Advice: Overpowered Abilities

[smbakeresq]

It costs a feat which is huge. Healing Spirit is 35 each for a total of 140. It can also be used in combat and then if the caster still has concentration, spend the next 5-6 rounds after combat healing everyone to max.



This also costs a feat. Do you think a feat is worth less than a level 2 spell slot? It's not even close. Inspiring Leader is very good, temp hp are great, but it is still a feat. which is a huge cost.

Why is it so important to have a 2nd level spell heal 140+ HP in the game? Why can't we just not? Or just limit its use to the reasonable 1 heal per round. It is worded like the damage spells, only the problem is that creatures don't want to enter the area of the damage spells so that isn't an issue. WotC should have caught that and changed it to avoid this abuse, they didn't so there it is. That doesn't mean everyone is forced to play like that.



Are you suggesting having a new encounter for every level 2 slot they have?

Isn't just not allowing that spell to do that the simpler solution?

I don't know any DM that would let players in combat run through a square on their turn to heal them without the enemy chasing them through the same square on their turns (or camping on it) on their way to attacking the concentrating caster (he is the one in the back row doing little.) Maybe I don't get out enough.


Inspiring Leader is one of the best feats in the entire game for the classes that would take it. Don't ask me, ask around or read guides, its on every list for Bards and Paladins (CHR types) as a near must have feat. I have no idea what you are talking about. Of course its worth a second level spell slot, its worth far more. Healing Spirit heals 140 if everything works out and you spend spell slot. If you concentration is broken it could be worth 0, if a player cant make it to the space its worth 0, if the enemy Inspiring word heals 84 (or 126 if you have 6 people) guaranteed every single rest without exception, without concentration, without a spell slot, nothing. If you are concentrating on it you are not concentrating on many other far more valuable spells. If your PCs can go through it every turn on their turn without provoking opportunity attacks to get their and without you ever losing concentration on it and without any opposition from the enemy and you have a second level slot to use on it then its better then Inspiring leader, which just takes 10 minutes every rest and its over. Inspiring leader will be used after every single rest for the rest of your entire career, scaling as you improve. That's great use of a feat. Or put it another way, its a permanent, 6 PCS, 1/use per rest, Level + ability, no concentration, no action healing spell. That's clearly worth a feat.

And no, I don't think a new encounter for every second level spell, that's absurd. What I am saying is that most play in easy games with plenty of short rests and long rests so everyone has all their stuff ready and the DM's are afraid of Heat Metal (see this thread) and afraid of PC healing (see this thread) and are afraid to use the same things against the players and have the monsters acting intelligently. Or just argue white board stuff that has little chance of really happening in games. HP can easily be taken from the players with the correct encounters and rest schedules, which the DM controls.

Or use it against the players. Healing Spirit seems like a perfect spell for the Barbarian druid to use for his band of raging barbarians against the PCs while his 2 underlings use heat metal on the cleric and fighters armor. Or maybe he will just use Fog Cloud to prevent the spells use until you and the spirit move out of the cloud as you need to see them. The spirit is visible so if the PCs keep running over it and get visibly healed (which they are) every enemy would see it also and react as their intelligence would dictate.


I just have never had a problem with the spell in combat, I have actually rarely seen it used in combat, its most used for out of combat healing. Combat healing generally costs too many actions for its benefit, this costs your concentration and sometimes a bonus and always their movement to make it useful.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

I think part of the imbalance was due to the player's misinterpretation of the effect (as I understand it). I let her interpretation stand so as to not slow down the game in rules discussion. I will still allow the spell in question as long as it's handled according to my understanding of the spell - just to give it one more shot.

(And I didn't want to turn this thread into a discussion of the validity of the spell in question, but it was Healing Spirit. The players' interpretation was that the spell could be moved around on the caster's turn and heal everyone it touched as a part of the movement. My understanding is that the spirit can be moved, but it only heals when a character moves into the space - not when the spirit moves through a character.)

It's still healing 1d6 per character per round though right? That's pretty good, but considering that the caster is maintaining concentration and (I assume) using bonus actions to move it around, that doesn't seem like something that would wreck your game. I would be tempted to just let it go.

