Lesser Restoration allows the a PC or NPC to cure any sort of disease or poison through expenditure of an easily renewable resource: a 2nd level spell slot. It's effect is instantaneous and there no dice to roll to see if it succeeds or fails. There is also no wait and see period, unlike how most medicine takes effect in the real world.
Of course D&D is not the real world, but a game built around imagination, adventure-seeking, strategic character builds, tactics, and lots of dice. Nevertheless, I would like to hear from others whether Lesser Restoration, as written, over-simplifies diseases and poisons to the point that they are not much fun to throw at players anymore.
Is a 2nd level spell that has no chance of failure so effective that it makes the threat of disease and poison almost laughable to most PCs? What is the point of disease except as a very short-term debuff if the party Cleric can always just Holy Symbol the pain away? (Not to mention the trivial 5 points of Lay on Hands from the Paladin's ability.) Does Lesser Restoration's ease of use then significantly reduce the variety of story-telling hooks and themes that DMs can introduce that would provide tension and pathos to the game?
D&D in general doesn't allow for much in the way of lasting injury past very low level; there are an awful lot of plotlines that get derailed by healing, lesser restoration, remove curse, greater restoration, and raise dead. That said, lasting afflictions on PCs tend to be unfun; while it doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a decent argument for making PCs 'special' with regard to healing.
I've noticed that more poisons and diseases also have shorter duration and hit harder. Compared to older editions. Recovery in 5e is also a LOT faster. Rest for a week to heal? Not these days, just a quick rest does the trick. So spell isn't out of line imo
Not that hard to make cursed disease that a Lesser Restoration will not affect.
Or simply have a disease that creates multiple conditions. A disease that also causes blindness, deafness, paralyzation and poisons the victim takes 5 castings of lesser restoration to cure.
I've noticed that more poisons and diseases also have shorter duration and hit harder. Compared to older editions.
Poison in 5e hits harder than "save vs. poison or die?"
It arguably hits harder than in 3.5e, since poisons in 3.5e did moderate amounts of ability score damage instead of hp damage, and ability scores aren't terribly variable with level, so 2d8 hp damage (giant spider) is more dangerous to a low level than 1d6 Strength damage. At higher levels that's reversed, since hp go up a lot more with level than ability scores.
Not that hard to make cursed disease that a Lesser Restoration will not affect.
Or simply have a disease that creates multiple conditions. A disease that also causes blindness, deafness, paralyzation and poisons the victim takes 5 castings of lesser restoration to cure.
The problem is that spells and (non-legendary) monster abilities are usually fashioned such that Lesser Restoration is often enough all by itself. Note that the text for the spell says: "You touch a creature and can end either one disease or one condition afflicting it." That means you have to hit the PCs with more than 1 disease or poison in one combat for that have any lasting effect. It doesn't matter how many conditions one disease or poison causes. A single casting of LR gets rid of all of it at once, no die roll. And how many times can you throw multiple poisonous monsters or intersecting disease social scenarios before it becomes cliche and the players start accusing the DM of playing against them instead of with them?
D&D in general doesn't allow for much in the way of lasting injury past very low level; there are an awful lot of plotlines that get derailed by healing, lesser restoration, remove curse, greater restoration, and raise dead. That said, lasting afflictions on PCs tend to be unfun; while it doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a decent argument for making PCs 'special' with regard to healing.
So what you're basically saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature", right?
The issue I'm talking about is not only involving major PC plothooks, but also that it makes creating variables for NPC encounters also less interesting without going to extremes. Would anybody believe that a city of size of Baldur's Gate would be seriously threatened by a plague? If you have a half dozen temples stocked with level 3 and up Clerics, that gets rid of the threat fairly easily right? So basically, anybody dying from poison or disease has to be chalked up them living in the boonies where there are no Clerics and no Paladins. So the only solution, logically, is to introduce some strain of Super Magic Epic Disease for a plague to be anything like a real threat to a city??
It sounds like you are arguing that it's more realistic that Arcane Lock should cost 25 gp per casting than that the world of Faerun or whatever would quickly become overpopulated by magic-using races simply because of how cheap and guaranteed effective a 2nd level spell is. Anything so effective as Lesser Restoration being available at 2nd level should mean that there should be a Cleric in practically every single family in Faerun.
It confuses me how many people will argue for verisimilitude to real life for some spells and then turn around and argue against that very same verisimilitude to real life in other spells because it would be too realistic, so let's keep the OP spell as it is.
D&D in general doesn't allow for much in the way of lasting injury past very low level; there are an awful lot of plotlines that get derailed by healing, lesser restoration, remove curse, greater restoration, and raise dead. That said, lasting afflictions on PCs tend to be unfun; while it doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a decent argument for making PCs 'special' with regard to healing.
