The problem isn't that players starting with full healing breaks the game. It's that druids and rangers can outheal Life Clerics - you know, the subclass designed entirely around being the best healer - and that's a pretty feelbad thing for the Life Cleric player. And this wasn't some deliberate push to make druids the best healer; it was a QA miss on the D&D team's part.The spell wasn't intended to be anywhere as good as it is.
And again we return to- why does it matter how effective out of combat healing is? Your party out of combat can rest and recover by spell potion bandage or rest, the difference is how long it takes - what is the issue with the timescale that damages the adventure? The argument that it heals more than prayer of healing means that druids heal more than clerics, is what? Ignoring the fact that before it existed prayer of healing was a class specific spell which made clerics sought out for out of combat recovery, and when druids received a spell that facilitated this out of combat healing became a problem. Sig, whats the threshhold for your adventures at which healing (and continuing on with an adventure) becomes a problem, and importantly why? You will likely find it isnt when you play it out.
Sig, your conclusion is that HS is better than PoH, whats really happened is now druids are currently capable of more restoration than clerics. Times changed.
Response to bolded:
To me, it doesn't. In my main campaign I play a Life Cleric, and I have no issues. I don't even bother preparing Prayer of Healing as you are correct that there are better & more convenient options if healing is actually needed between encounters. That's major premise #1: the dedicated out-of-combat healing spell is less effective than options that are low resource or free, not just Healing Spirit.
Thanks for acknowledging my point: Major premise #2: A specific class with an exclusive spell with a specific purpose is overshadowed by literally any Druid/Ranger, or frankly anyone that can get Healing Spirit via a class feature or Magic Initiate feat.
Gee, it's almost like the developers designed their system around Clerics having the most healing capability? Major premise #3: Regarding capability, Clerics are not the only healers. Clerics do not have to be healers. When Clerics are healers, they are supposed to be great healers. Life Clerics are supposed to be the best healers.
I have no problems with Druids being great at healing. I love it, actually... Unicorn Spirit Totem is awesome! It's way better than Disciple of Life, and that's okay. Overall, healing capabilities are distributed just fine.
What's not fine is having an extremely versatile spell that performs superbly in combat, and it significantly outperforms the spell designed exclusively for out-of-combat healing. Healing Spirit was obviously not intended to function the way that it currently does. Prayer of Healing is obviously not intended to function the way that it currently does.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Obvious is subjective. Its an official spell addition, if it was made with care and in regard to what it offered to the game by the designers then there is something obvious you are missing. Or its something obvious they did, which is most worrisome as it means the product or at least parts of it were rushed - not saying that cant be the case, three books ordered so far have design errors, but I would prefer to believe those were accidents unlike creating a new spell and printing it.
Not in this case. You can just look at any other 2nd level spell and see that Healing Spirit is off by an order of magnitude.
Its an official spell addition, if it was made with care and in regard to what it offered to the game by the designers then there is something obvious you are missing. Or its something obvious they did, which is most worrisome as it means the product or at least parts of it were rushed - not saying that cant be the case, three books ordered so far have design errors, but I would prefer to believe those were accidents unlike creating a new spell and printing it.
Obvious by an order of magnitude greater? Is this relevant? Not unless it becomes an issue that the party can heal Y instead of X out of combat, A party needs Y instead of X game days to clear Dungeon Z. If your Game has that level of exact time constraint to complete it in and the additional healing of healing spirit would make this endurance speed run a non challenge, yes in those circumstances it may be an issue. As soon as an adventure assumes that you can longrest, healing spirits use out of combat becomes a time saver not a party saver. Now that should be Obvious
JC tweets wording: in the future.. how about.. you could houserule.. Thats not definite. If it was it could have been addressed, officially. It has not been. (as far as i am aware) Although the saltmarsh module may update the spell.
Obvious by an order of magnitude greater? Is this relevant?
You're the one that made the claim that "obvious is subjective." I was just pointing out that it's not. If the spell weren't so incredibly effective, this thread wouldn't exist.
JC tweets wording: in the future.. how about.. you could houserule.. Thats not definite. If it was it could have been addressed, officially. It has not been. (as far as i am aware)
1) He clearly acknowledged that this is something that "slipped through" that would've normally been caught. I don't see how he could've made it any more clear that it was a mistake.
2) The fact that it hasn't been addressed doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake or that it doesn't have problems. The D&D team is incredibly strict about revising anything that's already been published. Pen and paper games can't be patched weekly or monthly like a video game; DMs and players need to know they've got the right rules.
It's no secret that the Lucky feat, the Ranger's Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy, and the Beast Master and Way of the Four Elements subclasses have problems. The game's designers know it. The fact that they haven't been addressed doesn't mean those problems don't exist or that they were intended to function the way they do.
I.C. Are you suggesting that if a (mistake) makes it to print, not just a spelling error, but a definite whoops moment that the issue couldnt have been addressed with a revision in future products? Thats precisely what happened in 3.5, later products had updated versions of spells that had been seen in older works. There was even a nice 'if an old spell isnt here use as is, if its changed use the most recent one' note. If these issues are seen as truly problematic why havent official alterations been made?
