The discussion was supposed to be about how a completely broken spell was able to make it into an officially released product and how we can fix it in the future. Instead it got sidetracked by people who are clearly trolling for the sake of argument. Really disappointing.
But the spell is not broken. This is part of the point of contention. If used in a somewhat unorthodox way, it can provide a vast amount of healing, but that doesn't matter because the players are sacrificing a 2nd level spell slot to do this and all encounters in published adventures (which are basically models for homebrew adventures) begin with the assumption that the party begins them at full HP anyway.
In order for the spell to be broken it needs to show that it can influence the game in such a way as to make it unplayable. Nobody has been able to show how wasting a spell slot to allow the party to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health (which is realistically capped by their HP totals anyway) and start the next encounter somewhat fresh (minus at least one 2nd level spell slot), in any way causes the game to fall apart when the game is designed to account for this by design.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The discussion was supposed to be about how a completely broken spell was able to make it into an officially released product and how we can fix it in the future. Instead it got sidetracked by people who are clearly trolling for the sake of argument. Really disappointing.
But the spell is not broken. This is part of the point of contention. If used in a somewhat unorthodox way, it can provide a vast amount of healing, but that doesn't matter because the players are sacrificing a 2nd level spell slot to do this and all encounters in published adventures (which are basically models for homebrew adventures) begin with the assumption that the party begins them at full HP anyway.
In order for the spell to be broken it needs to show that it can influence the game in such a way as to make it unplayable. Nobody has been able to show how wasting a spell slot to allow the party to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health (which is realistically capped by their HP totals anyway) and start the next encounter somewhat fresh (minus at least one 2nd level spell slot), in any way causes the game to fall apart when the game is designed to account for this by design.
So your arguments are:
1. Using a spell exactly the way it's written is unorthodox and therefore can't be broken. 2. A spell being magnitudes (500%+) more powerful than even the best currently available option of equivalent resource cost is not broken. 3. No spell or ability can be broken if it uses a limited resource. 4. The only way something can be broken is if it makes the game literally unplayable.
I'll be honest. I'm starting to understand how this ridiculous spell made it past play-testing. WotC could put a level 1 spell that does 50d6 damage to all enemies in a mile radius, and yet every single one of your 4 arguments would deem it to be unbroken.
The discussion was supposed to be about how a completely broken spell was able to make it into an officially released product and how we can fix it in the future. Instead it got sidetracked by people who are clearly trolling for the sake of argument. Really disappointing.
But the spell is not broken. This is part of the point of contention. If used in a somewhat unorthodox way, it can provide a vast amount of healing, but that doesn't matter because the players are sacrificing a 2nd level spell slot to do this and all encounters in published adventures (which are basically models for homebrew adventures) begin with the assumption that the party begins them at full HP anyway.
In order for the spell to be broken it needs to show that it can influence the game in such a way as to make it unplayable. Nobody has been able to show how wasting a spell slot to allow the party to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health (which is realistically capped by their HP totals anyway) and start the next encounter somewhat fresh (minus at least one 2nd level spell slot), in any way causes the game to fall apart when the game is designed to account for this by design.
So your arguments are:
1. Using a spell exactly the way it's written is unorthodox and therefore can't be broken. 2. A spell being magnitudes (500%+) more powerful than even the best currently available option of equivalent resource cost is not broken. 3. No spell or ability can be broken if it uses a limited resource. 4. The only way something can be broken is if it makes the game literally unplayable.
I'll be honest. I'm starting to understand how this ridiculous spell made it past play-testing. WotC could put a level 1 spell that does 50d6 damage to all enemies in a mile radius, and yet every single one of your 4 arguments would deem it to be unbroken.
Absolutely absurd.
Answer me the following questions:
1. At what level does this spell become broken? It can start being cast at level 3, at a time when maximum hit-point totals can barely break 40 and most are at half that. When does it matter that it over-heals so much?
