basically you are saying that a spell needs to heal 10 points per spell level, +mod. So at level one, you need to be able to heal 13 points with a 1st-level slot, whereas at 9th level character you need to push through 55 points per 5th-level slot. This lines up nicely with Heal, which does 70 vs. 65 for a 6th-level slot by your math.

I'm going to think out loud here. Please point out flaws in my reasoning:

A 3rd-level slot would need to produce 35 HP of healing using a 3rd-level spell slot and an action using heavyfuel's metric, which lines up reasonably well with Aura of Vitality putting out 70 points over 10 rounds using Bonus Actions and concentration. If you start preemptively healing as the battle starts, you might get to 30-40 points of healing done by the the time a PC is close to going down. This is also better value with Disciple of Life, as you go up to 120 total HP healed, 12/round.

Dreams/Celestial healing looks good at low levels and for popup healing, but doesn't have the throughput to make a difference on preemptive healing from Tier 2 onwards. You could use it like Aura of Vitality, but you'd run out of the resource pretty fast throwing out 4d6/round from the start of the fight.

Mass Healing Word looks okay as an AOE cleanup if you have an additional buff on the healing roll, such as Life Cleric or Alchemist.

Even the nerfed Healing Spirit looks okay, producing up to 6d6 with a single bonus action plus Life buffs.

I think Life Transference is a decent burst heal as part of the party's overall sustain toolkit. It produces 36 healing on the target, a decent amount for a 3rd-level spell, and the necromancer may be able to life drain back some of the damage with Grim Harvest. The net healing amount is what you'd get with an upcasted Cure Wounds (~18).

Most of these just look okay to me. The only one that seems really good is Aura of Vitality from a Life Cleric or Life/Druid X, and even that competes with Conjure Animals/Spirit Guardians both from a concentration and slot-level standpoint.

BTW, where would people rank the Fast Hands thief spamming healer kits as a bonus action? 12.5 per round at level 5, but you have to spread out the healing over multiple targets. (This would be really nice if you could get a Healer feat-equivalent ability on something like a Homunculus, for action-free healing. I'm talking about the level 6 spell Homunculus, not the Artificer one that requires a bonus action to activate, although even that one would be really nice with a Healer feat equivalent. Keoghtom's Ointment, maybe? A high-level Artificer should be able to manufacture them for super cheap.)

Separate question on a sidekick:

The Spellcaster sidekick has this:

Empowered Spells
14th-level Spellcaster feature
Choose one school of magic. Whenever the sidekick casts a spell of that school by expending a spell slot, the sidekick can add its spellcasting ability modifier to the spell's damage roll or healing roll, if any.

This only works on the first roll the round the spell is cast, and not on each tick of a Healing Spirit/Aura of Vitality, correct?

[animorte]

Separate question on a sidekick:

The Spellcaster sidekick has this:

Empowered Spells
14th-level Spellcaster feature
Choose one school of magic. Whenever the sidekick casts a spell of that school by expending a spell slot, the sidekick can add its spellcasting ability modifier to the spell's damage roll or healing roll, if any.

This only works on the first roll the round the spell is cast, and not on each tick of a Healing Spirit/Aura of Vitality, correct?

Sidekicks are awesome.

[Pex]

Let’s say you have 10 hp with max of 21. If the bugbear hits you there’s a good chance you drop. Healing in this scenario for 1d8+3 greatly decreases the liklihood the pc drops.

But it’s still not worth it… why? Because the bugbear has no chance to kill the pc as long as they have a single hp healed per turn.

For more in combat healing to be worth it there must be some threat now or in the future that the downed pc will take enough attacks to kill him before he can be healed.

Timing matters. The PC's life, important as it is, isn't the only concern. If the dropped PC isn't healed before his turn his actions are lost that round as he makes a death save. The importance of healing is to prevent a PC from dropping at all to do something. If the healer's action is lost to healing anyway to get someone conscious, it is better to have done that healing earlier to prevent the dropping so at least that PC can still do something.

Healing word is wonderful. For a spellcaster that means his only other spell is a Cantrip. Sometimes a (damage) Cantrip is a meaningful contribution to the fight even if it that casting doesn't drop anyone. Other times the Cantrip will have little effect so the caster might as well use his action for a more potent healing spell.

[Unoriginal]

This only works on the first roll the round the spell is cast, and not on each tick of a Healing Spirit/Aura of Vitality, correct?

Well I would say that it's for any roll happening when the spell is cast.

So if you have a spell that heals on a separate turn from the one it is cast, it doesn't apply, even if it's the same round.

On the other hand, if there are several separate rolls when the spell is cast, then it applies to all of said rolls.

[heavyfuel]

The point was that a first level cure wounds does heal enough hp to be worth it in the right circumstance. Specifically a circumstance meeting all the criteria you supplied. I guess I should say thanks for providing some additional scenarios.

I’ve already spoken about top off healing not generally being worth it and how you probably want your heal action to heal at least 1/3 of a characters hp.

I’m not sure we disagree to such a large extent as your responding to my post makes it appear we do.

Sure, but if the right circumstance only occurs 10% of the time, are you really going to spend 1/6 of your preparation slots on this spell?

Also, how often do you find a situation where healing 1d8+3 is good, but healing 1d4+3 isn't?

As for the last paragraph, fair enough. I was just heated up :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

I would definitely prep cure wounds, even on a more limited caster like an artificer or paladin. Even if I don't cast it in combat, it's almost always a useful way to dump unused slots before bed, and will become even more useful if the game starts weaponizing Hit Dice as a resource more as they suggested in the most recent Sage Advice.

[heavyfuel]

I would definitely prep cure wounds, even on a more limited caster like an artificer or paladin. Even if I don't cast it in combat, it's almost always a useful way to dump unused slots before bed, and will become even more useful if the game starts weaponizing Hit Dice as a resource more as they suggested in the most recent Sage Advice.

Why are you dumping slots on healing before bed? You're either going to wake up fully healed or there'll be an encounter during the Long Rest where you'll need that slot. :smallconfused:

If they do weaponize HD, I could see this happening on short rests, but using them before long rests will continue to be no different than using them during the middle of day.

[stoutstien]

Can't really answer this question without knowing the individuals preference for resource management. Someone more focused on maximizing the impact of their resources versus someone looking to minimize waste versus someone trying to maximize action/time spent will all have a different point when the heal is worth it.

[Sorinth]

Why are you dumping slots on healing before bed? You're either going to wake up fully healed or there'll be an encounter during the Long Rest where you'll need that slot. :smallconfused:

If they do weaponize HD, I could see this happening on short rests, but using them before long rests will continue to be no different than using them during the middle of day.

Because it's better for the mid long rest encounter to be at full health and no slots then low health and lots of slots.

[Psyren]

Why are you dumping slots on healing before bed? You're either going to wake up fully healed or there'll be an encounter during the Long Rest where you'll need that slot. :smallconfused:

If they do weaponize HD, I could see this happening on short rests, but using them before long rests will continue to be no different than using them during the middle of day.

You're right, I meant before a short rest (one of my current campaigns is in Drakkenheim which changes that rule using magic mist so I got my wires crossed for a second :smalltongue:)

It's worth noting though that long rests may not full heal you either if you're in a grittier campaign.


Because it's better for the mid long rest encounter to be at full health and no slots then low health and lots of slots.

This too, or at least mostly patched up. We've been attacked during sleep before.

[heavyfuel]

Because it's better for the mid long rest encounter to be at full health and no slots then low health and lots of slots.

If you're reaching the end of the adventure day with lots of slots, then you're playing too conservatively with your slots (and that's probably the reason why your party is at low health).


You're right, I meant before a short rest

That makes sense, then

[Sorinth]

If you're reaching the end of the adventure day with lots of slots, then you're playing too conservatively with your slots (and that's probably the reason why your party is at low health).

Sure but it could also mean you were hit by a number of disabling spells/effects and ended up losing lots of turns/actions.

And it doesn't change the fact that what's done is done and you are better off healing before the LR. I don't think the other poster was saying that you should conserve your slots in order to heal before a long rest, they were saying prepare 1 good healing spell so that in the event you have spells left over you have something useful to do with them. It's also a good idea to have CW so that if you can't rest you can still dump a bunch of healing and can continue to move on.

[Sorinth]

To justify preemptively healing, I think you'd need to heal - at least - slightly more HP than an enemy attack action deals, preferably using d4s instead of d8s for a better distribution.

If a Bugbear (CR 1) hits for an average of 11 damage, healing 4d4+3 is pretty likely (~74% chance) to heal at least 12. If a Bulette (CR 5) hits for an average of 30, you should heal for 12d4+4 (~81% chance of healing at least 31)

So the formula is pretty simple. Cure Wounds should heal for 4d4*spell level + Spellcasting Mod


You will also need to factor in the opportunity cost of the higher spell level.

If the balance point of a healing spell is negating one round of DPR then you have to factor what other spells are doing. For example a 1st level slot that heals your Bugbear damage is better then the 1st Command spell (Because of the saving throw) but at higher level healing is losing out, it's better to use Command because using a 3rd level slot targets 3 creatures so the damage you are mitigating is much higher.

So if you wanted a formula you'd probably have to start lower and grow faster.

[heavyfuel]

You will also need to factor in the opportunity cost of the higher spell level.

If the balance point of a healing spell is negating one round of DPR then you have to factor what other spells are doing. For example a 1st level slot that heals your Bugbear damage is better then the 1st Command spell (Because of the saving throw) but at higher level healing is losing out, it's better to use Command because using a 3rd level slot targets 3 creatures so the damage you are mitigating is much higher.

So if you wanted a formula you'd probably have to start lower and grow faster.

"Command" is a less-than-ideal comparison, since it upcasts so well. It's the best upcast ratio of any spell, gaining +100% effectiveness when cast from +1 lv (same as Armor of Agathys). I don't believe every spell should be as good to upcast as Command, but that's just my opinion.

Still, CW would be much like Haste, in that it's a spell that has very few restrictions on usability. Command can't be cast against Undead or creatures who don't understand you. CW can pretty much always be cast. Even if Command is amazing CC spell when upcast, CW would still have its niche

[Sorinth]

"Command" is a less-than-ideal comparison, since it upcasts so well. It's the best upcast ratio of any spell, gaining +100% effectiveness when cast from +1 lv (same as Armor of Agathys). I don't believe every spell should be as good to upcast as Command, but that's just my opinion.

