You make some good points and I appreciate the point-by-point responses. :)
Still, there's no way "several hundred playtesters" looked at Healing Spirit before release. Just the initial reading among the players at my table revealed how easily exploited this spell was going to be. It's bad in ways that make other poorly balanced abilities look tame.
You're arguing against a point I never made, Mr. Winter.
Healing Spirit is just fine in combat.
It's the out-of-combat healing scenario in which it is wildly broken. I also disagree with the notion that you can hand-wave out-of-combat healing as unimportant to the game. The drain of resources over a series of encounters is something the players have to balance whenever there is time pressure on them to complete a mission/quest. This is not an uncommon scenario and resource management is important.
Also, while you've made perfectly good recommendations to adjusting the spell to make it feel more balanced relative to other abilities/spells there is a big problem for Adventurer's League play in that DMs cannot make any house rules. We are bound by RAW with the option to include Sage Advice rulings. So until there is a Sage Advice ruling that doesn't include the forbidden "house rule" as part of the advice then we are basically stuck with it.
I agree, it'd be really strange that hundreds of experienced playtesters didn't raise a red flag. My guess is Healing Spirit was written up or revised really late in the process and there wasn't enough time to send it out to all the playtesters and collect all the feedback, so they just tested it in a couple of combat scenarios. I know the common magic items are also something they squeezed in at the last minute.
The drain of resources over a series of encounters is something the players have to balance whenever there is time pressure on them to complete a mission/quest. This is not an uncommon scenario and resource management is important.
I also covered this. Do you accept that there are multiple types of resource that can be depleted over time? If you do, why do you believe that hit point management is the best way to build tension?
I don't believe that hit point management is the "best way to build tension", but post-fight recovery is part of the game. Whether you're using potions, healer kits or spell slots it is a scenario that the party has to manage. It determines when they decide to risk a short rest or long rest and this is especially important when there is time pressure on them and they know that lives may be at stake if they rest - and perhaps their own lives could be at stake if they don't.
The spell is too strong in it's current implementation and Adventurer's League DMs have no recourse to address it other than hoping that Jeremy Crawford and the gang will admit that they f*cked up and address it. In his own post he admits their expectation for what the spell would heal is about 2x the spellcasting mod of the caster or roughly 8d6 to 10d6. What's happening in actual use is 50d6 to 70d6 (dramatically worse when upcast or combined with life cleric). If the spell getting 700% to 800% of the expected benefit isn't an indicator that it's broken then I don't know what is.
post-fight recovery is part of the game. Whether you're using potions, healer kits or spell slots it is a scenario that the party has to manage. It determines when they decide to risk a short rest or long rest and this is especially important when there is time pressure on them and they know that lives may be at stake if they rest - and perhaps their own lives could be at stake if they don't.
I'd like to explore this more. To everyone:
Generally, what percent of published adventures rely on this? (I know that 5e AL Epics tend to do this)
What happens to less experienced groups that manage their healing resources poorly? (especially in AL, where Long resting is not normally even an option)
What are some other situations that unlimited between-combat healing can break? (someone mentioned trap negation earlier)
AL seems like the most likely venue to experience a problem with Healing spirit (since AL tends to be resource oriented and can't house rule). Can we have some AL DM's weight on any specific problems encountered there?
What are some comparable resource management parts of the game? (example: tracking things like XP, GP, Ammo, food, weight, Spell slots, etc.). What happens if we take some of those out of the game?
The more knowledge we have about the issue, the better off DM's will be if/when it comes up. I think we're all agreed that a) in-combat it is not a problem and b) out-of-combat it is more effective than any other available healing (and thus needed more play-testing).
What strikes me here is this: yes, Healing Spirit Can Outperform its counterparts out of combat, If (and this is a big if) the party is low enough on health that the counterparts won't perform equally well. In other words, you can't heal more hp than has been lost.
On the other hand, given my campaign here on DDB, I want to look at its potential to be a problem In combat... Having each member of the party healed by 1d6 each round for 10 rounds (and these PvP battles can last over 10 rounds) isn't problematic as any focused damage output will far exceed this. It would encourage combatants in the Coliseum to control space and would reward tactics that seek to finish battles quickly.