2. How many times does it have to be cast to make the game stop working correctly? If cast at the end of every encounter, how many encounters does the party have to go through starting at full hit points where this becomes a problem? Especially knowing that the game is balanced for characters to start all encounters at full hit points anyway?
3. Who is actually affected by this spell that would find the game less fun if it is used as-written? What DM or player would stop playing the game because this one spell is available and causes encounters to function as-intended?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
One thing for you to think about, Metamongoose: not all adventures assume that the PCs are going to be able to heal up to full health in a minute by spending one spell slot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
I don't have time to dig up the post on Twitter right now, but the designers of the game at the very least assume the party will start every encounter at full health, no matter how they accomplish this task. That means that every published adventure assumes this, whether it is by expending one spell slot or taking long rests, or whatever else.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
How often does players feel the needs to bring said spell in their arsenal ?
By my experience in the last 3 years of 5e. A ton of spells are deemed OP yet the players dont even pack them into their prepared spell list. As far as i am concerned. I have yet to see a single player choose out of combat healing in their long preparations. If the spell was that broken... It would be chosen by pretty much every single min maxers out there. But right now... Its not ! Of course were still pretty early to tell as the thing just came out.
@mattias. How is any adventure not counting short rests to heal up? Give me an exemple please. As far as my adventure goes i always account for players to have potions, bards or any of the short rest methods of healing. Because doing so is pretty much the job of the dm. More often then not the adventures of wizards all let the players decides what they wanna do.
So without exemples... Im forced to admit that the spell is looking broken only because it breaks your methods. If it is the case then might i suggest you change the spell or strickly ban it.
I do not see a problem with it because basically all my adventures considers that my players will go off the rails to begin with.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
From my personal experience running an AL game, one of my Druid players has this spell and hasn't yet seen it worth casting...and I'm running my party through Tomb of Annihilation right now, a potentially extremely lethal adventure module.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
The discussion was supposed to be about how a completely broken spell was able to make it into an officially released product and how we can fix it in the future. Instead it got sidetracked by people who are clearly trolling for the sake of argument. Really disappointing.
But the spell is not broken. This is part of the point of contention. If used in a somewhat unorthodox way, it can provide a vast amount of healing, but that doesn't matter because the players are sacrificing a 2nd level spell slot to do this and all encounters in published adventures (which are basically models for homebrew adventures) begin with the assumption that the party begins them at full HP anyway.
In order for the spell to be broken it needs to show that it can influence the game in such a way as to make it unplayable. Nobody has been able to show how wasting a spell slot to allow the party to gain an arbitrarily large amount of health (which is realistically capped by their HP totals anyway) and start the next encounter somewhat fresh (minus at least one 2nd level spell slot), in any way causes the game to fall apart when the game is designed to account for this by design.
So your arguments are:
1. Using a spell exactly the way it's written is unorthodox and therefore can't be broken. 2. A spell being magnitudes (500%+) more powerful than even the best currently available option of equivalent resource cost is not broken. 3. No spell or ability can be broken if it uses a limited resource. 4. The only way something can be broken is if it makes the game literally unplayable.
I'll be honest. I'm starting to understand how this ridiculous spell made it past play-testing. WotC could put a level 1 spell that does 50d6 damage to all enemies in a mile radius, and yet every single one of your 4 arguments would deem it to be unbroken.
Absolutely absurd.
Answer me the following questions:
1. At what level does this spell become broken? It can start being cast at level 3, at a time when maximum hit-point totals can barely break 40 and most are at half that. When does it matter that it over-heals so much?
2. How many times does it have to be cast to make the game stop working correctly? If cast at the end of every encounter, how many encounters does the party have to go through starting at full hit points where this becomes a problem? Especially knowing that the game is balanced for characters to start all encounters at full hit points anyway?
3. Who is actually affected by this spell that would find the game less fun if it is used as-written? What DM or player would stop playing the game because this one spell is available and causes encounters to function as-intended?
