My two cents - While some groups do consider optimization standard for their table, recent surveys and data from wizards of the coast actually shows that optimization style gameplay is actually a minority of players.
Healing Spirit healing way much more than other options is an objective fact. I don't think anybody is contesting that. So arguments that simply reiterate that fact aren't appropriate at this point in the discussion.
DMs can, and should, add, remove, or change any and all rules they believe necessary to improve the quality (i.e. fun) of the game they're running. Again, I don't think anybody disputes that. Moreover, this forum is to discuss "rules & game mechanics". So arguments appealing to the DM's ability/responsibility to change how Healing Spirit works, or to otherwise alter the rules to fix any perceived problem with Healing Spirit are also not appropriate at this point.
Now, the real issue is whether Healing Spirit's extremely high healing output under certain conditions breaks the game, or is unbalancing. It might not be, even if it seems so on the surface. As an admittedly contrived example: imagine they add a magic item, let's call it Heward's Horribly Overpowered Haversack, which has two side pouches that can hold up to 200 pounds (not exceeding a volume of 2 cubic feet), and one central pouch that holds up to 800 pounds of material (not exceeding a volume of 8 cubic feet), but only weighs 1 pound. Now, on the face of it, this item is 50 times more powerful than Heward's Handy Haversack, since it holds 10 times more weight, but weighs 1/5th as much. But since it doesn't hold more volume, you're rarely going to be able to pack enough in to actually have it hold 10 times as much, and "1/5th the weight" isn't that big a difference, going from 5 pounds to 1. So, really, Heward's Horribly Overpowered Haversack isn't really that overpowered, even if it is objectively better than the Handy one.
Similarly, Healing Spirit's increased healing output might only rarely be fully utilized, requiring multiple party members to be seriously hurt. Additionally, under those circumstances (multiple seriously hurt party members), very often a Short Rest is an option, and often a Long Rest, too. Certainly when Long Rest is an option, Healing Spirit is irrelevant. (As a ridiculous example: increase Healing Spirit's out-of-combat healing potential by a factor of 100, and it doesn't become better: once the party's fully healed, any additional healing is wasted.)
I think this is what some people in this thread are asking: not whether Healing Spirit really heals a lot more than other options, but whether this undisputed fact is a problem in actual play. Also, if it *is* a problem, maybe the problem is something else, maybe the encounters are too tough for the player characters, so they're needing that extra healing to compete. Maybe not, maybe Healing Spirit does in fact trivialize an otherwise balanced adventure. Theorycrafting can get you close to an answer, but there might be too many variables, in this particular case, to get a good one.
So: has Healing Spirit been a problem *in your game*?
My two cents - While some groups do consider optimization standard for their table, recent surveys and data from wizards of the coast actually shows that optimization style gameplay is actually a minority of players.
Somewhat off-topic, but I suspect that's a misleading statistic to use (not saying you're intentionally misleading). The less a player cares about optimization, the less they're likely to care about following the letter of the rules. So the fact that a majority of players don't care about optimizing their characters does not mean it's less important to guard against unbalancing optimizations. The rules are as precise and comprehensive as they are because a certain segment of the player base enjoys playing with that type of rule set, and there's a considerable overlap between that segment and those that enjoy optimizing their characters. A necessary overlap, given that optimization is only possible with an exhaustive rule set (can't optimize when all the rules say is "all characters can attempt to do anything. Roll 1d20 and on an 11 or higher, it succeeds.").
So yeah, either it's not necessary to guard against unbalancing optimizations, in which case it's also not necessary to have rules as thorough as D&D 5e's rules, so why bother discussing them; or it is necessary to guard against it, even if it will only affect a minority of the players.
My two cents - While some groups do consider optimization standard for their table, recent surveys and data from wizards of the coast actually shows that optimization style gameplay is actually a minority of players.
'Optimization' (i.e. being more efficient and/or tactical) is present at all tables to some degree. It's part of the game (and life). The WotC polls just indicate that D&D players mostly don't want it to be the main focus. This is especially interesting because D&D is a very gamist system compared to other RPG systems.
I'm more interested in where some draw the line. For me: I don't like to violate RAI. For this spell: I don't see a clear indication that the writers never intended for a 'optimal healing conga line'. I mean... that seems like a pretty darn obvious use...
I, personally, wouldn't DM for nor be part of a party thats idea of fun is just exploiting rules to avoid the game itself, which I think most folks agree with
Thank you for voicing your perspective. Normally I would consider optimizing a healing spell to be an expected part of the game (similar to say: optimizing your attacks on a prone opponent), so your input helps me consider how others might view it.
Would you consider 'Yesterday's Goodberries' as a similar, unacceptable exploit? i.e. using all your spell slots to cast Goodberry (which lasts 24 hrs), then taking a long rest before entering the dungeon.