Again you havent addressed why x is a problem, either in where a boundary line should be drawn and how you reached that conclusion, which I would be grateful for, please address when the nature of out of combat healing becomes an issue for a game? I was happy to give an example of when it could be an issue but I want to know how it became a broader game breaker for you, you seem adamant its a problem, please share what happened. As for J.C. and making it clear - how is this. if he had quoted - healing spirits mechanics dont work, and the spell should be considered not to exist, dont play with it until it can be reworked. That would be clear. But offering house rule advise on an adhoc basis and promising to have a look at it in the future if it proves to be a bigger problem and nothing happening? Isnt that an indicator of it being a non issue?
It is quite possible that some groups see no problem with the spell. It's easy to change something online like dndbeyond but regarding something in print it is much harder to change.
In the end it doesn't really matter. It's up to the GM if they want to keep it as is, change it, or even have it in their game at all.
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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?"
I.C. Are you suggesting that if a (mistake) makes it to print, not just a spelling error, but a definite whoops moment that the issue couldnt have been addressed with a revision in future products?
A new edition is a long ways off. That's not the kind of change that Wizards of the Coast takes lightly. Mike Mearls has said on multiple occasions that they're not going to pursue that unless there's a lot of demand for it, because forcing people to buy all new books when they're perfectly happy with what they already have is a bad idea.
If these issues are seen as truly problematic why havent official alterations been made?
I said why in my previous post. The D&D team has a very high bar for making revisions to something that's already been published, and they also have a high bar for anything new that goes to print. A revision is inherently disruptive to players. If you buy a copy of Xanathar's Guide to Everything and you think Healing Spirit works a certain way, and then it gets revised and your book is out of date, that causes confusion. Do that often enough and players just give up on the idea that their books actually contain the rules they need to play.
For anything to get revised, the D&D team has to be confident that it's a big enough problem to be worth a revision, and then they have to be confident that the revision is going to satisfy the vast majority of players. The latter is also a big hurdle, and it's the main reason there's still no alternatives to the problems people have with some of the Ranger's class features or the Way of the Four Elements. Again, they know these things are problems, but they're not going to publish something half-baked in an attempt to fix it.
Again you havent addressed why x is a problem, either in where a boundary line should be drawn and how you reached that conclusion, which I would be grateful for, please address when the nature of out of combat healing becomes an issue for a game?
I haven't addressed it because it's besides the point. As I stated earlier, the main problem with Healing Spirit is the fact that it allows any Ranger or Druid to completely upstage characters that were designed to shine at healing. You can optimize a Life Cleric all you want, you'll still lose to literally any druid of the same level that has Healing Spirit, regardless of their subclass or ability scores.
If they had published a second level spell that allowed wizards to be better fighters than the fighter class, it'd be equally problematic even if it didn't break combat encounters.
if he had quoted - healing spirits mechanics dont work, and the spell should be considered not to exist, dont play with it until it can be reworked. That would be clear.
There is zero chance he'd say that because the spell does exist, people paid money for it, and it's not his place to tell people how to enjoy the game. Surely some people like the spell, and he's not about to tell those people to stop having fun with it.
But offering house rule advise on an adhoc basis and promising to have a look at it in the future if it proves to be a bigger problem and nothing happening? Isnt that an indicator of it being a non issue?
No. He clearly admitted fault, and the amount of outrage and controversy the spell generated in the months following its release is enough evidence that it is an issue for a significant number of people.
We arent going to see eye to eye on this, I was moved, Disagreeing with the 'absolute' of your point of view. It baffles me. On the one hand you use the term outrage. On the other hand nothing has been done. Either the outrage is inconsequential or is difficult to fix? But it is fixable, its been done before. You avoid answering how and when out of combat healing becomes problematic to a game and instead have framed it as a 'this class was supposed to be the best and now its not' format. Be careful there. Up until 11th level a fighter with a polearm, a twohanded sword or a banana is out performed by a ranger with hunters mark and the same weapon / snack. Does it make the fighter irrelevant? No, does it make the ranger overpowered? Considering the lack of love for rangers im guessing not for many? And hold up a bit. Where in the ever loving Gygax was there a viewpoint which supported a 'clerics are and always will be the superior healers, all else should now and always will be inferior.. but acceptable in a pinch'? Are you going back to 1st/2nd and maximum 7th level spells with druids missing major components of restoration magic? Because those days are over. There are multiple classes for a reason - choice. If the party makeup can function and survive to enjoy a game there is nothing wrong. I dont like the suggestion of any class being superior, none of us should. (*I will admit that I struggle with some of the subclasses but I assume its just because I havent seen them given the opportunity to shine)
Have you played with or ran a game with someone using healing spirit and it become and issue, if so - how and under what circumstances? Thats the starting point to work out whether its a problem for a game.
Back to the absolutes and J.C. The comments were a heck of a lot of vague and or if your prefer the term suggestions. Considering them admitting fault is weird, I doubt he was personally proof reading everything, but thats just me. If there was a problem it could have been addressed in an official capacity. So far it has not. Should it be done, even to the extent healing spirit is removed from play and/or adventurers league at that point Druids will be back to what they were before, to you, inferior in healing, but then again, inferior to damage dealing, unless its over time using concentration (and we circle back to the mechanics of DPR HPR) and lacking armour heavier than hide without houserules on crafting with natural materials.
