The main two problems with the mega-healing from the healing spirit conga line or even worse variations involving piggy backing (20d6 in 1 minute anyone?) are this:
1- The party experiences no resource drain as it pops back to full health with a single spell instead of several spells, plus potions, plus the angst of deciding if they can risk a short rest or not before McEvil absconds with the McGuffin.
2- During one epic (12 table event) I ran we had a ranger out heal both life clerics in the 7 man party and the look on their faces as their very human souls withered once they realized they were being massively out-healed by a ranger was a sickening verification of just how out-of-balance this spell is in out-of-combat scenarios.
You make very good points about the non-HP damage, but again, when playing adventurer's league your ability to modify the adventure is very limited and huge balancing bloopers like this hurt the feel of the game. Even Crawford's own admission of what they were expecting to happen (2x WIS mod in d6's of healing vs. 10d6 x party size) show's you how bad they screwed this up with their poor wording and/or complete lack of QA.
Do none of you know how chill touch, dispell magic, counterspell, and anti-magic work in reference to preventing abuse of this spell?
The problem isn't the spell. It's lack of preparation to deal with players that will lie, cheat, steal, and beg to keep their characters alive..You can always trust a player to do the one thing you didn't think of..quit whining and get creative.
Do none of you know how chill touch, dispell magic, counterspell, and anti-magic work in reference to preventing abuse of this spell?
The problem isn't the spell. It's lack of preparation to deal with players that will lie, cheat, steal, and beg to keep their characters alive..You can always trust a player to do the one thing you didn't think of..quit whining and get creative.
The problem isn't how well the spell performs in combat, where Chill Touch, Dispel Magic, etc., could be a factor, but rather out of combat, between encounters. Many people feel it devalues short rests and other healing spells/classes.
Someone talked about DMing a campaign with little chance to rest and the Life Clerics in the group seeing their role shattered. Today I saw this from Puffin Forest, with more details on something that sounded like it might be the same setup. https://youtu.be/rHVO0NxQ5oQ
When I see something like this it seems like the writer intended for the players to look for solutions 'outside the box' to succeed. Playing a Life Cleric is not an effective solution here. In a campaign where a ranger healing shines, a Life Domain Cleric was a poor choice for the campaign being presented.
This does nothing to address the power imbalance issue of having a level 5 ranger out heal level 5 life clerics while having massively superior dps, more skills, etc.
Sure, a DM can just throw gouts of damage at a party or with immersion-shattering-lameness have an NPC jump out of the woodwork and dispel magic every time healing spirit is used.
Each players in the party should feel like their contribution matters and that they are worthwhile members of the team. If the high damage character is also the best healer then the dedicated healers feel like dead weight.
It also doesn't address the problem of how it causes all of the other out-of-combat healing spells to be devalued to trash status.
... Each players in the party should feel like their contribution matters and that they are worthwhile members of the team. If the high damage character is also the best healer then the dedicated healers feel like dead weight. ...
This is where im saying your trouble lies. I agree everyone should be able to contribute and feel a sense of accomplishment for doing so.
I disagree with the notion that a ranger has better dps than a cleric and that someone who chooses to make their only contribution to the team healing should feel a sense of accomplishment.
Your party does not need a dedicated healer. If someone chooses to make a contribution that is not needed they may not feel their contribution was worthwhile.
A dedicated healer may often find that he is dead weight, and that is not a result Healing Spirit.
It also doesn't address the problem of how it causes all of the other out-of-combat healing spells to be devalued to trash status.
Since you are expert, I would appreciate if you gave us a concise list =)
Jeremy Crawford already told us what the intended output of the spell was: 2x WIS bonus in d6's of healing. So instead of getting 60d6 for a 6 man party he was thinking it would be in the 6d6 to 10d6 range. Even by their own design goals it's performing at 600% to 1000% of expectations.
The issue is for Adventurer's League where DMs are not allowed to home brew a fix for the spell and have to allow it to be used as written.
It also doesn't address the problem of how it causes all of the other out-of-combat healing spells to be devalued to trash status.
Since you are expert, I would appreciate if you gave us a concise list =)
Jeremy Crawford already told us what the intended output of the spell was: 2x WIS bonus in d6's of healing. So instead of getting 60d6 for a 6 man party he was thinking it would be in the 6d6 to 10d6 range. Even by their own design goals it's performing at 600% to 1000% of expectations.