Your other option of course, which is completely fair, is to explain that after reading the spell more carefully you notice that the healing occurs at the beginning of the creatures turn, not on the turn where the spirit moves. If the player is a Druid, and they aren't happy with the spell after understanding how it works, they can simply switch it out. If the player is a Ranger, I would allow them to switch it out as well, even though that's not strictly within the rules.

 

[smbakeresq]

What are you arguing?

That all conceivable concentration spells are balanced because concentration?

Yes. You can only concentrate on one spell, and its so important that you have to make sure you have a good concentration score and probably take warcaster or resilient (con) to make sure you can make those concentration checks. Concentration is HUGE, it is a balancing factor in every spell with concentration. If you have to concentrate on a spell then that spell better be really good by itself, and you had better not have a better spell to concentrate on.

Lets say you are a Bard and take this spell. Well in combat should be concentration on Hold Person or Heat Metal, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Animate Objects, etc, those will end combat faster and save HP. A Ranger or Druid has other spells to concentrate on or a wild shape.


As a healing spell out of combat, sure. But use healing kits first, then other consumables, then HD, before you use spell slots. Its a fine spell, but not over powered unless your DM lets it be.

 

[ad_hoc]

With any group I run 4-6 encounters per short rest minimum, not all combat.

That is a lot and certainly not standard. That makes for 12-18 encounters per long rest (or more as you said minimum). Fighters, Rogues, etc. will be the stars of the show.

Of course its worth a second level spell slot, its worth far more.

You are comparing a feat to a 2nd level spell. That's a ridiculous comparison.

Lets say you are a Bard and take this spell. Well in combat should be concentration on Hold Person or Heat Metal, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Animate Objects, etc, those will end combat faster and save HP.

You are completely ignoring the effect out of combat. You can cast it in combat to keep everyone at 1 hp, then heal everyone to full after. Or you could just cast it after combat to heal everyone to full. It's not the 1d6/round that is the problem, it's abusing the wording to get 1d6 for every character. I also just wouldn't want to play at a table that abuses rules like that anyway but that is something else entirely.

As a healing spell out of combat, sure. But use healing kits first

Healing kits don't recover hp.

then other consumables

Some people in this thread assume an endless supply of healing potions which I find absurd. Sometimes the party is going to be a long time between towns. Most towns aren't going to have an endless supply either, maybe a few at most. Large cities would have many, but again not and endless amount.

This is a big cost too if using downtime rules or even if not. Gold can have a huge effect on a campaign, whether there is a set cost for something in the book or not.

, then HD, before you use spell slots.

HD requires a short rest, which you said at your table happens 'after 4-6 encounters, minimum'

Its a fine spell, but not over powered unless your DM lets it be.

What is 'letting it be'?

And why is it not just simpler to not let it be abused? This is the question that no one can answer. It is a clear outlier both for 2nd level spells and for healing. It invalidates Life Clerics, Lay on Hands, Second Wind, etc.

 

[MechaPilot]

Last session, I allowed a spell from Xanathar's that seems overpowered. While I tend to be a DM who likes to say yes to his players, I can detect that this one will upset the balance of the game. (I didn't do my due diligence and research that the spell has an OP reputation before the game, because I tend to err on the side of allowing official, published content.)

How do other DM's deal with these situations? Forbid the spell? Make changes to the spell to bring the power level to a reasonable level? increase the difficulty of encounters?

I've been in that situation before. The way I see it, there are only a few options:

1) Modify the spell. Make it less powerful, make it cost a higher level spell slot, make it require a material component and then you carefully control the distribution of said component.

2) Remove the spell and let the player pick something else.

3) Make the encounters tougher to compensate. This is pretty easy to do, but you should consider the party mix. If you have a party that's partly optimized and partly non-optimized, this can lead to some PCs being significantly more at-risk for death than others. I'm not fond of this solution, because it seems like this is best implemented without talking to the player(s), and that doesn't feel quite right to me. That said, I have done this. I have one player whose character is highly optimized, and I count that PC as two characters when figuring out the XP budget for an encounter.

No matter which option you choose, you should clearly identify why the spell is problem so you can communicate that to your player when you talk to him/her about it, and about which solution the player might prefer.