Either the outrage is inconsequential or is difficult to fix?
It's the latter.
But it is fixable, its been done before.
When?
You avoid answering how and when out of combat healing becomes problematic to a game and instead have framed it as a 'this class was supposed to be the best and now its not' format.
There's no question Life Cleric is intended to be a dedicated healing character, and bringing in other examples where X class might be encroaching upon Y class's niche doesn't change that.
Where in the ever loving Gygax was there a viewpoint which supported a 'clerics are and always will be the superior healers, all else should now and always will be inferior.. but acceptable in a pinch'?
Never said that. We're talking about characters that are designed to be dedicated healers. You can build a cleric that's focused on something else, and no one would expect that character to compete with a character that's entirely based around maximizing heals.
Have you played with or ran a game with someone using healing spirit and it become and issue, if so - how and under what circumstances? Thats the starting point to work out whether its a problem for a game.
Just read through this thread. It's clearly causing problems for some people. Find me a thread for a different spell that's this long.
And again you dont answer, dare I ask if it has caused you an issue that involved a game you were in?
When were errors fixed - third ed, I already covered this. Also the limited re-release PHB with some errata additions which modified text in 5th unless I misread that which I readily admit I could have.
You brought up the issue of HS being a problem as it outshone clerics who were dedicated healers. That invited the comparison.
Reading through this thread is horrifying to thought provoking. The majority of it is 'my cleric cant heal as much as a druid' which can be ignored as its not the point, When is healing out of combat and the method employed / amount healed an issue - only in games where this point is contentious is any amount of out of combat healing problematic. Until then it wont break a game and of course if it aint breaking it, you dont have to fix it.
And again you dont answer, dare I ask if it has caused you an issue that involved a game you were in?
It didn't cause problems in my group because everyone that read the spell immediately realized it was ridiculously overpowered for a 2nd level healing spell and we unanimously agreed it wouldn't be used as is.
When were errors fixed - third ed, I already covered this. Also the limited re-release PHB with some errata additions which modified text in 5th unless I misread that which I readily admit I could have.
Yes, and I covered how a new edition isn't a realistic solution. A new edition isn't on the horizon, and Healing Spirit isn't even a core spell so there's no guarantee it'd be reprinted in a new edition; even if it did, it could be several years after the new edition comes out.
Errata is a possibility, but as I said before those happen rarely because of practical reasons, and only fix a small number of things. There was about a 2.5 year gap between the last major set of errata in June 2016 and December 2018's big errata for the gift set, and they still left out various errors in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.
Hand crossbows still have the light property even though two-weapon fighting can only be used with melee weapons. Heavy Armor Master still references nonmagical weapons instead of nonmagical attacks. The Multiclassing rules for paladins, rangers, eldritch knights and arcane tricksters still penalize their spell slots for no reason. The DMG still says psychic winds can sever a silver cord, even though that's not a possibility in the Psychic Winds Effect table. The section on the Border Ethereal still says your visibility into the other plane is limited to 30 feet, even though every single spell that moves you to the ethereal plane says you can see 60 feet.
Reading through this thread is horrifying to thought provoking. The majority of it is 'my cleric cant heal as much as a druid' which can be ignored as its not the point
No, it can't be ignored. D&D is a roleplaying game and the point is to have fun. If the spell ruins the fantasy that some people have for their characters, that's a bigger problem than something like "people are going into every single combat with full hit points." The DM can always rework their encounters and traps to match the party's resources and limitations, but they can't do anything about the healer feeling outclassed because of a single spell.
And again you dont answer, dare I ask if it has caused you an issue that involved a game you were in?
Why should they? It's meaningless, and the only reason you keep asking this is so that you can spin it as a straw man that's easy for you to knock down. Stop, it's only harming your argument.
You brought up the issue of HS being a problem as it outshone clerics who were dedicated healers. That invited the comparison.
No, we're talking about HS being a problem because it's a clearly broken spell that outperforms EVERY form of healing, from ALL sources, by a HUGE magnitude. The comparison to Clerics is supplementary to further illustrate exactly how broken the spell is, not whether it is broken at all. It is.
When is healing out of combat and the method employed / amount healed an issue - only in games where this point is contentious is any amount of out of combat healing problematic. Until then it wont break a game and of course if it aint breaking it, you dont have to fix it.
So all of the paid adventure content that WotC designs involving long dungeon crawls, intended to be challenging by stretching resources through multiple encounters with limited opportunity for rest, aren't problematic?
The impression you have presented here is that you do in fact understand how the spell is broken. You just don't care because it benefits you.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
this debate has reached 15 pages of back and forth - please remember that it's absolutely ok to discuss a rule, spell, or feature as much as you like, but it is not ok to attack other users because their viewpoint differs from your own.
Please cease such posts, as the moderator team don't wish to have to step in.
This is definitely a great approach to dealing with this.
I am a DM for a bunch of kids. I first came across the spell while trying to design a healer connected to Asclepius as an NPC to plant in the world, who would not really be involved in combat healing, and how it could be used outside combat super effectively. For a cut-scene type scenario, I would consider having the NPC guide the party in a ritual to heal them, wherein their participation also tests their trust in the divine and ability to overcome fear (giant aggressive snake spirit).
