That is very clear from your posts here. Of course there are ways to counter healing, but most of them aren't fun and the problem with HS wasn't in combat anyway (in combat healing is generally a very bad use of reseources). So sure, you answered a question that wasn't a question in the first place, and you did it in a way that was to make you seem like you (rather than your NPCs) are the adversary of your party.
It is absolutely true that overusing abilities that turn off class features is not fun for your players. If your group is OK with that style of play, good for you but it isn't the style of play that most groups like. Most players gain some joy out of actually using the features their class provide.
The DM is the adversary to the party as well as the helpful NPC or neutral bartender. The assumption that I always counter their class abilities is only that. If a party crushes 6 encounters straight then gets trounced thoroughly on the 7th because of smarter enemies then they learn to be creative. If all they have to do is rinse and repeat the same abilities each time with no repurcussions it gets boring for them. They need challenge, failure, and success to get better RP. I said all that to say this. It doesn't matter what the spell or ability is, whether in or out of combat, none of them is as OP as the creative solutions of the DM...also anything the players use, the bad guys can as well.
The DM is the adversary to the party as well as the helpful NPC or neutral bartender. The assumption that I always counter their class abilities is only that. If a party crushes 6 encounters straight then gets trounced thoroughly on the 7th because of smarter enemies then they learn to be creative. If all they have to do is rinse and repeat the same abilities each time with no repurcussions it gets boring for them. They need challenge, failure, and success to get better RP. I said all that to say this. It doesn't matter what the spell or ability is, whether in or out of combat, none of them is as OP as the creative solutions of the DM...also anything the players use, the bad guys can as well.
If my party crushes 6 encounters straight and I have to 'trounce' them on the seventh, I have done a poor job balancing all seven encounters. This kind of design philosophy makes it difficult to be a player, because you don't know what kind of game the DM wants to run. The players should have a sense of tension in each fight, not have a casual stroll and then be blindsided by the DM trying to 'put them in their place'.
D&D isn't meant to be adversarial. The DM is the narrator. Players should be challenged, but not beat down. If my approach to balance were to ever become "anything you can do, I can do better", I have failed as a DM.
The reason healing spirit was a problem for balance was because it required the DM to nuke the party instead of building tension over a handful of encounters. When I nuke the party, or deny them agency via Calvinball-esque mechanics, most players feel shitty about it. Following the evolution of the game from AD&D through to 5th, it's obvious that players and designers agreed that 'gotcha' moments aren't fun for players - but the 'gotcha' is an easy, if inelegant way of dealing with Healing Spirit.
If my party crushes 6 encounters straight and I have to 'trounce' them on the seventh, I have done a poor job balancing all seven encounters. This kind of design philosophy makes it difficult to be a player, because you don't know what kind of game the DM wants to run. The players should have a sense of tension in each fight, not have a casual stroll and then be blindsided by the DM trying to 'put them in their place'.
D&D isn't meant to be adversarial. The DM is the narrator. Players should be challenged, but not beat down. If my approach to balance were to ever become "anything you can do, I can do better", I have failed as a DM.
The reason healing spirit was a problem for balance was because it required the DM to nuke the party instead of building tension over a handful of encounters. When I nuke the party, or deny them agency via Calvinball-esque mechanics, most players feel shitty about it. Following the evolution of the game from AD&D through to 5th, it's obvious that players and designers agreed that 'gotcha' moments aren't fun for players - but the 'gotcha' is an easy, if inelegant way of dealing with Healing Spirit.
Yup, and it has a knock on effect. - Players feel that fights that would normally work on attrition and resource depletion can now be tanked with HP at later levels and mean that spells/abilities can be saved for the most part. - The GM has to then throw harder and harder challenges to deal with the players who now have more resources, which furthers the behaviour of hoarding in the players. - The GM then has to decide whether to run boring combats that take longer because people are saving resources or much harder combats but less of them that directly counter player abilities, and are generally less encouraging of RP and flexibility.
It is a big part of what makes high level PF1e combat so dull/problematic. Mixture of meaningless time wasting road bumps and 1-3 round decided nuke fests because of what is required to challenge specialised characters.
The way I read the spell is that it works once per creature being healed. No way to get 10d6. Edit: Ah, I see there's an errata, as some of the recent posters have noted: "The spirit can heal a number of times equal to 1 + your spellcasting ability modifier (minimum twice). After healing that number of times, the spirit disappears."
So, no 10d6 multiplied by the number of characters in your party.
