Sage Advice Compendium. It is the only of official rulings from the designers. Rules questions that the designers think need clarification but not changed text gets an answer in SAC. It is freely available and in fact can be found as a source on D&DBeyond.
Goodberry does not trigger it. Both because of the mechanical requirements, and the balance implications of any other interpretation. DM is free to run their game the way they want, but RAW, this is the reason it does not work:
Unicorn Spirit: "If you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level."
Goodberry: Casting goodberry upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. You (as well as any other druid of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.
Mechanically - Goodberry has a casting time of 1 action. At the end of that 1 action, you have finished casting a spell. No HP have been restored. You did not meet the requirements. After that point, you are not casting a spell, even if a creature has HP restored by eating the berries. There is no way for the Unicorn Spirit to know whether or not the Berries will eventually be eaten by a creature inside or outside the aura, and there is no way to interpret the trigger point of Unicorn Spirit as anything other than at the time of casting.
Balance - If you count the eating of a berry (the only point at which HP are restored) as a trigger for the ability, despite it specifically not triggering upon the restoration of HP, but rather upon the casting of a spell, the balance implications are severe. After all, why would eating one berry trigger it, but not eating another one? Logically following that rationale, if the spell previously cast restoring HP is sufficient, one would be able to eat a berry, trigger it, eat another berry, trigger it again, etc, and potentially get up to 8 triggers per 1st level spell slot. At say 7th level that's 56 HP restored per creature in the aura from one 1st level spell.
Clearly that isn't intended, and is begging for rampant abuse. I would never permit it at my table. Healing word, Cure Light Wounds, plenty of other options for Druid objectively and clearly satisfy the requirements as written. There is no particular reason Goodberry Needs to satisfy them or trigger the effect, it's already plenty good as a prep spell and flavorful besides. If a DM were to modify the requirements and change it to "if you cast a spell which could restore health" so that Goodberry actually met the requirements on casting and only on casting, it likely wouldn't break anything or cause any significant issues. But I certainly wouldn't do it, and that's not the interaction prescribed by the rules as written.
Goodberry: Casting goodberry upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. You (as well as any other druid of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.
Mechanically - Goodberry has a casting time of 1 action. At the end of that 1 action, you have finished casting a spell. No HP have been restored. You did not meet the requirements. After that point, you are not casting a spell, even if a creature has HP restored by eating the berries. There is no way for the Unicorn Spirit to know whether or not the Berries will eventually be eaten by a creature inside or outside the aura, and there is no way to interpret the trigger point of Unicorn Spirit as anything other than at the time of casting.
Balance - If you count the eating of a berry (the only point at which HP are restored) as a trigger for the ability, despite it specifically not triggering upon the restoration of HP, but rather upon the casting of a spell, the balance implications are severe. After all, why would eating one berry trigger it, but not eating another one? Logically following that rationale, if the spell previously cast restoring HP is sufficient, one would be able to eat a berry, trigger it, eat another berry, trigger it again, etc, and potentially get up to 8 triggers per 1st level spell slot. At say 7th level that's 56 HP restored per creature in the aura from one 1st level spell.
I agree with your ultimate conclusion but your discussion uses the 3rd edition text for goodberry. The current text is: "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one berry. Eating a berry restores 1 hit point, and the berry provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day. The berries lose their potency if they have not been consumed within 24 hours of the casting of this spell."
Jegpeg mentioned SAC in reply #9. What does SAC stand for?
SAC stands for Sage Advice Compendium. It is a collection of rules questions with official answers from the game's developers. It is a pdf you can download from Wizards of the Coast and now that they own DnDBeyond it is also hosted here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sac/sage-advice-compendium
Goodberry does not trigger it. Both because of the mechanical requirements, and the balance implications of any other interpretation. DM is free to run their game the way they want, but RAW, this is the reason it does not work:
Unicorn Spirit: "If you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level."
Goodberry is a spell that restores hit points, so casting it would meet this trigger.
Goodberry: Casting goodberry upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. You (as well as any other druid of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.
Essentially every one of these claims about goodberry is false, although only one directly interacts with the discussion at hand. Here's a full rundown:
Goodberry does not target a handful of freshly picked berries. Goodberry manifests berries. The distinction is potentially relevant, as I will discuss below.
No-one, including you (note that non-druids can cast Goodberry a variety of ways, so you need not be a druid) or a druid of any level, has any built-in way to discern a goodberry as a goodberry.
Goodberries do not feed a creature based on that creature's size - all consumers are treated equally.
Goodberry provides a day's worth of eating, not a meal's worth of eating.
Curing hit points doesn't mean anything, but in terms of restoring/healing hit points, goodberry has no 8/day limit.
Mechanically - Goodberry has a casting time of 1 action. At the end of that 1 action, you have finished casting a spell. No HP have been restored. You did not meet the requirements.
