Level
Cantrip
Casting Time
1 Action
Range/Area
Touch
Components
V, S
Duration
Instantaneous
School
Evocation
Attack/Save
None
Damage/Effect
Healing
You touch an ally creature and channel their inner life force to cause a surge of natural healing. If the target creature has at least 1 hit point, it can spend one of its Hit Dice, rolling the die and adding their Constitution modifier to the result. They regain hit points equal to the total (minimum of 0).
A creature touched by this spell can spend one additional Hit Die when you reach 5th level (2), 11th level (3), and 17th level (4).
Previous Versions
Name | Date Modified | Views | Adds | Version | Actions |
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12/20/2019 11:12:59 PM
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182
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2
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1.0
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Coming Soon
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12/20/2019 11:45:47 PM
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58
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1
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1.1
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Coming Soon
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12/21/2019 9:58:44 AM
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50
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2
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1.2
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Coming Soon
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12/21/2019 6:55:43 PM
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126
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8
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1.3
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Coming Soon
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1/7/2020 7:39:25 PM
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2405
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130
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1.5
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Coming Soon
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I love the spell and have used and allowed it in many campaigns. However, I do second (fifth?) the suggestion that the CON mod gets removed from the healing, that way Short Rests are always a more efficient use of Hit Dice. Keep up the good work!
I don't think 5e needs any more nerfs to short rests. As others have mentioned, few classes actually rely on short rests to recover abilities (monk, warlock, bard and fighter are the only big classes that gain meaningful benefit from them), so saving a whole hour in an adventuring day is a choice players will almost always make, especially those who don't have a high constitution score. Not to mention, casting this cantrip on a tankier class like a fighter or barbarian can certainly heal more than a 1st level cure wounds or healing word. When it comes to sheer resource management, it tears the system apart.
Looking at a similar spell, Wither and Bloom, it is a second level spell that heals additional hit dice when upcasting to a higher spell slot. This cantrip and that second level spell accomplish nearly the same purpose except one of them burns zero spell slots and becomes more effective at higher class levels.
What I recommend is to remove the CON modifier and limit the use to once/long rest/creature, and/or increasing the casting time to one minute, pretty much what @Tegzi recommended.
I think you are forgetting that Wither and Bloom is a 2nd-level spell with a range of 60ft that deals 2d6 Necrotic damage in a 10ft radius. The ability to allow 1 creature within the area to spend a Hit Dice to heal itself is a secondary benefit for that spell.
Close Wound has a range of Touch and can only heal targets that have Hit Dice. It also only adds your Constitution Modifier once, regardless of the number of Hit Dice expended to regain Hit Points.
If I was going to make this cantrip today, the changes I would make would require the Target to use its Reaction to spend its Hit Dice and to either replace the Con Modifier with the Caster's Spellcasting Ability Modifier (or remove the Con Modifier altogether).
I'm aware that Wither and Bloom is a damage spell first and a healing spell second. However, 2d6 damage at 2nd level is almost as weak as a most cantrips of a 5th level caster, or equally as weak as Toll the Dead of a 1st level caster when used effectively. And when comparing it to similar spells of its level like Shatter, the average damage is almost doubled because you roll 3d8. So as a damage spell alone, it is very undershelming. The attractive part of it is the healing, something that is uncommon to find in 5e, because healing was purposefully nerfed to speed up combats.
And regardless of whether it does ranged AOE damage or not, it is still a second-level spell. Close Wounds is a cantrip, meaning it can be taken by any class or character which takes the magic initiate feat, useable unlimitedly without the use of any other resource than your hit dice. And because of feats, the range of touch becomes even less problematic because that means frontline fighters can get it too, meaning the squishier casters don't even have to risk being on the frontline to heal their allies.