 

[Harzel]

It is completely up to the DM and the players to decide if particular content is "too" effective, doesn't have the right flavour for their campaign, offends their reality sensitivities or for any other reason whatsoever.

However, in some cases, doing so does not seem to meet with your approval.

That said, I can't say I've really come across any particular content up about level 10 that is so game changing or OP that it is a problem that would require banning

Ok.

... and some of the stuff that does seem quite powerful also seems to be generally accepted.

For example, a great weapon master/polearm master with 3 attacks at 5th level each potentially doing an extra +10 damage, similar ranged builds using crossbow expert/sharpshooter .. these are very powerful builds but I rarely see DMs banning them.

What group of DMs are you observing? Those feats definitely have some outspoken detractors.

On the other hand, healing spirit, whose only redeeming feature is that it does quite a lot of out of combat healing for a second level spell is consider OP and gets banned by some?

Paladin/sorcerer smite builds.
Sorerer/Warlock eldritch blast builds.

Some of these seem far more OP in terms of synergies in their capabilities than an individual spell.

Some folks seem to think polymorph can be OP when a front line is transformed into a T-rex.

You seem somehow to have reached the conclusion that there are DMs who would ban Healing Spirit, but not the other things you have mentioned. First, I don't see any basis for that conclusion. Second, it's not as if there is an objective, one-dimensional scale of power on which you can place each character ability. It is quite possible that resource recovery might affect a particular game much differently than offensive capabilities.

DMs already manage encounters to make for a fun, enjoyable (but sometimes tense) game. None of these aspects of 5e are really so "OP" as to require banning or even modification (on the other hand, if the features don't fit your campaign or table playstyle then by all means remove them after discussion with the players).

On the other hand, why ban one spell?

By extension, why ban anything? How is the fact that we are discussing one spell an argument against banning it? How many spells does one have to ban simultaneously in order for it to be ok?

I haven't found a single spell that is in any way really overpowered. Healing Spirit (if that is the spell being discussed) is far from OP. The only "problem" with it is that it is typically more effective than other out of combat healing options and the possibility of letting everyone in a party receive 10d6 of healing (or 10d6+40 in the case of a life cleric multiclass) can be useful. However, what that usually translates into is that the base line of the next encounter is likely to be a bit more difficult that it would be if the party had not used the spell to restore hit points.

So is there any amount of healing that you would consider OP? 20d6? 40d6? 100d6? Also, if 10d6 healing is not overpowered, what is the justification for the next encounter becoming more difficult? Putting aside Healing Spirit for a moment, does this mean that, for instance, if one party member has made the choice to be a Life Cleric, the DM should then secretly undo (the effects of) that choice by revving up the damage potential of each encounter a bit to compensate for the extra healing?

The only DM who finds this spell OP is the kind of DM who has everything written down (including all monster hit points) at the beginning of the session ... and changes nothing as the play progresses. This is also the sort of DM who has regular TPKs when a streak of bad luck by the player characters results in failed saves and misses or high rolls by the DM results in a bunch of crits).

While I have quibbled a bit with the other parts of your post, this is a whole higher level of "Wait, what?"
1) You purport to be able to predict, on the basis of a DM's opinion about one spell, not only significant attributes of their play style largely unrelated to the original topic, but also a frequent aspect of their play outcomes, which is not only unrelated to the original topic, but also erroneously (IMO) attributed by you to the identified play style.
2) You seem to be simply using the opportunity to take a (pretty much off-topic) swipe at a play style that is other than your own. First off, you have constructed a bit of a strawman - no one, AFAIK, has everything written down in advance. That aside, your ire seems particularly drawn by those who determine monster HP (and presumably similar attributes) in advance and then won't change them during play. We all exist, I think, on a continuum between having 'everything' determined in advance and total improv. And perhaps on another axis between designing with the party and it's current circumstances always the primary consideration, and a world that the party must engage totally on its (the world's) own terms. It is possible to run both good games and bad games at most of the points in that space.

You appear to prefer making significant adjustments on the fly and in particular will do so to adjust to the party's circumstances. That's fine; I'm sure you can run great games that way. But I think it is unreasonable to heap opprobrium on those who prefer a more "Here's the world, let the chips fall where they may" style of play. It definitely requires some different techniques (not better, just different) than a more PC-focused approach, but it is absolutely just as possible to run a good game that way.

