Once you get to Level 14 Phoenix Sorcerer and any Level Life Cleric, you can cast fire spells to restore hp. Would Disciple of Life/ Blessed Healer apply to this? I know the healing would be alot if it does, but the wording doesn't specifically say that it has to be a healing spell.
Disciple of Life is a hard call. I understand why you asked. "Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature" the Sorcerer says "When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot's level + your Charisma modifier."
I would rule no, because use are using a spell slot you heal yourself, not a spell.
Blessed Healer definitely no because Phoenix heals you, not another.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
Neither, the healing can be secondary, but must be done by the spell, not by a class or race feature or feat or magic item that does healing triggered by a spell that does something else.
Definitely agree that it's ambiguous. It doesn't say the healing has to be a direct derivative of the spell's description. For example, something that heals from what would otherwise be damage (namely, when gaining absorption by exceeding damage immunity) should still trigger Disciple of Life.
Depends on how much weight is put into the first sentence of Disciple of Life. Forgive me for being ornery, if we're going to say that only spells that directly heal trigger it- then "healing spells" isn't a thing and the first sentence only mechanically serves to say that it starts at 1st level. Practically speaking, I'd agree with that, but... the spell is what is triggering healing in any interpretation with Nourishing Fire... "your fire spells soothe and restore you". Similarly practically speaking, you add "You regain hit points equal to the slot's level + your Charisma modifier" to the end of every Fire spell.
The way I see it, even more so now, regardless of how you go about interpreting it (strictly RAW or RAI or by 'common sense'), it could go either way.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
Neither, the healing can be secondary, but must be done by the spell, not by a class or race feature or feat or magic item that does healing triggered by a spell that does something else.
This is my take too. The healing isn't coming from the spell, it's coming from your sorcerous blood. Now, if there was a spell that said "you deal Xd6 fire damage to a target, and you gain half that much HP", I'd assume both bonuses would apply.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
Neither, the healing can be secondary, but must be done by the spell, not by a class or race feature or feat or magic item that does healing triggered by a spell that does something else.
This is my take too. The healing isn't coming from the spell, it's coming from your sorcerous blood. Now, if there was a spell that said "you deal Xd6 fire damage to a target, and you gain half that much HP", I'd assume both bonuses would apply.
That makes sense. That's where I was leaning, particularly when my intuition is that Vampiric Touch wouldn't work. Separating the class ability from the spell makes that decision even easier. I might have to circle back around on Vampiric Touch.
Why shouldn't Vampiric Touch benefit from Blessed Life? The prime reason I could see is if there is mechanical meaning in "healing spells".
The secondary, less weighty reason that I see, is if "Life Domain" is taken very literally and something like Vampiric Touch should be a no-no. That shouldn't hold any weight at all, be it due to morality or "life draining isn't life giving" or some-such, because intended flavor is meaningless before rules. I can easily conceptualize a life domain cleric being one that thematically capitalizes on stealing the life of others, particularly a spore druid/life cleric.
If taking that approach, Nourishing Fire not working is a no-brainer. Even then, though, nobody should be casting Vampiric Touch unless they want to heal themselves. It seems to me that the most exclusive approach should end at "the spell itself needs to inherently heal a creature".
Of course, I think it should be "if a spell directly causes healing to happen", but that's just reiterating myself, not intending to say "I'm right!"
Just to be all-inclusive, it appears another interpretation is: "If the spell was cast with the intent to heal", which does hold water in a RAW discussion.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
Neither, the healing can be secondary, but must be done by the spell, not by a class or race feature or feat or magic item that does healing triggered by a spell that does something else.
This is my take too. The healing isn't coming from the spell, it's coming from your sorcerous blood. Now, if there was a spell that said "you deal Xd6 fire damage to a target, and you gain half that much HP", I'd assume both bonuses would apply.
That makes sense. That's where I was leaning, particularly when my intuition is that Vampiric Touch wouldn't work. Separating the class ability from the spell makes that decision even easier. I might have to circle back around on Vampiric Touch.
The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. Make a melee spell attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, the target takes 3d6 necrotic damage, and you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt. Until the spell ends, you can make the attack again on each of your turns as an action.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 3rd.
Why shouldn't Vampiric Touch benefit from Blessed Life? The prime reason I could see is if there is mechanical meaning in "healing spells".