Still, CW would be much like Haste, in that it's a spell that has very few restrictions on usability. Command can't be cast against Undead or creatures who don't understand you. CW can pretty much always be cast. Even if Command is amazing CC spell when upcast, CW would still have its niche

That's a fair point, but I think the overall point still stands, a 1:1 ratio might make sense for a 1st level slot but at higher levels your healing (Either through upcast or other healing spells) need to do more then just maintain that 1:1 ratio, because the opportunity cost of the higher spell level makes healing less attractive. Whether it needs to be 100% more effective per spell level like Command, or some other number is of course debateable, but the ratio should change.

[sithlordnergal]

In order for healing to be worth an action it needs to fulfill one of three conditions:

A) It will change the action economy. Usually this is done by bringing allies back up from 0 HP so they can rejoin the fight.


B) It will draw some attacks away from the party. This is generally reserved for DMs that target downed allies that receive healing in order to keep them down. It can make for a good distraction since the DM will waste at least one attack knocking out a player that wasn't really doing much at the time, thereby lowering the amount of damage the rest of the party takes


C) You heal more than what the reasonable damage of an enemy will be. Honestly, the only spells that falls into this category are Heal and Mass Heal. Life Clerics can push spells like Cure Wounds into this territory, but its basically pre-emptive healing banking on the idea that whatever you're fighting won't deal more damage than what your healing spell did.

[Yakk]

I got to thinking about this for two reasons: first, I want to design a new sidekick class that is focused on healing, as a pure healbot, but I'm not exactly sure what that healing power ought to be calibrated against.
A character which is "balanced" around doing nothing but healing leads to longer combats. It results in a combat that is more boring.

To model this, take two parties. One with 3 PCs and 1 Healbot, and one with 3 PCs and 1 Damagebot.

Whichever party can do the most damage before they die has the "better bot". Control, defence, etc -- everything exists for this purpose.

Second, we'll set the Damagebots damage to match that of an average PC, to keep things simple.

If it takes X rounds to drop a PC, the damage from a 3 PC+1DB is 4X+3X+2X+1X before they all drop, or 10X.

If the Healbot is nothing, that party does 3X+2X+1X, or 6X damage. If the healbot makes PCs last an extra H rounds, it becomes 3(X+H)+2(X+H)+1(X+H), or 6(X+H) damage.

Setting these equal we get 10X = 6(X+H), or 4X=6H, or H=2/3X; it has to boost the number of rounds a PC is "up" by 67%.

Now, what does this do to the game? If the 4 PC party took 4 rounds to kill the foe, the 3 PC+Healbot party will take 5 rounds.

This is based off a "beyond deadly" fight, in which the PCs win by the skin of their teeth with everyone but 1 character down for the count.

What happens when you are in an easier fight? Say one with 80% of the monster toughness/damage.

The PCs now last for 1.25X rounds, and after 8X rounds of damage they kill their foes. 5X+3.75X * 0.8 -- after 2.25X rounds the PCs win, having 1 character down 2/3 of the way through the fight.

But on the healing case, the healbot was healing 40% of the tough monster's damage output. We reduce their damage to 80%, and now the healbot is healing half of the monster's damage output -- instead of taking 60% of the original damage, they take 40%, 2/3 instead of 80% of the baseline "beyond deadly" case.

The PCs now last for 2.5X rounds, and after 8X rounds of damage they kill their foes. 7.5X+5X * 0.1 -- now it takes 2.75X rounds for the PCs to win, and 1 character maybe drops before the last round.

Weaken the monsters again to 60% of "beyond deadly".

The damage dealing PCs last 5/3 as long and after 6X rounds of damage kill their foes. 6.67X * 0.9 -- they defeat their foes after 1.5X rounds and nobody drops. But someone comes close!

For the healbot group, 60%-40% means the monsters are doing 20% of baseline damage. PCs last 5x as long, and still take 6X rounds of damage to kill their foes. 15X* 0.4 -- they defeat their foes after 2X rounds, and nobody is even bloodied.

Drop the monsters to 40%.

The healbot group literally isn't scratched, as healing keeps up with damage completely. Until the healbot runs out of "spell slots", there is zero danger.

The other group lasts 2.5x as long against a foe taking 4X rounds of damage; 10X*0.4 -- they defeat their foes after 1X rounds and nobody is bloodied.

The effect of efficient combat healing is that it makes the narrative of the fight much more sensitive to incoming damage rates.

Dialing down monsters against a no-healing group results in a more gradual change in the total threat (measured in how many PCs drop or how many are threatened with dropping) than against the healing group.

A group with an effective healer, balanced against a damage dealing group on coin-flip fights, makes easier fights trivial much faster than a damage-dealing based group.

There is drama in healing. But if you have a healbot which optimally does nothing but heal every round, and that healbot is a significant fraction of the group's power budget, it warps the game in ways I don't think are desirable.

Do the same with a few rare, expensive and powerful kinds of healing, then the drama of deciding when to pull out the big healing guns and swing the battle is interesting. Have a constant trickle of healing, and you just create a situation with a low threat combat grind.

[Chronos]

Interestingly, the DMG says that, when homebrewing new spells, a healing spell should heal about the same amount as a damaging spell of the same level deals... but this doesn't show up, at all, with any of the healing spells in the game. A 1st-level healing spell does, at most, 1d8+5 (Cure Wounds, average 9.5) or 10 (Goodberry), or 1d4+5 (Healing Word, average 7.5 on a bonus action). First-level damage spells, meanwhile, deal 3d8 (Chromatic Orb, average 13.5), or 4d6 (Guiding Bolt, average 14), or 3d4+3 guaranteed (Magic Missile, average 10.5), or 3d6 (Burning Hands, average 10.5) or 2d8 (Thunderwave, average 9) to multiple targets.

And it gets even worse at higher levels. A 3rd-level Cure Wounds is 3d8+5 (average 18.5), while a 3rd-level Fireball is 8d6 (average 28) to multiple targets.

Back to the OP, yet another case where healing is worth the action is when the action is outside of combat. This can, of course, be after the battle is over... but it can also be before the battle, with spells like Aid or Death Ward.

[Dork_Forge]

Enough that you've given that PC a chance to not die until at least your next turn, or alternatively a 'meaningful' proportion of HP compared to the amount of damage being thrown around in that encounter. Cure Wounds, for example, does enough to warrant an action at levels 1-3rd in my opinion (assuming the PC isn't down, if they are then it always will).

I look at healing through a lense of mechanics and roleplay though, which my players tend to do to some degree as well. It's not just about what's best for winning that encounter, it's also about keeping your friend alive.*

*For context I discourage talking actual current hp numbers during combat, OOC is okay, but in combat you have to make do with a narrative description or referencing being 'bloodied.' When you don't know exactly how much hp your party members have, you tend to be more generous with the heals ime.

[sithlordnergal]

Enough that you've given that PC a chance to not die until at least your next turn, or alternatively a 'meaningful' proportion of HP compared to the amount of damage being thrown around in that encounter. Cure Wounds, for example, does enough to warrant an action at levels 1-3rd in my opinion (assuming the PC isn't down, if they are then it always will).

I look at healing through a lense of mechanics and roleplay though, which my players tend to do to some degree as well. It's not just about what's best for winning that encounter, it's also about keeping your friend alive.*

*For context I discourage talking actual current hp numbers during combat, OOC is okay, but in combat you have to make do with a narrative description or referencing being 'bloodied.' When you don't know exactly how much hp your party members have, you tend to be more generous with the heals ime.

Ehh, I've never really been more generous with heals. I wait till party members are downed, then I heal.

[NecessaryWeevil]

If the combat is likely to take a little while, or you need to conserve spell slots, then a spell that takes an action and then either a free or bonus action in subsequent rounds to keep healing might be worth that action, even if its up-front healing is lacklustre.

[Luccan]

You can't make a spell strong enough to make in-combat healing worth it so long as the view is that dropping to 0 in 5e has minimal consequences. It takes a long time to die even after that and you probably won't be going down early in the combat either. On top of that when your allies win you'll be up in an hour and at 100% tomorrow. Minimal consequences, no need to keep anyone on their feet.

Edit: I should say, this view isn't held by everyone and the people that do hold it don't at all times. Generally a fight with a big bad will see a lot of healing spells fly. But that's because players expect an actual chance they could lose

[Dork_Forge]

Ehh, I've never really been more generous with heals. I wait till party members are downed, then I heal.

And that seems like a mostly gamist tactic, and that's great but not what I was talking in context of. Though, nor is pop up healing the best option a lot of the time, it relies on too many things going well.

[Psyren]

You can't make a spell strong enough to make in-combat healing worth it so long as the view is that dropping to 0 in 5e has minimal consequences. It takes a long time to die even after that and you probably won't be going down early in the combat either. On top of that when your allies win you'll be up in an hour and at 100% tomorrow. Minimal consequences, no need to keep anyone on their feet.

Edit: I should say, this view isn't held by everyone and the people that do hold it don't at all times. Generally a fight with a big bad will see a lot of healing spells fly. But that's because players expect an actual chance they could lose

Even without the possibility of that character dying though, going down is still bad. A character who goes down loses their actions, loses their concentration, and they even lose their ability to block enemy movement on the battlefield, and without healing getting up takes another three rounds minimum.

A timely heal meanwhile might cost the healer their action or bonus action (and maybe their move to get in range), but in exchange the character you got back up gets all three, and will continue to get all three for the three rounds where they would have otherwise been down.

[loki_ragnarock]

Interestingly, the DMG says that, when homebrewing new spells, a healing spell should heal about the same amount as a damaging spell of the same level deals... but this doesn't show up, at all, with any of the healing spells in the game. A 1st-level healing spell does, at most, 1d8+5 (Cure Wounds, average 9.5) or 10 (Goodberry), or 1d4+5 (Healing Word, average 7.5 on a bonus action). First-level damage spells, meanwhile, deal 3d8 (Chromatic Orb, average 13.5), or 4d6 (Guiding Bolt, average 14), or 3d4+3 guaranteed (Magic Missile, average 10.5), or 3d6 (Burning Hands, average 10.5) or 2d8 (Thunderwave, average 9) to multiple targets.

And it gets even worse at higher levels. A 3rd-level Cure Wounds is 3d8+5 (average 18.5), while a 3rd-level Fireball is 8d6 (average 28) to multiple targets.

Have you factored in the damage averages with miss chance or save chance to modify those damage values? Magic Missile is the most solid comparison, methinks, and comes pretty close.

