Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Finding the lack of healing cantrip in DnD a bit curious. I'm sure this has been discussed, but seems odd that you can dish out respectable damage without limit but not heal at all (other than stabilizing a downed ally with Spare the Dying).
At level 5, you can deal 2d8/2d10/2d12 already, more with things like Booming Blade or Potent Spellcasting later on for Clerics. Seems reasonable for there to be at least something restoring minimal HP. Could be a lower dice roll and/or maybe not scale, to not compete with leveled healing spells?
Of course, I'm guessing the main issue is the spamability of healing out-of-combat? So as easy fix could just be: a character can only be healed by that cantrip once per day, or once per long rest, or some other restriction.
I dunno, seems like there ways to make it functional. Thoughts?
One of the unwritten design rules for 5e/5.5e D&D is "no free healing". Healing a player character pretty much always requires expending some kind of limited resource, whether it's a spell slot, a Hit Die, an ability you can use Wisdom modifier times per long rest, etc.
This is a pretty important restriction for game balance reasons. Removing it would essentially mean that Hit Dice don't matter anymore, and enemies would have to be greatly strengthened to keep them challenging; that would cause combat to be drawn out more, which everyone always complains about.
Sure, but if you start putting restrictions on how many times you can use a cantrip per day, it's not meaningfully a cantrip anymore, and you're just describing how existing healing works.
pronouns: he/she/they
Yeah, a healing cantrip would have to burn hit dice to avoid being spammable.
So really, there's design space for two healing cantrips:
The new Ravenloft book does slightly bend this rule in one very specific area: the Reanimator Artificer's frankensteinian pet creature is healed by taking Lightning damage, so you can heal it as much as you like by whacking it with Shocking Grasp over and over. But that's a very narrow breaking of the "no free healing" rule. As far as I know there aren't any exceptions that work on PCs.
pronouns: he/she/they
I’ll also add in the healing potions are relatively inexpensive, and probably heal about what a cantrip would. And by inexpensive, I mean that after a few adventures, the PCs probably have enough gold to stock up on them. Of course purse, that’s still spending a resource in terms of gp.
And given that they’ve already got leveled spells for rolling your own hit die, I doubt they’ll make cantrips for it anytime soon.
It's also still spending a resource in the sense that each potion only works once. You can buy or craft more, but the logistics associated with either mean they can't be done quickly, especially while "in the field". In that way, restocking potions is analogous to recharging spell slots and other features by resting.
pronouns: he/she/they
Level 2: Arcane Vigor.
Level 0: Arcane Pep.
pronouns: he/she/they
The other option for a healing-type cantrip would be one that grants temporary hit points, possibly with a short expire time.
There is a healing cantrip. It's Spare the Dying. It just doesn't do the what the OP is suggesting. ;-)
This is wrong.
It's written in both the 5e and 5.5e DMGs under the sections for creating new spells.
Considering cantrips are free and can be cast continuously, a healing cantrip is actually more powerful than most if not all other healing spells.
Essentially one hit point every 6 seconds.At no cost. If it only healed one per casting. 10 per minute, 600 per hour.
Even if limited to once per minute outside of combat that is 60 per hour
Across up to 60 individuals.
Yeah, definitely couldn't exist without some limits, as mentioned. Maybe there aren't any easy limits (or any folks find tasteful?), but just seems like an odd absence for the magic system, in-world. Again, easy enough to manufacture an in-world reason and not high stakes. Just a thought.
At the end of the day, “magic doesn’t work like that” is sufficient in-universe explanation for the absence.
I don't see it as an odd absence. Cantrips are the not very powerful spells that are easy and not tiring to cast. Healing creatures is simply too powerful and tiring of an effect to be a cantrip.
I mean, you could do something like "spare the dying: restore 1 hp to a creature at 0 hp; this increases to 2 hp at level 6, 3 at level 11, 4 at level 17" and it wouldn't be a particular balance problem.
Point, though it also wouldn’t be particularly meaningful- it’s still not enough HP to keep you from going down to the next hit at most any point in the game.
It's enough HP that you can take an action. Could probably make it 1d6 per tier.