Since making the character two druids have been added to the party, but no one has tried the spell out.
My players often have seemed overly concerned with their health pool, and if they wanted to play ring-around-the-rosies with Healing Spirit, I would take that as a cue that they are concerned with their hit points going into the next encounter. I don't know that I would allow either of the druids to cast it DURING a short rest versus time outside of the rest, but I would not nerf the spell.
As you pointed out, there are many ways of challenging your players that do not involve their health directly.
I think this is the most critical thing here - resource management in D&D involves a lot more than just your hit points. The availability of the Druid's second level spell slots is also limited. Do they really want to spend it on healing spirit, when Pass without Trace can be used to devastate a group of enemies or to avoid an encounter entirely? Damage prevention is definitely easier than damage mitigation.
Rust monsters, intellect devourers, basilisks, shadows and other things you mentioned are all great examples of ways of making the players deal with combat and threats differently, where healing spirit is not the answer. Providing foreshadowing about the threat level of an environment can also be a way to deter a tactic like this, where the characters would be distracting themselves by running around in a circle, and not paying attention to their surroundings.
Just throwing in my 2 cents here. But as a new DnD player, with decades of video game experience, my first read-through of Healing Spirit I could tell that, in the theoretical scenario at least, the spell is truly, and indefensibly, ridiculous in it's output. At minimum, the spell was inadequately playtested for the out-of-combat scenario.
Which provokes the obvious question -- How, exactly, is it overpowered?
We have to break this into 2 use-cases, as it does, very clearly, have 2 use-cases. In-combat, vs out-of-combat.
For in-combat, I see no problems with it. Player characters are rarely ever going to stay bunched up into a 20x20 ish area in order to dance through the space occupied by the Spirit. And if they did, they would just be begging for an enemy Caster to employ an AoE spell to cripple or damage them for being foolish enough to do so. Anything from a Fireball dealing more damage than was healed, to any type of Spider creature getting a few good entanglements with their Web ability to impose Restrained to prevent movement. Not to mention, disrupting the caster's Concentration, the "filling" of the Concentration slot on the caster instead of other effects, and if the caster needs to move the Spirit it requires their Bonus Action to do so. Even the positioning of enemy creatures and monsters is an obstacle to players attempting to use the spell in-combat, provoking Opportunity Attacks to participate in the Healing Spirit dance ritual.
For these reasons, and probably more besides that I'm not thinking of, Healing Spiritis anything but overpowered for in-combat purposes. However, this was never the topic of the thread, so I'm not really sure why anyone in this thread has been discussing it.
For out-of combat, we are inherently going to move into subjective territory. Different tables work differently, different adventures are written differently. Timetables will vary, and the nature of time pressure, ability to Rest (both short and long), even party composition plays a roll here. But the focus of the problem is the sheer magnitude of healing that can be received from this spell. I won't go into the details of the math, it's been done already (starting with the OP, and several times besides). But those are not the only factors at play here. Time has been a repeated theme in this thread, so lets look at that.
A Long Rest will restore all characters to their (current) Maximum Health at the cost of 8 hours, while a Short Rest allows characters to spend Hit Dice over the course of a single hour. Prayer of Healing takes 10 minutes to cast at the cost of a 2nd level spell slot (or higher if desired), while Healing Spirit lasts up to a full minute. If time is a factor, a Long Rest is out. Depending on the scenario, a Short Rest may be out as well, but it is situational. This becomes even more situational for Prayer of Healing, taking only 10 minutes. It is a niche scenario, but it can be significant to consider -- if you take too long to intervene, fewer villagers will escape or more hostages will die. Monsters might block the exit to the dungeon, trapping you in, or the one thief carrying the important item may have time to reach his exit point and be beyond your reach, causing you to fail your quest or have to take a significant detour to complete it. There's really not any question here -- Healing Spirit is the most time efficient, taking 1/10th the time of Prayer of Healing (for more hitpoints, too...) which itself takes 1/6th the time of a Short Rest.
Spells slots, though, are a significant factor here. If you are able to take a Short Rest, you absolutely should instead of using Healing Spirit. Primarily because of Warlocks recover their Spell Slots, Monks recover their Ki Points, and Wizards get a handful of Spell Slots restored over a Short Rest. There is also quite the list of non-spell Class and Sublcass Features that are recovered via Short Rest rather than Long Rest. How important this is will depend on the current status of the party and your general party make-up. If the party has taken a lot of damage, but has used very few or now spell slots (an odd situation, but it is conceivable), then using Healing Spirit is clearly the better choice. Again, it's situational.
Ultimately, Healing Spirit is just a stupidly efficient spell when used out of combat. It takes less time than all similar health recovery methods. It provides more hitpoints than any similar spell, and comparable hitpoints to a Short Rest. It is clearly overpowered when used this way, however, the case in which you would use it for this overpowered benefit is fairly niche. It should be used this way pretty rarely, but when it is, it completely and overwhelmingly eclipses every other method of restoring hitpoints. I can't think of any logical reason for the spell to function this way.
While it's clear that the spell is absurdly overpowered, the use-case in which it is overpowered is a niche case. Something should definitely be done about this, but the question immediately becomes what should be done about it. There's no reason to nerf the in-combat use case, because it is functioning in a reasonable manner, and has both limitations and counterplay for the DM/Monsters. So how can the out-of-combat use case be nerfed without affecting the in-combat use case?
