If you were going to build an explorer paladin, I would probably make up a new subclass that had access to Find Trap and Detect Thoughts in addition to the other divination spells paladins already have. Maybe have a subclass feature that modifies Divine Sense.
I know the intent was to talk about how you can make a good explorer out of one that can't be, but I think that the paladin could be good at exploration if we use the paladin's innate abilities in the proper manner, rather than forcing an unnatural build
Yeah, you don't even need to have a good spellcasting modifier; it's just as good with 8 WIS. Besides using up a reaction, I wish they'd made it heal 1d4 + Mod so it doesn't scale so well with higher slots (most spells don't) and you actually have to be at least decent at spellcasting.
We have currently house-ruled this spell to only affect ONE person per round no matter how many Conga-Line through it per round. So when you cast it, the very first creature to run through it on any given round, gets the heal. Only had it used in combat once, when the fighter was almost dead and hiding behind a rock, while the rest of the group kept the enemies busy. Every other time, it gets used in between combat. But even at it's current house-ruled state, I am keeping an eye on it, as I run a gritty, lethal style game of survival and exploration.
Personally I would change "...moves into the spirit's space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there..." to read "... "...ends its turn in the spirit's space..."
Solves the issue without costing reactions or anything else.
Seriously though, the idea of running around in circles for a full minute while the caster has to constantly keep their head pointed towards the spirit (it only effects things they can see)... is painful. Especially since we know they are exhausted(in a descriptive sense) and or injured which is why they are doing this in the first place. Thematically it is a stupid way to recover.
Really though, I am doubtful it is abused that often in games.
I've seen it abused in Adventure League games and Adventure League Epics where it plainly trivializes the resource strain on the party and makes life clerics and other previously strong healers feel like their characters are trash because a Ranger can heal circles around them.
If you're the healer you don't expect to match the DPS players. But when the guy with dps and survival/travel skills can also out-heal you - game balance looks and feels broken.
I read the first page of this thread, the last page and saw some video on the topic. Being a RPGer from way back I have an easy way to fix this:
DM (the first time he sees the spell being obviously abused): I'll let you have it...just remember that anything YOU can do, the bad guys can do as well!
If they persist in using the spell in an abusive (6 PCs mincing through for max healing) then show them a battle where the enemy does the SAME THING.
Let the kids pull the t.v. down on themselves a few times...they'll quit!
Unfortunately generic monsters don't gain any benefit from the main exploit to this spell - the out of combat conga line to almost fully heal all party members at very little cost - so you can't employ the old taste-of-your-own-medicine punishment. Used in a normal battle it is well enough balanced due to the difficulty of movement.
My "solution" for this spell is for the fey spirit summoned to be an NPC controlled a bit by the DM, and that spirit is willing to help in combat, but not be drained of all energy in a conga line. It will provide the minimum of 10 healing instances but then will disappear if no real battle is happening (so you can't just keep one grappled rat alive at the end of a battle to trick the spirit into hanging around). Mine is a universe full of vengeful gods and fickle fey beings who aren't going to put up with any exploitation just because some "rules" say they should...
I read the first page of this thread, the last page and saw some video on the topic. Being a RPGer from way back I have an easy way to fix this:
DM (the first time he sees the spell being obviously abused): I'll let you have it...just remember that anything YOU can do, the bad guys can do as well!
If they persist in using the spell in an abusive (6 PCs mincing through for max healing) then show them a battle where the enemy does the SAME THING.
Let the kids pull the t.v. down on themselves a few times...they'll quit!
Never a fan of this style of approach. If something is ruining a game the dm should probably not give the players ammo to say "well you did it too". It has been the downfall of many a 3.x game.
Not that it matters in this case as enemies don't recieve the same benefit... a dragon with minions that keep a 3x3 grid of them though. Not broken but makes for amusing "regeneration".