Ironically enough, I'd argue that this cantrip is the best at lower levels, because with multiple castings of it, you can add you constitution modifier to every single hit die you spend. And scaling-wise, that is a pretty poor design. If it were replaced with your spellcasting ability modifier, that would make it even stronger because it consistently uses your main ability score as a caster (assumedly +3 or higher) and that makes it more overpowered than it is already. Removing the con modifier still doesn't remove the otherworldly benefit of never having to take short rests.
You are comparing apples and oranges.
A Cantrip that Heals 1 Target at the expense of their Hit Dice is not the same as a 2nd-Level spell that does 2d6 damage to multiple Targets in a 10ft radius + Heals 1 Target. You can't make a comparison about how they are similar, when the only benefit they share is a mild secondary benefit.
In general, 1st and 2nd-Level spells become less and less useful as you level up, because damaging cantrips become better and better at no cost beyond action economy. There is not reason a healing cantrip would be any different.
Comparing Wither and Bloom with Shatter is a much better comparison, since they are both 2nd-Level spells that deal damage in an area. Wither and Bloom deals less damage in exchange for healing 1 Target. You exchange damage for healing - albeit not much.
If you drop the Con Modifier from Close Wounds, it no longer competes with a Short Rest in terms of healing. A Short Rest adds your Con Mod to each die, which is near double healing in many cases. Close Wounds would offer less healing in combat, in exchange for the fact that you can heal when it's most important - during combat.
I'm comparing an apple to a bigger apple.
The cantrip becomes as powerful as 4th-level cure wounds minus the modifier at no extra cost besides hit dice spent. I understand that Wither Bloom has a withering effect, but it's used as the one and only official milestone for using hit dice outside of a short rest. Shifting the availability of hit dice from a 2nd-level spell slot to a cantrip is undeniably power creep.
If anything, comparing a short rest to a cantrip is apples to oranges, because one of them has a working time 600 TIMES longer and it isn't even a spell. When it comes to ensuring safety, there is no reason for a party to risk taking a short rest, especially in such a game that has no definitive rules or guidelines on calculating risk of a short rest; it's either "you get your short rest safely" or "oh no you got ambushed spending half an hour tending to wounds just to fall into another encounter and gain no benefits."
I created Close Wound about a year before Wither and Bloom was published. I'm not going to update a Cantrip I made because WotC later releases content that has "some" similarity.
The concern you are raising about a high level cantrip performing similar to or better than low level spells is true of any damaging spell. It's how WotC decided to structure 5e, so I don't think your concern is really with Close Wound in that regard. Fire Bolt at 11th level is better than Chromatic Orb or Chaos Bolt. This isn't really Power Creep because it has always been structured this way, it's just an expansion of the status quo.
Close Wound doesn't really impact Short Rests in practice. If you were planning to take a Short Rest to heal, you are still better off doing that than spamming Close Wound. Otherwise, you lose out on the extra Con Mod healing per Hit Die, and regaining any other spent resources that recharge on a Short Rest, like Ki Points, Bardic Inspiration, Channel Divinity, Pact Magic, etc.
Even considering the time delta between spamming Close Wound and taking a Short Rest, you would still need to spend several minutes for the entire party to regain HP from Close Wound. That's a perfectly valid option when in a Dungeon where it isn't safe to take a break for more than 5 to 10 minutes. You trade less overall healing (nearly half in most cases) for a shorter recovery time.
Overall, I think you are discounting how valuable a Short Rest remains. It still offers greater healing per Hit Die and recharges resources that are pretty important in Combat. The only time using Close Wound is better than taking a Short Rest is when you NEED healing NOW or someone is going to die, which is during combat or while in a very dangerous area. Neither of those scenarios overlap with the time you would normally take a Short Rest.
Why compare healing spells with damaging spells? Isn't that comparing apples to oranges?
5e was specifically designed to make damage easily accessible and healing difficult to come by, because constant healing on either the player's or monster's side will make the game not about killing enemies, but instead about not dying to them, and there is a big difference between them.