In my mind, it should be fairly simple. It would be as easy as adding a roll table, along these lines:
"When summoned, the spirit expects to be providing aid in combat. If the spirit determines that combat is not in progress, it is angered at being summoned in vein. Roll on the following table:
The spirit, in anger, casts Poison Spray upon the caster, then disappears. Use the level of the spell slot used to cast Healing Spirit in place of character level to determine how many damage dice to roll for Poison Spray.
The spirit, in frustration, casts Entangle centered upon the caster, then disappears. The effect will last the maximum 1 minute duration without the spirit needing to maintain Concentration
The spirit, in indignation, disappears. All plants in the area the spirit occupied wither and die away.
The spirit is greatly annoyed, but still dutifully provides some aid. Roll a d8 to determine how many rounds the spirit will remain, and roll d4s instead of d6s to determine the health restored.
This greatly reduces the ability for the spell to be patently ridiculous out of combat, without affecting it's very reasonable effects in combat.
Joining this conversation rather late, but some ideas struck me while contemplating the spell's mechanics:
Characters could not only take advantage of the spirit's effects on their own turn, but could use the Ready Action and move through it again during the same round on the next character's turn.
Adding to that, depending on how liberally a DM permits readied movement, one could conceivably pirouette the spirit's space every turn in the initiative so long as movement permits, multiplying the amount up to further levels of laughable absurdity.
And don't stop there!
Take this outside of the combat/non-combat dichotomy and it could be used to heal an entire city district or a battalion of her highness's battle-worn soldiers--given the proper orchestration of crowds: “Everyone, please line up starting right here and march through the glowing form! If you are not fully repaired by the spirit, just re-enter the line as many times as necessary!”
Once per turn per creature you can see that "moves into the spirits space". With Ready action, a creature could move of its own volition into the space at least twice per round so long as it happens on a new turn. Let us note as well the potential for further complexity by way of characters piggy-backing or being grappled and dragged or being moved by magical means (e.g. sitting on a tenser's disk).
A team of characters could in all seriousness grapple and drag the same character through the spirit every turn and heal it numerous times in a single round in addition to themselves.
I know I'm late to a 15 page party, but I'm just astounded. What a magnificently exploitable spell.
"Until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit’s space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required). The spirit can’t heal constructs or undead."
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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?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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This. All of this.
Response to bolded:
I have no problems with Druids being great at healing. I love it, actually... Unicorn Spirit Totem is awesome! It's way better than Disciple of Life, and that's okay. Overall, healing capabilities are distributed just fine.
What's not fine is having an extremely versatile spell that performs superbly in combat, and it significantly outperforms the spell designed exclusively for out-of-combat healing. Healing Spirit was obviously not intended to function the way that it currently does. Prayer of Healing is obviously not intended to function the way that it currently does.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Obvious is subjective. Its an official spell addition, if it was made with care and in regard to what it offered to the game by the designers then there is something obvious you are missing. Or its something obvious they did, which is most worrisome as it means the product or at least parts of it were rushed - not saying that cant be the case, three books ordered so far have design errors, but I would prefer to believe those were accidents unlike creating a new spell and printing it.
Not in this case. You can just look at any other 2nd level spell and see that Healing Spirit is off by an order of magnitude.
We've already established that it was a mistake.
Obvious by an order of magnitude greater? Is this relevant? Not unless it becomes an issue that the party can heal Y instead of X out of combat, A party needs Y instead of X game days to clear Dungeon Z. If your Game has that level of exact time constraint to complete it in and the additional healing of healing spirit would make this endurance speed run a non challenge, yes in those circumstances it may be an issue. As soon as an adventure assumes that you can longrest, healing spirits use out of combat becomes a time saver not a party saver. Now that should be Obvious
JC tweets wording: in the future.. how about.. you could houserule.. Thats not definite. If it was it could have been addressed, officially. It has not been. (as far as i am aware) Although the saltmarsh module may update the spell.
You're the one that made the claim that "obvious is subjective." I was just pointing out that it's not. If the spell weren't so incredibly effective, this thread wouldn't exist.
1) He clearly acknowledged that this is something that "slipped through" that would've normally been caught. I don't see how he could've made it any more clear that it was a mistake.
2) The fact that it hasn't been addressed doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake or that it doesn't have problems. The D&D team is incredibly strict about revising anything that's already been published. Pen and paper games can't be patched weekly or monthly like a video game; DMs and players need to know they've got the right rules.
It's no secret that the Lucky feat, the Ranger's Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy, and the Beast Master and Way of the Four Elements subclasses have problems. The game's designers know it. The fact that they haven't been addressed doesn't mean those problems don't exist or that they were intended to function the way they do.
I.C. Are you suggesting that if a (mistake) makes it to print, not just a spelling error, but a definite whoops moment that the issue couldnt have been addressed with a revision in future products? Thats precisely what happened in 3.5, later products had updated versions of spells that had been seen in older works. There was even a nice 'if an old spell isnt here use as is, if its changed use the most recent one' note. If these issues are seen as truly problematic why havent official alterations been made?