So I'm coming into the game a little late here but I'm very confused on where you are getting your dice numbers for these spells. To say that AoV heals 20d6 is to say that it triggers 10 times in 60 seconds. That makes total sense. But then to say that Healing spirit heals 60d6 is implying that it triggers once every second in which case you're nuts. It should trigger the same number of times being 10 times in 60 seconds giving you 10d6 of healing. Completely reasonable amount of healing. To assume it heals any more then that is just unnecessary semantics that you've invented for no reason other than to cause a problem that nobody had before. Just use your head a little and you can decide for yourself how much you want it to heal because the rules are there to set guidelines not create wild party conga lines through a spiritual beast for a minute.
It has been changed, it didn't have a max number of uses before so you could literally have a conga line of people walking through the area and getting healed. In a party of 6 where each member moves through the area of effect, they each get healed every round. That would be 6d6 total healing per round, with 10 rounds per minute equaling 60d6 in total. The spell would trigger 6 times per combat round (6 seconds) for a minute. So yes under the then rules the figures are accurate. However it has now been limited to triggering a total of times equal to your casting modifier plus 1 so 6 at the most. This reduces the spell to only healing 6d6 in total divided up as the players see fit. There is a huge difference between what it used to do and what it now does.
Healing Spirit is still reasonable for characters who max their spellcasting stat, but significantly weaker for Rangers that took it and avoided boosting their Wisdom.
This is probably the single biggest reason it needed to be changed. Having the full effect of the pre-errata spell, without needing any investment in Wisdom, was completely ridiculous.
Healing Spirit is still an amazingly good spell, and it's arguably still the single most powerful healing spell in the game. The fact that you can pump multiple discrete heals out of a single spell slot and a single bonus action, over the course of up to 10 rounds, on multiple or singular persons, is ridiculously good. With the way 5e is organized, multiple small heals is almost always going to be more effective than singular large heals (which loses performance due to overhealing).
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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.
It heals a maximum of 6 times (6 rounds) then goes away.
No, it heals a maximum of 1+(casting modifier) times, and it expires when it's used that many times or 10 rounds, whichever happens first (or if concentration is broken).
Thats fair. I was just assuming by the time you got this spell, you'd have a +5 modifier for your casting ability. so 6. and you'd probably use it before the 10 rounds is up. and i assumed the concentration thing was a given. but you're right.
We finally had Healing Spirit show up in our game. The ranger has a spellcasting modifier of +2 so we found the spell to be useful but not overpowered in its application. It has real value when there are a lot of mildly injured PCs.
What I think a lot of people overlook when reading this spell (And please correct me if I’m wrong, or I missed a comment that already addressed this) is the fact that it healing spirit can only heal a number of times equal to the casters spellcasting ability modifier plus one to a minimum of twice and then it disappears so if you have a druid casting this with a second level spell slot and wisdom score of 18 (+4) they can only heal up to 5d6 hit points. Again please correct me if I’m wrong, and tell me if someone already said this
What I think a lot of people overlook when reading this spell (And please correct me if I’m wrong, or I missed a comment that already addressed this) is the fact that it healing spirit can only heal a number of times equal to the casters spellcasting ability modifier plus one to a minimum of twice and then it disappears so if you have a druid casting this with a second level spell slot and wisdom score of 18 (+4) they can only heal up to 5d6 hit points. Again please correct me if I’m wrong, and tell me if someone already said this
That was an errata that came out after this thread was started. That clause did not appear in the original printing of the spell.
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Another medical problem. Indefinite hiatus. Sorry, all.
What I think a lot of people overlook when reading this spell (And please correct me if I’m wrong, or I missed a comment that already addressed this) is the fact that it healing spirit can only heal a number of times equal to the casters spellcasting ability modifier plus one to a minimum of twice and then it disappears so if you have a druid casting this with a second level spell slot and wisdom score of 18 (+4) they can only heal up to 5d6 hit points. Again please correct me if I’m wrong, and tell me if someone already said this
That is now true, yes, but it wasn't back when this debate started. This forum chain could probably be locked now. It was an interesting debate, historically, but the spell has been errataed and is no longer the same source of controversy.