You'll actually find a similar point as an out of combat spell lending to my first statement. Your party is likely to take focused damage. Meaning your whole party likely did not take damage, the characters who have low hp and hide out 'round back will tend to avoid damage completely thus preventing the potential effectiveness of this spell.
TL;DR I'll be impressed if your party is damaged to the point that this is truly more effective than other options. On the rare occasion it is, they'll be glad they have it.
TL;DR I'll be impressed if your party is damaged to the point that this is truly more effective than other options. On the rare occasion it is, they'll be glad they have it.
You'll actually find a similar point as an out of combat spell lending to my first statement. Your party is likely to take focused damage. Meaning your whole party likely did not take damage, the characters who have low hp and hide out 'round back will tend to avoid damage completely thus preventing the potential effectiveness of this spell.
TL;DR I'll be impressed if your party is damaged to the point that this is truly more effective than other options. On the rare occasion it is, they'll be glad they have it.
It really only takes 2 injured party members for a group heal like Prayer of Healing or Healing Spirit to be the most effective option. Also, party members usually aren't spread wide apart while traveling, so setting off a trap or being surprised will often result in the whole party taking damage.
The DM in one of my games regularly drains the party's resources with his homebrew adventures. I'm currently running Curse of Strahd which is very sandboxy and frequently throws deadly encounters at the party, so seeing multiple party members beat up is a pretty common occurrence for me.
There's way too much variance in party composition and adventure types to assume only one persons's getting hurt at a time at most tables.
"Wall of fire? No big deal I came prepared. Everyone just run through I'll heal us up on the other side... 3-2-1-Go! Hyup!"
Hmm... I see this as an effective use of a level-2 spell slot.
*3 hours later*
"10 walls of fire? Same plan!"
This scenario seems... unlikely. The spell has the potential to be an order of magnitude greater, but... The situation where it Is an order of magnitude greater is another story.
Still I'll give you, it is a potent spell. I will be preparing it if I ever get my Druid back in the game. (Who's got time for another game? Not me. The boss has started to ask about my productivity...)
Here's my worst in-game encounter with Healing Spirit so far.
Seven man party is racing the clock to fight off the forces of the Maimed Virulence. The city of Phlan is at stake and encounter after encounter must be handled with 1 allowed short rest and zero long rests.
After a particularly brutal fight where the party absorbed multiple fireballs the clerics are discussing the best way to use their spells to get the party back to full health. Enter the Ranger who tells them to form a congo line so they can get (Healing Spirit at Lv 3) 70 hit points per party member (7 man party) and proceeds to heal 490 points in a minute.
The problem is that out-of-combat the healing is stupidly beyond all other non-combat healing spells. It is, by Jeremy Crawford's own admission, performing about 700% beyond expectations. What this leads to - and why I hate this implementation of the spell - is I sat there at the table bound by the rules of AL as I watched the light DIE in the eyes of the clerics. Their primary role was out-stripped 5x over by a f*cking ranger. I could see their souls wilt.
Each hero has a role to play in the party. A thing they want to excel at. A function that is THEIR thing in the party. Healing Spirit steals that from too many players and gives it to someone who shouldn't have it (god tier healer rangers...come on).
Yes, when the Life Cleric can't even come close to healing as much as a Ranger, nor doing as much damage as said Ranger....it's obvious the spell is broken.
If you've got 7 party members down 70 hp each and your Clerics are annoyed that they don't have to spend their precious few spell slots recovering hp there's something more wrong here.
A cleric should not think his job is recovering hp. It's not. D&D is not WoW. (Even in WoW a bad healer fails to participate in other ways.) If someone convinced your players that parties need a dedicated healer, I've got a bridge to sell them.
There are much more useful things to do with Cleric spell slots, those guys should be thanking the Ranger for his contribution. What ranger has spare spell slots anyway, I guess it helps explain why the party was in bad shape...
That's the whole point of a broken spell. It imbalances the game. Let me try this another way, to see if you can empathize.
A Rogue that expends little/no resources to tank mobs, while doing incredible damage. A Wizard or Sorcerer that can stand toe-to-toe like a tank or heal like a Cleric/Druid.