Yeesh, that's hard to say. It's not very convoluted, but I suppose it's not any more broken. And for the same reason. A long rest is for the sake of recouping anyway, and if you're about to go into a dungeon you'll probably be pretty well off that your hp cap would prevent you from needing such gratuitous health. Maybe if you were just about through the dungeon and about to encounter the boss, this would be intresting, but again, practicality states this would be easily stopped by the encounter coming to the players (that orc chieftain or cult leader isn't gonna wait 8 hours in the throne room when they know their dungeon is under attack). I don't think it'll really work in practice as well as it does on paper. So same difference to the topic of the post. Not broken.
'Optimization' (i.e. being more efficient and/or tactical) is present at all tables to some degree. It's part of the game (and life). The WotC polls just indicate that D&D players mostly don't want it to be the main focus. This is especially interesting because D&D is a very gamist system compared to other RPG systems.
I'm more interested in where some draw the line. For me: I don't like to violate RAI. For this spell: I don't see a clear indication that the writers never intended for a 'optimal healing conga line'. I mean... that seems like a pretty darn obvious use...
I'm sorry,, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Optimization, in this case, refers to a gaming style; specifically, its a politer form of the term "mix-maxing."
Now, I admit that most people do exist on a continuum rather than either/or side. But optimization does refer to making OPTIMAL choices, with the implicit understanding that its done most, if not all, the time. Thus the name. I do not qualify as such. From a psychological standpoint, I also disagree that its part of life. Your brain does wire itself to be efficient, but what it considers efficient is not optimal.
Somewhat off-topic, but I suspect that's a misleading statistic to use (not saying you're intentionally misleading). The less a player cares about optimization, the less they're likely to care about following the letter of the rules. So the fact that a majority of players don't care about optimizing their characters does not mean it's less important to guard against unbalancing optimizations. The rules are as precise and comprehensive as they are because a certain segment of the player base enjoys playing with that type of rule set, and there's a considerable overlap between that segment and those that enjoy optimizing their characters. A necessary overlap, given that optimization is only possible with an exhaustive rule set (can't optimize when all the rules say is "all characters can attempt to do anything. Roll 1d20 and on an 11 or higher, it succeeds.").
So yeah, either it's not necessary to guard against unbalancing optimizations, in which case it's also not necessary to have rules as thorough as D&D 5e's rules, so why bother discussing them; or it is necessary to guard against it, even if it will only affect a minority of the players.
With all due respect, 5th edition isn't predicated on exact language, but its supposed to rely on natural language and individual interpretations of said language for different tables' playstyles. The rules are meant to be neither precise, nor comprehensive, but rather flexible with room for individual rulings.
And the writers didn't guard against unbalancing optimization - that's why they put multi-classing and feats as optional rules.
Would you consider 'Yesterday's Goodberries' as a similar, unacceptable exploit? i.e. using all your spell slots to cast Goodberry (which lasts 24 hrs), then taking a long rest before entering the dungeon.
I don't think it'll really work in practice as well as it does on paper. So same difference to the topic of the post. Not broken.
Assuming the caster routinely uses her unused spell slots at night to cast Goodberry (which seems like a responsible habit), it means that she'd start almost all adventures with a *lot* of extra free healing (which my own groups certainly use). Similarly, if you cast healing spirit, it would seem most responsible to use if for the full minute if possible (on as many injured as possible). These do not seem like unforeseen uses to me, but I wasn't certain if you considered this "exploiting rules to avoid the game itself".
Assuming the caster routinely uses her unused spell slots at night to cast Goodberry (which seems like a responsible habit), it means that she'd start almost all adventures with a *lot* of extra free healing (which my own groups certainly use). Similarly, if you cast healing spirit, it would seem most responsible to use if for the full minute if possible (on as many injured as possible). These do not seem like unforeseen uses to me, but I wasn't certain if you considered this "exploiting rules to avoid the game itself".
With the "spend all spare slots on goodberry" strategy, one must remember that there is a risk being weighed and declared worth it by the character before doing the casting of those goodberry spells - that being the risk that some unforeseen circumstance between the casting and the regaining of spell slots occurs and leaves the caster thinking "I wish I still had some spell slots to use for this". That alone stops this strategy for being a real exploit.
With the "spend all spare slots on goodberry" strategy, one must remember that there is a risk being weighed and declared worth it by the character before doing the casting of those goodberry spells - that being the risk that some unforeseen circumstance between the casting and the regaining of spell slots occurs and leaves the caster thinking "I wish I still had some spell slots to use for this". That alone stops this strategy for being a real exploit.
Umm.... isn't casting spells outside of the normal activities of a long / short rest? So, casting a spell would negate the whole other resting points?
To me, that's like saying that you could cast fireballs in the middle ofyour long-rest cycle, killing enemies, and then finish the remaining 3 hours of rest.