There's also the idea that an upcast 1st level spell shouldn't quite equal a real, dyed-in-the-wool 3rd level spell. Is there a 3rd level healing spell that would serve as a more direct comparison?

It takes a long time to die even after that and you probably won't be going down early in the combat either. On top of that when your allies win you'll be up in an hour and at 100% tomorrow. Minimal consequences, no need to keep anyone on their feet.

It can take a very short time to die when you hit zero hp. Creatures like Gnolls basically serve as a means to up the pace of lethality for hitting zero, as they immediately get a free melee attack, at advantage, that generates an auto crit and two failed death saves. Once they go down, any character is two melee attacks (or one melee attack and any amount of damage, or literally one casting of 1st level magic missile, technically) away from not getting back up again. I think it's part of why multi-attack starts coming online pretty late in the CR curve for most monsters; bulletes are meaningfully less dangerous than gnolls that way. Throw the gnoll racial template on the Gladiator or Warlord NPCs or the Bandit Captain NPC at low levels and things can get pretty squishy, and I mean real splish-splash.
Hitting zero usually isn't that dramatic, pop-up healing works against a certain class of enemy, but it sure can be an invitation for disaster in other circumstances.

EDIT:
A third level healing spell like Aura of Vitality compares a little better to an accuracy modified Fireball given enough time, though Fireball can scale damage much better depending on the number of targets. Lots of variables to consider there.

[heavyfuel]

Have you factored in the damage averages with miss chance or save chance to modify those damage values?

Even then, Cure Wounds sucks.

Chromatic Orb deals 3d8 (14.5) damage ~60% of the time. That's an average of 8.7. CW heals for 1d8+3 (7.5)

And Chromatic Orb is considered a subpar 1st level spell.

Burning Hands, if it hits 2 targets and if both make their save (unlikely) deals 10.5 damage. And it's usually ranked worse than CO.

MM is only considered a good spell because it's so reliable. DM describes the monster as "almost dead"? MM that dude to take the "almost" from the equation. I don't think most people use MM as a proper Blast spell (Nuclear Wizards not represented here)

[Dork_Forge]

Even then, Cure Wounds sucks.

Chromatic Orb deals 3d8 (14.5) damage ~60% of the time. That's an average of 8.7. CW heals for 1d8+3 (7.5)


You're assuming a mod of 3, which whilst reasonable isn't the limit and I don't think there's guidance on assuming modifiers. If you assume the potential of CW then it's better than CO, if you just assume a +4 then it's around on par, and it's hard to appreciate the reliability that a flat number brings to the occasion when trying to do comparative maths like this.

For example, when looking at the new version of the Aasimar, I wouldn't want those d4s in Healing Hands, even if they were more generous. Knowing that you will give x, or at least y, hp to yourself or an ally is valuable in it's own right. Despite being a higher average, that CO is very capable or rolling lower damage than it's possible for the CW to heal with the assumed +3.

[loki_ragnarock]

Even then, Cure Wounds sucks.

Chromatic Orb deals 3d8 (14.5) damage ~60% of the time. That's an average of 8.7. CW heals for 1d8+3 (7.5)

And Chromatic Orb is considered a subpar 1st level spell.

Burning Hands, if it hits 2 targets and if both make their save (unlikely) deals 10.5 damage. And it's usually ranked worse than CO.

MM is only considered a good spell because it's so reliable. DM describes the monster as "almost dead"? MM that dude to take the "almost" from the equation. I don't think most people use MM as a proper Blast spell (Nuclear Wizards not represented here)

Average for CO = 13.5 rather than 14.5, which puts 60% at 8.1.

Not alot, that puts it close enough to be margin of error type difference, yeah?

EDIT
With that correction, CW would range (16-20 cast stat) from 93%-117% of CO's expected damage modified for accuracy. Which seems pretty comparable.

[Unoriginal]

Give how NPC tend to have more HPs than PC, relatively speaking, if the damage spells and the healing spells affected the same number of HPs at equivalent level you'd either have healing be too good or damage be too low.

[Rynjin]

It's a simple in concept, hard in execution metric of "Healing is good when it's more effective (or more likely to be effective) than your other options"?

Does your hypothetical Cleric have anything that would kill the monster(s) or cost it (them) an action? That is a better use of your time.

Is the person who's unconscious, or will soon be unconscious, likely to make a larger impact on the next round, or the rest of the combat, than your character's action? Heal them.

Is the person about to DIE? Then, in most cases, it is better to heal them...unless you think the loss of your action is more likely to result in further deaths, or even a TPK. Even if it's a slightly suboptimal play in terms of the micro situation (this combat)to heal a character near death, it's still the better play in the macro situation (the campaign) since you're either costing a lot of resources in-game, or a lot of time out of game to restoring the character's player to...playing.

These are kind of the three most common metrics. In essence, when to heal comes down entirely to "is the opportunity cost of healing worth it?". Often the answer is no, but sometimes it is yes.

[LudicSavant]

It's a simple in concept, hard in execution metric of "Healing is good when it's more effective (or more likely to be effective) than your other options"?

Does your hypothetical Cleric have anything that would kill the monster(s) or cost it (them) an action? That is a better use of your time.

Is the person who's unconscious, or will soon be unconscious, likely to make a larger impact on the next round, or the rest of the combat, than your character's action? Heal them.

Is the person about to DIE? Then, in most cases, it is better to heal them...unless you think the loss of your action is more likely to result in further deaths, or even a TPK. Even if it's a slightly suboptimal play in terms of the micro situation (this combat)to heal a character near death, it's still the better play in the macro situation (the campaign) since you're either costing a lot of resources in-game, or a lot of time out of game to restoring the character's player to...playing.

These are kind of the three most common metrics. In essence, when to heal comes down entirely to "is the opportunity cost of healing worth it?". Often the answer is no, but sometimes it is yes.

I concur with this, though I'd nitpick about the "cost an action" part, since Team Monster often has multiple actions.

[Yakk]

Count secondary targets as 1/2 value of the primary target if you are doing an AOE.

It gives a pretty reasonable result (stops over valuing AOEs), and lines up with how efficiently it reduces incoming damage over a fight.

(
You have 5 foes. If you deal 1 foe's HP worth of damage per round to one target, you take 5+4+3+2+1=15 damage.

If you deal 1 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5+5+5=25 damage.

If you deal 1.67 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5=15 damage -- same as the single target damage.

1.67 / 5 is 0.333 to primary target, and 0.333 to each of 4 secondary targets, so we get 0.333 + 0.5*4(0.333) = 1.0 "aoe compensated" damage.

This isn't a coincidence; it has to do with the fact that the area of a triangle is half that of a square, converted to discrete mathematics.

More convincingly (to me) is that I've used this metric in 3e 4e and 5e and it almost always returns something sensible.
)

[heavyfuel]

Count secondary targets as 1/2 value of the primary target if you are doing an AOE.

It gives a pretty reasonable result (stops over valuing AOEs), and lines up with how efficiently it reduces incoming damage over a fight.

(
You have 5 foes. If you deal 1 foe's HP worth of damage per round to one target, you take 5+4+3+2+1=15 damage.
If you deal 1 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5+5+5=25 damage.
If you deal 1.67 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5=25 damage.
1.67 / 5 is 0.333 to primary target, and 0.333 to each of 4 secondary targets, so we get 0.333 + 0.5*4(0.333) = 1.0 "aoe compensated" damage.
This isn't a coincidence; it has to do with the fact that the area of a triangle is half that of a square, converted to discrete mathematics.
More convincingly, I've used this metric in 3e 4e and 5e and it almost always returns something sensible.
)

What? :smallconfused:

[Doug Lampert]

Count secondary targets as 1/2 value of the primary target if you are doing an AOE.

It gives a pretty reasonable result (stops over valuing AOEs), and lines up with how efficiently it reduces incoming damage over a fight.

(
You have 5 foes. If you deal 1 foe's HP worth of damage per round to one target, you take 5+4+3+2+1=15 damage.
If you deal 1 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5+5+5=25 damage.
If you deal 1.67 foe's worth of damage spread out over them, you take 5+5+5=25 damage.
1.67 / 5 is 0.333 to primary target, and 0.333 to each of 4 secondary targets, so we get 0.333 + 0.5*4(0.333) = 1.0 "aoe compensated" damage.
This isn't a coincidence; it has to do with the fact that the area of a triangle is half that of a square, converted to discrete mathematics.
More convincingly, I've used this metric in 3e 4e and 5e and it almost always returns something sensible.
)


What? :smallconfused:

Typo above in bold, the 25 should be 15.

What he's doing is comparing how much damage your party takes on average in "enemy round" units.

One foe does 1 enemy round damage per round as he's counting it, multiply by actual DPR to get actual damage.

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 foe a round and it is concentrated, and there are five foes, and the foes go first, then you take 15 units of damage (5 the first round, then four, three, two, one on the subsequent rounds).

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 foe a round and it is spread out then you take 25 units of damage (area damage is worse than the same damage concentrated).

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 and 2/3 foes a round, and it is spread out, then you are back to about 15 units of damage, same as if you were concentrated. So 1 2/3 area damage spread over 5 foes is approximately as valuable as 1 damage concentrated. He then calculates from this that secondary damage is on average half as valuable as primary target damage.

You can do other similar calculations where some damage is area and some is concentrated, or where the party goes first, or with other changes, and the result will be fairly close to consistent (which is what he's trying to get across with the triangle discussion). You can treat damaging multiple targets by less than it takes to single shot them as being roughly as valuable as the single target damage to the guy everyone else is concentrating on plus half the rest of the damage you do and you'll be in the right ballpark, and the right ballpark is the best you'll do on this sort of discussion.

[Sigreid]

Only skimmed the posts but to me, in order for me to feel healing was worth my action it would have to heal more damage than I expect the opposition to do in one round. In other words, if all I'm doing is maintaining a round to round stalemate on hp loss, it's better to try to drop the opponent.

[Yakk]

Typo above in bold, the 25 should be 15.

What he's doing is comparing how much damage your party takes on average in "enemy round" units.

One foe does 1 enemy round damage per round as he's counting it, multiply by actual DPR to get actual damage.

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 foe a round and it is concentrated, and there are five foes, and the foes go first, then you take 15 units of damage (5 the first round, then four, three, two, one on the subsequent rounds).

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 foe a round and it is spread out then you take 25 units of damage (area damage is worse than the same damage concentrated).

