Hello all, I have seen time and time again, and for good reason, that healing spells in combat is usually less efficient than other actions that could be taken.

So for an upcoming home campaign I have been thinking about a small homebrew tweek. When you up-Cast a spell (Healing Word, Cure Wounds, and other relevant spells) you not only get extra dice to roll, but also add your Mod that many times as well.

For example a 5th level Druid casting a 3rd level Cure Wounds would look like
3d8 + 16 (assuming 18 Wisdom) =~29 hp healed.

So every class that isn't Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger would on average be healed from 0 to full. And even those 4 would be more than 75% from even 0 HP. To me this seems well worth preparing a spell, as well as using an action and spell slot to heal.

Thoughts? Is there a mechanic or ability that would break this? (Barring Life Cleric, as imo if their whole specialty is healing they SHOULD excel at it.)

Note this only affect healing spells with Mod. Things like Heal and Life Transference are unaffected.

I feel like this would make too many encounters a breeze so long as a healer hung back and kept resuscitating everyone. The barbarian charged in and got downed in two turns for being reckless and not planning? He's back up to at least half HP next round to do it again. And if enemies did this as well? Encounters are going to turn into drawn out battle of attrition.

For example, healing word at 3rd level would be 3d4 + 16 (using the same 18 spellcasting stat assumption) = 21 HP on a bonus action. Now let's add that 29 HP from spending your action on cure wounds. That's a crazy high amount of HP to restore on one turn! A life cleric using RAW rules would heal approx. 15 HP (3d4 + 4 + 5) with the same spell. A life cleric using your tweek would heal ~26 HP, the extra "bonus" from their domain now seeming like peanuts.

I understand the frustration of not being able to do much but pick up allies for one more round or two, but this honestly seems highly abusable.

Question, though: what are your thoughts on Healing Spirit?

the "inefficiency" of healing spells creates a kind of entropy, wherein the attrition of combat and encounters, not only to hp but to spell slots, force rest and use of hit dice eventually. essentially, it's a feature, not a bug IMHO

Quote from AK30 >>

Qestion, though: what are your thoughts on Healing Spirit?

 I think its fine personally. I get how it CAN be cheesed, but i categorize it in the same group at Wish>Simulacrum cheese. It can be done, but I've had the pleasure of never having a player even ask to do it. Most people I've played with agree it isn't in the Spirit of the game to abuse what in all honesty was probably an unforeseen result or an oversight.

Though I do get your point about this way making most combats a battle of attrition.

Never looked at it like that. But even in that light, why have them other than a relatively weak "Oh Crap" button?