A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity — at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity — the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
That feels strange to me. Freely casting spells during a short rest and magically replenishing all of themat the stroke of dawn, or whatever, feels very odd.
That feels strange to me. Freely casting spells during a short rest and magically replenishing all of themat the stroke of dawn, or whatever, feels very odd.
I agree that it can seem counter-intuitive to have casting a spell during a long rest not cause that slot to remain spent after the long rest ends... but I also see the reason why that is the case: If it didn't work that way for spells, then it wouldn't be fair to have it work that way for other features that reset their uses at the end of a long rest (i.e. action surge). And then any amount of combat becomes a huge problem if you are trying to take a long rest because if you aren't getting those resources back at the end of your long rest, you have to not use them and risk complications such as dead characters, or you have to re-start your long rest and risk that it keeps getting interrupted.
That's the whole reason why a long rest requires any interrupting activity to last for an hour before it is required to re-start the rest in the first place; because otherwise any encounter happening during the rest would be entirely too severe a consequence.
So my view on the matter of being able to cast spells right before the end of a long rest and still recover those spell slots to use that day is this; if you've managed through luck, skill, and strategy to have spell slots left when you are taking a long rest, you've earned whatever benefit you can gain from spending them in this way (which is probably less of an overall benefit than you could have gained by casting something else with them during the preceding day's adventures).
That feels strange to me. Freely casting spells during a short rest and magically replenishing all of themat the stroke of dawn, or whatever, feels very odd.
Well, it's not quite "freely", since you have to be done in under an hour. Also, note that this applies to *long* rests, not short ones. No casting during short rests. (Although you mentioned "short" rest, I took your comment about "stroke of dawn" as meaning you really meant "long" rest.) The idea is not that you can cast freely all throughout your long rest, but rather than you can handle an interruption of up to one hour during which you can do whatever, including fighting and spellcasting. This means, btw, that a random encounter mid-long rest does not cancel out the rest, unless the encounter somehow has the characters fighting for an hour or more.
Also, consider that they have to be replenished at some point during the rest. If it happens at the beginning, then why complete the entire rest? So it happens at the end, which makes sense. If you think about it as "resetting my spell slots to full" instead of "giving me back my expended slots", it feels less odd to get the slot you just expended an hour ago back.
I guess that means, though, if interpreted strictly, and taken to extremes, that you can finish a long rest in 7 hours, if you're not interrupted (well, technically infinitesimally longer than 7 hours): just "move" that interruption right up until the end, you get 7 hours and an instant with a just-under-one-hour "interruption" at the end, for a total of 8 hours of "rest + interruption". If you interpret "interruption" as something that divides the time in two, rest for 7 hours, wake up, do full adventure activity (including spellcasting, fighting, marching, whatever) for 1 hour minus one round, then "rest" for one round, and BAMF, after that last round is over you get all your spell slots and hitpoints back. XD (Granted, you won't have them back after those 7 hours, so that first "hour minus one round" you get to adventure w/o your spell slots or hitpoints...)
The way I read it it's a good spell but not broken. It says "for the first time on a turn" not on "each" turn. So every party member can benefit from this heal once. So that's 7d6 if used well at level 2. Good spell, not something you can run through over and over, because that's the second time you went through it on a turn.
The way I read it it's a good spell but not broken. It says "for the first time on a turn" not on "each" turn. So every party member can benefit from this heal once. So that's 7d6 if used well at level 2. Good spell, not something you can run through over and over, because that's the second time you went through it on a turn.
I don't think that's how the spell works. Yes, it says the first time you enter the space in a turn, which means if you run in, out, and back in, all in a turn, you still only get healed once that turn. Pretty sure that doesn't mean you can benefit from the heal only once for each cast. (It also says you get healed if you start your turn there, with no qualification, so there's that.)
So my view on the matter of being able to cast spells right before the end of a long rest and still recover those spell slots to use that day is this; if you've managed through luck, skill, and strategy to have spell slots left when you are taking a long rest, you've earned whatever benefit you can gain from spending them in this way (which is probably less of an overall benefit than you could have gained by casting something else with them during the preceding day's adventures).
I agree with this, though keep in mind if the party has any downtime days they're going to have all of their slots the night before they go back adventuring.
There's an easy fix if stockpiling berries bothers you: just add "...or if you cast this spell again" to "The berries lose their potency..." That brings it in line with other spells like Shillelagh, Mage Hand, Light, Spiritual Weapon, and Mighty Fortress. They can still start the next day with 10 free berries, but not a whole backpack of them.
I haven’t had an issue with it. I had a player who was worried it would outclass his Life Cleric, because it’s so good on paper, but it didn’t and doesn’t when it matters (combat).