If your party does enough damage to take out 1 and 2/3 foes a round, and it is spread out, then you are back to about 15 units of damage, same as if you were concentrated. So 1 2/3 area damage spread over 5 foes is approximately as valuable as 1 damage concentrated. He then calculates from this that secondary damage is on average half as valuable as primary target damage.

You can do other similar calculations where some damage is area and some is concentrated, or where the party goes first, or with other changes, and the result will be fairly close to consistent (which is what he's trying to get across with the triangle discussion). You can treat damaging multiple targets by less than it takes to single shot them as being roughly as valuable as the single target damage to the guy everyone else is concentrating on plus half the rest of the damage you do and you'll be in the right ballpark, and the right ballpark is the best you'll do on this sort of discussion.

Yes, sorry, I typed 25 instead of 15 there. It was confusing. :) I edited the post in question.

The "half on secondary targets" simple math model works for any number of uniform foes.

This also means that "damage when you can't control who takes it, but can avoid hurting allies" is worth about half of "damage when you pick the target".

Also, very importantly, this is easy to do; halving numbers is easy.

So imagine burning hands. After the chance of saving, we say it does 10 damage on average (to make the math easier).

If we hit 3 targets, that is 'worth' as much as 10+10/2+10/2 = 20 damage on a single target, not 30 which naive adding up numbers would say.

In practice, single target damage is sometimes better (the trope of one big bad dude with weak secondary is a trope for a reason), and aoe damage is sometimes better (blowthrough problems), but this gets you into a better ballpark than "add up all damage".

[heavyfuel]

So imagine burning hands. After the chance of saving, we say it does 10 damage on average (to make the math easier).

If we hit 3 targets, that is 'worth' as much as 10+10/2+10/2 = 20 damage on a single target, not 30 which naive adding up numbers would say.

In practice, single target damage is sometimes better (the trope of one big bad dude with weak secondary is a trope for a reason), and aoe damage is sometimes better (blowthrough problems), but this gets you into a better ballpark than "add up all damage".

I see, that makes more sense now.

I have to say, I quite like this metric of halving AoE damage. A lot of people think that Fireball is super OP because if can deal 40d6 damage, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the time you don't really care much about secondary targets.

Definitely a better ballpark than disregarding all secondary damage, or adding it all up.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Maybe this is a topic for another thread on healing with bonus actions, but does anyone use Aura of Vitality with any regularity? Because of this thread I started looking at healing spells and got to looking at this one. It saves your action for whatever, including Cast a Spell after round 1, which is a significant upside compared to Healing Word.
So it seems like it could be good for a big battle where you likely need to keep allies up, but... It uses bonus action and concentration and is the same level as Spirit Guardians. So the competition is pretty stiff.
What do you guys think? Is Aura of Vitality good?

[LudicSavant]

What do you guys think? Is Aura of Vitality good?

Aura of Vitality is a game-changer spell, because of the synergies available for it.

[Frogreaver]

Maybe this is a topic for another thread on healing with bonus actions, but does anyone use Aura of Vitality with any regularity? Because of this thread I started looking at healing spells and got to looking at this one. It saves your action for whatever, including Cast a Spell after round 1, which is a significant upside compared to Healing Word.
So it seems like it could be good for a big battle where you likely need to keep allies up, but... It uses bonus action and concentration and is the same level as Spirit Guardians. So the competition is pretty stiff.
What do you guys think? Is Aura of Vitality good?

IMO, Without any outside boosts, restoring 2d6 hp a round at level 5 plus just isn't that good casting in combat. It's great out of combat healing though.

[Sigreid]

I see, that makes more sense now.

I have to say, I quite like this metric of halving AoE damage. A lot of people think that Fireball is super OP because if can deal 40d6 damage, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the time you don't really care much about secondary targets.

Definitely a better ballpark than disregarding all secondary damage, or adding it all up.

Fireball is really good at taking down supporting foes. It's not very good at all for taking down the main target. But clearing the ground so your martials can focus on the main event is a very valuable thing.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Maybe this is a topic for another thread on healing with bonus actions, but does anyone use Aura of Vitality with any regularity?

It was ridiculous on my Mark of Healing auxiliary character who also had healing-boosting items, but I also use it with my Arcana Cleric, especially in easier fights when I want to conserve spell slots.

[Dork_Forge]

Maybe this is a topic for another thread on healing with bonus actions, but does anyone use Aura of Vitality with any regularity? Because of this thread I started looking at healing spells and got to looking at this one. It saves your action for whatever, including Cast a Spell after round 1, which is a significant upside compared to Healing Word.
So it seems like it could be good for a big battle where you likely need to keep allies up, but... It uses bonus action and concentration and is the same level as Spirit Guardians. So the competition is pretty stiff.
What do you guys think? Is Aura of Vitality good?

Both of my groups use it somewhat regularly, one team uses it primarily for between encounter healing (but they have access to a massive amount of temp hp and damage mitigation). The other party use it most days, sometimes in combat, primarily out of combat. In combat, it's sweetened by the Stars Druid's healing bump on the cast, and the Paladin/Divine Soul wouldn't hesitate to use it when people are looking bad.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Has the accuracy factor been mentioned?

Comparing raw damage of a hit to healing isn't quite right. Sure, that monster hits for 13 (2d8+4) and you only heal for 9 (1d8+4)...but only has a [50-70]% chance to hit. So really it's only doing 6.5-9.1 damage (ish). Which makes healing look a bit better.

There's also the fact that if all you do is pop-up healing, you're vulnerable to losing turns. The healer doesn't always go directly before the downed person. My experience has been that it quite frequently goes
* Healer goes
* Monster goes, downs PC 2
* PC 2 goes...misses a turn
* ...rest of round
* Healer goes and brings them back. If they're in range to do so. Otherwise it's another turn lost.

So if you have enough healing potential to let PC 2 survive one more average hit (going from say 10 HP in the above monster case to 22), that's an entire turn of extra actions that PC 2 can take. And since most healers aren't heavily specced for dealing raw damage (IMX), that's a net-positive tradeoff.

So it's more complex than it seems.

[Frogreaver]

Has the accuracy factor been mentioned?

Comparing raw damage of a hit to healing isn't quite right. Sure, that monster hits for 13 (2d8+4) and you only heal for 9 (1d8+4)...but only has a [50-70]% chance to hit. So really it's only doing 6.5-9.1 damage (ish). Which makes healing look a bit better.

There's also the fact that if all you do is pop-up healing, you're vulnerable to losing turns. The healer doesn't always go directly before the downed person. My experience has been that it quite frequently goes
* Healer goes
* Monster goes, downs PC 2
* PC 2 goes...misses a turn
* ...rest of round
* Healer goes and brings them back. If they're in range to do so. Otherwise it's another turn lost.

So if you have enough healing potential to let PC 2 survive one more average hit (going from say 10 HP in the above monster case to 22), that's an entire turn of extra actions that PC 2 can take. And since most healers aren't heavily specced for dealing raw damage (IMX), that's a net-positive tradeoff.

So it's more complex than it seems.

I think it's also worth noting that monster hp info is usually hidden in the fog of war. Healing is one spell effect that if the monster dies after you heal but before it's next turn (or really next hit), that effect carries over to the next battle. There's no control spell or damage spell that prevents potential waste in that way.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think it's also worth noting that monster hp info is usually hidden in the fog of war. Healing is one spell effect that if the monster dies after you heal but before it's next turn (or really next hit), that effect carries over to the next battle. There's no control spell or damage spell that prevents potential waste in that way.

Agreed. Unlike in an MMO, it's really hard to "waste" healing. I mean...if you heal using slots right before going down for a LR, that could be a waste. If you had anything else to do with those slots that day. And if you had a surprise night encounter, that could be valuable. And spell/ability-based healing doesn't really have tons of potential to overheal unless you're just topping people up (in which case you're likely flush on resources anyway).

[heavyfuel]

I think it's also worth noting that monster hp info is usually hidden in the fog of war.

Hidden, sure. But I think most DMs give some description of monster HP. Like "Unharmed" "Injured" and "Almost dying".

Then it's just a matter of adding up how much damage you've done so far and you can get a decent estimate of the monster's remaining HP.

[Dork_Forge]

Hidden, sure. But I think most DMs give some description of monster HP. Like "Unharmed" "Injured" and "Almost dying".

Then it's just a matter of adding up how much damage you've done so far and you can get a decent estimate of the monster's remaining HP.

This isn't really very reliable, an example from last week (but that happens pretty often): Monsters have around 125hp, at 30ish hp I describe them as really heavily injured, armor cracking etc. The players think@ oh easy to finish off without resources in this turn.... No.

Whilst that is extremely low comparative to its full hp, it's still easily able to take multiple turns from the party (10th level, fairly optimized with a lot of magical weapons).

Guessing a monster's hp isn't as easy as is assumed, and I'd wager those that can do it well are either heavily experienced, or most likely, have a lot of DM time.

[heavyfuel]

This isn't really very reliable, an example from last week (but that happens pretty often): Monsters have around 125hp, at 30ish hp I describe them as really heavily injured

By the time the party is facing monsters with over 100 HP, the Cure Wounds spell (ie, the main healing spell with a casting time of an action) probably isn't seeing much use regardless of its power.

When you are talking about monsters with, say, 50 HP, you'd only describe them as "heavily injured" around 15 HP, which is probably one successful attack/spell away from dropping.

[Amnestic]

By the time the party is facing monsters with over 100 HP, the Cure Wounds spell (ie, the main healing spell with a casting time of an action) probably isn't seeing much use regardless of its power.

...3rd or 4th level? I'm probably missing some but I think the lowest CR creature with over 100 HP is the weretiger at CR4, and there's a number of them (Gladiator, Hill Giant, Gorgon) at CR5, which is totally reasonable to be fighting at that level.

Not a great sign if 'the main healing spell' drops off in use at the same time half of the party get their subclass for the first time.

[LordShade]

Ok, so slightly different question at this point... do you think healing as balanced right now, is too strong, too weak, or just right?

The CR5 gladiator described above has potential DPR of 22. Level 4 party, maybe fighting the gladiator plus a couple of low CR animal pets. The party's warriors will have around 35 hp, let's say AC 17. Incoming damage is about 10 per round from the gladiator.

I think an optimized Life Cleric/Druid with Healing Spirit can easily deal with the incoming damage, putting out 1d6+4 per round with a bonus action. A Fast Hands thief is a bit better, with 1d6+4+4 spamming healer kits. I don't think any other healing resource available at level 4 gets the job done.