The issue is for Adventurer's League where DMs are not allowed to home brew a fix for the spell and have to allow it to be used as written.
You mis-understand. You said the spell devalues other out of combat healing spells. I asked if you could tell us what these other out of combat spells were.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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?"
just give it material components, those being healed need to be wearing bells on their ankles, someone needs a bladder on a stick and one of em has to be playing an accordion, and they have to sing, the healing happens while they perform the dance and it makes a right racket. hence triggers encounters. lets face it if they're going to start morris dancing to get healed they'd better bloody well be doing it properly
I got to wonder if players at all think what the in character reactions to this would actually be (you know the role play part).
Ranger to grizzed Veteran warrior: "Ok I now need you to walk back and forth through this spirit" Veteran warrior: *gives the ranger that look* "you want me to prance around like some tavern bard? Get your arse over here and heal me properly, we've no time for this tomfoolery".
Sounds like the spell is only overpowered if you are going to meta game it, quite frankly if that is the case you got other problems.
Lets presume that the case is that Healing Spirit is seen as always the best spell, so now the ranger/druid is going to be hard pressed by the group when they use those spell slots other than for healing spirit ("we could of used that to heal"). Pass without trace to me seems a way better use in avoiding the damage in the first place by never being noticed (as that is potentially 100% of every characters health for an hour).
From practice the true power I've seen in having a life Cleric is in combat healing and less so with out of combat healing as there are just many other options out of combat.
I got to wonder if players at all think what the in character reactions to this would actually be (you know the role play part).
Ranger to grizzed Veteran warrior: "Ok I now need you to walk back and forth through this spirit" Veteran warrior: *gives the ranger that look* "you want me to prance around like some tavern bard? Get your arse over here and heal me properly, we've no time for this tomfoolery".
Sounds like the spell is only overpowered if you are going to meta game it, quite frankly if that is the case you got other problems.
Lets presume that the case is that Healing Spirit is seen as always the best spell, so now the ranger/druid is going to be hard pressed by the group when they use those spell slots other than for healing spirit ("we could of used that to heal"). Pass without trace to me seems a way better use in avoiding the damage in the first place by never being noticed (as that is potentially 100% of every characters health for an hour).
From practice the true power I've seen in having a life Cleric is in combat healing and less so with out of combat healing as there are just many other options out of combat.
I got to wonder if players at all think what the in character reactions to this would actually be... Sounds like the spell is only overpowered if you are going to meta game it... Lets presume that the case is that Healing Spirit is seen as always the best spell... From practice the true power I've seen in having a life Cleric is in combat healing...
I wholly agree with everything said in this post.
Look, all of that is not wrong, but it is also not the point of what this entire thread has been discussing. Some of the people who have posted here lately clearly haven't read the whole thing. This post is not arguing that this spell breaks the game, possibly ever, but that the spell itself is broken within certain game styles when it comes to out of combat usage. Here is a summary for people who don't have time.
1. Out of combat healing exists as a concept in this system, including using spells (like Prayer of Healing which can only be used out of combat). Not all styles of game involve situations where such healing is important or valued, but clearly there exist some games where it is important.
2. Healing Spirit is well balanced in combat; concentration, mobility restrictions, action economy, healing speed - all combine to keep the potential of the spell under control. It is a different method of healing neither better nor worse - like how the existence of fireball does not make lightning bolt obsolete because they have different uses.
3. Outside of Combat this spell operates far beyond its level, like it is over four times more effective than Prayer of Healing, which is a spell of the same level that has no other application except Out of Combat healing! Thus if you are playing a game style where out of combat healing is important then all sorts of balance issues are introduced. And this somewhat the equivalent of introducing a new spell at the same level as fireball that does for four times more damage; it would render fireball (and many other spells) obsolete, and means characters who can only cast fireball are diminished.
4. The designer of the game has admitted that this was not the intention, however this spell still made it through the testing phase, and to this day has not been corrected by any official errata. That is concerning to people.
Anyone who is arguing anything along the lines of "but out of combat healing is not important", or "people should just not use it", or "DMs can home rule a balancing mechanism" is not actually discussing the issue at hand.
I got to wonder if players at all think what the in character reactions to this would actually be (you know the role play part).