Again you havent addressed why x is a problem, either in where a boundary line should be drawn and how you reached that conclusion, which I would be grateful for, please address when the nature of out of combat healing becomes an issue for a game? I was happy to give an example of when it could be an issue but I want to know how it became a broader game breaker for you, you seem adamant its a problem, please share what happened. As for J.C. and making it clear - how is this. if he had quoted - healing spirits mechanics dont work, and the spell should be considered not to exist, dont play with it until it can be reworked. That would be clear. But offering house rule advise on an adhoc basis and promising to have a look at it in the future if it proves to be a bigger problem and nothing happening? Isnt that an indicator of it being a non issue?
It is quite possible that some groups see no problem with the spell. It's easy to change something online like dndbeyond but regarding something in print it is much harder to change.
In the end it doesn't really matter. It's up to the GM if they want to keep it as is, change it, or even have it in their game at all.
"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
A new edition is a long ways off. That's not the kind of change that Wizards of the Coast takes lightly. Mike Mearls has said on multiple occasions that they're not going to pursue that unless there's a lot of demand for it, because forcing people to buy all new books when they're perfectly happy with what they already have is a bad idea.
I said why in my previous post. The D&D team has a very high bar for making revisions to something that's already been published, and they also have a high bar for anything new that goes to print. A revision is inherently disruptive to players. If you buy a copy of Xanathar's Guide to Everything and you think Healing Spirit works a certain way, and then it gets revised and your book is out of date, that causes confusion. Do that often enough and players just give up on the idea that their books actually contain the rules they need to play.
For anything to get revised, the D&D team has to be confident that it's a big enough problem to be worth a revision, and then they have to be confident that the revision is going to satisfy the vast majority of players. The latter is also a big hurdle, and it's the main reason there's still no alternatives to the problems people have with some of the Ranger's class features or the Way of the Four Elements. Again, they know these things are problems, but they're not going to publish something half-baked in an attempt to fix it.
I haven't addressed it because it's besides the point. As I stated earlier, the main problem with Healing Spirit is the fact that it allows any Ranger or Druid to completely upstage characters that were designed to shine at healing. You can optimize a Life Cleric all you want, you'll still lose to literally any druid of the same level that has Healing Spirit, regardless of their subclass or ability scores.
If they had published a second level spell that allowed wizards to be better fighters than the fighter class, it'd be equally problematic even if it didn't break combat encounters.
There is zero chance he'd say that because the spell does exist, people paid money for it, and it's not his place to tell people how to enjoy the game. Surely some people like the spell, and he's not about to tell those people to stop having fun with it.
No. He clearly admitted fault, and the amount of outrage and controversy the spell generated in the months following its release is enough evidence that it is an issue for a significant number of people.
We arent going to see eye to eye on this, I was moved, Disagreeing with the 'absolute' of your point of view. It baffles me. On the one hand you use the term outrage. On the other hand nothing has been done. Either the outrage is inconsequential or is difficult to fix? But it is fixable, its been done before. You avoid answering how and when out of combat healing becomes problematic to a game and instead have framed it as a 'this class was supposed to be the best and now its not' format. Be careful there. Up until 11th level a fighter with a polearm, a twohanded sword or a banana is out performed by a ranger with hunters mark and the same weapon / snack. Does it make the fighter irrelevant? No, does it make the ranger overpowered? Considering the lack of love for rangers im guessing not for many? And hold up a bit. Where in the ever loving Gygax was there a viewpoint which supported a 'clerics are and always will be the superior healers, all else should now and always will be inferior.. but acceptable in a pinch'? Are you going back to 1st/2nd and maximum 7th level spells with druids missing major components of restoration magic? Because those days are over. There are multiple classes for a reason - choice. If the party makeup can function and survive to enjoy a game there is nothing wrong. I dont like the suggestion of any class being superior, none of us should. (*I will admit that I struggle with some of the subclasses but I assume its just because I havent seen them given the opportunity to shine)
Have you played with or ran a game with someone using healing spirit and it become and issue, if so - how and under what circumstances? Thats the starting point to work out whether its a problem for a game.
Back to the absolutes and J.C. The comments were a heck of a lot of vague and or if your prefer the term suggestions. Considering them admitting fault is weird, I doubt he was personally proof reading everything, but thats just me. If there was a problem it could have been addressed in an official capacity. So far it has not. Should it be done, even to the extent healing spirit is removed from play and/or adventurers league at that point Druids will be back to what they were before, to you, inferior in healing, but then again, inferior to damage dealing, unless its over time using concentration (and we circle back to the mechanics of DPR HPR) and lacking armour heavier than hide without houserules on crafting with natural materials.
It's the latter.
When?
There's no question Life Cleric is intended to be a dedicated healing character, and bringing in other examples where X class might be encroaching upon Y class's niche doesn't change that.
Never said that. We're talking about characters that are designed to be dedicated healers. You can build a cleric that's focused on something else, and no one would expect that character to compete with a character that's entirely based around maximizing heals.
Just read through this thread. It's clearly causing problems for some people. Find me a thread for a different spell that's this long.
And again you dont answer, dare I ask if it has caused you an issue that involved a game you were in?