Second example--the 99 DPR shadar-kai, facing a level 9 party, alongside a couple other goons. I'll assume for simplicity that incoming damage is again 50 per round. A Life 1/DS sorc could push out a level 5 Extended Aura of Vitality, healing 4d6+7 per round = 21 points. If you start proactively healing from the start of the fight, my guess is that you could buy a warrior 1 extra round if proactively healing. I can't think of another healing resource that would move the needle at this level, other than the Dreams/Celestial burst heals (which you can only sustain for 2 rounds).

My gut impression at this point is that an optimized healer makes a meaningful difference against on-level CR opponents, but unoptimized healers have very little impact. That said, leaving your healer on an island is a mistake in any case. In the same way you ought to support your damage dealers with buffs and positioning, you want to support your healer with additional mitigation and defenses. Things like reaction-based defenses, temp HP, summons, Warding Bond, etc, probably do enough to make up that damage/healing gap. But by itself healing doesn't look to be good enough.

[LudicSavant]

Ok, so slightly different question at this point... do you think healing as balanced right now, is too strong, too weak, or just right? Currently, healers are doing quite well for themselves. Whether it's things like Life Clerics or Celestial Giftlocks or Life Shepherds, or just folks like Paladins who occasionally toss a Lay on Hands at someone should the situation call for it. These aren't characters who are hurting for buffs, by any means.


My gut impression at this point is that an optimized healer makes a meaningful difference against on-level CR opponents, but unoptimized healers have very little impact. That said, leaving your healer on an island is a mistake in any case. In the same way you ought to support your damage dealers with buffs and positioning, you want to support your healer with additional mitigation and defenses. Things like reaction-based defenses, temp HP, summons, Warding Bond, etc, probably do enough to make up that damage/healing gap. But by itself healing doesn't look to be good enough.

Extra Attack does very little "by itself." That's why it doesn't do that much for a Valor Bard (who doesn't have an attack stat as primary stat, doesn't get fighting styles or anything, and even the spells they can spend on buffing Attacks can be spent just as well on other things). That doesn't mean Extra Attack is bad. It just means we shouldn't be looking at a thing "by itself" in the first place.

[Dork_Forge]

By the time the party is facing monsters with over 100 HP, the Cure Wounds spell (ie, the main healing spell with a casting time of an action) probably isn't seeing much use regardless of its power.

When you are talking about monsters with, say, 50 HP, you'd only describe them as "heavily injured" around 15 HP, which is probably one successful attack/spell away from dropping.


...3rd or 4th level? I'm probably missing some but I think the lowest CR creature with over 100 HP is the weretiger at CR4, and there's a number of them (Gladiator, Hill Giant, Gorgon) at CR5, which is totally reasonable to be fighting at that level.

Not a great sign if 'the main healing spell' drops off in use at the same time half of the party get their subclass for the first time.

Not only is everything Amnestic said a valid point, but Cure Wounds falling out of favour isn't my experience at all (actually, the Brd/Sorc/Warlock in one of my parties just picked up Cure Wounds at 14th level). Both Paladins, different groups, are more than willing to upcast Cure Wounds as necessary, or use 1st levels if that's all they have. Celestial Warlocks are also likely to use it due to their slots and access to spells.

Otherwise, Aura of Vitality can come online at 5th level and requires both an action and bonus action, but it's still excellent value for prolonged healing, it can literally drag the party through encounters they would have wiped to otherwise. Then as you go up in levels there's Mass Cure Wounds and Heal.

I also disagree with 15hps being wiped out in a single attack at, what are you looking at level 3 or 4? Before Extra Attack and cantrip improvements, and when resources are extremely tight. A monster with 15hp can get hit a couple times and still survive to next round.

[Doug Lampert]

Fireball is really good at taking down supporting foes. It's not very good at all for taking down the main target. But clearing the ground so your martials can focus on the main event is a very valuable thing.

Yeah, one of the "edge cases" where the provided 1/2 value is clearly too low is if the AoE damage single shots foes. Effectively, everyone who gets single-shotted IS a primary target (discounted for possible overkill) and is one other character is ALSO a primary target as he's who the rest of the party will concentrate on.

[Elder_Basilisk]

It's incorrect to think that healing has to keep up with incoming damage in order to be useful.

Since I have a couple characters around the level, let's take the gladiator example.
I have a 4th level battle master fighter with a greatsword. He has 44 HP (thanks to a good con roll--maybe it would be 36 to 40 hp average). We'll stipulate that 10 damage per round incoming (per the prior post--against these characters it would be a bit more unless mitigated by spells or reactions, but the exact numbers are less important than the way even healing that doesn't keep up with incoming damage makes a difference). That means that he can go five rounds with the gladiator, then he's down. He will eat a sixth attack from the gladiator if he uses second wind at some point.

Now the other character I have at that level is a valor bard who is not optimized for healing. He would contribute a degree of damage mitigation through inspiration, but we'll ignore that for the analysis. His normal means of healing is healing word for 1d4+4--average of 6.5. He could also use cure wounds for an average of 8.5 healing. Or he could use heroism to mitigate 4/round incoming damage. Now if he combined those strategies--heroism plus healing words each round for example, he could keep up with the incoming damage. But we'll assume he doesn't do it that way. Concentration is usually for faerie fire.

If he uses a level 1 healing word each round, net incoming damage is now only 3.5 and the gladiator will take 13 rounds to drop the fighter--16 if he uses second wind. (Practically, he'll run out of spell slots first, but we'll ignore that for the sake of the example). Even though he isn't really optimized for healing and can't keep up with the damage, continual healing still more than doubles the amount of time that the party has to deal damage to the gladiator before the fighter goes down.

Cure wounds averages 8.5 so the fighter would last 30 rounds before the gladiator finally dropped him.

But let's use a more realistic example and see how heroism plays out. After all, the bard is going to run out of spell slots well before the fight lasts 16 rounds, much less 30. Heroism mitigates the incoming damage to 6 per round. At that point the fighter still lasts 8 rounds, 9 with second wind. That's not quite double the number of rounds for the gladiator to drop him but it's close.

At AC 16 with 112 HP, the gladiator gets hit 55% of the time for an average of 11 damage from the fighter and we'll track the bard at the same for an average of 8.5 per hit with his longbow. (Cutting Words might be more efficient in this fight but it complicates the calculation and the bard doesn't have it anyway). Between the two of them and ignoring crits, they deal 10.725 damage back to the gladiator each round which means they will take 11 rounds to drop the gladiator. (We're ignoring the gladiator's reactions here, but we're also ignoring inspiration and superiority dice). So, no healing, but hey lose. Healing word, they win. Heroism they probably win but need to get a couple more rounds out of the fighter with action surge and/or a few healing words or to get a couple crits or need battle master maneuvers or bardic inspiration to pay off more than the gladiator's reactions do. Otherwise, theyl valor bard can probably finish off the gladiator before he runs out of hp too, but it will be a lot closer than is comfortable.

Now, all that doesn't mean that healing is the best action, but sustained healing can make a big difference even when it doesn't keep up with incoming damage. The low level mitigation from a heroism spell is enough to take the math from indicating a decisive victory for the gladiator to indicating something the PCs can probably win if they either get lucky or spend a few extra resources. Too many people wait until the fighter is almost dead then expect a single cure wounds spell to turn the tide in a big fight and then write off healing as useless when it doesn't make a difference.

[Unoriginal]

What do you folks think about effects that both heal either the caster or an ally (or just prevent damage, even) and damage enemies?

As in, what are the criteria you'd have to think they are efficient/worthwhile?

[Frogreaver]

A single target control spell with a reoccurring save takes a monster out of the game for about 1.3 rounds on average, assuming a 4 round encounter with a the enemy having a 60% chance to fail the save.

So at level 3, a cure wounds with a level 2 slot is probably pretty close in efficiency to the single target control spells. In fact I think I might simulate that kind of scenario later.

[Elder_Basilisk]

What do you folks think about effects that both heal either the caster or an ally (or just prevent damage, even) and damage enemies?

As in, what are the criteria you'd have to think they are efficient/worthwhile?

Healing is better than preventing damage because you know when healing is needed but damage prevention could be wasted.

Healing on multiple targets is a good thing to have in order to mitigate the impact of area damage but is generally less useful than single target healing. So, you want to have some at higher levels, but it's a contingency rather than a resource you expect to use all the time.

Combination healing and damage is nice but it has to be competitive in both areas because sometimes you'll want to damage the enemy but don't especially need to heal, so you'd rather have a spell that does more damage. Other times, you need a big heal and the damage isn't especially useful so you'd rather have a single purpose spell that heals more. if it's not efficient in both those scenarios then it's generally not too attractive and if it is efficient in both healing and damage at the same time, it risks looking overpowered. The only time I've seen that kind of effect be useful is in 3.x/Pathfinder 1 where you could use mass cure spells to heal the party and damage undead at the same time. And even then, it was more of a "look, I get some damage for free!" than "this is good because I get needed healing and needed damage."

[loki_ragnarock]

What do you folks think about effects that both heal either the caster or an ally (or just prevent damage, even) and damage enemies?

As in, what are the criteria you'd have to think they are efficient/worthwhile?

Well... it ain't Vampiric Touch, I can tell you that right now.

Beyond that, I'd actually have to give it more of a think.

[Amnestic]

Well... it ain't Vampiric Touch, I can tell you that right now.

Beyond that, I'd actually have to give it more of a think.

The other example I can think of is Wither and Bloom from Strixhaven.

I think it's 'okay'. I like it a lot on NPC casters, less amazing on players but since it's druid/sorc/wiz it does give non-celestial sorcs+wizards a 'healing' spell.

[Frogreaver]

The classic example is cure wounds vs cantrip+healing word.

[LordShade]

@Elder_basilisk - Great post. I found the thought experiment very useful.

Even though I agree with your premise, and your conclusion, for the sake of discussion, I'll play devil's advocate here:

Your math makes sense to me in the gladiator context. What's missing from the analysis though is the variance in incoming damage. One basic truth about tabletop math is that "variance is the enemy of the player characters." It's not quite as apparent on the Gladiator, but the Shadar-Kai does 1d6+4+4d12 damage per hit--on a lucky crit, that's an average of 62 damage. I think the chance of at least 1 crit on 3 attacks is something like 15%. Let's say it's a nasty round with a roll of 4, 14, and 20. On that round, the damage spike is 95 expected. Let's say it's your fighter, at level 10, with 110 HP. The time to kill length that refreshing HP sources like Heroism (or Artificer shield, or AoV, or Twilight) give you matter very little when damage can spike this high. And as I noted in a previous post, it's not just the Shadar-Kai--the newer high CR monsters have crazy sustained damage potential, like the new MPMM Enchanter does 3 Arcane Burst attacks for 3d10+3 psychic at +6 to hit. One hit + one crit = 54 damage. On a CR 5 creature??? Your fighter is one-shotted in the first round of the fight.