Yes, you did. You are conflating a spell that restores hit points at casting time with a spell that restores hit points at all. They are not the same thing, as Goodberry demonstrates.
The piece I suspect you are missing is reasonable to be missing, because it's not in any rulebook - instead, it's an emergent behaviour of the rules: if the following statement is false, a substantial number of other rules explode in a paradox of word salad, and if the following statement is true, everything is rendered more consistent (i.e. it only reduces paradoxes, it does not increase them): when a spell creates a creature, that creature is not the spell, but when a spell creates an object, that object is the spell.
Thus, for example, shadow blade creates a blade such that when you damage someone with the blade, you have damaged someone with a spell. However, if you cast summon construct and your summon damages someone, no-one (including you or it) has damaged anyone with a spell.
After that point, you are not casting a spell, even if a creature has HP restored by eating the berries. There is no way for the Unicorn Spirit to know whether or not the Berries will eventually be eaten by a creature inside or outside the aura, and there is no way to interpret the trigger point of Unicorn Spirit as anything other than at the time of casting.
The Unicorn Spirit triggers when you cast a spell that can restore hit points. It doesn't matter if any hit points are actually restored. Your same argument would mean that US doesn't trigger if you cast Healing Word on someone at full health, because no healing actually happens. This is bogus. US triggers when you cast a spell that restores hit points - actually restoring them is immaterial.
Balance - If you count the eating of a berry (the only point at which HP are restored) as a trigger for the ability, despite it specifically not triggering upon the restoration of HP, but rather upon the casting of a spell, the balance implications are severe. After all, why would eating one berry trigger it, but not eating another one? Logically following that rationale, if the spell previously cast restoring HP is sufficient, one would be able to eat a berry, trigger it, eat another berry, trigger it again, etc, and potentially get up to 8 triggers per 1st level spell slot. At say 7th level that's 56 HP restored per creature in the aura from one 1st level spell.
The SAC has confirmed that goodberry works with the Life Cleric subclass benefit, so arguing this from a balance perspective is out the window.
Clearly that isn't intended, and is begging for rampant abuse. I would never permit it at my table. Healing word, Cure Light Wounds, plenty of other options for Druid objectively and clearly satisfy the requirements as written.
According to you, they don't, right? You said that at your table, the spell has to actually restore hit points. Neither Healing Word nor Cure Light Wounds will proc US at your table unless the target can actually be healed, even though the spells are spells that restore hit points.
There is no particular reason Goodberry Needs to satisfy them or trigger the effect, it's already plenty good as a prep spell and flavorful besides. If a DM were to modify the requirements and change it to "if you cast a spell which could restore health" so that Goodberry actually met the requirements on casting and only on casting, it likely wouldn't break anything or cause any significant issues.
That is functionally what the spell already says.
But I certainly wouldn't do it, and that's not the interaction prescribed by the rules as written.
It is exactly and literally the interaction described by the rules as written.
Thus, for example, shadow blade creates a blade such that when you damage someone with the blade, you have damaged someone with a spell. However, if you cast summon construct and your summon damages someone, no-one (including you or it) has damaged anyone with a spell.
None of these are problems; shadow blade doesn't inflict any damage, it summons a weapon with which you can inflict damage, essentially the same is true of summon construct etc., the construct deals damage, you don't. In both cases the spell conjures/summons something and then maintains it. Where you might be able to somewhat argue that the spell does damage is that the spells in these cases at least persist, so as a direct result of the spell continuing, damage is potentially inflicted (and the spell ending means no more damage can occur).
But that's why these aren't actually comparable to goodberry, as goodberry ends the moment it has finished creating the 10 berries, beyond that point there is no spell, as it has fulfilled its purpose. This is why goodberries cannot be dispelled (but a shadow blade of a summoned construct can), though they do have their own in-built duration (but this is not a spell duration, it's just a property of the berry, as with its healing).
So it's very much not a spell that restores hit-points, it's a spell that creates goodberries. Just as fabricate is not a spell that deals slashing damage just because you could use it to make a longsword.
After that point, you are not casting a spell, even if a creature has HP restored by eating the berries. There is no way for the Unicorn Spirit to know whether or not the Berries will eventually be eaten by a creature inside or outside the aura, and there is no way to interpret the trigger point of Unicorn Spirit as anything other than at the time of casting.
The Unicorn Spirit triggers when you cast a spell that can restore hit points. It doesn't matter if any hit points are actually restored. Your same argument would mean that US doesn't trigger if you cast Healing Word on someone at full health, because no healing actually happens. This is bogus. US triggers when you cast a spell that restores hit points - actually restoring them is immaterial.
I am afraid this is not an accurate description of the Unicorn Spirits trigger condition for its healing effect. Here is the exact language from the feature:
. . . if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level.
'Restores' is the present tense (sometimes called the present indicative tense) for the verb 'restore'. The present tense is used when the action the verb is describing is happening right now, i.e. happening in the present. If the writers intended this feature to work as you suggest then I would expect them to have written something like "if you cast a spell using a spell slot that will restore hit points, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level."