The secondary, less weighty reason that I see, is if "Life Domain" is taken very literally and something like Vampiric Touch should be a no-no. That shouldn't hold any weight at all, be it due to morality or "life draining isn't life giving" or some-such, because intended flavor is meaningless before rules. I can easily conceptualize a life domain cleric being one that thematically capitalizes on stealing the life of others, particularly a spore druid/life cleric.
If taking that approach, Nourishing Fire not working is a no-brainer. Even then, though, nobody should be casting Vampiric Touch unless they want to heal themselves. It seems to me that the most exclusive approach should end at "the spell itself needs to inherently heal a creature".
Of course, I think it should be "if a spell directly causes healing to happen", but that's just reiterating myself, not intending to say "I'm right!"
Just to be all-inclusive, it appears another interpretation is: "If the spell was cast with the intent to heal", which does hold water in a RAW discussion.
The last one might be RAW, might not. It's to gamey for my tastes, and I would not allow it in my games because it's too easy to eye that juicy damage and sing, "I'm in it for the heals!" I won't begrudge anyone ruling otherwise, though.
If one interprets “a healing spell” to simply mean “a spell that restores HP” (since there is no RAW definition of “a healing spell”) I cannot deny that to a player. I would feel... wrong. I feel like I have to read this as any spell that in itself restores HP. I mean... with what I throw at a party I can’t so no to something like that.
Not only does the description of Vampiric Touch say that it heals but, it's tags label it a healing and damage spell. Isn't Nourishing Flames already an ability from an unofficial subclass anyway? If so, wouldn't it be somewhat ironic to rule the subclass valid to play but, not the mechanics of Nourishing Flames as it could apply to Disciple of Life for fear of breaking RAW?
Hmm, I don't think the tag has any worth; False Life is a healing spell according to those tags. I believe those are just tags for filtering convenience.
Good point about it being unofficial. Still, if the creators of the unofficial content were trying to maintain consistency with RAW, shouldn't they be granted that? Admittedly 5e is a lot more relaxed about RAW vs otherwise compared to the other rulesets I'm used to (pathfinder), so I'm not sure what the general consensus on treating unofficial content with RAW is.
From what I see, unofficial content usually gets discussed in the forum dedicated to it. UA in UA and Homebrew in Homebrew for example. I'm not saying that this thread is in the wrong place, just that Rules Mechanics is generally official content and General along with Tips/Tacs seem like fair game locations for questions about any content.
Sorry for sidetracking, I like the OPs question and idea as it could create interesting play options.
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Once you get to Level 14 Phoenix Sorcerer and any Level Life Cleric, you can cast fire spells to restore hp. Would Disciple of Life/ Blessed Healer apply to this? I know the healing would be alot if it does, but the wording doesn't specifically say that it has to be a healing spell.
Disciple of Life is a hard call. I understand why you asked. "Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature" the Sorcerer says "When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot's level + your Charisma modifier."
I would rule no, because use are using a spell slot you heal yourself, not a spell.
Blessed Healer definitely no because Phoenix heals you, not another.
At first I was with Mog_Dracov; a fire spell that incidentally heals you because of a class feature is not a healing spell like Vampiric Touch is. However, Disciple of Life's actual critical wording is in the second sentence. It doesn't say only when you restore hit points to a creature, but whenever. As Vampiric Touch is not only a healing spell, I believe Nourishing Fire should be made stronger from Disciple of Life.
Even though I'd never recommend taking a level of Life Cleric to make this happen unless you want heavy armor and a shield.
Disciple of Life
Also starting at 1st Level, your Healing Spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st Level or higher to Restore Hit Points to a creature, the creature regains additional Hit Points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.
Nourishing Fire
Starting at 14th level, your fire spells soothe and restore you. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell that includes a fire damage roll, you regain hit points equal to the slot’s level + your Charisma modifier.
I could see it going that way and I could see a more conservative interpretation stating that it has to be a healing spell, not a spell where healing happened as a side effect. In this case, the spell would be doing Fire Damage not healing. I seem to remember something about that interaction with Vampiric Touch but I couldn't find it. Life Transference is similar but the main goal of that is the heal and the damage to the caster is essentially a cost to cast the spell. Damaging creatures that you want to damage anyway is too much of a benefit to be considered a secondary benefit.