At some point, people want to excel in the role they chose & built their character around. When some broken/imbalanced spell that wasn't properly playtested and is too OP makes another player's play style radically change, there's a problem.
In combat, the spell is sorta ok. Out of combat, the spell is broken as worded and need adjusted. Combined with a Warlock/Life Cleric build, this spell gets even more broken.
Straying off topic a bit here... I've got a couple of Wizards in the Coliseum, Abjurers. They have a myriad of defensive spells that make them harder to hit and kill than most other tanks, they do good damage and can even heal (though they don't heal well)
Party mechanics in D&D are not like MMOs. If someone wants to fulfill a specific combat role and they do not take on other aspects of the game they will be disappointed when they find that those mechanics are not prevalent.
I'm not sure how you should deal with players in AL focussing there efforts on a lackluster build. All I can say is, it's not really your responsibility. They don't like Life Clerics anymore? Maybe next week they'll start a Moon Druid. Maybe next time they take a long rest they'll prepare different spells. That's up to them.
Party mechanics in D&D are not like MMOs. If someone wants to fulfill a specific combat role and they do not take on other aspects of the game they will be disappointed when they find that those mechanics are not prevalent.
It has nothing to do with combat; if a fighter could outperform a ranger at exploration or a paladin could out-stealth a rogue by an order of magnitude, it'd be a problem too, regardless of how many other niches those characters can fill. If you make a fighter, it's because you want fighting to be your thing. If you make a life cleric, it's because you want healing to be your thing. Being outshined by a half-spellcasting class with any random subclass just because they happen to have a healing spell that's way better than anything on your own spell list sucks.
Party mechanics in D&D are not like MMOs. If someone wants to fulfill a specific combat role and they do not take on other aspects of the game they will be disappointed when they find that those mechanics are not prevalent.
It has nothing to do with combat; if a fighter could outperform a ranger at exploration or a paladin could out-stealth a rogue by an order of magnitude, it'd be a problem too, regardless of how many other niches those characters can fill. If you make a fighter, it's because you want fighting to be your thing. If you make a life cleric, it's because you want healing to be your thing. Being outshined by a half-spellcasting class with any random subclass just because they happen to have a healing spell that's way better than anything on your own spell list sucks.
Generally agree. Though a Paladin could in reality outstrip a ranger in exploration, but only by spending all their resources to specialise in it by having the right feats, maxing their wisdom, getting the right proficiencies, etc. And in my opinion that would be a really cool (if barely practical) character concept; but clearly we can all see the cost being paid by that character to achieve this mastery. Healing Spirit gives mastery at a single task (admittedly not a task that is important in every game style - but the game is clearly designed with out of combat healing as an element, since the spell Prayer of Healing exists and serves no other purpose), but the real issue is that it grants that mastery at no specialisation cost - and with no effort it does that task far better than even a specialist of the exact class which is supposed to be able to do it best. That is indeed what a broken spell or ability is. It's not necessarily something that breaks a game, or even causes conflict among the players; it's just something that by its very nature completely outstrips other comparable versions of the same thing. This spell is broken.
If ... your Clerics are annoyed that they don't have to spend their precious few spell slots recovering hp there's something more wrong here.
... If someone convinced your players that parties need a dedicated healer, I've got a bridge to sell them.
There are much more useful things to do with Cleric spell slots, those guys should be thanking the Ranger for his contribution.
Wish I could upvote this, but exactly. This thread has been through many loops so far, but even the non-combat healing problem comes down to whether parties have worked out other ways of providing healing without resting. The ones I play with have. The healing specialist Life Clerics are still the best in-combat healers. The mindset required to get jealous of another class because it can efficiently burn spell slots to heal out of combat (so you have more slots to use in combat) is one that is alien to me and the way I see games run.
Anyhow unless there is some kind of genuine new content, I’m finished with this particular subject.
There are much more useful things to do with Cleric spell slots, those guys should be thanking the Ranger for his contribution.
Well, I reckon if the designers intended for such excellent healing to be in the game... they likely would've given the ability to clerics before rangers. I can empathize with the problem of a class getting too many opportunities to shine compared to others.