This is why Giant_Octopodes and others argue that in order to trigger the Unicorn Spirit's healing the spell cast must restore hit points at the same time that it is cast.
Edit: Updated the suggested language for the feature. I originally wrote "that can restore" and that has broader application than I intended.
Goodberry is a spell that restores hit points, so casting it would meet this trigger.
It is not inherently a spell which restores HP any more than Flame Blade is. I'll get into why in a bit.
Essentially every one of these claims about goodberry is false, although only one directly interacts with the discussion at hand. Here's a full rundown:
Goodberry does not target a handful of freshly picked berries. Goodberry manifests berries. The distinction is potentially relevant, as I will discuss below.
No-one, including you (note that non-druids can cast Goodberry a variety of ways, so you need not be a druid) or a druid of any level, has any built-in way to discern a goodberry as a goodberry.
Goodberries do not feed a creature based on that creature's size - all consumers are treated equally.
Goodberry provides a day's worth of eating, not a meal's worth of eating.
Curing hit points doesn't mean anything, but in terms of restoring/healing hit points, goodberry has no 8/day limit.
Mechanically - Goodberry has a casting time of 1 action. At the end of that 1 action, you have finished casting a spell. No HP have been restored. You did not meet the requirements.
Yes, you did. You are conflating a spell that restores hit points at casting time with a spell that restores hit points at all. They are not the same thing, as Goodberry demonstrates.
The first part, yeah, I made a mistake and quoted an older version of Goodberry. It was a mistake, but doesn't impact the discussion at all.
Goodberry does not inherently restore HP. If you cast it and then put the berries in a pocket and wait 24 hours, the berries are gone, and no HP have been restored via the spell. If you cast Flame Blade conversely, and whack away at a creature wearing a Red Dragon Mask from Rise of Tiamat (red dragon mask can grant, in the right circumstances, Damage Absorption, which means you regain HP equal to 1/2 the damage dealt instead of taking damage if the damage type is fire), you have restored HP. Thus if you accept 'a spell that restores hit points at all' as an acceptable category, and only judge at the end of a casting time during which no HP have been restored, you're saying theoretical future events where HP are restored are acceptable. If theoretical future events are acceptable, and we accept someone missing HP maybe eating a berry as fine, shouldn't we also accept a 17th level Forge Domain Cleric showing up out of nowhere with a Red Dragon Mask on so I could maybe hit him with the Flame Blade?
The same applies for all other elemental types covered by Dragon Masks, so a spell which deals Acid, Cold, or Electricity damage should also be fine and trigger the effect with your logic. Call Lightning? Check!
In reality, a spell which could theoretically restore HP in the future, evaluated at the time of casting, is NOT the same thing as a spell which DID Restore HP when cast. We Don't accept the assumption that someone with Damage Absorption Fire will show up and allow Flame Blade to trigger. Even if someone with Damage Absorption Fire were around, we don't accept the assumption they're going to get hit. Because, at the time of casting, we have no way of knowing if that's going to be true or not. We don't know if someone is going to eat the berries. It's NOT a given. Even if they do, we don't know if that person is going to be missing HP. Thus, at the time of casting, we have no way of saying Goodberry is a spell which restores HP.
The piece I suspect you are missing is reasonable to be missing, because it's not in any rulebook - instead, it's an emergent behaviour of the rules: if the following statement is false, a substantial number of other rules explode in a paradox of word salad, and if the following statement is true, everything is rendered more consistent (i.e. it only reduces paradoxes, it does not increase them): when a spell creates a creature, that creature is not the spell, but when a spell creates an object, that object is the spell.
Thus, for example, shadow blade creates a blade such that when you damage someone with the blade, you have damaged someone with a spell. However, if you cast summon construct and your summon damages someone, no-one (including you or it) has damaged anyone with a spell.
I don't disagree with this but it's not relevant to the conversation.
The Unicorn Spirit triggers when you cast a spell that can restore hit points. It doesn't matter if any hit points are actually restored. Your same argument would mean that US doesn't trigger if you cast Healing Word on someone at full health, because no healing actually happens. This is bogus. US triggers when you cast a spell that restores hit points - actually restoring them is immaterial.
First, you modified the verbiage of the ability. That is NOT what it says. It says restores hit points, not can restore hit points. You're arguing a position not supported by the rules as written, which you can see, because you needed to modify what was written in order for it to do what you want it to do. Indeed, if you cast Healing Word at someone with full health, it would not trigger, because you did not cast a spell which restores hit points in that instance. The evaluation is simple - did you cast a spell? If yes, were HP restored? If both of those are yes, the trigger occurs. Accepting any spell that could under some set of circumstances (even if not the current one) have restored HP is not what the effect indicates, and Goodberry is no more a spell which restores HP than Call Lightning is.