What I think a lot of people overlook when reading this spell (And please correct me if I’m wrong, or I missed a comment that already addressed this) is the fact that it healing spirit can only heal a number of times equal to the casters spellcasting ability modifier plus one to a minimum of twice and then it disappears so if you have a druid casting this with a second level spell slot and wisdom score of 18 (+4) they can only heal up to 5d6 hit points. Again please correct me if I’m wrong, and tell me if someone already said this
That is now true, yes, but it wasn't back when this debate started. This forum chain could probably be locked now. It was an interesting debate, historically, but the spell has been errataed and is no longer the same source of controversy.
Got to agree there, had me scratching my head at first, but seeing the date on the first post and the spell's rate of healing made it an easy guess it had been changed.
Why are you instantly assuming it to be overpowered? Wouldn’t playtesting have negated at least some of it?
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All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
Can we get someone to lock this thread? But before then, let me summarize.
In the past, Healing Spirit was considered to be a instantly overpowered healing spell since it had no limits on how many people it could heal at once. It resulted in people basically doing group hugs, so that the spirit would heal everybody at the same time. Which would of been 1d6 every round for a minute per person. In other words, that's 10d6 healing per person. Of course, this wasn't a problem in combat because no way are you pulling that off without someone casting fireball, but outside of combat it basically made it 100% certain you were going to every encounter at max hp.
This was considered overpowered because not only is it basically max hp for most parties, but it completely overshadowed spells such as Prayer of Healing and resulted in rangers being better healers than Life Domain Clerics.
Then in response to this, WoTC made the errata that put a limit on how much Healing Spirit can heal fixing the problem instantly. Thus, someone should really lock this thread.
Edit: As for how this made it past playtesting in the first place, it was because the spell was playtested solely in combat. They hadn't considered that someone might cast this spell out of combat and gotten the full amount of healing, nor that a entire party could easily fit in a 5-ft square when greatswords aren't bring flung around.
Also for lolz if you take pre-errata version and upcast to level 9 that's 80d6 (avg 280) healing per person, if you have 3 or more people then it would even beat out Mass Heal ignoring the diseases and that stuff.
Can we get someone to lock this thread? But before then, let me summarize.
In the past, Healing Spirit was considered to be a instantly overpowered healing spell since it had no limits on how many people it could heal at once. It resulted in people basically doing group hugs, so that the spirit would heal everybody at the same time. Which would of been 1d6 every round for a minute per person. In other words, that's 10d6 healing per person. Of course, this wasn't a problem in combat because no way are you pulling that off without someone casting fireball, but outside of combat it basically made it 100% certain you were going to every encounter at max hp.
This was considered overpowered because not only is it basically max hp for most parties, but it completely overshadowed spells such as Prayer of Healing and resulted in rangers being better healers than Life Domain Clerics.
Then in response to this, WoTC made the errata that put a limit on how much Healing Spirit can heal fixing the problem instantly. Thus, someone should really lock this thread.
Edit: As for how this made it past playtesting in the first place, it was because the spell was playtested solely in combat. They hadn't considered that someone might cast this spell out of combat and gotten the full amount of healing, nor that a entire party could easily fit in a 5-ft square when greatswords aren't bring flung around.
Also for lolz if you take pre-errata version and upcast to level 9 that's 80d6 (avg 280) healing per person, if you have 3 or more people then it would even beat out Mass Heal ignoring the diseases and that stuff.
Can we get someone to lock this thread? But before then, let me summarize.
In the past, Healing Spirit was considered to be a instantly overpowered healing spell since it had no limits on how many people it could heal at once. It resulted in people basically doing group hugs, so that the spirit would heal everybody at the same time. Which would of been 1d6 every round for a minute per person. In other words, that's 10d6 healing per person. Of course, this wasn't a problem in combat because no way are you pulling that off without someone casting fireball, but outside of combat it basically made it 100% certain you were going to every encounter at max hp.
This was considered overpowered because not only is it basically max hp for most parties, but it completely overshadowed spells such as Prayer of Healing and resulted in rangers being better healers than Life Domain Clerics.
Then in response to this, WoTC made the errata that put a limit on how much Healing Spirit can heal fixing the problem instantly. Thus, someone should really lock this thread.
Edit: As for how this made it past playtesting in the first place, it was because the spell was playtested solely in combat. They hadn't considered that someone might cast this spell out of combat and gotten the full amount of healing, nor that a entire party could easily fit in a 5-ft square when greatswords aren't bring flung around.
Also for lolz if you take pre-errata version and upcast to level 9 that's 80d6 (avg 280) healing per person, if you have 3 or more people then it would even beat out Mass Heal ignoring the diseases and that stuff.