Toxxus' anecdote was exactly the type of thing I had requested: information to shed light on possible situations (allowing me to develop tactics to minimize potential bad feelings when I DM AL games).
Since Paladins don't relay on Wisdom any more, a Paladin that went full on Survival would have to expend a lot of resources to compete with a Ranger in "exploration". Paladins already have a lot of stat requirements as it is, adding Wisdom on top of that would be a death sentence to any sane Paladin build.
That being said, the Ranger really doesn't have any "cost" to picking Healing Spirit and will heal tons more than the Paladin could even think of doiing.
You make some good points and I appreciate the point-by-point responses. :)
Still, there's no way "several hundred playtesters" looked at Healing Spirit before release. Just the initial reading among the players at my table revealed how easily exploited this spell was going to be. It's bad in ways that make other poorly balanced abilities look tame.
You're arguing against a point I never made, Mr. Winter.
Healing Spirit is just fine in combat.
It's the out-of-combat healing scenario in which it is wildly broken. I also disagree with the notion that you can hand-wave out-of-combat healing as unimportant to the game. The drain of resources over a series of encounters is something the players have to balance whenever there is time pressure on them to complete a mission/quest. This is not an uncommon scenario and resource management is important.
Also, while you've made perfectly good recommendations to adjusting the spell to make it feel more balanced relative to other abilities/spells there is a big problem for Adventurer's League play in that DMs cannot make any house rules. We are bound by RAW with the option to include Sage Advice rulings. So until there is a Sage Advice ruling that doesn't include the forbidden "house rule" as part of the advice then we are basically stuck with it.
I agree, it'd be really strange that hundreds of experienced playtesters didn't raise a red flag. My guess is Healing Spirit was written up or revised really late in the process and there wasn't enough time to send it out to all the playtesters and collect all the feedback, so they just tested it in a couple of combat scenarios. I know the common magic items are also something they squeezed in at the last minute.
I don't believe that hit point management is the "best way to build tension", but post-fight recovery is part of the game. Whether you're using potions, healer kits or spell slots it is a scenario that the party has to manage. It determines when they decide to risk a short rest or long rest and this is especially important when there is time pressure on them and they know that lives may be at stake if they rest - and perhaps their own lives could be at stake if they don't.
The spell is too strong in it's current implementation and Adventurer's League DMs have no recourse to address it other than hoping that Jeremy Crawford and the gang will admit that they f*cked up and address it. In his own post he admits their expectation for what the spell would heal is about 2x the spellcasting mod of the caster or roughly 8d6 to 10d6. What's happening in actual use is 50d6 to 70d6 (dramatically worse when upcast or combined with life cleric). If the spell getting 700% to 800% of the expected benefit isn't an indicator that it's broken then I don't know what is.
What strikes me here is this: yes, Healing Spirit Can Outperform its counterparts out of combat, If (and this is a big if) the party is low enough on health that the counterparts won't perform equally well. In other words, you can't heal more hp than has been lost.
On the other hand, given my campaign here on DDB, I want to look at its potential to be a problem In combat... Having each member of the party healed by 1d6 each round for 10 rounds (and these PvP battles can last over 10 rounds) isn't problematic as any focused damage output will far exceed this. It would encourage combatants in the Coliseum to control space and would reward tactics that seek to finish battles quickly.
You'll actually find a similar point as an out of combat spell lending to my first statement. Your party is likely to take focused damage. Meaning your whole party likely did not take damage, the characters who have low hp and hide out 'round back will tend to avoid damage completely thus preventing the potential effectiveness of this spell.
TL;DR I'll be impressed if your party is damaged to the point that this is truly more effective than other options. On the rare occasion it is, they'll be glad they have it.
Extended Signature
"Wall of fire? No big deal I came prepared. Everyone just run through I'll heal us up on the other side... 3-2-1-Go! Hyup!"
Hmm... I see this as an effective use of a level-2 spell slot.
*3 hours later*
"10 walls of fire? Same plan!"
This scenario seems... unlikely. The spell has the potential to be an order of magnitude greater, but... The situation where it Is an order of magnitude greater is another story.