When were errors fixed - third ed, I already covered this. Also the limited re-release PHB with some errata additions which modified text in 5th unless I misread that which I readily admit I could have.
You brought up the issue of HS being a problem as it outshone clerics who were dedicated healers. That invited the comparison.
Reading through this thread is horrifying to thought provoking. The majority of it is 'my cleric cant heal as much as a druid' which can be ignored as its not the point, When is healing out of combat and the method employed / amount healed an issue - only in games where this point is contentious is any amount of out of combat healing problematic. Until then it wont break a game and of course if it aint breaking it, you dont have to fix it.
It didn't cause problems in my group because everyone that read the spell immediately realized it was ridiculously overpowered for a 2nd level healing spell and we unanimously agreed it wouldn't be used as is.
Yes, and I covered how a new edition isn't a realistic solution. A new edition isn't on the horizon, and Healing Spirit isn't even a core spell so there's no guarantee it'd be reprinted in a new edition; even if it did, it could be several years after the new edition comes out.
Errata is a possibility, but as I said before those happen rarely because of practical reasons, and only fix a small number of things. There was about a 2.5 year gap between the last major set of errata in June 2016 and December 2018's big errata for the gift set, and they still left out various errors in the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.
Hand crossbows still have the light property even though two-weapon fighting can only be used with melee weapons. Heavy Armor Master still references nonmagical weapons instead of nonmagical attacks. The Multiclassing rules for paladins, rangers, eldritch knights and arcane tricksters still penalize their spell slots for no reason. The DMG still says psychic winds can sever a silver cord, even though that's not a possibility in the Psychic Winds Effect table. The section on the Border Ethereal still says your visibility into the other plane is limited to 30 feet, even though every single spell that moves you to the ethereal plane says you can see 60 feet.
No, it can't be ignored. D&D is a roleplaying game and the point is to have fun. If the spell ruins the fantasy that some people have for their characters, that's a bigger problem than something like "people are going into every single combat with full hit points." The DM can always rework their encounters and traps to match the party's resources and limitations, but they can't do anything about the healer feeling outclassed because of a single spell.
Why should they? It's meaningless, and the only reason you keep asking this is so that you can spin it as a straw man that's easy for you to knock down. Stop, it's only harming your argument.
No, we're talking about HS being a problem because it's a clearly broken spell that outperforms EVERY form of healing, from ALL sources, by a HUGE magnitude. The comparison to Clerics is supplementary to further illustrate exactly how broken the spell is, not whether it is broken at all. It is.
You're the only one that thinks this. We aren't talking about class balance; we are talking about a single spell. That's it.
So all of the paid adventure content that WotC designs involving long dungeon crawls, intended to be challenging by stretching resources through multiple encounters with limited opportunity for rest, aren't problematic?
The impression you have presented here is that you do in fact understand how the spell is broken. You just don't care because it benefits you.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Hey folks,
this debate has reached 15 pages of back and forth - please remember that it's absolutely ok to discuss a rule, spell, or feature as much as you like, but it is not ok to attack other users because their viewpoint differs from your own.
Please cease such posts, as the moderator team don't wish to have to step in.
Many thanks
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This is definitely a great approach to dealing with this.
I am a DM for a bunch of kids. I first came across the spell while trying to design a healer connected to Asclepius as an NPC to plant in the world, who would not really be involved in combat healing, and how it could be used outside combat super effectively. For a cut-scene type scenario, I would consider having the NPC guide the party in a ritual to heal them, wherein their participation also tests their trust in the divine and ability to overcome fear (giant aggressive snake spirit).
Since making the character two druids have been added to the party, but no one has tried the spell out.
My players often have seemed overly concerned with their health pool, and if they wanted to play ring-around-the-rosies with Healing Spirit, I would take that as a cue that they are concerned with their hit points going into the next encounter. I don't know that I would allow either of the druids to cast it DURING a short rest versus time outside of the rest, but I would not nerf the spell.
As you pointed out, there are many ways of challenging your players that do not involve their health directly.
I think this is the most critical thing here - resource management in D&D involves a lot more than just your hit points. The availability of the Druid's second level spell slots is also limited. Do they really want to spend it on healing spirit, when Pass without Trace can be used to devastate a group of enemies or to avoid an encounter entirely? Damage prevention is definitely easier than damage mitigation.
Rust monsters, intellect devourers, basilisks, shadows and other things you mentioned are all great examples of ways of making the players deal with combat and threats differently, where healing spirit is not the answer. Providing foreshadowing about the threat level of an environment can also be a way to deter a tactic like this, where the characters would be distracting themselves by running around in a circle, and not paying attention to their surroundings.
Just throwing in my 2 cents here. But as a new DnD player, with decades of video game experience, my first read-through of Healing Spirit I could tell that, in the theoretical scenario at least, the spell is truly, and indefensibly, ridiculous in it's output. At minimum, the spell was inadequately playtested for the out-of-combat scenario.
Which provokes the obvious question -- How, exactly, is it overpowered?
We have to break this into 2 use-cases, as it does, very clearly, have 2 use-cases. In-combat, vs out-of-combat.