Unfortunately generic monsters don't gain any benefit from the main exploit to this spell - the out of combat conga line to almost fully heal all party members at very little cost - so you can't employ the old taste-of-your-own-medicine punishment. Used in a normal battle it is well enough balanced due to the difficulty of movement.
So...6 casters in a circle with War Caster take turns casting Healing Spirit in a different hex (forming a circle with a Healing Spirit in each)...They all walk around in the circle getting...I don't know how much healing, somebody figure that shit out. Since attacking doesn't affect concentration, they also use their actions to fill the party with arrows.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Unfortunately generic monsters don't gain any benefit from the main exploit to this spell - the out of combat conga line to almost fully heal all party members at very little cost - so you can't employ the old taste-of-your-own-medicine punishment. Used in a normal battle it is well enough balanced due to the difficulty of movement.
So...6 casters in a circle with War Caster take turns casting Healing Spirit in a different hex (forming a circle with a Healing Spirit in each)...They all walk around in the circle getting...I don't know how much healing, somebody figure that shit out. Since attacking doesn't affect concentration, they also use their actions to fill the party with arrows.
If that is what a full squad of caster/archers really want to do with their spell slots, concentration and time for a bunch of turns then more power to them. They are now walking around in a nicely fireball shaped circle among other possible ways to counter this plan. This thread is really not about the use/abuse of this spell in combat - most of the vitriolic argument has been about the near unlimited number of people who can receive near full healing outside of combat, and whether cheap non-combat healing is important or not.
Unfortunately generic monsters don't gain any benefit from the main exploit to this spell - the out of combat conga line to almost fully heal all party members at very little cost - so you can't employ the old taste-of-your-own-medicine punishment. Used in a normal battle it is well enough balanced due to the difficulty of movement.
So...6 casters in a circle with War Caster take turns casting Healing Spirit in a different hex (forming a circle with a Healing Spirit in each)...They all walk around in the circle getting...I don't know how much healing, somebody figure that shit out. Since attacking doesn't affect concentration, they also use their actions to fill the party with arrows.
6 Healing Spirits cast in a circle with the party each walking the same circle would be 6x healing per round (6d6) for a maximum of ten rounds. Average is 21 per round each. Put a Paladin in the center for the bonus to Saves and everyone should be pretty safe. The spell is a Bonus Action to cast, plus Concentration, so a war party of 6 casters with cantrips can focus down an enemy pretty fast I'd imagine.
However, One thing many people are focusing on is that this is under PERFECT circumstances. What if the terrain doesn't allow for it? What if an enemy casts Shape Stone and puts up a barrier? There are tons of different ways to interfere with this in combat.
Out of combat, I can see it as abusive because the rest of the game is built around the idea of resource management and Healing Spirit is, in many ways, too effective OOC. Instead of worrying about Healing Kits, Potions and spell slots, you get ONE casting of this and the whole party can gain 200 HP in a minute. Not a Long Rest or Short Rest, a MINUTE. If you're out of combat then it's pretty low to simply say that the party can't set up an optimum situation to make it work. All you need is a space 15' by 15', the spell and enough light to see by.
I haven't encountered this in my game yet but I can see it happening so I'm going to have to put some sort of cap on it otherwise OOC healing will become a joke.
Since its release, Healing Spirit, at least in my experience running games where players have access to it, has consistently been an "amazing in theory, usually underwhelming in practice" sort of spell. It takes somewhat serious buy-in and cooperation from the table to approach problematic levels in combat, and since most encounters are built making no assumptions about the character HP totals, the out of combat healing/resource management issues have not shown to break up the flow of any of my Adventure League games in any way.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Since its release, Healing Spirit, at least in my experience running games where players have access to it, has consistently been an "amazing in theory, usually underwhelming in practice" sort of spell. It takes somewhat serious buy-in and cooperation from the table to approach problematic levels in combat, and since most encounters are built making no assumptions about the character HP totals, the out of combat healing/resource management issues have not shown to break up the flow of any of my Adventure League games in any way.
