Hey guys, would a mass healing word or prayer of healing for example would trigger the spell breaker ability on all targets healed or just one target?
« Starting at 6th level, when you restore hit points to an ally with a spell of 1st level or higher, you can also end one spell of your choice on that creature. The level of the spell you end must be equal to or lower than the level of the spell slot you use to cast the healing spell. »
RAW there doesn't seem to be a strong argument against it in the rule wording, though I can't spot a ruling in either direction with an internet search. So in an absolute RAW game I guess it would have to be allowed.
However, looking at the way the feature is written, it appears to be trying to ensure balance in that the spell cancelled should not be higher level than the healing spell cast. It would be unfair if your 1st level Healing Word dispelled a 8th level Feeblemind. In the same way, if you were fighting many spell-casters and they hit half your party with four separate 6th level Flesh to Stones (or any assortment of high level debuffs), it would seem unfair that you could dispel them all with a single bonus action upcast 6th level Mass Healing Word (6 spell slot vs combined 24 spell slot value). By the same token, if half the party was Blinded by a single upcast version of Blindness/Deafness then a single heal/dispel action would seem fair to cancel that whole thing. I am personally always very wary of any feature which appears to multiply the effect of another feature (Life Cleric Goodberries do not heal 4hp in my universes, there are just 3 extra berries). Therefore, I think my ruling would be that whenever you use Spell Breaker with one of your healing spells, you can choose one enemy spell and dispel that off any number of the healed targets which were suffering from that instance of the spell.
D&D is about empowering players. My preference is to never take anything away from the players when the rules don't explicitly require you to do so. Nerfing a cleric's level 6 feature is just going to make them feel like you're ambushing them with an targeted ruling that singles them out, and cause them to wish that they had gone with that other character concept that they almost settled on that wouldn't have gotten the same treatment. Dispelling a debuff that's laid the entire group low with a single spell is exactly the sort of (rare) situation that is going to make your Arcana cleric get high fives around the table and feel like the star; don't take that away without a damn good reason.
As long as you are content that when the party fight their climactic battle against the leaders of the evil arcana cult, the evil arcana clerics have that same mass dispelling powers, then your ruling is also just fine.
One way to do it also would be to have it where you can only dispell magic that is up to the spell level cast. For example: you cast a 6th level mass healing word, you can the dispell a number of spells equal to 6 levels. So if you have 2 party members affected by 3rd level spells you can, but not a 3rd. If you have 3 party members effected, one is with a 5th level and the other 2 with 3rd level, you can only dispell either the 5th level or both 2nd level. In the end it's up to your DM in how they want the dispelling to work.
Hope this was helpful, and remember to have fun and kill monsters.
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Hey guys, would a mass healing word or prayer of healing for example would trigger the spell breaker ability on all targets healed or just one target?
« Starting at 6th level, when you restore hit points to an ally with a spell of 1st level or higher, you can also end one spell of your choice on that creature. The level of the spell you end must be equal to or lower than the level of the spell slot you use to cast the healing spell. »
RAW there doesn't seem to be a strong argument against it in the rule wording, though I can't spot a ruling in either direction with an internet search. So in an absolute RAW game I guess it would have to be allowed.
However, looking at the way the feature is written, it appears to be trying to ensure balance in that the spell cancelled should not be higher level than the healing spell cast. It would be unfair if your 1st level Healing Word dispelled a 8th level Feeblemind. In the same way, if you were fighting many spell-casters and they hit half your party with four separate 6th level Flesh to Stones (or any assortment of high level debuffs), it would seem unfair that you could dispel them all with a single bonus action upcast 6th level Mass Healing Word (6 spell slot vs combined 24 spell slot value). By the same token, if half the party was Blinded by a single upcast version of Blindness/Deafness then a single heal/dispel action would seem fair to cancel that whole thing. I am personally always very wary of any feature which appears to multiply the effect of another feature (Life Cleric Goodberries do not heal 4hp in my universes, there are just 3 extra berries). Therefore, I think my ruling would be that whenever you use Spell Breaker with one of your healing spells, you can choose one enemy spell and dispel that off any number of the healed targets which were suffering from that instance of the spell.
D&D is about empowering players. My preference is to never take anything away from the players when the rules don't explicitly require you to do so. Nerfing a cleric's level 6 feature is just going to make them feel like you're ambushing them with an targeted ruling that singles them out, and cause them to wish that they had gone with that other character concept that they almost settled on that wouldn't have gotten the same treatment. Dispelling a debuff that's laid the entire group low with a single spell is exactly the sort of (rare) situation that is going to make your Arcana cleric get high fives around the table and feel like the star; don't take that away without a damn good reason.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
As long as you are content that when the party fight their climactic battle against the leaders of the evil arcana cult, the evil arcana clerics have that same mass dispelling powers, then your ruling is also just fine.
One way to do it also would be to have it where you can only dispell magic that is up to the spell level cast. For example: you cast a 6th level mass healing word, you can the dispell a number of spells equal to 6 levels. So if you have 2 party members affected by 3rd level spells you can, but not a 3rd. If you have 3 party members effected, one is with a 5th level and the other 2 with 3rd level, you can only dispell either the 5th level or both 2nd level. In the end it's up to your DM in how they want the dispelling to work.
Hope this was helpful, and remember to have fun and kill monsters.
Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.