Ranger to grizzed Veteran warrior: "Ok I now need you to walk back and forth through this spirit" Veteran warrior: *gives the ranger that look* "you want me to prance around like some tavern bard? Get your arse over here and heal me properly, we've no time for this tomfoolery".
Sounds like the spell is only overpowered if you are going to meta game it, quite frankly if that is the case you got other problems.
It's not metagaming: the spell literally works like that in the character's world. The characters aren't metagaming when the mage produces a powdered rhubarb leaf and an adder’s stomach in order to cast Acid Arrow. "An adders stomach, Merlyn? This isn't the dark ages!"
Given that the spell does work best when the patients are able to form a conga line, then a "grizzled veteran" would have seen this a thousand times and will be resigned to looking a fool if he wants to get healed. It's not a huge step from lining up to see the army doc, getting jabbed in the arm, dropping your pants and coughing, then moving on...are our brave soldiers in this world metagaming when they do that?
"Pass without trace to me seems a way better use in avoiding the damage in the first place by never being noticed (as that is potentially 100% of every characters health for an hour)." - Loswaith. (Last seen on the 543rd level of the abyss, just as his Pass Without Trace spell expired.)
Try this in one of Matt Colville's games and let us know how that worked out! :)
Most DMs colleagues I met do not allow Healing Spirit for their campaigns. This spell should really be fixed in some errata.
I heart reports from Adventure League's plays where they were actively looking for players with Healing Spirit, becauses that spell transforms most AL games into milk runs.
Recent I had a "power gamer" in my group. He did his utmost to be the most powerful character (ranger) in the group (like using Sharpshooter from 600 feet against targets in cover without penalties, like using Zephyr Strike and his free terrain navigation to basically move freely in melee combat, thereby bypassing any impediments the DM threw at him), and he succeeded, effectively dealing more damage than the rest of the group and all of the enemies put together. This guy flat out REFUSED to touch Healing Spirit because he considered it too overpowered. You know something is very wrong when people that usually try to "break" the game mechanics feel ashamed of using a feature.
That "Power Gamer" who was trying to break the game mechanics...how is he any different from a member of the SAS or a SWAT team, who trains to get a "very specific skill set" which has been tested and found to be optimal for warriors in the field?
Maybe he refused to touch healing spirit because he didn't want to use valuable spell slots on characters too dumb to avoid injury? Again, in the real world, SWAT members usually have only limited medical expertise.
AL as I understand it, is all about using your skills to overcome set challenges. The DM is supposed to be impartial in a way that "normal" DMs don't. They are not there to coddle players, but to give them an environment in which they succeed or fail based on their own decisions. It has more in common with a MTG tournament than it does an average D&D campaign...
When I run a game, the players could all choose to play mages and the game would mould itself (almost magically) to them. Try that in an AL game. If they were more interested in style than effectiveness, the challenge level of the combats would reflect that. Try that in an AL game. If the players at my table were using Healing Spirit to it's maximum effectiveness (and trust me, they do!) then I just increase the difficulties of some of the encounters. (Because I run published adventures as well as homebrewed, I like to keep some encounters the same - this allows the players to "judge" themselves against some kind of expected level of skill/power. Not very accurately, as they are probably toting more powerful items than a similar level party at another table - what can I say, I give my players the type of campaign that I would want to play in.)
You may be right about the spell being overpowered, but guessing at the (emotional) reasons of one player (whose gaming style seems to offend you) for not using a spell seems a weak basis for an argument.
As for "milk runs" - you have to survive combat to get out of combat.
The main two problems with the mega-healing from the healing spirit conga line or even worse variations involving piggy backing (20d6 in 1 minute anyone?) are this:
1- The party experiences no resource drain as it pops back to full health with a single spell instead of several spells, plus potions, plus the angst of deciding if they can risk a short rest or not before McEvil absconds with the McGuffin.
2- During one epic (12 table event) I ran we had a ranger out heal both life clerics in the 7 man party and the look on their faces as their very human souls withered once they realized they were being massively out-healed by a ranger was a sickening verification of just how out-of-balance this spell is in out-of-combat scenarios.
You make very good points about the non-HP damage, but again, when playing adventurer's league your ability to modify the adventure is very limited and huge balancing bloopers like this hurt the feel of the game. Even Crawford's own admission of what they were expecting to happen (2x WIS mod in d6's of healing vs. 10d6 x party size) show's you how bad they screwed this up with their poor wording and/or complete lack of QA.