I don't know what kind of resources a party is supposed to use to deal with a threat like this. You almost have to have Shield or Cutting Words to turn one of those misses into hit--healing just isn't good enough to repair this kind of damage after the fact. And that goes back to an earlier discussion point in this thread, that the best healing is not taking damage in the first place. Against a CR5 enchanter, a Lore Bard's inspiration is a reaction-based healing spell that heals for 3d10+3 and refreshes on a short rest.

And maybe that's the sign of a well-designed combat system. The best thing a party can have is a wide toolbox. Efficient heal-over-time against moderate sustained damage, a potent burst heal to address a damage spike, reactively blunting potential damage spikes by lowering enemy rolls or buffing ally rolls, using meat shields, messing with enemy movement and vision, spreading damage with Warding Bond, etc. When you use the whole package, the overall defense looks pretty good.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Spike damage is definitely the threat in that kind of scenario. As you point out, that's a reason to have a balanced toolbox. You want to have burst healing available as well as the aura of vitality type steady healing that's useful outside combat or through a long grind. At level 10, a paladin's lay on hands for 50 is something that might help you come back from something like an early shadar kai crit. At least it would give the fighter space to stand up and get back in the fight without being in the "likely to go down in one round anyway" zone. An upcast cure wounds in a 5th level slot would average 29 points or so. Not nearly as good but you might have to take what you can get. Combine it with second wind and it might get you out from behind the eight ball.

What's interesting in looking at this is how much of a difference the life cleric level 1 looks like it makes. 29 point cure wounds isn't great burst healing and 9.5 point mass cure wounds isn't much for mass healing. On the other hand, 37 point upcast cure wounds and 16.5 mass cure wounds look a lot better.

[LudicSavant]

the newer high CR monsters have crazy sustained damage potential, like the new MPMM Enchanter does 3 Arcane Burst attacks for 3d10+3 psychic at +6 to hit. One hit + one crit = 54 damage. On a CR 5 creature??? Your fighter is one-shotted in the first round of the fight.

I don't know what kind of resources a party is supposed to use to deal with a threat like this.

The MPMM enchanter's damage is quite vulnerable to mitigation. Give 'em Disadvantage and their whole multiattack DPR dips to just ~12 vs AC 18, for instance. But let's put that aside for a second.

So let's say "variance" happens. A level 5 Fighter has about 50 hit points. Life Cleric could pop them up for 25 hp with Channel Divinity, then a level 1 Healing Word for another 10.5 hp (35.5), then the Fighter uses Second Wind for 10.5 hp (46).

Bam, you're basically back to full hit points, the Fighter still takes their Action, the Life Cleric is still Concentrating on their Spirit Guardians, and the other 2+ party members still take their full action economy.

[LordShade]

Interesting that the previous two posts both mention Life Clerics.

I'm taking away a couple of things from this discussion:

1) Healing (and mitigation) is really a group activity. Very few characters have the throughput to contain a damage spike and prevent it from turning into a cascade failure by themselves. For burst healing, Dreams/Celestial can get there by combining upcasted Cure Wounds with their bonus action heals.

2) I think there might be design space for a high-throughput healing spell at level 4 or so. That's the point at which upcasted Cure Wounds really start to lose steam, but you're still four character levels away from a true burst like Heal.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Healing is better than preventing damage because you know when healing is needed but damage prevention could be wasted.


I’m not in agreement with this premise. The goal of damage mitigation is to reduce incoming damage to zero. In terms of damage mitigation, ‘Waste’, would only occur after incoming damage is Zero or reduced to Zero.

Yet, reducing incoming damage to zero is the goal, and thus is a success.

To present an example:
If you have a Hit Point Maximum of 8, and 4 Temporary Hit Points, and are struck for 36 points of damage, you are dead.
Yet, there is no ‘Waste’ vis a vis the usage of your THP.

Alas, Waste is not that relevant of a concept, in regards to Damage Mitigation.

The Interception Fighting Style has received a boost for those that have converted over to MPMM Variants. The Fighting style works on the damage from Attacks, there are a whole lot more attacks to defend against with MPMM.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Edit-i view the spell or ability to be wasted if the same things would have happened if you didn't use it--or if it did make a difference but it was not meaningful.

It depends how effectively your damage prevention can be avoided. If for example, your group has a barbarian and an eldritch knight and you cast heroism on the barbarian but all the monsters attack the eldritch knight, it's fair to say the damage prevention was wasted. (If the targeting changed because of the spell, it might not be entirely wasted but if they have similar AC and neither character was in danger, or if the eldritch knight is targeted due to his positioning etc, then the goal of spending fewer resources to be at full strength after combat failed and the spell was wasted).

Damage prevention that has to be activated beforehand can also be wasted. Say you cast shield of faith but all of the monsters missed attacks would have missed without it and the ones that hit obviously hit anyway. It's also fair to say that was wasted. Things like shield that can only be used when they will make at least one attack miss are different.

There's a bit of a trade-off. Heroism (or shield of faith) can prevent much more damage than cure wounds can heal but you have to cast it beforehand and it might not do anything. Cure wounds is less efficient but you already know it's needed before you cast it.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Heroism is not that great of a spell.
Temporary Hit Points, from sources that are not spells, tend to last until your next Long Rest.

The THP from the False Life Spell only last an hour.

Assuming one isn’t frivolously wasting resources, you are going to only cast a spell because you think you need it.

Shield of Faith lasts 10 minutes.
The Sanctuary spell lasts 1 minute.

If a DM chooses to not attack the creature under the effects of the Shield of Faith spell, that is a 10 minute Sanctuary Spell-like effect. That does not seem a waste, to me.

Safety Measures are typically not used every day, by nature.
One wears a Life Preserver while boating, hoping one does not have to use it.

If you cast Shield of Faith on the 16 AC Rogue that is sneaking past a sleeping dragon, and the dragon doesn’t wake up, is that measure of preparation a waste by your calculus?

[Frogreaver]

Heroism is not that great of a spell.
Temporary Hit Points, from sources that are not spells, tend to last until your next Long Rest.

IMO. Retroactive healing is better than proactive protection, because proactive protection can be waste and/or bypassed.


Assuming one isn’t frivolously wasting resources, you are going to only cast a spell because you think you need it.

Partially, I think sometimes you might cast a spell for efficiency instead of need.


Shield of Faith lasts 10 minutes.
The Sanctuary spell lasts 1 minute.

If a DM chooses to not attack the creature under the effects of the Shield of Faith spell, that is a 10 minute Sanctuary Spell-like effect. That does not seem a waste, to me.

IMO, I think you are pushing the envelope on that comparison a bit too much. Shield of faith adds +2 AC at the cost of concentration. It can typically easily be bypassed if cast early in the battle by enemies targeting other allies. If cast later in the encounter when an ally is injured enemies can simply ignore it and attack them anyways. Thus, shield of faith is rarely going to have much impact in any of it's use cases. Sanctuary on the other hand, you can choose to only use when an ally is near death. When the enemy attacks that ally, sanctuary provides a high degree of protection to him. If your enemies are getting allies down to low hp and then changing targets then you are going easy on the players and damage mitigation / healing in general is going is going to lose alot of it's potential value anyways - which is more of a degenrate case anyways IMO. Also importantly, sanctuary is not concentration.


Safety Measures are typically not used every day, by nature.
One wears a Life Preserver while boating, hoping one does not have to use it.

If you cast Shield of Faith on the 16 AC Rogue that is sneaking past a sleeping dragon, and the dragon doesn’t wake up, is that measure of preparation a waste by your calculus?

IMO Yes. In the event the rogue sneaks past it did nothing. In the event the dragon awakens, the +2 AC isn't going to save the rogue. There's no good use case for the ability in this scenario.

[Elder_Basilisk]

If you cast Shield of Faith on the 16 AC Rogue that is sneaking past a sleeping dragon, and the dragon doesn’t wake up, is that measure of preparation a waste by your calculus?

Sure. It doesn't mean that casting the spell was a bad idea at the time, but it was wasted in that case. In theory, casting the spell every time would be worthwhile based on it being very useful when it turns out not to be unnecessary. Or maybe it isn't useful enough if the dragon does wake up and it's still a bad idea. (Safety measures that have a meaningful cost when not needed and aren't enough to help when they are needed fail the cost benefit test).

In any event the point of the comparison is that healing is like a fixed value defensive reaction: you know it's going to do something. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure but if it takes two pounds of prevention to save one pound of cure, the cure might be the better deal.

[Sigreid]

Worth noting that healing would be a lot more valuable on a per action basis if the death save mechanic weren't there. Having a comfortable survival buffer changes the calculus.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Worth noting that healing would be a lot more valuable on a per action basis if the death save mechanic weren't there. Having a comfortable survival buffer changes the calculus.

Whether death saves are truly "Comfortable" tends to vary in my experience. To borrow 4 examples from varying tiers of play of our mad mage campaign:
-The Monk was swallowed by a Behir. Thankfully, the damage that knocked them unconscious was post swallow, we effectively gained a turn to kill the creature and retrieve them. If the act of being swallowed had knocked them unconscious, they would have died. Various "preventative healing" measures allowed this to work out in our favor between Inspiring Leader, Shifting THP and Aura of Vitality.

-The Sorcerer was separated from the group and cornered by a Yochlol. Had they not rolled a natural 20 death save they would have been dead. Nothing healing could have done about this, the 1/20 odds of coming back with a single hit point were the deciding factor in this characters survival. Not exactly a comfortable mechanic, it was pure luck.

-The Monk advanced ahead into a group of Narzugon and was ambushed in the following turn by Abishai teleporting in for support. They took several attacks, disengaged from combat through a combination of mobile and flurry of blow (knocking one Narzugon off the mountaintop) and took their next turn to use Wholeness of Body instead of wading back into combat. They never fell unconscious here but the threat of falling unconscious in a volcanic mountaintop filled with devils influenced their choices.