1. From the moment it is introduced, where it outperforms every other comparable option by a massive margin, to the very end of the game where it's scaling has allowed it to continue outperforming every other comparable option by a massive margin. This isn't a difficult concept. Why are you struggling to grasp this?
2. I've already pointed out how ridiculous your argument is that nothing can be broken unless it literally breaks the ability of players to physically play the game. You don't need to continue asking me the same ridiculous question worded slightly differently again and again. QA and playtesting groups don't look for "broken things" that light the table on fire and cause a plague breakout among the players. They look for shit that is broken by normal standards held by normal people.
3. I've already pointed out how ridiculous your argument is that nothing can be broken unless it literally breaks the ability of players to physically play the game. You don't need to continue asking me the same ridiculous question worded slightly differently again and again. QA and playtesting groups don't look for "broken things" that light the table on fire and cause a plague breakout among the players. They look for shit that is broken by normal standards held by normal people.
From having read your previous arguments in this thread, I think that goes without saying.
There's a reason for that. While you have exhaustively done the math to show that the spell heals at a rate that is above the current curve, you've yet to articulate how that breaks the game in any real way to real people playing the game for real. The spell is out in the wild now and the real world doesn't seem to care very much. Things that are "broken" are things that need to be fixed, banned, or addressed in some real fashion. This spell does not require any of those things based on its current usage and impact on organized play (the only place where WotC would consider adjusting it in the first place as home games are largely self-regulated).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
From having read your previous arguments in this thread, I think that goes without saying.
There's a reason for that. While you have exhaustively done the math to show that the spell heals at a rate that is above the current curve, you've yet to articulate how that breaks the game in any real way to real people playing the game for real. The spell is out in the wild now and the real world doesn't seem to care very much. Things that are "broken" are things that need to be fixed, banned, or addressed in some real fashion. This spell does not require any of those things based on its current usage and impact on organized play (the only place where WotC would consider adjusting it in the first place as home games are largely self-regulated).
Sure.
XGE has only been out a matter of weeks and yet a search for 5e "Healing Spirt" returns dozens upon dozens of discussion threads on Enworld, Giant in the Playground, D&D Beyond, Reddit, and others. We've got comments from the designers of the game saying they're aware of concerns. You've got DMs throughout those threads and comments saying they either won't allow it in their game or will only allow it if the language is changed.
But somehow to you that doesn't pass your standards of "anyone caring".
I can't follow your standards, man. I can't follow your standards on balance where "if it's not burning the DM's house down it's not imbalanced", nor can I follow your standards on relevance where "if everyone is talking about it, that still means no one cares".
You've made it clear there's literally nothing anyone can do to make you acknowledge that the grass is green. Whatever you feel you've accomplished, congratulations. I'm done.
Maybe I'm just not seeing the same internet you are?
- Enworld seems to have about a 4-page discussion thread about this spell that varies between alarmist and argumentative with very little (if any) examples of real-world impact.
- GitP has a single 12-page thread that is just as alarmist, but still pretty light on real proof of issue.
-D&D Beyond has only this thread that you started, again, in a very alarmist fashion, but with no hard evidence of actual issue (being "above the curve" isn't an issue).
-Reddit is Reddit and may as well be Youtube comments made by misanthropes.
Oh, and again, this was WotC's official response when said alarmists started going on that there was such a game breaking issue with the spell:
So yes, it is noted as being above the curve, and the designers are willing to wait and see if it really causes an issue for real people before maybe changing it. If it turns out that the spell is too good as to warrant errata of some kind, then sure, it's "broken" and needed fixed. My experience thus far leads me to believe that it will only be deemed "strong" and largely ignored by the designers as its effects do not actually break the game and prevent people from playing it or cause them to have a bad play experience.
So yeah, the grass is green, except in the winter when it's like brown or something. This is more mountains and mole-hills territory anyway.