Great summary. I'll just add that it's not like the errata actually fixed it instantly... it's still hands-down the absolute best healing spell in the official resources, for every single category you can rate a healing spell on. What WotC did was bring the upper-limit on the spell's output back within the realm of relative sanity. As someone whom plays a Life Cleric, the new version is at least something I can live with the knowledge of it existing. :P
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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.
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That is very clear from your posts here. Of course there are ways to counter healing, but most of them aren't fun and the problem with HS wasn't in combat anyway (in combat healing is generally a very bad use of reseources). So sure, you answered a question that wasn't a question in the first place, and you did it in a way that was to make you seem like you (rather than your NPCs) are the adversary of your party.
It is absolutely true that overusing abilities that turn off class features is not fun for your players. If your group is OK with that style of play, good for you but it isn't the style of play that most groups like. Most players gain some joy out of actually using the features their class provide.
The DM is the adversary to the party as well as the helpful NPC or neutral bartender. The assumption that I always counter their class abilities is only that. If a party crushes 6 encounters straight then gets trounced thoroughly on the 7th because of smarter enemies then they learn to be creative. If all they have to do is rinse and repeat the same abilities each time with no repurcussions it gets boring for them. They need challenge, failure, and success to get better RP. I said all that to say this. It doesn't matter what the spell or ability is, whether in or out of combat, none of them is as OP as the creative solutions of the DM...also anything the players use, the bad guys can as well.
If my party crushes 6 encounters straight and I have to 'trounce' them on the seventh, I have done a poor job balancing all seven encounters. This kind of design philosophy makes it difficult to be a player, because you don't know what kind of game the DM wants to run. The players should have a sense of tension in each fight, not have a casual stroll and then be blindsided by the DM trying to 'put them in their place'.
D&D isn't meant to be adversarial. The DM is the narrator. Players should be challenged, but not beat down. If my approach to balance were to ever become "anything you can do, I can do better", I have failed as a DM.
The reason healing spirit was a problem for balance was because it required the DM to nuke the party instead of building tension over a handful of encounters. When I nuke the party, or deny them agency via Calvinball-esque mechanics, most players feel shitty about it. Following the evolution of the game from AD&D through to 5th, it's obvious that players and designers agreed that 'gotcha' moments aren't fun for players - but the 'gotcha' is an easy, if inelegant way of dealing with Healing Spirit.
Another medical problem. Indefinite hiatus. Sorry, all.
Yup, and it has a knock on effect.
- Players feel that fights that would normally work on attrition and resource depletion can now be tanked with HP at later levels and mean that spells/abilities can be saved for the most part.
- The GM has to then throw harder and harder challenges to deal with the players who now have more resources, which furthers the behaviour of hoarding in the players.
- The GM then has to decide whether to run boring combats that take longer because people are saving resources or much harder combats but less of them that directly counter player abilities, and are generally less encouraging of RP and flexibility.
It is a big part of what makes high level PF1e combat so dull/problematic. Mixture of meaningless time wasting road bumps and 1-3 round decided nuke fests because of what is required to challenge specialised characters.
The way I read the spell is that it works once per creature being healed. No way to get 10d6.
Edit:
Ah, I see there's an errata, as some of the recent posters have noted:
"The spirit can heal a number of times equal to 1 + your spellcasting ability modifier (minimum twice). After healing that number of times, the spirit disappears."
So, no 10d6 multiplied by the number of characters in your party.
“It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere,” I heard her say, “if you are a fool in all places.” --Roger Zelazny
Regards,
Russmax
So I'm coming into the game a little late here but I'm very confused on where you are getting your dice numbers for these spells. To say that AoV heals 20d6 is to say that it triggers 10 times in 60 seconds. That makes total sense. But then to say that Healing spirit heals 60d6 is implying that it triggers once every second in which case you're nuts. It should trigger the same number of times being 10 times in 60 seconds giving you 10d6 of healing. Completely reasonable amount of healing. To assume it heals any more then that is just unnecessary semantics that you've invented for no reason other than to cause a problem that nobody had before. Just use your head a little and you can decide for yourself how much you want it to heal because the rules are there to set guidelines not create wild party conga lines through a spiritual beast for a minute.
It has been changed, it didn't have a max number of uses before so you could literally have a conga line of people walking through the area and getting healed. In a party of 6 where each member moves through the area of effect, they each get healed every round. That would be 6d6 total healing per round, with 10 rounds per minute equaling 60d6 in total. The spell would trigger 6 times per combat round (6 seconds) for a minute. So yes under the then rules the figures are accurate. However it has now been limited to triggering a total of times equal to your casting modifier plus 1 so 6 at the most. This reduces the spell to only healing 6d6 in total divided up as the players see fit. There is a huge difference between what it used to do and what it now does.