So what you're basically saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature", right?
Nope. What I'm actually saying is that it's bad for worldbuilding purposes but lasting injuries on PCs are bad gameplay. If you can come up with a good excuse for healing spells only working on PCs, it probably improves things, but doesn't make much sense.
I think if you applied this logic to any part of D&D you would end up at the same place. Why does farming exist when the create food and water spell is there? Why would you need blacksmiths when mending is a cantrip? Why is death when a cleric can cast spare the dying and stabilise anyone every 6 seconds with no cost?
Yes there is enough magic in the world to fix everyone’s problems and let everyone lead good and healthy lives, but the same is true of money in our world and we know that’s not the case.
Honestly though I feel that we have very different opinions on what the rules in D&D are there for. They are not a tool for dungeon masters to build worlds, they are tools for players to interact with them. Players are limited in what they can do, the dungeon master can do anything they want.
so is Lesser Restoration OP? - probably
is it more OP than *points at all spells* ?- no
does it restrict world building? - I am going to say no, the rules and mechanics are not where world building ends, it’s where they begin. A town that is suffering from a disease that lesser restoration can’t cure, that’s an adventure hook right there. Poison laced with essence of basilisk that begins to petrify the player and they have to resist it with constitution saving throws, lesser restoration gives them advantage but does not remove it. Bitten by a giant snake in combat and poisoned so use lesser restoration to get rid of it, doesn’t make you immune to poison when it bites you the next time and you get poisoned again.
Look I don’t think you want us to convince you it’s not OP, so I won’t try, but I really don’t agree it prevents world building.
As for world building... most healing magic has a divine or spirit source, maybe there is some contract between the gods and powers, that you simply cannot heal everyone, because then some other gods will be very very angry...
D&D in general doesn't allow for much in the way of lasting injury past very low level; there are an awful lot of plotlines that get derailed by healing, lesser restoration, remove curse, greater restoration, and raise dead. That said, lasting afflictions on PCs tend to be unfun; while it doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a decent argument for making PCs 'special' with regard to healing.
So what you're basically saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature", right?
Nope. What I'm actually saying is that it's bad for worldbuilding purposes but lasting injuries on PCs are bad gameplay. If you can come up with a good excuse for healing spells only working on PCs, it probably improves things, but doesn't make much sense.
You do realize that your argument here is quite similar to the reasoning I used for making Arcane Lock's 25 gp spell component non-consummable, right? *eye roll*
I think if you applied this logic to any part of D&D you would end up at the same place. Why does farming exist when the create food and water spell is there? Why would you need blacksmiths when mending is a cantrip? Why is death when a cleric can cast spare the dying and stabilise anyone every 6 seconds with no cost?
Both the Revivify and Raise Dead spell have a component cost in hundreds of gp. Why is that? So that players don't treat the death of their characters like a revolving door at the mall, maybe? What I'm asking is, why couldn't the same logic be applied to Lessor Restoration? Put in a consumable material component cost or introduce some element of risk to the casting.
Notice that Contagion, a 5th level spell, can be done away with using 1 casting of a 2nd level spell under the current rules. And Contagion has some pretty cool effects, but few if any players or DMs will ever use it precisely b/c of how blindingly cheap and effective a single 2nd level spell is.
Why not introduce a save DC to the spell? Create different tiers of diseases and poisons. Look at Dispel Magic for example: "Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level." Why couldn't they have put in something like that for Lessor Restoration? That way, weaker poisons (like Giant Spider venom) and diseases could be effectively cured with LR, but stronger poisons and diseases have a chance to create tension and fear of monsters. Poison from a full demon should not be just as curable as venom from a quasit. Adventuring is supposed to be dangerous, right?
Re: customization. I mean, obviously, yes I could create houserules, but that would only apply while I was the DM and only if the players are okay with it. Because of the baseline established by official material sources, it's an uphill battle a lot of the time to introduce rules that make these kinds of rules stick without being accused of being too hard on the players.
On a different note, if you are a DM who has grappled with this issue in your campaign-planning, world-building, how have you solved it? Do you prepare a list of house rules and read them off the players before the make their characters? If the campaign has already begun, is there a graceful way of introducing this kind of houserule?
The only thing I would ask you to consder is: Once the players understand and accept your houserules on the matter, how will you react when they use Crawler Mucus to paralyze your Big Bad and proceed to deal auto crits? Or if they use Malice and blind the enemy? Will you let the whole encounter run with those status durations in place? What if they did this on the defining boss of your 2 year campaign? Your boss, fails save, paralyzed, takes a beating, fails save, takes a beating, dead. Fun, huh?