TekGryffon, you have yet to explain to us how it breaks the game, you continu to throw math at us in hope it changes our minds, but you have still failed to tell us how your group can survive 5 beholders at level 5 with that spell ? if your only concern is them healing outside of combat then you have no real problem to begin with, because they can't go beyond their Max HP and they still loses ressources to do just that. up to this point i have seen nothing that breaks the game.
oh and by the way, leomunds tiny hut also broke the game back 2 years ago. you know when people realised it last 8 hours and allow you do long rest reguardless of where you are. so again, i have seen other spells be called Broken and yet nothing has been done against them because they are not really broken.
i'll explain the word meaning to you even... because it seems you throw it around without knowing what it really means...
Broken = Unplayable game, full of holes or bugs that makes the game literally unplayable.
so now, knowing that broken is a word that means you can't play D&D because of the "Broken" spell. I wonder what you think of planeshift which just literally teleport a bbeg to drown in the water plane. or burn in the fire plane. or the gate spell which just literally teleports the BBEG into the sun for an instant kill. or Wish which literally allow you to do whatever the **** you want with only 33% chances of losing the said spell. of course you could argue they are level 9 spells they should be OP. but i would argue, they are still not broken. OP perhaps, broken, nope they haven't stopped me from playing the game up to this point.
now let's go into level territory... try and tell people that charm person is not all that OP, see for yourself the reactions you will get. on the net it seems everyones thinks you can literally get a kingdom and a whole army by just doing it to the nearest king. Suggestions has gotten the very same treatment, and god forbid what you can do with modify memory at fifth level spell casting.
but hey, apparently you cannot play D&D as long as that spell is around.
as far as i am concerned... i have 3 groups going on right now, many have changed their spell list to include the spells from xanathars guide and all 3 healers haven't picked it yet. all saying outside combat healing is not really something valuable considering they usually have enough ressources to do the adventure and then do a long rest at the inn or the camp site. oh and in one of the group i have literally 3 clerics... between all of them, they don't need outside of combat healing, they have enough ressources to last 3 adventures.
this is an exemple of what my groups thinks of the spell. so if you believe it to be broken and making the game unplayable to you, then i'm sorry to hear that, hope you find a solution to that brokeness... but to my players... that spell is way too situationnal to be of use. because outside of combat already has a lot of stuff you can do and hit dices serving that job is usually enough.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
You know, without threads like these, I dont' think anyone in my group would even think about doing something like this. I've played a lot of potentially broken games in my time, and they rarely fall apart. Why? For the very simpe reason that our table has an unspoken agreement to not try to use such broken tactics. We look to do things in a narrative fasion - for us, the story matters more. The idea of looking at Spirit of Healing and that by running back and forth you can heal a ton of hp is just against the spirit of our table (pun intneded).
I like to think that most people think the same as my group. I'm sure there's some out there that will abuse the wording (and, yes, it is abuse), but I think that's going to be the minority. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of games will see "oh, hey, combat healing" and probably keep it to just that - combat.
My main group has always run off of the what we call "The Sniper Rule".
If there is a dirty trick, that seems in obvious... if the players don't use it then the GM won't use it. It's a Nuclear Deterrent.
We call this "The Sniper Rule" because in Shadowrun, it's very easy to kill a player from a surprise attack and it would just make sense to have 1 person with a high powered rifle on overwatch while the group does the run. The problem is this is VERY boring for that player and creates a situation that just negates most threats (like a flying drone...). As such the players don't fear that an enemy sniper will be doing the same thing.
That said, I personally don't think the spell is broken, definitely on the higher end of useful for it's level.
With the expenditure of a 2nd lvl slot the party is healed 6-60 HP, with an average of 30 hp. At 3rd level that means the party is probably fully healed (unless the dice truly hate you)... but the time you get to 8th level it's going to heal 25-50% of each player's max health? As other players have mentioned this is the kind of resource you use because you don't have time for a Short Rest, or your already out of Short Rest Dice.