-The Sorcerer was struck by every blow of an Ancient Red Dragon's multiattack. If my Paladin had not healed them above a certain threshold with Lay on Hands there was a high chance of them being knocked unconscious while airborne. This would have resulted in death even through Death Ward.

The examples are, in order, from T2/T3 and twice in T4. My gut feeling is that Death Saves are a comfortable T1 and T2 survival mechanic but the strength and amount of attacks later tiered monsters have means that unless you stay out of the range of being knocked unconscious you're safe for a single turn at best. There have been times where it's been critical that I take my Paladin's action to use Lay on Hands or the Monk using Wholeness of Body because no amount of nova potential would have made a larger impact.

That's saying something too, our Actions are impactful. The Monk has a Vorpal Sword and my Paladin has a Sword of the Paruns, attacking is a great option. It just turns out though that being able to maintain consciousness, which in combat will inevitably involve healing, is kind of an essential part of that.

[Amnestic]

The examples are, in order, from T2/T3 and twice in T4. My gut feeling is that Death Saves are a comfortable T1 and T2 survival mechanic but the strength and amount of attacks later tiered monsters have means that unless you stay out of the range of being knocked unconscious you're safe for a single turn at best. There have been times where it's been critical that I take my Paladin's action to use Lay on Hands or the Monk using Wholeness of Body because no amount of nova potential would have made a larger impact.

Which, all things considered, is appropriate. T1/T2, resurrections are going to be at a premium both spell slot/preparation wise and material components. T3 onwards they'll be more available, so death saves not being as much of a cushion is 'good' design.

[Frogreaver]

Worth noting that healing would be a lot more valuable on a per action basis if the death save mechanic weren't there. Having a comfortable survival buffer changes the calculus.

I find pop up healing gets much more risky if you just have mutliattacking creatures continue with their attacks at the just downed pc. A healing word in that case is often enough to get them back on their feet, only to be immediately downed, with a high probability of the 2nd multiattack hitting them and costing them 2 death saves. If turn order isn't kind then they may have to make their save before you can heal them again. That's a pretty significant chance of character death that can occur even early in the game. Find a creature with 3 multiattacks and it gets even worse.

[Sigreid]

I find pop up healing gets much more risky if you just have mutliattacking creatures continue with their attacks at the just downed pc. A healing word in that case is often enough to get them back on their feet, only to be immediately downed, with a high probability of the 2nd multiattack hitting them and costing them 2 death saves. If turn order isn't kind then they may have to make their save before you can heal them again. That's a pretty significant chance of character death that can occur even early in the game. Find a creature with 3 multiattacks and it gets even worse.

My creatures will definitely do that after the first pop up, if they are smart enough.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My creatures will definitely do that after the first pop up, if they are smart enough.

I had a pc death to a berserk flesh golem. He'd failed one death save, the the golem went and picked targets randomly. Both went against the downed player. First missed, second hit. Splat.

[Sigreid]

I had a pc death to a berserk flesh golem. He'd failed one death save, the the golem went and picked targets randomly. Both went against the downed player. First missed, second hit. Splat.

He should have then picked up the dead player and used him as a flail against the others! Victory Lap!

[PhoenixPhyre]

He should have then picked up the dead player and used him as a flail against the others! Victory Lap!

The paladin got a really hefty crit 2nd level smite on him the next turn and nuked him into the ground. Thankfully for the player, the alchemist's lab they were in had a "potion of random rebirth" (ie reincarnate) as they didn't have anyone who could cast revivify. The formerly human pirate is now a 2'11" lightfoot halfling. He's a rogue, so that works. Although he has to get all his gear resized =)

[Thunderous Mojo]

IMO. Retroactive healing is better than proactive protection, because proactive protection can be waste and/or bypassed.

It doesn’t surprise me that you hold this position, based off your prior positions.😀
It is always interesting to read about people’s personal calculations to determine value, and that as a community we are familiar with each other’s inclinations, to some extent.

Temporary Hit Points have very few things that bypass them…Divine Word, the Power Word spells, Sleep etc. Waste, is just not that large of a consideration.

Harness Divine Power gives clerics low level spell slot recharges.
Wizards already had Arcane Recovery.

The ‘waste’ in terms of spell slots, is meagre.

Inspiring Leader, the Interception Fighting Style, Twilight Sanctuary are either resources that easily recharge, or never run out respectively.

Round after Round bestowment of THP, (say through an Eldritch Canon) coupled with persistent damage reduction, (say the Interception Fighting Style), leads to a great reduction in the need for healing.

[Tvtyrant]

Most healing spells in 5e are generally considered inferior to doing damage or preventing damage in the first place. The exception is often pop-up healing at 0 HP, which gains an action for the party, leading to the adage that "healing is worth it when it buys additional actions for the party."

Does anyone have a sense of what this threshold is, quantitatively? What healing effects (other than Healing Word and its equivalents) do you consider efficient or worthwhile? I don't think healing needs to be 1:1 to damage in order to be worthwhile, as 1 point of healing is worth more to a PC than 1 point of damage is against a monster's HP pool. Intuitively, the reason for this is that PC hit points are lower while mitigation is higher (AC, reactions), while monsters tend to have poor mitigation and huge HP pools.

I got to thinking about this for two reasons: first, I want to design a new sidekick class that is focused on healing, as a pure healbot, but I'm not exactly sure what that healing power ought to be calibrated against.

Second, browsing through MPMM, it looks to me like some of the redesigned spellcaster statblocks just have massive damage potential. There are a handful of ~CR10 creatures that can deal anywhere from 70-100 points of damage a round, which seems crazy high to me compared to earlier MM statblocks. The CR9 Shadar-kai Gloomweaver can make 3 attacks per round at +8, doing 33 damage each. The level range at which you would fight this guy varies greatly, but let's say it's 7-15... level 11-12 average? Average PC hit points would be d8+2, or roughly 86 hp? I don't know what the average AC is at level 12, but I'm guessing 19+ for all frontliners and AC 16 or so for squishies. That means that I'd expect the Shadar-kai to do about 50 points of damage in a round, dropping an unsupported PC in two rounds. Pure numbers-wise, does this sound realistic to you? How strong does a healing ability need to be to make a difference against this guy? Heal makes sense in this case, as the 70 HP would make a difference. 6d6 from a Dreams or Celestial warlock probably wouldn't.

I would say think in terms of action economy. You spend your turn, so it needs to heal at least 2 turns if damage to be worth it (ie getting ahead instead of just trading turns.) If you grappled the opponent you would be trading your turn to prevent damage but also limiting movement and making them offer advantage, so it has to prevent more then a stun or grapple would.

I think 10HP per level as a ballpark? So at level 20 you should heal 200 a turn.

[LudicSavant]

I would say think in terms of action economy. Yes. However...


You spend your turn, so it needs to heal at least 2 turns if damage to be worth it (ie getting ahead instead of just trading turns.)

The action economy of a single PC is not symmetrical to the action economy of Team Monster. And an Action isn't even a PC's entire turn.

1 PC action represents less than 1/4th of the action economy of Team PCs. "2 turns of damage" may represent 100% of the action economy of Team Monster over 2 entire rounds.

[Frogreaver]

It doesn’t surprise me that you hold this position, based off your prior positions.😀
It is always interesting to read about people’s personal calculations to determine value, and that as a community we are familiar with each other’s inclinations, to some extent.

:smallsmile:


Temporary Hit Points have very few things that bypass them…Divine Word, the Power Word spells, Sleep etc. Waste, is just not that large of a consideration.

Perhaps i should elaborate on the circumstances I view them as being wasted in. There's a few use cases.


You grant temp hp at some point before the battle that last the whole day. No action economy considerations, but the character or characters you gave them to may never get hit. If this happens there was waste.
You grant temp hp at the start of combat with your action/bonus action and that temp hp lasts the day. Same issue as #1 except you've also impacted your action economy. If this happens there was waste.
You grant temp hp in combat but only after one ally has taken a moderate amount of damage and that temp hp lasts the day. This use case is nearly identical to using actual healing on an ally before they drop.
You grant temp hp in combat but only to a severely injured ally and the temp hp lasts all day. This use case is also nearly the same as using healing on a severely injured ally.
The temp hp doesn't last all day. It can easily expire without ever being used. If it expires before being hit, it was a waste. Many temp hp sources provide 1 minute, 1 hour or 8 hours instead of a full day or short rest end and recharge.




Harness Divine Power gives clerics low level spell slot recharges.
Wizards already had Arcane Recovery.

The ‘waste’ in terms of spell slots, is meagre.

Most temp hp sources aren't from spells. Heroism and False Life?


Inspiring Leader, the Interception Fighting Style, Twilight Sanctuary are either resources that easily recharge, or never run out respectively.

I think it's worth clarifying the claim. Do I mean there are no temp hp abilities better than any healing abilities, or do I mean that on a hp per hp basis that temp hp is inferior, or maybe even something a little more nuanced?


Round after Round bestowment of THP, (say through an Eldritch Canon) coupled with persistent damage reduction, (say the Interception Fighting Style), leads to a great reduction in the need for healing.

Of course, and that's because they way overtuned the more recent temp hp per turn abilities (eldritch cannon and twilight cleric channel divinity). If you had a similar healing ability it would be far better. If you ignore those 2 way overtuned abilities then virtually all other temp hp generation is inferior to healing.

I find there's a tendency in this forum to try and disprove a fairly generalized statement by picking out the strongest abilities of a given type to use a counterexample. But usually the generalized statement wasn't intended to cover those scenarios to begin with. I can say that healing is generally better than temp hp while still believing that twilight cleric and arificer temp hp is great due to the particular nuances of those abilities (they affect the whole party and are reapplied round after round). The whole "exceptions prove the rule" thing really applies here.

[Sigreid]

Well, yeah. But THP can also keep a character from being dropped by spike damage. Keeping you ahead of the curve.

[Frogreaver]

Well, yeah. But THP can also keep a character from being dropped by spike damage. Keeping you ahead of the curve.

Yes. But, Healing usually does the same thing. It's unlikely a character goes from full to 0 in round 1. As long as there is a round inbetween then you can heal them for that same effect.

The pros to alot of temp hp abilities is that you can use it before the battle or it's a bonus action so it doesn't affect your action economy much. However, this is also a con as it means the temp hp they apply is either done to a single character which opens up the risk that they aren't targeted and thus the temp hp is 'wasted' or the temp hp apply to the whole party, meaning the total amount given to a single pc is typically less than an equivalent single target ability in terms of healing or temp hp. In either case a more retroactive approach (either with healing or temp hp) leads to less waste of temp hp/healing but may lead to a bigger action economy issue.