Wouldn't the result be the same with or without a houserule? Carrion Crawler poison has always been a paralytic. Saving throws are still saving throws.
Wouldn't the result be the same with or without a houserule? Carrion Crawler poison has always been a paralytic. Saving throws are still saving throws.
If your Big Bad had an ally that could normally dispel the status effects but, now couldn't due to the inclusion of your house rules, that would be the difference in results.
If your Big Bad had an ally that could normally dispel the status effects but, now couldn't due to the inclusion of your house rules, that would be the difference in results.
Very marginally. A lot of big bads will have legendary resistance, mooting the issue, and if not, the supporting ally has to be alive (usually the mooks die first in a mooks+boss encounter) and needs an action before someone walks up and ganks the boss. If the PCs using crawler venom is a known tactic, Protection from Poison is a better use of a second level spell slot.
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Lesser Restoration allows the a PC or NPC to cure any sort of disease or poison through expenditure of an easily renewable resource: a 2nd level spell slot. It's effect is instantaneous and there no dice to roll to see if it succeeds or fails. There is also no wait and see period, unlike how most medicine takes effect in the real world.
Of course D&D is not the real world, but a game built around imagination, adventure-seeking, strategic character builds, tactics, and lots of dice. Nevertheless, I would like to hear from others whether Lesser Restoration, as written, over-simplifies diseases and poisons to the point that they are not much fun to throw at players anymore.
Is a 2nd level spell that has no chance of failure so effective that it makes the threat of disease and poison almost laughable to most PCs? What is the point of disease except as a very short-term debuff if the party Cleric can always just Holy Symbol the pain away? (Not to mention the trivial 5 points of Lay on Hands from the Paladin's ability.) Does Lesser Restoration's ease of use then significantly reduce the variety of story-telling hooks and themes that DMs can introduce that would provide tension and pathos to the game?
D&D in general doesn't allow for much in the way of lasting injury past very low level; there are an awful lot of plotlines that get derailed by healing, lesser restoration, remove curse, greater restoration, and raise dead. That said, lasting afflictions on PCs tend to be unfun; while it doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a decent argument for making PCs 'special' with regard to healing.
I've noticed that more poisons and diseases also have shorter duration and hit harder. Compared to older editions. Recovery in 5e is also a LOT faster. Rest for a week to heal? Not these days, just a quick rest does the trick. So spell isn't out of line imo
I dunno it gives the DM a chance to rinse the player of a 2nd level spell slot. Of the classes that can cast it at level 5
druid, bard, cleric - 3 spell slots
ranger, paladin - 2 spell slots
Poison in 5e hits harder than "save vs. poison or die?"
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Not that hard to make cursed disease that a Lesser Restoration will not affect.
Or simply have a disease that creates multiple conditions. A disease that also causes blindness, deafness, paralyzation and poisons the victim takes 5 castings of lesser restoration to cure.
It arguably hits harder than in 3.5e, since poisons in 3.5e did moderate amounts of ability score damage instead of hp damage, and ability scores aren't terribly variable with level, so 2d8 hp damage (giant spider) is more dangerous to a low level than 1d6 Strength damage. At higher levels that's reversed, since hp go up a lot more with level than ability scores.
The problem is that spells and (non-legendary) monster abilities are usually fashioned such that Lesser Restoration is often enough all by itself. Note that the text for the spell says: "You touch a creature and can end either one disease or one condition afflicting it." That means you have to hit the PCs with more than 1 disease or poison in one combat for that have any lasting effect. It doesn't matter how many conditions one disease or poison causes. A single casting of LR gets rid of all of it at once, no die roll. And how many times can you throw multiple poisonous monsters or intersecting disease social scenarios before it becomes cliche and the players start accusing the DM of playing against them instead of with them?
So what you're basically saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature", right?
The issue I'm talking about is not only involving major PC plothooks, but also that it makes creating variables for NPC encounters also less interesting without going to extremes. Would anybody believe that a city of size of Baldur's Gate would be seriously threatened by a plague? If you have a half dozen temples stocked with level 3 and up Clerics, that gets rid of the threat fairly easily right? So basically, anybody dying from poison or disease has to be chalked up them living in the boonies where there are no Clerics and no Paladins. So the only solution, logically, is to introduce some strain of Super Magic Epic Disease for a plague to be anything like a real threat to a city??
It sounds like you are arguing that it's more realistic that Arcane Lock should cost 25 gp per casting than that the world of Faerun or whatever would quickly become overpopulated by magic-using races simply because of how cheap and guaranteed effective a 2nd level spell is. Anything so effective as Lesser Restoration being available at 2nd level should mean that there should be a Cleric in practically every single family in Faerun.