In the Situation where the party even use this spell, they have probably just finished a VERY bad fight, they have already done so poorly that they have used up all of their Hit Dice already or can't risk resting... and for some reason have not spent the lvl 2 spell already. Honestly if the party is doing this badly, it's probably the dice screwing them over. That's the kind of situation where you're kicking the puppy.
Wait: are we *not* supposed to fully heal between encounters? In all the groups I've run or been in, we fully healed between encounters. Often this could be done with yesterday's goodberries, but if we had to take a rest (maybe we got rocked pretty hard during a combat), we did so.
So Healing Spirit would merely eliminate the need for those rests.
... or are other groups routinely getting hit pretty hard and denied the chance to rest?
I believe it is NOT okay to rely on the goodwill of the DM and the players to prevent exploits; good rules should avoid those in the first place; this spell is not well written.
That's actually not how most game designers think these days. They tend towards rules that are fun and interesting before perfectly balanced. People are told that balance is going to differ between tables anyways.
Is this going to be a problem at enough tables? If no, then I don't think we can say its not well written.
With the expenditure of a 2nd lvl slot the party is healed 6-60 HP, with an average of 30 hp. At 3rd level that means the party is probably fully healed (unless the dice truly hate you)... but the time you get to 8th level it's going to heal 25-50% of each player's max health? As other players have mentioned this is the kind of resource you use because you don't have time for a Short Rest, or your already out of Short Rest Dice.
Except that when you're at 8th level you can spare a 3rd level spell easier than you can spare a 2nd level spell at 3rd level. And that 3rd level spell is doing 20d6 healing to every single person in the party. That absolutely is something that can heal the entire party, and they don't even have to touch their highest level spell slots to do it.
Nor is it something that passes the Nuclear Deterrent test, since enemy healing is such a rarely used mechanic, although it absolutely would violate "The Sniper Rule".
Healing 35 HP per party member (and it is 35, not 30) at level 3 is not balanced. Healing 70 HP per party member at level 5 is not balanced. Healing 105 HP at level 7 is not balanced. You quickly reach the point where you can heal the entire party from nothing to full many, many times over without even having to touch your highest level spells.
Anyone who argues they can accomplish the same using any other spell or ability with anywhere NEAR the efficiency is outright lying or has limited experience in 5e. Hit Dice only go so far. 300 goodberries is a hilariously stupid use of 30 spell slots and not only are you playing like a **** that no one is going to enjoy, but that 300 HP worth of healing is utterly eclipsed by a single level 3 casting of Healing Spirit, which is doing 350 worth of healing to a party of 5. It's an utter joke.
So your arguments are:
1. Using a spell exactly the way it's written is unorthodox and therefore can't be broken.
2. A spell being magnitudes (500%+) more powerful than even the best currently available option of equivalent resource cost is not broken.
3. No spell or ability can be broken if it uses a limited resource.
4. The only way something can be broken is if it makes the game literally unplayable.
I'll be honest. I'm starting to understand how this ridiculous spell made it past play-testing. WotC could put a level 1 spell that does 50d6 damage to all enemies in a mile radius, and yet every single one of your 4 arguments would deem it to be unbroken.
Absolutely absurd.
One thing for you to think about, Metamongoose: not all adventures assume that the PCs are going to be able to heal up to full health in a minute by spending one spell slot.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
I don't have time to dig up the post on Twitter right now, but the designers of the game at the very least assume the party will start every encounter at full health, no matter how they accomplish this task. That means that every published adventure assumes this, whether it is by expending one spell slot or taking long rests, or whatever else.
Everything is a resource expenditure.
I think Healing Spirit is pretty head and shoulders above Prayer of Healing, but it's not unusual for spells within a level to have a discrepancy.
I'm with mongoose here...
How often does players feel the needs to bring said spell in their arsenal ?