I solved the Healing Spirit issue with my own house rule that says only one person per round can be healed by it. As many people as want to can stand in a 5' square, but only one person per round can be healed.
I like your analysis that begins: "The point about modelling outcomes is that you don't pick the optimal scenario for something and then claim a definitive result for all situations - especially not behind a shield of embarrassing internet aggressiveness" a lot, but I do believe that it's effectiveness out of combat does impact combat. Because you need to use less resources to 'top up' if you've been beat down between fights, you have more resources to go into the next fight. Is this game breaking? No. Do I think goodberries used the way you mentioned does the same thing? Yes, but depending on the previous day's activities, and whether or not there were encounters during the long rest will change the effectiveness of that strategy. It's still worth mentioning, and still worth consideration that out of combat this spell is a beast for healing, and it does impact the game.
I have not noticed any problems with this spell as DM in combat situations; as a player I almost always prefer to dedicate my concentration to other things. If it is causing you problems as a DM, dispel magic gets rid of it well enough, plus it just makes the caster a target for concentration disruption.
Almost nobody is complaining about the in-combat effectiveness of this spell. It's the out of combat use along with entire parties running in circles through it to get 10d6 per party member off a single cast that is making it grotesquely overpowered compared to other healing abilities.
For home brew this is a minor issue and can be easily remedied (I went with Jeremy Crawford's intended power level of 2x WIS mod total dice of healing). However, in Adventurer's League where you have to take everything RAW (as written) it is obnoxious.
Fortunately, the Season 8 Adventurer's League rules are so bad that most people I know have quit playing and gone to home brew.
Still doesn’t seem like a big deal. You can just expect that the party will generally start encounters with full HP if there is a healing spirit spammer in the group. But, in virtually every game I’ve ever played in, the party was already starting the majority of encounters with full or nearly full HP, because people love to take rests and/or power through potions of healing by the cartload once they have reached the point that their cost is relatively trivial. It’s also worth noting that healing spirit will also typically be far less efficient than 10d6 worth of healing per party member, because it’s rare that everyone is equally injured, and it will frequently be the case that a lot of that healing potential doesn’t get used. So the actual healing vs. theoretical healing will not generally match.
Thus, in practice using healing spirit out of combat is not nearly as powerful as a life domain cleric or shepherd circle druid’s ability to put out massive amounts of healing on the spot during combat, where HP/round is the relevant metric. I acknowledge that, thematically, it could get irritating if the party constantly performs a healing spirit conga line between encounters, but I can’t see this being the thing that breaks a game. If it is causing you problems and you must abide by RAW, just keep in mind that there are a lot of types of damage and effects that aren’t cured by getting your HP healed. Exhaustion, ability score drain, HP maximum reductions, curses, diseases, poison, charms, and many other things cannot be remedied this way and are also all part of D&D RAW.
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Oh indeed. A horrendous cost. That's what is expected for significant outside-of-class abilities. Healing Spirit has no such cost.
If you were going to build an explorer paladin, I would probably make up a new subclass that had access to Find Trap and Detect Thoughts in addition to the other divination spells paladins already have. Maybe have a subclass feature that modifies Divine Sense.
I know the intent was to talk about how you can make a good explorer out of one that can't be, but I think that the paladin could be good at exploration if we use the paladin's innate abilities in the proper manner, rather than forcing an unnatural build
Yeah, you don't even need to have a good spellcasting modifier; it's just as good with 8 WIS. Besides using up a reaction, I wish they'd made it heal 1d4 + Mod so it doesn't scale so well with higher slots (most spells don't) and you actually have to be at least decent at spellcasting.