Do none of you know how chill touch, dispell magic, counterspell, and anti-magic work in reference to preventing abuse of this spell?
The problem isn't the spell. It's lack of preparation to deal with players that will lie, cheat, steal, and beg to keep their characters alive..You can always trust a player to do the one thing you didn't think of..quit whining and get creative.
The problem isn't how well the spell performs in combat, where Chill Touch, Dispel Magic, etc., could be a factor, but rather out of combat, between encounters. Many people feel it devalues short rests and other healing spells/classes.
It's up to a DM to come up with a remedy if he feels this spell is getting out of hand. Easiest would be exhaustion.
"We have full hp let's go!"
"No long rest?"
"Nope, we're good."
"Welcome to lvl 1 exhaustion."
"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
Someone talked about DMing a campaign with little chance to rest and the Life Clerics in the group seeing their role shattered. Today I saw this from Puffin Forest, with more details on something that sounded like it might be the same setup. https://youtu.be/rHVO0NxQ5oQ
When I see something like this it seems like the writer intended for the players to look for solutions 'outside the box' to succeed. Playing a Life Cleric is not an effective solution here. In a campaign where a ranger healing shines, a Life Domain Cleric was a poor choice for the campaign being presented.
[Edit: relevant post] https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/9330-healing-spirit-is-broken-to-a-degree-that-is?comment=196
Extended Signature
This does nothing to address the power imbalance issue of having a level 5 ranger out heal level 5 life clerics while having massively superior dps, more skills, etc.
Sure, a DM can just throw gouts of damage at a party or with immersion-shattering-lameness have an NPC jump out of the woodwork and dispel magic every time healing spirit is used.
Each players in the party should feel like their contribution matters and that they are worthwhile members of the team. If the high damage character is also the best healer then the dedicated healers feel like dead weight.
It also doesn't address the problem of how it causes all of the other out-of-combat healing spells to be devalued to trash status.
Since you are expert, I would appreciate if you gave us a concise list =)
"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
This is where im saying your trouble lies. I agree everyone should be able to contribute and feel a sense of accomplishment for doing so.
I disagree with the notion that a ranger has better dps than a cleric and that someone who chooses to make their only contribution to the team healing should feel a sense of accomplishment.
Your party does not need a dedicated healer. If someone chooses to make a contribution that is not needed they may not feel their contribution was worthwhile.
A dedicated healer may often find that he is dead weight, and that is not a result Healing Spirit.
Extended Signature
Jeremy Crawford already told us what the intended output of the spell was: 2x WIS bonus in d6's of healing. So instead of getting 60d6 for a 6 man party he was thinking it would be in the 6d6 to 10d6 range. Even by their own design goals it's performing at 600% to 1000% of expectations.
The issue is for Adventurer's League where DMs are not allowed to home brew a fix for the spell and have to allow it to be used as written.
You mis-understand. You said the spell devalues other out of combat healing spells. I asked if you could tell us what these other out of combat spells were.
"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
He needn't, these were discussed in the OP at length and after within this thread.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/rules-game-mechanics/9330
Extended Signature
THANKS!
That doesn't give the needed details, but now I know where to look.
"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
just give it material components, those being healed need to be wearing bells on their ankles, someone needs a bladder on a stick and one of em has to be playing an accordion, and they have to sing, the healing happens while they perform the dance and it makes a right racket. hence triggers encounters.
lets face it if they're going to start morris dancing to get healed they'd better bloody well be doing it properly
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
I got to wonder if players at all think what the in character reactions to this would actually be (you know the role play part).
Ranger to grizzed Veteran warrior: "Ok I now need you to walk back and forth through this spirit"
Veteran warrior: *gives the ranger that look* "you want me to prance around like some tavern bard? Get your arse over here and heal me properly, we've no time for this tomfoolery".
Sounds like the spell is only overpowered if you are going to meta game it, quite frankly if that is the case you got other problems.
Lets presume that the case is that Healing Spirit is seen as always the best spell, so now the ranger/druid is going to be hard pressed by the group when they use those spell slots other than for healing spirit ("we could of used that to heal"). Pass without trace to me seems a way better use in avoiding the damage in the first place by never being noticed (as that is potentially 100% of every characters health for an hour).