The SAC has confirmed that goodberry works with the Life Cleric subclass benefit, so arguing this from a balance perspective is out the window.
Yeah not at all the same thing. Disciple of Life is written as follows: Whenever you use a spell of level 1 or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
Life Cleric Subclass grants the creature being healed an amount of additional HP equal to 2 plus the spell level when you use a spell to heal a creature. This would *absolutely* take effect if hitting our theoretical Red Dragon Mask wearing Forge Cleric with Flame Blade, for what it's worth, because it has a totally different set of evaluation criteria. The balance implications are also not the same, because while eating 10 berries would restore a Total of 40 HP, it's only to one creature, not every creature in an area.
According to you, they don't, right? You said that at your table, the spell has to actually restore hit points. Neither Healing Word nor Cure Light Wounds will proc US at your table unless the target can actually be healed, even though the spells are spells that restore hit points.
That is functionally what the spell already says.
It is exactly and literally the interaction described by the rules as written.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points. The function of the spell is (largely) to restore hit points. Therefore, by definition, Goodberry is "a spell that restores hit points".
So the question really boils down to whether the text "when you cast a spell that restores hit points" is referring to the nature/identity of the spell or the immediate outcome of the casting of the spell?
Outside of a definitive ruling from wotc, I'd say either interpretation is valid, but personally I fell the former is more likely the intended. If you cast a spell with a spell slot, and that spell's text describes an effect that restores hit points, then it works. The exception would be if the spell has multiple options and the healing is not the option that the spell is cast with. For example, if cure wounds had the option to target undead creatures to do damage, then casting it to do damage would not work for this effect. This solves the issue brought up by Giant_Octopodes of spells that have multiple damage options (chromatic orb etc) with effects that trigger on casting certain damage types.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points. The function of the spell is (largely) to restore hit points. Therefore, by definition, Goodberry is "a spell that restores hit points".
So the question really boils down to whether the text "when you cast a spell that restores hit points" is referring to the nature/identity of the spell or the immediate outcome of the casting of the spell?
Outside of a definitive ruling from wotc, I'd say either interpretation is valid, but personally I fell the former is more likely the intended. If you cast a spell with a spell slot, and that spell's text describes an effect that restores hit points, then it works. The exception would be if the spell has multiple options and the healing is not the option that the spell is cast with. For example, if cure wounds had the option to target undead creatures to do damage, then casting it to do damage would not work for this effect. This solves the issue brought up by Giant_Octopodes of spells that have multiple damage options (chromatic orb etc) with effects that trigger on casting certain damage types.
Casting a damage spell which could at times restore hit points, but did not because the target lacked a prerequisite ability
Casting a Cure Wounds which could at times restore hit points, but did not because it was targeted at an Undead to deal damage (hypothetically, not really possible)
Casting a Cure Wounds which could at times restore hit points, but did not because it was targeted at someone who was already at full HP
Separating the 3rd situation out from the other two is very, very arbitrary. If you want to go with "if the DM feels the 'intent' of the spell relates to the restoration of HP", rather than whether or not the spell, you know, restores hit points when cast, I'm in no way arguing against running your game however you feel is right. I'm just saying, the text indicates it's looking for the casting of a spell which restores hit points, and there is no way in which, at the time at which goodberry is cast, HP are restored. I presume then you would say casting Flame Blade would count as a spell which restores HP if the DM felt it was likely enough that the 'intent' was to use it to restore HP?
Also, I disagree that the function of the spell is to restore HP. That may be a way in which it's used, but the function of the spell is to create berries. Those berries can provide nourishment if the people eating it need nourishment, (up to 10 day/people's worth of rations), and, if the creature consuming it is missing health, can provide healing.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a duration there may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
Again, we wouldn't describe fabricate as a spell that deals slashing damage just because it can be used to make a longsword; what the spell did was make the weapon, the weapon then deals any damage (or not). Goodberry may be more limited in it what it can do but it's still the same basic principle; it's a spell that makes something that you can then later use, the spell itself doesn't do anything beyond that.
If you go to an alchemist's shop and use charm person to help you convince the owner to give you a free potion of healing, would charm person be a spell that restores hit-points?
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a duration there may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
Again, we wouldn't describe fabricate as a spell that deals slashing damage just because it can be used to make a longsword; what the spell did was make the weapon, the weapon then deals any damage (or not). Goodberry may be more limited in it what it can do but it's still the same basic principle; it's a spell that makes something that you can then later use, the spell itself doesn't do anything beyond that.
If you go to an alchemist's shop and use charm person to help you convince the owner to give you a free potion of healing, would charm person be a spell that restores hit-points?
For goodberry, the healing comes from the magic of the spell (it specifies that they are infused with magic). So yes, the spell itself is doing the healing. The Fabricate spell doesn't mention anything about doing damage and the items created with it do not retain magic from the spell. So that's an apples and oranges comparison. Your argument is more akin to arguing that the Spiritual Weapon spell doesn't do damage because it's actually the spectral weapon that does damage. But the weapon IS the spell. Same thing with goodberries. The berries (while they have their potency) are the spell.