We have currently house-ruled this spell to only affect ONE person per round no matter how many Conga-Line through it per round. So when you cast it, the very first creature to run through it on any given round, gets the heal. Only had it used in combat once, when the fighter was almost dead and hiding behind a rock, while the rest of the group kept the enemies busy. Every other time, it gets used in between combat. But even at it's current house-ruled state, I am keeping an eye on it, as I run a gritty, lethal style game of survival and exploration.
Personally I would change "...moves into the spirit's space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there..." to read "... "...ends its turn in the spirit's space..."
Solves the issue without costing reactions or anything else.
Seriously though, the idea of running around in circles for a full minute while the caster has to constantly keep their head pointed towards the spirit (it only effects things they can see)... is painful.
Especially since we know they are exhausted(in a descriptive sense) and or injured which is why they are doing this in the first place.
Thematically it is a stupid way to recover.
Really though, I am doubtful it is abused that often in games.
I've seen it abused in Adventure League games and Adventure League Epics where it plainly trivializes the resource strain on the party and makes life clerics and other previously strong healers feel like their characters are trash because a Ranger can heal circles around them.
If you're the healer you don't expect to match the DPS players. But when the guy with dps and survival/travel skills can also out-heal you - game balance looks and feels broken.
I read the first page of this thread, the last page and saw some video on the topic. Being a RPGer from way back I have an easy way to fix this:
DM (the first time he sees the spell being obviously abused): I'll let you have it...just remember that anything YOU can do, the bad guys can do as well!
If they persist in using the spell in an abusive (6 PCs mincing through for max healing) then show them a battle where the enemy does the SAME THING.
Let the kids pull the t.v. down on themselves a few times...they'll quit!
Unfortunately generic monsters don't gain any benefit from the main exploit to this spell - the out of combat conga line to almost fully heal all party members at very little cost - so you can't employ the old taste-of-your-own-medicine punishment. Used in a normal battle it is well enough balanced due to the difficulty of movement.
My "solution" for this spell is for the fey spirit summoned to be an NPC controlled a bit by the DM, and that spirit is willing to help in combat, but not be drained of all energy in a conga line. It will provide the minimum of 10 healing instances but then will disappear if no real battle is happening (so you can't just keep one grappled rat alive at the end of a battle to trick the spirit into hanging around). Mine is a universe full of vengeful gods and fickle fey beings who aren't going to put up with any exploitation just because some "rules" say they should...
Never a fan of this style of approach. If something is ruining a game the dm should probably not give the players ammo to say "well you did it too". It has been the downfall of many a 3.x game.
Not that it matters in this case as enemies don't recieve the same benefit... a dragon with minions that keep a 3x3 grid of them though. Not broken but makes for amusing "regeneration".
So...6 casters in a circle with War Caster take turns casting Healing Spirit in a different hex (forming a circle with a Healing Spirit in each)...They all walk around in the circle getting...I don't know how much healing, somebody figure that shit out. Since attacking doesn't affect concentration, they also use their actions to fill the party with arrows.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Or...Just don't buy Xanthar's Guide to Everything.
I don't have it, so there is no way I could allow it in my game.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
If that is what a full squad of caster/archers really want to do with their spell slots, concentration and time for a bunch of turns then more power to them. They are now walking around in a nicely fireball shaped circle among other possible ways to counter this plan. This thread is really not about the use/abuse of this spell in combat - most of the vitriolic argument has been about the near unlimited number of people who can receive near full healing outside of combat, and whether cheap non-combat healing is important or not.
6 Healing Spirits cast in a circle with the party each walking the same circle would be 6x healing per round (6d6) for a maximum of ten rounds. Average is 21 per round each. Put a Paladin in the center for the bonus to Saves and everyone should be pretty safe. The spell is a Bonus Action to cast, plus Concentration, so a war party of 6 casters with cantrips can focus down an enemy pretty fast I'd imagine.
However, One thing many people are focusing on is that this is under PERFECT circumstances. What if the terrain doesn't allow for it? What if an enemy casts Shape Stone and puts up a barrier? There are tons of different ways to interfere with this in combat.