For in-combat, I see no problems with it. Player characters are rarely ever going to stay bunched up into a 20x20 ish area in order to dance through the space occupied by the Spirit. And if they did, they would just be begging for an enemy Caster to employ an AoE spell to cripple or damage them for being foolish enough to do so. Anything from a Fireball dealing more damage than was healed, to any type of Spider creature getting a few good entanglements with their Web ability to impose Restrained to prevent movement. Not to mention, disrupting the caster's Concentration, the "filling" of the Concentration slot on the caster instead of other effects, and if the caster needs to move the Spirit it requires their Bonus Action to do so. Even the positioning of enemy creatures and monsters is an obstacle to players attempting to use the spell in-combat, provoking Opportunity Attacks to participate in the Healing Spirit dance ritual.
For these reasons, and probably more besides that I'm not thinking of, Healing Spirit is anything but overpowered for in-combat purposes. However, this was never the topic of the thread, so I'm not really sure why anyone in this thread has been discussing it.
For out-of combat, we are inherently going to move into subjective territory. Different tables work differently, different adventures are written differently. Timetables will vary, and the nature of time pressure, ability to Rest (both short and long), even party composition plays a roll here. But the focus of the problem is the sheer magnitude of healing that can be received from this spell. I won't go into the details of the math, it's been done already (starting with the OP, and several times besides). But those are not the only factors at play here. Time has been a repeated theme in this thread, so lets look at that.
A Long Rest will restore all characters to their (current) Maximum Health at the cost of 8 hours, while a Short Rest allows characters to spend Hit Dice over the course of a single hour. Prayer of Healing takes 10 minutes to cast at the cost of a 2nd level spell slot (or higher if desired), while Healing Spirit lasts up to a full minute. If time is a factor, a Long Rest is out. Depending on the scenario, a Short Rest may be out as well, but it is situational. This becomes even more situational for Prayer of Healing, taking only 10 minutes. It is a niche scenario, but it can be significant to consider -- if you take too long to intervene, fewer villagers will escape or more hostages will die. Monsters might block the exit to the dungeon, trapping you in, or the one thief carrying the important item may have time to reach his exit point and be beyond your reach, causing you to fail your quest or have to take a significant detour to complete it. There's really not any question here -- Healing Spirit is the most time efficient, taking 1/10th the time of Prayer of Healing (for more hitpoints, too...) which itself takes 1/6th the time of a Short Rest.
Spells slots, though, are a significant factor here. If you are able to take a Short Rest, you absolutely should instead of using Healing Spirit. Primarily because of Warlocks recover their Spell Slots, Monks recover their Ki Points, and Wizards get a handful of Spell Slots restored over a Short Rest. There is also quite the list of non-spell Class and Sublcass Features that are recovered via Short Rest rather than Long Rest. How important this is will depend on the current status of the party and your general party make-up. If the party has taken a lot of damage, but has used very few or now spell slots (an odd situation, but it is conceivable), then using Healing Spirit is clearly the better choice. Again, it's situational.
Ultimately, Healing Spirit is just a stupidly efficient spell when used out of combat. It takes less time than all similar health recovery methods. It provides more hitpoints than any similar spell, and comparable hitpoints to a Short Rest. It is clearly overpowered when used this way, however, the case in which you would use it for this overpowered benefit is fairly niche. It should be used this way pretty rarely, but when it is, it completely and overwhelmingly eclipses every other method of restoring hitpoints. I can't think of any logical reason for the spell to function this way.
While it's clear that the spell is absurdly overpowered, the use-case in which it is overpowered is a niche case. Something should definitely be done about this, but the question immediately becomes what should be done about it. There's no reason to nerf the in-combat use case, because it is functioning in a reasonable manner, and has both limitations and counterplay for the DM/Monsters. So how can the out-of-combat use case be nerfed without affecting the in-combat use case?
In my mind, it should be fairly simple. It would be as easy as adding a roll table, along these lines:
This greatly reduces the ability for the spell to be patently ridiculous out of combat, without affecting it's very reasonable effects in combat.
Joining this conversation rather late, but some ideas struck me while contemplating the spell's mechanics:
Characters could not only take advantage of the spirit's effects on their own turn, but could use the Ready Action and move through it again during the same round on the next character's turn.
Adding to that, depending on how liberally a DM permits readied movement, one could conceivably pirouette the spirit's space every turn in the initiative so long as movement permits, multiplying the amount up to further levels of laughable absurdity.
And don't stop there!
Take this outside of the combat/non-combat dichotomy and it could be used to heal an entire city district or a battalion of her highness's battle-worn soldiers--given the proper orchestration of crowds: “Everyone, please line up starting right here and march through the glowing form! If you are not fully repaired by the spirit, just re-enter the line as many times as necessary!”
It only works once per turn.
Make it a Combat Only spell.
"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
Once per turn per creature you can see that "moves into the spirits space". With Ready action, a creature could move of its own volition into the space at least twice per round so long as it happens on a new turn. Let us note as well the potential for further complexity by way of characters piggy-backing or being grappled and dragged or being moved by magical means (e.g. sitting on a tenser's disk).
A team of characters could in all seriousness grapple and drag the same character through the spirit every turn and heal it numerous times in a single round in addition to themselves.
I know I'm late to a 15 page party, but I'm just astounded. What a magnificently exploitable spell.
"Until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit’s space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required). The spirit can’t heal constructs or undead."
"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