This is fairly simple. Does the spell description talk restoring hit points? Okay then it's a spell that restores hit points.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a durationthere may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a durationthere may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
And taken literally, that means exactly what it says: the berries are infused instantaneously, since the duration of the spell is instantaneous. Is that what you meant?
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a durationthere may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
And taken literally, that means exactly what it says: the berries are infused instantaneously, since the duration of the spell is instantaneous. Is that what you meant?
The potency (magic) lasts for 24 hours, which IMO is what that is referring to as the duration.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a durationthere may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
And taken literally, that means exactly what it says: the berries are infused instantaneously, since the duration of the spell is instantaneous. Is that what you meant?
The potency (magic) lasts for 24 hours, which IMO is what that is referring to as the duration.
But that's certainly not the spell duration, which is clearly telling you how long the spell lasts and what the other poster was referring to. That is very obviously instantaneous.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a durationthere may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
And taken literally, that means exactly what it says: the berries are infused instantaneously, since the duration of the spell is instantaneous. Is that what you meant?
The potency (magic) lasts for 24 hours, which IMO is what that is referring to as the duration.
But that's certainly not the spell duration, which is clearly telling you how long the spell lasts and what the other poster was referring to. That is very obviously instantaneous.
Eh. I'd say it's murky. He said if it had "some kind" of duration. I was pointing out that it does have a kind of duration.
Bottom line is there's 2 potential interpretations of "a spell that restores hit points". One that focuses on the use of the spell in the moment. And one that focuses on the nature of the spell itself. I think the later is the better one to go with and likely more along the lines of the intention of this feature and other. If it's a healing spell, i.e. a spell that explicitly describes the restoration of hit points, then it's quite literally "a spell that restores hit points".
Eh. I'd say it's murky. He said if it had "some kind" of duration. I was pointing out that it does have a kind of duration.
What I meant was if the spell itself had a duration, but it doesn't, because its duration is explicitly instantaneous; it begins and ends with creating 10 goodberries, beyond that there is simply no spell involved. This is why you can't use dispel magic to cause a goodberry to become inert.
The goodberries themselves are magical as a consequence of the spell, but the spell has ended by the time you actually use one. While the text describes how to do that, what it's describing are the properties of the berries that you've created (action to restore a hit-point and feed yourself, loses potency after 24 hours). It's really no different to a summoning spell including or referencing a monster stat-block; those are not details of the spell itself, but of the summoned creature.
As for the "infused with magic for the duration" line, this actually has a strange meaning; in the context of the spell the duration is instantaneous, so all this line really says is "you create ten berries and infuse them with magic", the rest of the text then describes what the properties of those, now magical, berries happen to be. It's the later line on losing potency that describes how the berries cease to have any special effects after 24 hours.
Another point of comparison is find familiar which unlike many other summoning spells does not itself persist (the spell begins and ends with summoning the familiar). The text of the spell then goes on to describe the details of how the familiar functions. We would not describe this as a spell that can take the Help action, or sustain damage, or scout the area etc., even though these are all things that a familiar can do. It's a spell that summons a familiar, that is all; once you've cast it you have a familiar, and the familiar is the part that then enables you to do other things.
I draw the line at being an enclosed in the spell block. find familar and summons both use outside information(statblocks) to create future effects. The goodberies sole existence is defined in the spell and has continued effect based on the contained spell. While not a raw indicator the dnd beyond tag lists it as healing showing dnd beyond classified it as healing and simple lookup approach is at least valid for quick rulings.
opinion/anecdote incoming .
I tried looking up the conjugation of restore to see if it had any interesting points the only one that referenced "restores" is Specifically referring to {he, she, it} as a present state. I see that as a state of being rather than an event. That potion restores health. that person restores wounded adventurers. It doesn't mean a current event but rather a current potential.
So with all that I say it 1 is a spell cast that Restores hit points(restores being a potential) because its healing is solely based in the spell. and if good berry is cast in in a unicorn spirit zone then it activates.
Sage Advice Compendium. It is the only of official rulings from the designers. Rules questions that the designers think need clarification but not changed text gets an answer in SAC. It is freely available and in fact can be found as a source on D&DBeyond.
Goodberry does not trigger it. Both because of the mechanical requirements, and the balance implications of any other interpretation. DM is free to run their game the way they want, but RAW, this is the reason it does not work:
Unicorn Spirit: "If you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level."
Goodberry: Casting goodberry upon a handful of freshly picked berries makes 2d4 of them magical. You (as well as any other druid of 3rd or higher level) can immediately discern which berries are affected. Each transmuted berry provides nourishment as if it were a normal meal for a Medium creature. The berry also cures 1 point of damage when eaten, subject to a maximum of 8 points of such curing in any 24-hour period.