This is probably the single biggest reason it needed to be changed. Having the full effect of the pre-errata spell, without needing any investment in Wisdom, was completely ridiculous.
Healing Spirit is still an amazingly good spell, and it's arguably still the single most powerful healing spell in the game. The fact that you can pump multiple discrete heals out of a single spell slot and a single bonus action, over the course of up to 10 rounds, on multiple or singular persons, is ridiculously good. With the way 5e is organized, multiple small heals is almost always going to be more effective than singular large heals (which loses performance due to overhealing).
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.
They updated the spell.
It heals a maximum of 6 times (6 rounds) then goes away.
No, it heals a maximum of 1+(casting modifier) times, and it expires when it's used that many times or 10 rounds, whichever happens first (or if concentration is broken).
Thats fair. I was just assuming by the time you got this spell, you'd have a +5 modifier for your casting ability. so 6. and you'd probably use it before the 10 rounds is up. and i assumed the concentration thing was a given. but you're right.
We finally had Healing Spirit show up in our game. The ranger has a spellcasting modifier of +2 so we found the spell to be useful but not overpowered in its application. It has real value when there are a lot of mildly injured PCs.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
What I think a lot of people overlook when reading this spell (And please correct me if I’m wrong, or I missed a comment that already addressed this) is the fact that it healing spirit can only heal a number of times equal to the casters spellcasting ability modifier plus one to a minimum of twice and then it disappears so if you have a druid casting this with a second level spell slot and wisdom score of 18 (+4) they can only heal up to 5d6 hit points. Again please correct me if I’m wrong, and tell me if someone already said this
That was an errata that came out after this thread was started. That clause did not appear in the original printing of the spell.
Another medical problem. Indefinite hiatus. Sorry, all.
That is now true, yes, but it wasn't back when this debate started. This forum chain could probably be locked now. It was an interesting debate, historically, but the spell has been errataed and is no longer the same source of controversy.
Got to agree there, had me scratching my head at first, but seeing the date on the first post and the spell's rate of healing made it an easy guess it had been changed.
Why are you instantly assuming it to be overpowered? Wouldn’t playtesting have negated at least some of it?
All hail the great and mighty platypus.
Resisting is simply standing in front of the tide and pushing at it. Even if you endure at first, you will eventually break down. Adapting, by contrast, is turning into a fish.
-me
Rangers are not underpowered. They’re just exploration-oriented.
My homebrew setting: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/94809-wakai-a-setting-inspired-by-japanese-folklore-and
This account is kinda old and I haven’t used it in a while
Can we get someone to lock this thread? But before then, let me summarize.
In the past, Healing Spirit was considered to be a instantly overpowered healing spell since it had no limits on how many people it could heal at once. It resulted in people basically doing group hugs, so that the spirit would heal everybody at the same time. Which would of been 1d6 every round for a minute per person. In other words, that's 10d6 healing per person. Of course, this wasn't a problem in combat because no way are you pulling that off without someone casting fireball, but outside of combat it basically made it 100% certain you were going to every encounter at max hp.
This was considered overpowered because not only is it basically max hp for most parties, but it completely overshadowed spells such as Prayer of Healing and resulted in rangers being better healers than Life Domain Clerics.
Then in response to this, WoTC made the errata that put a limit on how much Healing Spirit can heal fixing the problem instantly. Thus, someone should really lock this thread.
Edit: As for how this made it past playtesting in the first place, it was because the spell was playtested solely in combat. They hadn't considered that someone might cast this spell out of combat and gotten the full amount of healing, nor that a entire party could easily fit in a 5-ft square when greatswords aren't bring flung around.
Also for lolz if you take pre-errata version and upcast to level 9 that's 80d6 (avg 280) healing per person, if you have 3 or more people then it would even beat out Mass Heal ignoring the diseases and that stuff.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Ok thanks for clearing that up for me
Great summary. I'll just add that it's not like the errata actually fixed it instantly... it's still hands-down the absolute best healing spell in the official resources, for every single category you can rate a healing spell on. What WotC did was bring the upper-limit on the spell's output back within the realm of relative sanity. As someone whom plays a Life Cleric, the new version is at least something I can live with the knowledge of it existing. :P
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.