It confuses me how many people will argue for verisimilitude to real life for some spells and then turn around and argue against that very same verisimilitude to real life in other spells because it would be too realistic, so let's keep the OP spell as it is.
Nope. What I'm actually saying is that it's bad for worldbuilding purposes but lasting injuries on PCs are bad gameplay. If you can come up with a good excuse for healing spells only working on PCs, it probably improves things, but doesn't make much sense.
I think if you applied this logic to any part of D&D you would end up at the same place. Why does farming exist when the create food and water spell is there? Why would you need blacksmiths when mending is a cantrip? Why is death when a cleric can cast spare the dying and stabilise anyone every 6 seconds with no cost?
Yes there is enough magic in the world to fix everyone’s problems and let everyone lead good and healthy lives, but the same is true of money in our world and we know that’s not the case.
Honestly though I feel that we have very different opinions on what the rules in D&D are there for. They are not a tool for dungeon masters to build worlds, they are tools for players to interact with them. Players are limited in what they can do, the dungeon master can do anything they want.
so is Lesser Restoration OP? - probably
is it more OP than *points at all spells* ?- no
does it restrict world building? - I am going to say no, the rules and mechanics are not where world building ends, it’s where they begin. A town that is suffering from a disease that lesser restoration can’t cure, that’s an adventure hook right there. Poison laced with essence of basilisk that begins to petrify the player and they have to resist it with constitution saving throws, lesser restoration gives them advantage but does not remove it. Bitten by a giant snake in combat and poisoned so use lesser restoration to get rid of it, doesn’t make you immune to poison when it bites you the next time and you get poisoned again.
Look I don’t think you want us to convince you it’s not OP, so I won’t try, but I really don’t agree it prevents world building.
As for world building... most healing magic has a divine or spirit source, maybe there is some contract between the gods and powers, that you simply cannot heal everyone, because then some other gods will be very very angry...
You do realize that your argument here is quite similar to the reasoning I used for making Arcane Lock's 25 gp spell component non-consummable, right? *eye roll*
Both the Revivify and Raise Dead spell have a component cost in hundreds of gp. Why is that? So that players don't treat the death of their characters like a revolving door at the mall, maybe? What I'm asking is, why couldn't the same logic be applied to Lessor Restoration? Put in a consumable material component cost or introduce some element of risk to the casting.
Notice that Contagion, a 5th level spell, can be done away with using 1 casting of a 2nd level spell under the current rules. And Contagion has some pretty cool effects, but few if any players or DMs will ever use it precisely b/c of how blindingly cheap and effective a single 2nd level spell is.
Why not introduce a save DC to the spell? Create different tiers of diseases and poisons. Look at Dispel Magic for example: "Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell's level." Why couldn't they have put in something like that for Lessor Restoration? That way, weaker poisons (like Giant Spider venom) and diseases could be effectively cured with LR, but stronger poisons and diseases have a chance to create tension and fear of monsters. Poison from a full demon should not be just as curable as venom from a quasit. Adventuring is supposed to be dangerous, right?
Re: customization. I mean, obviously, yes I could create houserules, but that would only apply while I was the DM and only if the players are okay with it. Because of the baseline established by official material sources, it's an uphill battle a lot of the time to introduce rules that make these kinds of rules stick without being accused of being too hard on the players.
On a different note, if you are a DM who has grappled with this issue in your campaign-planning, world-building, how have you solved it? Do you prepare a list of house rules and read them off the players before the make their characters? If the campaign has already begun, is there a graceful way of introducing this kind of houserule?
The only thing I would ask you to consder is: Once the players understand and accept your houserules on the matter, how will you react when they use Crawler Mucus to paralyze your Big Bad and proceed to deal auto crits? Or if they use Malice and blind the enemy? Will you let the whole encounter run with those status durations in place? What if they did this on the defining boss of your 2 year campaign? Your boss, fails save, paralyzed, takes a beating, fails save, takes a beating, dead. Fun, huh?
Wouldn't the result be the same with or without a houserule? Carrion Crawler poison has always been a paralytic. Saving throws are still saving throws.
Adding an expensive material component to lesser restoration (say, 50-100g) seems fair enough.
If your Big Bad had an ally that could normally dispel the status effects but, now couldn't due to the inclusion of your house rules, that would be the difference in results.
Very marginally. A lot of big bads will have legendary resistance, mooting the issue, and if not, the supporting ally has to be alive (usually the mooks die first in a mooks+boss encounter) and needs an action before someone walks up and ganks the boss. If the PCs using crawler venom is a known tactic, Protection from Poison is a better use of a second level spell slot.