By my experience in the last 3 years of 5e. A ton of spells are deemed OP yet the players dont even pack them into their prepared spell list. As far as i am concerned. I have yet to see a single player choose out of combat healing in their long preparations. If the spell was that broken... It would be chosen by pretty much every single min maxers out there. But right now... Its not ! Of course were still pretty early to tell as the thing just came out.
@mattias. How is any adventure not counting short rests to heal up? Give me an exemple please. As far as my adventure goes i always account for players to have potions, bards or any of the short rest methods of healing. Because doing so is pretty much the job of the dm. More often then not the adventures of wizards all let the players decides what they wanna do.
So without exemples... Im forced to admit that the spell is looking broken only because it breaks your methods. If it is the case then might i suggest you change the spell or strickly ban it.
I do not see a problem with it because basically all my adventures considers that my players will go off the rails to begin with.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
From my personal experience running an AL game, one of my Druid players has this spell and hasn't yet seen it worth casting...and I'm running my party through Tomb of Annihilation right now, a potentially extremely lethal adventure module.
Maybe I'm just not seeing the same internet you are?
- Enworld seems to have about a 4-page discussion thread about this spell that varies between alarmist and argumentative with very little (if any) examples of real-world impact.
- GitP has a single 12-page thread that is just as alarmist, but still pretty light on real proof of issue.
-D&D Beyond has only this thread that you started, again, in a very alarmist fashion, but with no hard evidence of actual issue (being "above the curve" isn't an issue).
-Reddit is Reddit and may as well be Youtube comments made by misanthropes.
Oh, and again, this was WotC's official response when said alarmists started going on that there was such a game breaking issue with the spell:
So yes, it is noted as being above the curve, and the designers are willing to wait and see if it really causes an issue for real people before maybe changing it. If it turns out that the spell is too good as to warrant errata of some kind, then sure, it's "broken" and needed fixed. My experience thus far leads me to believe that it will only be deemed "strong" and largely ignored by the designers as its effects do not actually break the game and prevent people from playing it or cause them to have a bad play experience.
So yeah, the grass is green, except in the winter when it's like brown or something. This is more mountains and mole-hills territory anyway.
TekGryffon, you have yet to explain to us how it breaks the game, you continu to throw math at us in hope it changes our minds, but you have still failed to tell us how your group can survive 5 beholders at level 5 with that spell ? if your only concern is them healing outside of combat then you have no real problem to begin with, because they can't go beyond their Max HP and they still loses ressources to do just that. up to this point i have seen nothing that breaks the game.
oh and by the way, leomunds tiny hut also broke the game back 2 years ago. you know when people realised it last 8 hours and allow you do long rest reguardless of where you are. so again, i have seen other spells be called Broken and yet nothing has been done against them because they are not really broken.
i'll explain the word meaning to you even... because it seems you throw it around without knowing what it really means...
Broken = Unplayable game, full of holes or bugs that makes the game literally unplayable.
so now, knowing that broken is a word that means you can't play D&D because of the "Broken" spell.
I wonder what you think of planeshift which just literally teleport a bbeg to drown in the water plane. or burn in the fire plane.
or the gate spell which just literally teleports the BBEG into the sun for an instant kill. or Wish which literally allow you to do whatever the **** you want with only 33% chances of losing the said spell. of course you could argue they are level 9 spells they should be OP. but i would argue, they are still not broken. OP perhaps, broken, nope they haven't stopped me from playing the game up to this point.
now let's go into level territory... try and tell people that charm person is not all that OP, see for yourself the reactions you will get. on the net it seems everyones thinks you can literally get a kingdom and a whole army by just doing it to the nearest king. Suggestions has gotten the very same treatment, and god forbid what you can do with modify memory at fifth level spell casting.
but hey, apparently you cannot play D&D as long as that spell is around.