Still I'll give you, it is a potent spell. I will be preparing it if I ever get my Druid back in the game. (Who's got time for another game? Not me. The boss has started to ask about my productivity...)
Extended Signature
Here's my worst in-game encounter with Healing Spirit so far.
Seven man party is racing the clock to fight off the forces of the Maimed Virulence. The city of Phlan is at stake and encounter after encounter must be handled with 1 allowed short rest and zero long rests.
After a particularly brutal fight where the party absorbed multiple fireballs the clerics are discussing the best way to use their spells to get the party back to full health. Enter the Ranger who tells them to form a congo line so they can get (Healing Spirit at Lv 3) 70 hit points per party member (7 man party) and proceeds to heal 490 points in a minute.
The problem is that out-of-combat the healing is stupidly beyond all other non-combat healing spells. It is, by Jeremy Crawford's own admission, performing about 700% beyond expectations. What this leads to - and why I hate this implementation of the spell - is I sat there at the table bound by the rules of AL as I watched the light DIE in the eyes of the clerics. Their primary role was out-stripped 5x over by a f*cking ranger. I could see their souls wilt.
Each hero has a role to play in the party. A thing they want to excel at. A function that is THEIR thing in the party. Healing Spirit steals that from too many players and gives it to someone who shouldn't have it (god tier healer rangers...come on).
Yes, when the Life Cleric can't even come close to healing as much as a Ranger, nor doing as much damage as said Ranger....it's obvious the spell is broken.
If you've got 7 party members down 70 hp each and your Clerics are annoyed that they don't have to spend their precious few spell slots recovering hp there's something more wrong here.
A cleric should not think his job is recovering hp. It's not. D&D is not WoW. (Even in WoW a bad healer fails to participate in other ways.) If someone convinced your players that parties need a dedicated healer, I've got a bridge to sell them.
There are much more useful things to do with Cleric spell slots, those guys should be thanking the Ranger for his contribution. What ranger has spare spell slots anyway, I guess it helps explain why the party was in bad shape...
Extended Signature
That's the whole point of a broken spell. It imbalances the game. Let me try this another way, to see if you can empathize.
A Rogue that expends little/no resources to tank mobs, while doing incredible damage. A Wizard or Sorcerer that can stand toe-to-toe like a tank or heal like a Cleric/Druid.
At some point, people want to excel in the role they chose & built their character around. When some broken/imbalanced spell that wasn't properly playtested and is too OP makes another player's play style radically change, there's a problem.
In combat, the spell is sorta ok. Out of combat, the spell is broken as worded and need adjusted. Combined with a Warlock/Life Cleric build, this spell gets even more broken.
Straying off topic a bit here... I've got a couple of Wizards in the Coliseum, Abjurers. They have a myriad of defensive spells that make them harder to hit and kill than most other tanks, they do good damage and can even heal (though they don't heal well)
Party mechanics in D&D are not like MMOs. If someone wants to fulfill a specific combat role and they do not take on other aspects of the game they will be disappointed when they find that those mechanics are not prevalent.
I'm not sure how you should deal with players in AL focussing there efforts on a lackluster build. All I can say is, it's not really your responsibility. They don't like Life Clerics anymore? Maybe next week they'll start a Moon Druid. Maybe next time they take a long rest they'll prepare different spells. That's up to them.
Extended Signature
It has nothing to do with combat; if a fighter could outperform a ranger at exploration or a paladin could out-stealth a rogue by an order of magnitude, it'd be a problem too, regardless of how many other niches those characters can fill. If you make a fighter, it's because you want fighting to be your thing. If you make a life cleric, it's because you want healing to be your thing. Being outshined by a half-spellcasting class with any random subclass just because they happen to have a healing spell that's way better than anything on your own spell list sucks.
Since Paladins don't relay on Wisdom any more, a Paladin that went full on Survival would have to expend a lot of resources to compete with a Ranger in "exploration". Paladins already have a lot of stat requirements as it is, adding Wisdom on top of that would be a death sentence to any sane Paladin build.
That being said, the Ranger really doesn't have any "cost" to picking Healing Spirit and will heal tons more than the Paladin could even think of doiing.