Mechanically - Goodberry has a casting time of 1 action. At the end of that 1 action, you have finished casting a spell. No HP have been restored. You did not meet the requirements. After that point, you are not casting a spell, even if a creature has HP restored by eating the berries. There is no way for the Unicorn Spirit to know whether or not the Berries will eventually be eaten by a creature inside or outside the aura, and there is no way to interpret the trigger point of Unicorn Spirit as anything other than at the time of casting.
Balance - If you count the eating of a berry (the only point at which HP are restored) as a trigger for the ability, despite it specifically not triggering upon the restoration of HP, but rather upon the casting of a spell, the balance implications are severe. After all, why would eating one berry trigger it, but not eating another one? Logically following that rationale, if the spell previously cast restoring HP is sufficient, one would be able to eat a berry, trigger it, eat another berry, trigger it again, etc, and potentially get up to 8 triggers per 1st level spell slot. At say 7th level that's 56 HP restored per creature in the aura from one 1st level spell.
Clearly that isn't intended, and is begging for rampant abuse. I would never permit it at my table. Healing word, Cure Light Wounds, plenty of other options for Druid objectively and clearly satisfy the requirements as written. There is no particular reason Goodberry Needs to satisfy them or trigger the effect, it's already plenty good as a prep spell and flavorful besides. If a DM were to modify the requirements and change it to "if you cast a spell which could restore health" so that Goodberry actually met the requirements on casting and only on casting, it likely wouldn't break anything or cause any significant issues. But I certainly wouldn't do it, and that's not the interaction prescribed by the rules as written.
I agree with your ultimate conclusion but your discussion uses the 3rd edition text for goodberry. The current text is: "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one berry. Eating a berry restores 1 hit point, and the berry provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day. The berries lose their potency if they have not been consumed within 24 hours of the casting of this spell."
SAC stands for Sage Advice Compendium. It is a collection of rules questions with official answers from the game's developers. It is a pdf you can download from Wizards of the Coast and now that they own DnDBeyond it is also hosted here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/sac/sage-advice-compendium
Goodberry is a spell that restores hit points, so casting it would meet this trigger.
Yes, you did. You are conflating a spell that restores hit points at casting time with a spell that restores hit points at all. They are not the same thing, as Goodberry demonstrates.
The piece I suspect you are missing is reasonable to be missing, because it's not in any rulebook - instead, it's an emergent behaviour of the rules: if the following statement is false, a substantial number of other rules explode in a paradox of word salad, and if the following statement is true, everything is rendered more consistent (i.e. it only reduces paradoxes, it does not increase them): when a spell creates a creature, that creature is not the spell, but when a spell creates an object, that object is the spell.
Thus, for example, shadow blade creates a blade such that when you damage someone with the blade, you have damaged someone with a spell. However, if you cast summon construct and your summon damages someone, no-one (including you or it) has damaged anyone with a spell.
The Unicorn Spirit triggers when you cast a spell that can restore hit points. It doesn't matter if any hit points are actually restored. Your same argument would mean that US doesn't trigger if you cast Healing Word on someone at full health, because no healing actually happens. This is bogus. US triggers when you cast a spell that restores hit points - actually restoring them is immaterial.
The SAC has confirmed that goodberry works with the Life Cleric subclass benefit, so arguing this from a balance perspective is out the window.
According to you, they don't, right? You said that at your table, the spell has to actually restore hit points. Neither Healing Word nor Cure Light Wounds will proc US at your table unless the target can actually be healed, even though the spells are spells that restore hit points.
That is functionally what the spell already says.
It is exactly and literally the interaction described by the rules as written.
None of these are problems; shadow blade doesn't inflict any damage, it summons a weapon with which you can inflict damage, essentially the same is true of summon construct etc., the construct deals damage, you don't. In both cases the spell conjures/summons something and then maintains it. Where you might be able to somewhat argue that the spell does damage is that the spells in these cases at least persist, so as a direct result of the spell continuing, damage is potentially inflicted (and the spell ending means no more damage can occur).
But that's why these aren't actually comparable to goodberry, as goodberry ends the moment it has finished creating the 10 berries, beyond that point there is no spell, as it has fulfilled its purpose. This is why goodberries cannot be dispelled (but a shadow blade of a summoned construct can), though they do have their own in-built duration (but this is not a spell duration, it's just a property of the berry, as with its healing).
So it's very much not a spell that restores hit-points, it's a spell that creates goodberries. Just as fabricate is not a spell that deals slashing damage just because you could use it to make a longsword.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
I am afraid this is not an accurate description of the Unicorn Spirits trigger condition for its healing effect. Here is the exact language from the feature:
'Restores' is the present tense (sometimes called the present indicative tense) for the verb 'restore'. The present tense is used when the action the verb is describing is happening right now, i.e. happening in the present. If the writers intended this feature to work as you suggest then I would expect them to have written something like "if you cast a spell using a spell slot that will restore hit points, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level."