TLDR. Decide if the spell must be primarily to restore HP (No) or if HP must be restored because of casting the spell (yes).
Like I said, this is a tough call. Frankly I probably would just go with what I felt was Cooler the first time it happened.
Neither, the healing can be secondary, but must be done by the spell, not by a class or race feature or feat or magic item that does healing triggered by a spell that does something else.
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Definitely agree that it's ambiguous. It doesn't say the healing has to be a direct derivative of the spell's description. For example, something that heals from what would otherwise be damage (namely, when gaining absorption by exceeding damage immunity) should still trigger Disciple of Life.
Depends on how much weight is put into the first sentence of Disciple of Life. Forgive me for being ornery, if we're going to say that only spells that directly heal trigger it- then "healing spells" isn't a thing and the first sentence only mechanically serves to say that it starts at 1st level. Practically speaking, I'd agree with that, but... the spell is what is triggering healing in any interpretation with Nourishing Fire... "your fire spells soothe and restore you". Similarly practically speaking, you add "You regain hit points equal to the slot's level + your Charisma modifier" to the end of every Fire spell.
The way I see it, even more so now, regardless of how you go about interpreting it (strictly RAW or RAI or by 'common sense'), it could go either way.
This is my take too. The healing isn't coming from the spell, it's coming from your sorcerous blood. Now, if there was a spell that said "you deal Xd6 fire damage to a target, and you gain half that much HP", I'd assume both bonuses would apply.
That makes sense. That's where I was leaning, particularly when my intuition is that Vampiric Touch wouldn't work. Separating the class ability from the spell makes that decision even easier. I might have to circle back around on Vampiric Touch.
Why shouldn't Vampiric Touch benefit from Blessed Life? The prime reason I could see is if there is mechanical meaning in "healing spells".
The secondary, less weighty reason that I see, is if "Life Domain" is taken very literally and something like Vampiric Touch should be a no-no. That shouldn't hold any weight at all, be it due to morality or "life draining isn't life giving" or some-such, because intended flavor is meaningless before rules. I can easily conceptualize a life domain cleric being one that thematically capitalizes on stealing the life of others, particularly a spore druid/life cleric.
If taking that approach, Nourishing Fire not working is a no-brainer. Even then, though, nobody should be casting Vampiric Touch unless they want to heal themselves. It seems to me that the most exclusive approach should end at "the spell itself needs to inherently heal a creature".
Of course, I think it should be "if a spell directly causes healing to happen", but that's just reiterating myself, not intending to say "I'm right!"
Just to be all-inclusive, it appears another interpretation is: "If the spell was cast with the intent to heal", which does hold water in a RAW discussion.
Looks like this spell heals. Good enough for me.
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The last one might be RAW, might not. It's to gamey for my tastes, and I would not allow it in my games because it's too easy to eye that juicy damage and sing, "I'm in it for the heals!" I won't begrudge anyone ruling otherwise, though.
If one interprets “a healing spell” to simply mean “a spell that restores HP” (since there is no RAW definition of “a healing spell”) I cannot deny that to a player. I would feel... wrong. I feel like I have to read this as any spell that in itself restores HP. I mean... with what I throw at a party I can’t so no to something like that.
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Not only does the description of Vampiric Touch say that it heals but, it's tags label it a healing and damage spell. Isn't Nourishing Flames already an ability from an unofficial subclass anyway? If so, wouldn't it be somewhat ironic to rule the subclass valid to play but, not the mechanics of Nourishing Flames as it could apply to Disciple of Life for fear of breaking RAW?
Hmm, I don't think the tag has any worth; False Life is a healing spell according to those tags. I believe those are just tags for filtering convenience.
Good point about it being unofficial. Still, if the creators of the unofficial content were trying to maintain consistency with RAW, shouldn't they be granted that? Admittedly 5e is a lot more relaxed about RAW vs otherwise compared to the other rulesets I'm used to (pathfinder), so I'm not sure what the general consensus on treating unofficial content with RAW is.
(looks around @ veterans of Beyond's rule forum)
From what I see, unofficial content usually gets discussed in the forum dedicated to it. UA in UA and Homebrew in Homebrew for example. I'm not saying that this thread is in the wrong place, just that Rules Mechanics is generally official content and General along with Tips/Tacs seem like fair game locations for questions about any content.
Sorry for sidetracking, I like the OPs question and idea as it could create interesting play options.