From practice the true power I've seen in having a life Cleric is in combat healing and less so with out of combat healing as there are just many other options out of combat.
- Loswaith
I wholly agree with everything said in this post.
Look, all of that is not wrong, but it is also not the point of what this entire thread has been discussing. Some of the people who have posted here lately clearly haven't read the whole thing. This post is not arguing that this spell breaks the game, possibly ever, but that the spell itself is broken within certain game styles when it comes to out of combat usage. Here is a summary for people who don't have time.
1. Out of combat healing exists as a concept in this system, including using spells (like Prayer of Healing which can only be used out of combat). Not all styles of game involve situations where such healing is important or valued, but clearly there exist some games where it is important.
2. Healing Spirit is well balanced in combat; concentration, mobility restrictions, action economy, healing speed - all combine to keep the potential of the spell under control. It is a different method of healing neither better nor worse - like how the existence of fireball does not make lightning bolt obsolete because they have different uses.
3. Outside of Combat this spell operates far beyond its level, like it is over four times more effective than Prayer of Healing, which is a spell of the same level that has no other application except Out of Combat healing! Thus if you are playing a game style where out of combat healing is important then all sorts of balance issues are introduced. And this somewhat the equivalent of introducing a new spell at the same level as fireball that does for four times more damage; it would render fireball (and many other spells) obsolete, and means characters who can only cast fireball are diminished.
4. The designer of the game has admitted that this was not the intention, however this spell still made it through the testing phase, and to this day has not been corrected by any official errata. That is concerning to people.
Anyone who is arguing anything along the lines of "but out of combat healing is not important", or "people should just not use it", or "DMs can home rule a balancing mechanism" is not actually discussing the issue at hand.
It's not metagaming: the spell literally works like that in the character's world. The characters aren't metagaming when the mage produces a powdered rhubarb leaf and an adder’s stomach in order to cast Acid Arrow. "An adders stomach, Merlyn? This isn't the dark ages!"
Given that the spell does work best when the patients are able to form a conga line, then a "grizzled veteran" would have seen this a thousand times and will be resigned to looking a fool if he wants to get healed. It's not a huge step from lining up to see the army doc, getting jabbed in the arm, dropping your pants and coughing, then moving on...are our brave soldiers in this world metagaming when they do that?
"Pass without trace to me seems a way better use in avoiding the damage in the first place by never being noticed (as that is potentially 100% of every characters health for an hour)." - Loswaith. (Last seen on the 543rd level of the abyss, just as his Pass Without Trace spell expired.)
Try this in one of Matt Colville's games and let us know how that worked out! :)
Roleplaying since Runequest.
That "Power Gamer" who was trying to break the game mechanics...how is he any different from a member of the SAS or a SWAT team, who trains to get a "very specific skill set" which has been tested and found to be optimal for warriors in the field?
Maybe he refused to touch healing spirit because he didn't want to use valuable spell slots on characters too dumb to avoid injury?
Again, in the real world, SWAT members usually have only limited medical expertise.
AL as I understand it, is all about using your skills to overcome set challenges. The DM is supposed to be impartial in a way that "normal" DMs don't. They are not there to coddle players, but to give them an environment in which they succeed or fail based on their own decisions. It has more in common with a MTG tournament than it does an average D&D campaign...
When I run a game, the players could all choose to play mages and the game would mould itself (almost magically) to them. Try that in an AL game.
If they were more interested in style than effectiveness, the challenge level of the combats would reflect that. Try that in an AL game.
If the players at my table were using Healing Spirit to it's maximum effectiveness (and trust me, they do!) then I just increase the difficulties of some of the encounters. (Because I run published adventures as well as homebrewed, I like to keep some encounters the same - this allows the players to "judge" themselves against some kind of expected level of skill/power. Not very accurately, as they are probably toting more powerful items than a similar level party at another table - what can I say, I give my players the type of campaign that I would want to play in.)
You may be right about the spell being overpowered, but guessing at the (emotional) reasons of one player (whose gaming style seems to offend you) for not using a spell seems a weak basis for an argument.
As for "milk runs" - you have to survive combat to get out of combat.
Roleplaying since Runequest.
*glances in* Its been nearly a year, and this thread is still around? Huh.