This is why Giant_Octopodes and others argue that in order to trigger the Unicorn Spirit's healing the spell cast must restore hit points at the same time that it is cast.
Edit: Updated the suggested language for the feature. I originally wrote "that can restore" and that has broader application than I intended.
The first part, yeah, I made a mistake and quoted an older version of Goodberry. It was a mistake, but doesn't impact the discussion at all.
Goodberry does not inherently restore HP. If you cast it and then put the berries in a pocket and wait 24 hours, the berries are gone, and no HP have been restored via the spell. If you cast Flame Blade conversely, and whack away at a creature wearing a Red Dragon Mask from Rise of Tiamat (red dragon mask can grant, in the right circumstances, Damage Absorption, which means you regain HP equal to 1/2 the damage dealt instead of taking damage if the damage type is fire), you have restored HP. Thus if you accept 'a spell that restores hit points at all' as an acceptable category, and only judge at the end of a casting time during which no HP have been restored, you're saying theoretical future events where HP are restored are acceptable. If theoretical future events are acceptable, and we accept someone missing HP maybe eating a berry as fine, shouldn't we also accept a 17th level Forge Domain Cleric showing up out of nowhere with a Red Dragon Mask on so I could maybe hit him with the Flame Blade?
The same applies for all other elemental types covered by Dragon Masks, so a spell which deals Acid, Cold, or Electricity damage should also be fine and trigger the effect with your logic. Call Lightning? Check!
In reality, a spell which could theoretically restore HP in the future, evaluated at the time of casting, is NOT the same thing as a spell which DID Restore HP when cast. We Don't accept the assumption that someone with Damage Absorption Fire will show up and allow Flame Blade to trigger. Even if someone with Damage Absorption Fire were around, we don't accept the assumption they're going to get hit. Because, at the time of casting, we have no way of knowing if that's going to be true or not. We don't know if someone is going to eat the berries. It's NOT a given. Even if they do, we don't know if that person is going to be missing HP. Thus, at the time of casting, we have no way of saying Goodberry is a spell which restores HP.
I don't disagree with this but it's not relevant to the conversation.
First, you modified the verbiage of the ability. That is NOT what it says. It says restores hit points, not can restore hit points. You're arguing a position not supported by the rules as written, which you can see, because you needed to modify what was written in order for it to do what you want it to do. Indeed, if you cast Healing Word at someone with full health, it would not trigger, because you did not cast a spell which restores hit points in that instance. The evaluation is simple - did you cast a spell? If yes, were HP restored? If both of those are yes, the trigger occurs. Accepting any spell that could under some set of circumstances (even if not the current one) have restored HP is not what the effect indicates, and Goodberry is no more a spell which restores HP than Call Lightning is.
Yeah not at all the same thing. Disciple of Life is written as follows: Whenever you use a spell of level 1 or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
Life Cleric Subclass grants the creature being healed an amount of additional HP equal to 2 plus the spell level when you use a spell to heal a creature. This would *absolutely* take effect if hitting our theoretical Red Dragon Mask wearing Forge Cleric with Flame Blade, for what it's worth, because it has a totally different set of evaluation criteria. The balance implications are also not the same, because while eating 10 berries would restore a Total of 40 HP, it's only to one creature, not every creature in an area.
Correct, incorrect, incorrect.
The text of Goodberry describes what the spell does. In that text, it describes its method of restoring hit points. The function of the spell is (largely) to restore hit points. Therefore, by definition, Goodberry is "a spell that restores hit points".
So the question really boils down to whether the text "when you cast a spell that restores hit points" is referring to the nature/identity of the spell or the immediate outcome of the casting of the spell?
Outside of a definitive ruling from wotc, I'd say either interpretation is valid, but personally I fell the former is more likely the intended. If you cast a spell with a spell slot, and that spell's text describes an effect that restores hit points, then it works. The exception would be if the spell has multiple options and the healing is not the option that the spell is cast with. For example, if cure wounds had the option to target undead creatures to do damage, then casting it to do damage would not work for this effect. This solves the issue brought up by Giant_Octopodes of spells that have multiple damage options (chromatic orb etc) with effects that trigger on casting certain damage types.
Casting a damage spell which could at times restore hit points, but did not because the target lacked a prerequisite ability
Casting a Cure Wounds which could at times restore hit points, but did not because it was targeted at an Undead to deal damage (hypothetically, not really possible)
Casting a Cure Wounds which could at times restore hit points, but did not because it was targeted at someone who was already at full HP
Separating the 3rd situation out from the other two is very, very arbitrary. If you want to go with "if the DM feels the 'intent' of the spell relates to the restoration of HP", rather than whether or not the spell, you know, restores hit points when cast, I'm in no way arguing against running your game however you feel is right. I'm just saying, the text indicates it's looking for the casting of a spell which restores hit points, and there is no way in which, at the time at which goodberry is cast, HP are restored. I presume then you would say casting Flame Blade would count as a spell which restores HP if the DM felt it was likely enough that the 'intent' was to use it to restore HP?
