Healing Spirit Nerf

[47Ace]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No its still out of line without muliticlassing.

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


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

[Lyracian]

Why is there no errata page for this?

It is in the latest Errata document released. Buried in part of the Sage Advice.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/d...qZb9DLFRb018nE

[MaxWilson]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Benny89]

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

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

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

[Willie the Duck]

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

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

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

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

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

[LudicSavant]

It is in the latest Errata document released. Buried in part of the Sage Advice.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/d...qZb9DLFRb018nE

Thanks for that.

[Segev]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Willie the Duck]

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

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

[jas61292]

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

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

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

[MaxWilson]

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

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

[Pex]

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

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

[Willie the Duck]

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

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

[kazaryu]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe it's a playstyle difference, but while I agree about Second Wind (you can use it in combat, especially at low levels before better bonus actions come online), I don't see Lay On Hands as an action as something that's particularly useful during combat--it's not a good use of an action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler: storytime

Show

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

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

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

[HiveStriker]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


No its still out of line without muliticlassing.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[MaxWilson]

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

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

Apparently we were having completely different conversations.

[Tanarii]

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

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

[kazaryu]

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

Apparently we were having completely different conversations.

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

[47Ace]

Snip long post.

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

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

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

[Witty Username]

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

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

[MaxWilson]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler: storytime

Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[jas61292]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pex]

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

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

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



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

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

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

[Tanarii]

Rather, I'm just saying that, what seems to be the general assumption on forums is that enemies will never, ever attack a downed PC, and that pop up healing thus always works.

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

[jas61292]

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

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

[Pex]

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

[kazaryu]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[MaxWilson]

Spoiler: Beating a Dead Horse

Show

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

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

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

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