Clerics are said to be best played when they aren't spending all their spell slots on healing, because preventing damage and gaining the advantage in the action economy is much more valuable. My point is that making healing this accessible, be it either in-combat or out of it, is changing the dynamic of encounters as a whole because you are expending less frequent or valuable resources to do so.
In a lot of cases, the whole party is not in desperate need of healing; sometimes it's just your one tank and/or spellcaster that got seriously injured by one attack. In that case, you spend less than one minute healing them, again, taking less time by a factor of 60.
Again, the way D&D is structured (or the lack of structuring) does not allow for players to accurately gauge whether or not there will be an interruptive threat within the next hour, at which point all of the time spent can be wasted if something happens at the 59-minute mark. Unless your DM is merciful and lets short rests happen without a hike, there is always a chance to waste time and gain literally zero benefits from it. Close wounds, however, takes effect every six seconds, which is the smallest time measurement in the game, effectively uninterruptible. I'm not arguing that Close wounds have greater benefits, I'm arguing it has significantly less to no risk to it, which is the heart of the problem.
You don't have to update this cantrip because WOTC made something similar. You don't have to do anything. I'm just arguing that you should.
It's clear to me that you are only going to accept healing in D&D if it happens outside of combat and takes at least 1 minute to cast. There are plenty of existing spells like that already. Close Wound is not that kind of spell, and it's probably not for you. You can customize it for your table. Make it work how you want for your game.
Already did
You can't claim to be using the logic when the logic wasn't identified. It's logic when it identifies 2+ premises that lead to a conclusion (a syllogism). This is just the conclusion.
On healing in general, there's a reason why it's not that easy to heal; It removes the meaning of damage in the game if healing is too easy. As it is, many other games make healing harder to deal with. Do we really want it to work like an MMO? Combat often takes long enough to remove any sense of drama as it is.
Good idea, but this is too OP. A lot of groups practically never short rest, which makes this a large pool of free healing past level 5 or so.
I would suggest making it once per long rest per creature and/or a minute casting time.
This cantrip has brought in a lot of argument of power level and the value of "free" healing.
But it's sort of sad to see very little mention of role playing and character. D&D is a Roleplaying game! Is it so hard to believe that a player may want to feel like they are a healer? Like they are tending to wounded party members? Like they are HELPING?
Yes, this may effectively be a short rest but faster. (Funnily, the spells own creator has said that you only add your Con once, but the wording they chose actually disagrees, as the ACT of spending a Hit Dice IS to roll it and add Con, and the higher level casting says they can SPEND more hit dice...) But now instead of a short rest being every character just sitting on the ground and watching their wounds close over an hour (somehow), they instead have a short period of time where they are working together to support their healer and in turn be supported. What are the healed members doing while they injured ones are being tended to? What are the consequences of the repeated usage of magic in the area? Do enemies nearby hear the repeatedly whispered incantations?
If you feel the party is now healing too easily, then perhaps you need to crank up the enemy aggression. Yes, doing so effectively invalidates their healing MECHANICALLY, but does it reinforce the fantasy the player is going for? A little perspective and good flavor is all that stands between "You're healing is too strong, I'm nerfing you" and "Look, your healing is the only reason the party is still alive, you matter"
If I'd change ANYTHING at all on this, I'd say it needs a Material component. An opportunity for focuses to break or be taken, and thus spell components must be found or improvised.
I don't see the connection. Healing and damage are different, and they didn't really use any logic beyond stating their claim.
Healing spells are already function as a consistent way to heal during combat that expends a resource so it can't be used to easily grant a full heal outside of combat. Why do you need to make a cantrip for that same purpose?
Lmao I just read through the comments and OP has been arguing with dinguses for years now. This spell is great, and guess what? If you dislike how it functions or think it could be changed, make your own or better ye, don't use it! Don't try to correct someone's work when they didn't ask for it, it makes you look silly. Thanks for the sick spell