Out of combat, I can see it as abusive because the rest of the game is built around the idea of resource management and Healing Spirit is, in many ways, too effective OOC. Instead of worrying about Healing Kits, Potions and spell slots, you get ONE casting of this and the whole party can gain 200 HP in a minute. Not a Long Rest or Short Rest, a MINUTE. If you're out of combat then it's pretty low to simply say that the party can't set up an optimum situation to make it work. All you need is a space 15' by 15', the spell and enough light to see by.
I haven't encountered this in my game yet but I can see it happening so I'm going to have to put some sort of cap on it otherwise OOC healing will become a joke.
Since its release, Healing Spirit, at least in my experience running games where players have access to it, has consistently been an "amazing in theory, usually underwhelming in practice" sort of spell. It takes somewhat serious buy-in and cooperation from the table to approach problematic levels in combat, and since most encounters are built making no assumptions about the character HP totals, the out of combat healing/resource management issues have not shown to break up the flow of any of my Adventure League games in any way.
This has been my experience as well.
I solved the Healing Spirit issue with my own house rule that says only one person per round can be healed by it. As many people as want to can stand in a 5' square, but only one person per round can be healed.
@ Winter
I like your analysis that begins: "The point about modelling outcomes is that you don't pick the optimal scenario for something and then claim a definitive result for all situations - especially not behind a shield of embarrassing internet aggressiveness" a lot, but I do believe that it's effectiveness out of combat does impact combat. Because you need to use less resources to 'top up' if you've been beat down between fights, you have more resources to go into the next fight. Is this game breaking? No. Do I think goodberries used the way you mentioned does the same thing? Yes, but depending on the previous day's activities, and whether or not there were encounters during the long rest will change the effectiveness of that strategy. It's still worth mentioning, and still worth consideration that out of combat this spell is a beast for healing, and it does impact the game.
I have not noticed any problems with this spell as DM in combat situations; as a player I almost always prefer to dedicate my concentration to other things. If it is causing you problems as a DM, dispel magic gets rid of it well enough, plus it just makes the caster a target for concentration disruption.
Almost nobody is complaining about the in-combat effectiveness of this spell. It's the out of combat use along with entire parties running in circles through it to get 10d6 per party member off a single cast that is making it grotesquely overpowered compared to other healing abilities.
For home brew this is a minor issue and can be easily remedied (I went with Jeremy Crawford's intended power level of 2x WIS mod total dice of healing). However, in Adventurer's League where you have to take everything RAW (as written) it is obnoxious.
Fortunately, the Season 8 Adventurer's League rules are so bad that most people I know have quit playing and gone to home brew.
Still doesn’t seem like a big deal. You can just expect that the party will generally start encounters with full HP if there is a healing spirit spammer in the group. But, in virtually every game I’ve ever played in, the party was already starting the majority of encounters with full or nearly full HP, because people love to take rests and/or power through potions of healing by the cartload once they have reached the point that their cost is relatively trivial. It’s also worth noting that healing spirit will also typically be far less efficient than 10d6 worth of healing per party member, because it’s rare that everyone is equally injured, and it will frequently be the case that a lot of that healing potential doesn’t get used. So the actual healing vs. theoretical healing will not generally match.
Thus, in practice using healing spirit out of combat is not nearly as powerful as a life domain cleric or shepherd circle druid’s ability to put out massive amounts of healing on the spot during combat, where HP/round is the relevant metric. I acknowledge that, thematically, it could get irritating if the party constantly performs a healing spirit conga line between encounters, but I can’t see this being the thing that breaks a game. If it is causing you problems and you must abide by RAW, just keep in mind that there are a lot of types of damage and effects that aren’t cured by getting your HP healed. Exhaustion, ability score drain, HP maximum reductions, curses, diseases, poison, charms, and many other things cannot be remedied this way and are also all part of D&D RAW.