as far as i am concerned... i have 3 groups going on right now, many have changed their spell list to include the spells from xanathars guide and all 3 healers haven't picked it yet. all saying outside combat healing is not really something valuable considering they usually have enough ressources to do the adventure and then do a long rest at the inn or the camp site. oh and in one of the group i have literally 3 clerics... between all of them, they don't need outside of combat healing, they have enough ressources to last 3 adventures.
this is an exemple of what my groups thinks of the spell.
so if you believe it to be broken and making the game unplayable to you, then i'm sorry to hear that, hope you find a solution to that brokeness... but to my players... that spell is way too situationnal to be of use. because outside of combat already has a lot of stuff you can do and hit dices serving that job is usually enough.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
You know, without threads like these, I dont' think anyone in my group would even think about doing something like this. I've played a lot of potentially broken games in my time, and they rarely fall apart. Why? For the very simpe reason that our table has an unspoken agreement to not try to use such broken tactics. We look to do things in a narrative fasion - for us, the story matters more. The idea of looking at Spirit of Healing and that by running back and forth you can heal a ton of hp is just against the spirit of our table (pun intneded).
I like to think that most people think the same as my group. I'm sure there's some out there that will abuse the wording (and, yes, it is abuse), but I think that's going to be the minority. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of games will see "oh, hey, combat healing" and probably keep it to just that - combat.
My main group has always run off of the what we call "The Sniper Rule".
If there is a dirty trick, that seems in obvious... if the players don't use it then the GM won't use it. It's a Nuclear Deterrent.
We call this "The Sniper Rule" because in Shadowrun, it's very easy to kill a player from a surprise attack and it would just make sense to have 1 person with a high powered rifle on overwatch while the group does the run. The problem is this is VERY boring for that player and creates a situation that just negates most threats (like a flying drone...). As such the players don't fear that an enemy sniper will be doing the same thing.
That said, I personally don't think the spell is broken, definitely on the higher end of useful for it's level.
With the expenditure of a 2nd lvl slot the party is healed 6-60 HP, with an average of 30 hp. At 3rd level that means the party is probably fully healed (unless the dice truly hate you)... but the time you get to 8th level it's going to heal 25-50% of each player's max health? As other players have mentioned this is the kind of resource you use because you don't have time for a Short Rest, or your already out of Short Rest Dice.
In the Situation where the party even use this spell, they have probably just finished a VERY bad fight, they have already done so poorly that they have used up all of their Hit Dice already or can't risk resting... and for some reason have not spent the lvl 2 spell already.
Honestly if the party is doing this badly, it's probably the dice screwing them over. That's the kind of situation where you're kicking the puppy.
Wait: are we *not* supposed to fully heal between encounters? In all the groups I've run or been in, we fully healed between encounters. Often this could be done with yesterday's goodberries, but if we had to take a rest (maybe we got rocked pretty hard during a combat), we did so.
So Healing Spirit would merely eliminate the need for those rests.
... or are other groups routinely getting hit pretty hard and denied the chance to rest?
That's actually not how most game designers think these days. They tend towards rules that are fun and interesting before perfectly balanced. People are told that balance is going to differ between tables anyways.
Is this going to be a problem at enough tables? If no, then I don't think we can say its not well written.
Except that when you're at 8th level you can spare a 3rd level spell easier than you can spare a 2nd level spell at 3rd level. And that 3rd level spell is doing 20d6 healing to every single person in the party. That absolutely is something that can heal the entire party, and they don't even have to touch their highest level spell slots to do it.
Nor is it something that passes the Nuclear Deterrent test, since enemy healing is such a rarely used mechanic, although it absolutely would violate "The Sniper Rule".
Healing 35 HP per party member (and it is 35, not 30) at level 3 is not balanced. Healing 70 HP per party member at level 5 is not balanced. Healing 105 HP at level 7 is not balanced. You quickly reach the point where you can heal the entire party from nothing to full many, many times over without even having to touch your highest level spells.