Also, I disagree that the function of the spell is to restore HP. That may be a way in which it's used, but the function of the spell is to create berries. Those berries can provide nourishment if the people eating it need nourishment, (up to 10 day/people's worth of rations), and, if the creature consuming it is missing health, can provide healing.
The text describes what the goodberries do; what the actual spell itself does is create 10 of them and then immediately ends. If it had some kind of a duration there may be more of an argument that the spell is restoring hit-points but it doesn't.
Again, we wouldn't describe fabricate as a spell that deals slashing damage just because it can be used to make a longsword; what the spell did was make the weapon, the weapon then deals any damage (or not). Goodberry may be more limited in it what it can do but it's still the same basic principle; it's a spell that makes something that you can then later use, the spell itself doesn't do anything beyond that.
If you go to an alchemist's shop and use charm person to help you convince the owner to give you a free potion of healing, would charm person be a spell that restores hit-points?
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
For goodberry, the healing comes from the magic of the spell (it specifies that they are infused with magic). So yes, the spell itself is doing the healing. The Fabricate spell doesn't mention anything about doing damage and the items created with it do not retain magic from the spell. So that's an apples and oranges comparison. Your argument is more akin to arguing that the Spiritual Weapon spell doesn't do damage because it's actually the spectral weapon that does damage. But the weapon IS the spell. Same thing with goodberries. The berries (while they have their potency) are the spell.
This is fairly simple. Does the spell description talk restoring hit points? Okay then it's a spell that restores hit points.
The first line of the spell is "Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration."
And taken literally, that means exactly what it says: the berries are infused instantaneously, since the duration of the spell is instantaneous. Is that what you meant?
The potency (magic) lasts for 24 hours, which IMO is what that is referring to as the duration.
But that's certainly not the spell duration, which is clearly telling you how long the spell lasts and what the other poster was referring to. That is very obviously instantaneous.
Eh. I'd say it's murky. He said if it had "some kind" of duration. I was pointing out that it does have a kind of duration.
Bottom line is there's 2 potential interpretations of "a spell that restores hit points". One that focuses on the use of the spell in the moment. And one that focuses on the nature of the spell itself. I think the later is the better one to go with and likely more along the lines of the intention of this feature and other. If it's a healing spell, i.e. a spell that explicitly describes the restoration of hit points, then it's quite literally "a spell that restores hit points".
What I meant was if the spell itself had a duration, but it doesn't, because its duration is explicitly instantaneous; it begins and ends with creating 10 goodberries, beyond that there is simply no spell involved. This is why you can't use dispel magic to cause a goodberry to become inert.
The goodberries themselves are magical as a consequence of the spell, but the spell has ended by the time you actually use one. While the text describes how to do that, what it's describing are the properties of the berries that you've created (action to restore a hit-point and feed yourself, loses potency after 24 hours). It's really no different to a summoning spell including or referencing a monster stat-block; those are not details of the spell itself, but of the summoned creature.
As for the "infused with magic for the duration" line, this actually has a strange meaning; in the context of the spell the duration is instantaneous, so all this line really says is "you create ten berries and infuse them with magic", the rest of the text then describes what the properties of those, now magical, berries happen to be. It's the later line on losing potency that describes how the berries cease to have any special effects after 24 hours.
Another point of comparison is find familiar which unlike many other summoning spells does not itself persist (the spell begins and ends with summoning the familiar). The text of the spell then goes on to describe the details of how the familiar functions. We would not describe this as a spell that can take the Help action, or sustain damage, or scout the area etc., even though these are all things that a familiar can do. It's a spell that summons a familiar, that is all; once you've cast it you have a familiar, and the familiar is the part that then enables you to do other things.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
I draw the line at being an enclosed in the spell block. find familar and summons both use outside information(statblocks) to create future effects. The goodberies sole existence is defined in the spell and has continued effect based on the contained spell. While not a raw indicator the dnd beyond tag lists it as healing showing dnd beyond classified it as healing and simple lookup approach is at least valid for quick rulings.
opinion/anecdote incoming .
I tried looking up the conjugation of restore to see if it had any interesting points the only one that referenced "restores" is Specifically referring to {he, she, it} as a present state. I see that as a state of being rather than an event. That potion restores health. that person restores wounded adventurers. It doesn't mean a current event but rather a current potential.
So with all that I say it 1 is a spell cast that Restores hit points(restores being a potential) because its healing is solely based in the spell. and if good berry is cast in in a unicorn spirit zone then it activates.
I'm fairly sure WoTC would issue a similar official ruling for Unicorn Spirit + goodberry than it did for it with Discipline of Life.