[LordShade]

@Frogreaver - do you think Inspiring Leader is a bad feat? It is potentially a waste according to your criteria #1, but it doesn't meet components of your other criteria, like using action economy, low duration, or healing replacement.

In a party without a Twilight Cleric or artificer, I think Inspiring Leader is a terrific pick on a spellcaster. And even with those classes, Inspiring Leader can be good because it's a pre-buff that mitigates Round 1 burst damage.

[Sigreid]

Yes. But, Healing usually does the same thing. It's unlikely a character goes from full to 0 in round 1. As long as there is a round inbetween then you can heal them for that same effect.

The pros to alot of temp hp abilities is that you can use it before the battle or it's a bonus action so it doesn't affect your action economy much. However, this is also a con as it means the temp hp they apply is either done to a single character which opens up the risk that they aren't targeted and thus the temp hp is 'wasted' or the temp hp apply to the whole party, meaning the total amount given to a single pc is typically less than an equivalent single target ability in terms of healing or temp hp. In either case a more retroactive approach (either with healing or temp hp) leads to less waste of temp hp/healing but may lead to a bigger action economy issue.

My experience is that being dropped in one critical hit isn't that uncommon. Especially in tier 1/2. Your experience may be different.

[Thunderous Mojo]

You grant temp hp at some point before the battle that last the whole day. No action economy considerations, but the character or characters you gave them to may never get hit. If this happens there was waste.

If we assume, reasonable competence on the part of the participants, how likely is this to happen?

If your group is about to mount a frontal assault against the Gates of Mordor, the THP is probably getting some use.

If, instead, someone is passing out THP, say from the Inspiring Leader feat, before going to a Tavern or shopping at the General Store in a safe town, then I think there is a larger chance of those THP being ‘wasted’.

Yet again, what is really wasted? Like the venerable bard, Ice Cube said:
“I Didn’t have to use my AK…must have been a good day”.

Waste in this scenario is still a likely positive outcome; somebody took zero damage.


Most temp hp sources aren't from spells. Heroism and False Life?

I’ve stated previously in this thread, that I do not consider Heroism to be a great spell, or even a good spell. False Life Upcast into a 2nd level slot would be expected to provide around 11 THP, which is not a bad return.

The waste issue with False Life is that the spell has a range of Self, and the THP only last one hour. Due to this, one should only be using False Life just before battle occurs. If you happen to take no damage in that combat..then I agree…there is waste, but the Venerable Ice Cube still states: “That is a good day”.


I find there's a tendency in this forum to try and disprove a fairly generalized statement by picking out the strongest abilities of a given type to use a counterexample.

Consider the statement that is attributed to Voltaire regarding generalizations; specificities brings definition to any conversation.

I would argue that, even when the 5e books were limited to just the PHB for player options, it became quickly apparent how useful options like the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats were when compared to spells, especially spells like Heroism or False Life.

Xanathar’s introduced the Shepherd Druid which can bring an army of animals and then provide that army and whomever else standing nearby Temporary Hit Points equal to their Druid Level.

The Celestial Warlock also can pass out free THP at 10th level.
A Celestial Warlock with the Inspiring Leader feat has multiple THP release schedules through subclass and feat.

The Artillerist and Twilight Cleric are the next THP iteration for 5e.

In my experience the Heroism and False Life spells are not the predominant method for THP generation, and have never been the predominant method, due in part to the Inspiring Leader feat.

[Pex]

I've had effective beneficial experience with Inspiring Leader. It costs nothing to use. Refreshes on a short rest. The entire party benefits. Personal bias it's better for CH characters to take it than others. Taken at 1st level by Variant Human, +1 THP with 10 CH is aesthetically meaningless. +4 THP with 16 CH is significant. At 4th level CH to 18 makes it +8 THP. That's a max Healing Word worth right there. It's an effective buff. It doesn't need to be an uberpowerful you Win D&D buff.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I've had effective beneficial experience with Inspiring Leader. It costs nothing to use. Refreshes on a short rest. The entire party benefits. Personal bias it's better for CH characters to take it than others. Taken at 1st level by Variant Human, +1 THP with 10 CH is aesthetically meaningless. +4 THP with 16 CH is significant. At 4th level CH to 18 makes it +8 THP. That's a max Healing Word worth right there. It's an effective buff. It doesn't need to be an uberpowerful you Win D&D buff.

It scales pretty well considering how PC hp doesn't grow out of control like some monsters.

When my Paladin joined the campaign at 7th level he had 18 Charisma, so it was giving 13 THP, this was roughly 1/4 of a characters hit point total. Now that the party is 19th level and my Paladin is at 22 charisma we get 25 THP. It doesn't look much more impressive but that's still between 1/5 (Monk and Sorcerer) and 1/8 (Paladin and Fighter) of their total hit points.

IMX the 25 hit points at T4 is still eating 1 or 2 attacks depending on what we're facing. Taking even one more hit before you go down is a meaningful difference, I wouldn't want to start a major encounter without it if I had the choice.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I've had effective beneficial experience with Inspiring Leader. It costs nothing to use. Refreshes on a short rest. The entire party benefits. Personal bias it's better for CH characters to take it than others. Taken at 1st level by Variant Human, +1 THP with 10 CH is aesthetically meaningless. +4 THP with 16 CH is significant. At 4th level CH to 18 makes it +8 THP. That's a max Healing Word worth right there. It's an effective buff. It doesn't need to be an uberpowerful you Win D&D buff.

I had a similar experience playing through CoS with Inspiring Leader on a Sorc. I believe we had 5 characters + an occasional NPC. 5 creatures * 3 rests can = 15 * your bonus/ day. That's massive total hp: 60 at level 1.

[Frogreaver]

@Frogreaver - do you think Inspiring Leader is a bad feat? It is potentially a waste according to your criteria #1, but it doesn't meet components of your other criteria, like using action economy, low duration, or healing replacement.

Inspiring Leader is a good feat. It's one I often recommend taking for Charisma based characters.


In a party without a Twilight Cleric or artificer, I think Inspiring Leader is a terrific pick on a spellcaster.

Much less good in that scenario. But it isn't worthless.


And even with those classes, Inspiring Leader can be good because it's a pre-buff that mitigates Round 1 burst damage.

'Can be good' is a pretty generic statement. It could mean good like getting a free drink from the vending machine or winning 5,000 dollars on a lottery ticket. Yes, it certainly can be good, but the questions really are 'how good' and 'how frequent'?


I've had effective beneficial experience with Inspiring Leader. It costs nothing to use. Refreshes on a short rest. The entire party benefits. Personal bias it's better for CH characters to take it than others. Taken at 1st level by Variant Human, +1 THP with 10 CH is aesthetically meaningless. +4 THP with 16 CH is significant. At 4th level CH to 18 makes it +8 THP. That's a max Healing Word worth right there. It's an effective buff. It doesn't need to be an uberpowerful you Win D&D buff.

Agreed.


If we assume, reasonable competence on the part of the participants, how likely is this to happen?

It depends on whether you are talking temp hp prebuffing 1 PC or the whole party. If 1 PC, there's a sizable chance that PC doesn't get targeted and hit just due to the flow of battle.


If your group is about to mount a frontal assault against the Gates of Mordor, the THP is probably getting some use.

It depends on the temp hp ability you have in mind, the fictional scenario you have in mind, etc.

If your objection is that you can conceive of some scenario where they won't be wasted! Great. As you asked at the start of this post - it's really how likely this is to happen?


If, instead, someone is passing out THP, say from the Inspiring Leader feat, before going to a Tavern or shopping at the General Store in a safe town, then I think there is a larger chance of those THP being ‘wasted’.

I wouldn't consider inspiring leader a waste in that situation. As they hp would still be there in the next encounter or the ability would refresh at the end of your next short rest. Either way, not what I'd call wasted.


Yet again, what is really wasted? Like the venerable bard, Ice Cube said:
“I Didn’t have to use my AK…must have been a good day”.

Waste in this scenario is still a likely positive outcome; somebody took zero damage.

I wouldn't call the temp hp from inspiring leader to be an outright waste in any circumstance (but most temp hp abilities don't work like inspiring leader either). However, I would say that the temp hp provided from inspiring leader can easily amount to not being better than giving 1 character cha mod + level temp hp 0 which tends to be quite a bit less impactful than normally considered. It's essentially the age old question of how to value AOE's.


I’ve stated previously in this thread, that I do not consider Heroism to be a great spell, or even a good spell. False Life Upcast into a 2nd level slot would be expected to provide around 11 THP, which is not a bad return.

IMO, False life being cast with a spell slot is highly likely to lead to waste. The temp hp only last 1 hour. If you aren't hit in that hour the slot was wasted. It had no impact. That isn't to say it was worthless to cast (those are 2 different concepts). Effeciency vs risk. A false life that was wasted still may have been worth casting from a risk reduction standpoint.


The waste issue with False Life is that the spell has a range of Self, and the THP only last one hour. Due to this, one should only be using False Life just before battle occurs. If you happen to take no damage in that combat..then I agree…there is waste, but the Venerable Ice Cube still states: “That is a good day”.

Unlike the Ice Cube wisdom, he didn't give up his AK or a magazine clip for it just he had it and didn't need it. Most temp hp abilities do require a resource of some kind. Meaning having those up via using that resource doesn't really fit well with that analogy.


Consider the statement that is attributed to Voltaire regarding generalizations; specificities brings definition to any conversation.

If we are going to talk specifics then lets really dig into particular abilities and talk specifics about them. Let's talk Inspiring Leader and heroism and cure wound, etc.


I would argue that, even when the 5e books were limited to just the PHB for player options, it became quickly apparent how useful options like the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats were when compared to spells, especially spells like Heroism or False Life.

You seem to be talking about feats vs spells for temp hp/healing. Whereas I'm talking more about retroactive vs proactive healing and temp hp generation. That's quite a different generalization.


In my experience the Heroism and False Life spells are not the predominant method for THP generation, and have never been the predominant method, due in part to the Inspiring Leader feat.

I agree

[LordShade]

Yet again, what is really wasted? Like the venerable bard, Ice Cube said:
“I Didn’t have to use my AK…must have been a good day”.


Background music for the rest of the thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmoo0rK7z98