In combat my players have to be very careful with positioning and worry about Attacks of Opportunity. So the idea of using it as a healing zone everyone can run through was discarded early on - that might be an issue if your DMs just throw solo big bads at you that have a small threatening area that your characters can withdraw from with impunity, but that’s not how my games run.
Out of combat it’s amazing - the Life Cleric suddenly doesn’t have to burn spell slots on healing (outside of Goodberry through Magic Initiate) which means they can be more flexible in combat. The Moon Druid now has things to do with their spell slots other than burn them for self heals. As a DM I am also quite RAW with short/long rests so anything that prevents characters wanting to rest constantly is good.
The problem for me isn’t that Healing Spirit is too good, the problem is that Prayer of Healing is trash because of the ten minute cast time.
My two cents - While some groups do consider optimization standard for their table, recent surveys and data from wizards of the coast actually shows that optimization style gameplay is actually a minority of players.
Healing Spirit healing way much more than other options is an objective fact. I don't think anybody is contesting that. So arguments that simply reiterate that fact aren't appropriate at this point in the discussion.
DMs can, and should, add, remove, or change any and all rules they believe necessary to improve the quality (i.e. fun) of the game they're running. Again, I don't think anybody disputes that. Moreover, this forum is to discuss "rules & game mechanics". So arguments appealing to the DM's ability/responsibility to change how Healing Spirit works, or to otherwise alter the rules to fix any perceived problem with Healing Spirit are also not appropriate at this point.
Now, the real issue is whether Healing Spirit's extremely high healing output under certain conditions breaks the game, or is unbalancing. It might not be, even if it seems so on the surface. As an admittedly contrived example: imagine they add a magic item, let's call it Heward's Horribly Overpowered Haversack, which has two side pouches that can hold up to 200 pounds (not exceeding a volume of 2 cubic feet), and one central pouch that holds up to 800 pounds of material (not exceeding a volume of 8 cubic feet), but only weighs 1 pound. Now, on the face of it, this item is 50 times more powerful than Heward's Handy Haversack, since it holds 10 times more weight, but weighs 1/5th as much. But since it doesn't hold more volume, you're rarely going to be able to pack enough in to actually have it hold 10 times as much, and "1/5th the weight" isn't that big a difference, going from 5 pounds to 1. So, really, Heward's Horribly Overpowered Haversack isn't really that overpowered, even if it is objectively better than the Handy one.
Similarly, Healing Spirit's increased healing output might only rarely be fully utilized, requiring multiple party members to be seriously hurt. Additionally, under those circumstances (multiple seriously hurt party members), very often a Short Rest is an option, and often a Long Rest, too. Certainly when Long Rest is an option, Healing Spirit is irrelevant. (As a ridiculous example: increase Healing Spirit's out-of-combat healing potential by a factor of 100, and it doesn't become better: once the party's fully healed, any additional healing is wasted.)
I think this is what some people in this thread are asking: not whether Healing Spirit really heals a lot more than other options, but whether this undisputed fact is a problem in actual play. Also, if it *is* a problem, maybe the problem is something else, maybe the encounters are too tough for the player characters, so they're needing that extra healing to compete. Maybe not, maybe Healing Spirit does in fact trivialize an otherwise balanced adventure. Theorycrafting can get you close to an answer, but there might be too many variables, in this particular case, to get a good one.
So: has Healing Spirit been a problem *in your game*?
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
Umm.... isn't casting spells outside of the normal activities of a long / short rest? So, casting a spell would negate the whole other resting points?
To me, that's like saying that you could cast fireballs in the middle ofyour long-rest cycle, killing enemies, and then finish the remaining 3 hours of rest.
That feels strange to me. Freely casting spells during a short rest and magically replenishing all of themat the stroke of dawn, or whatever, feels very odd.
The way I read it it's a good spell but not broken. It says "for the first time on a turn" not on "each" turn. So every party member can benefit from this heal once. So that's 7d6 if used well at level 2. Good spell, not something you can run through over and over, because that's the second time you went through it on a turn.
I haven’t had an issue with it. I had a player who was worried it would outclass his Life Cleric, because it’s so good on paper, but it didn’t and doesn’t when it matters (combat).
In combat my players have to be very careful with positioning and worry about Attacks of Opportunity. So the idea of using it as a healing zone everyone can run through was discarded early on - that might be an issue if your DMs just throw solo big bads at you that have a small threatening area that your characters can withdraw from with impunity, but that’s not how my games run.
Out of combat it’s amazing - the Life Cleric suddenly doesn’t have to burn spell slots on healing (outside of Goodberry through Magic Initiate) which means they can be more flexible in combat. The Moon Druid now has things to do with their spell slots other than burn them for self heals. As a DM I am also quite RAW with short/long rests so anything that prevents characters wanting to rest constantly is good.
The problem for me isn’t that Healing Spirit is too good, the problem is that Prayer of Healing is trash because of the ten minute cast time.