A DM can never know whether the party will have full, half, or just a few hit points after one encounter going into the next.

Which, for some, is just a legitimate part of the challenge for the party.

The only thing healing spirit might do is reduce the need for hit dice and/or short rests ... especially in a long rest dependent party.

Which, for some, is a significant change. Just inserting the word 'only' in an otherwise objective statement is not a convincing argument that it is insignificant.

Short rest classes will want to take the short rests anyway to restore resources.

No doubt.

 

[TwoSix]

My advice is that you should take as many as possible since they make your character better.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What does it matter if the players have 35 more hp...so do the monsters.

If you need to change the rest of the world in order to account for the existence of one spell, then that spell is out of line with the rest of the world.

It's not the DM's job to change how the world works in order to make player decisions meaningless; there would be no point in playing, if that was the case. The job of the DM is to role-play NPCs, and adjudicate uncertainty in action resolution.

 

[Les Moore]

Would giving enemies access to the unbalanced spell demonstrate how unfun it is?

Or Hexblade gone awry, for example. You start using it, an enemy attack collapses your knee, you turn 90 degrees,
and attack the meatshield standing next to, or obliquely in front of you, by accident. One of the functions of a DM is to maintain
balance, whether it's a tightrope, level playing field, or see-saw.

 

[smbakeresq]

That is a lot and certainly not standard. That makes for 12-18 encounters per long rest (or more as you said minimum). Fighters, Rogues, etc. will be the stars of the show.



You are comparing a feat to a 2nd level spell. That's a ridiculous comparison.



You are completely ignoring the effect out of combat. You can cast it in combat to keep everyone at 1 hp, then heal everyone to full after. Or you could just cast it after combat to heal everyone to full. It's not the 1d6/round that is the problem, it's abusing the wording to get 1d6 for every character. I also just wouldn't want to play at a table that abuses rules like that anyway but that is something else entirely.



Healing kits don't recover hp.



Some people in this thread assume an endless supply of healing potions which I find absurd. Sometimes the party is going to be a long time between towns. Most towns aren't going to have an endless supply either, maybe a few at most. Large cities would have many, but again not and endless amount.

This is a big cost too if using downtime rules or even if not. Gold can have a huge effect on a campaign, whether there is a set cost for something in the book or not.



HD requires a short rest, which you said at your table happens 'after 4-6 encounters, minimum'



What is 'letting it be'?

And why is it not just simpler to not let it be abused? This is the question that no one can answer. It is a clear outlier both for 2nd level spells and for healing. It invalidates Life Clerics, Lay on Hands, Second Wind, etc.

"Standard" isn't standard, its recommended, and the designers themselves have said then game is not balanced that way in various places. Not all the encounters are combats like I stated. There is a thread on this board that running more encounters makes the games better and makes the play better. If you play properly as a group (play well) and as conserve resources (play well) and know how to best overcomes encounters (play well) 12-18 encounters between long rests is harder, more tactical and more strategic but doable and more intense since your PC are at risk. 6-8 encounters makes it means everyone lives all the time unless you get very unlucky. 12-18 means your mistakes get punished. Try it in your group, and watch people lose their s**t about having to manage resources. That's GREAT, you want people on the edge and as a player the game isn't fun to me unless someone is rolling a death save every adventuring day. I have never finished a full adventure path (1-13+) with a group that didn't feature a few deaths among party members.


You compared the spell to a feat. The feat is worth way more if used correctly, the more you use it the lower its cost. That's why ABI in your prime stat is the standard to which feats are measured, you use it more then anything else. Using something every rest that saves another resource (spell slots) is a very valuable thing. If you use healing spirit every rest, then taking Inspiring leader means an extra 2nd level spot every rest, so another Hold Person or Heat Metal (concentration spells) that end combat sooner and saves resources. Feats are big, but you only need 2 (maybe3) to get to 20 in your ABI, that leaves 2 more for you to use. Someone in the group should take Inspiring Leader (its great for RP to, if you are a Paladin act like one at the table) and Healer feats. In my group the monk took healer at first level since they came from a monastery that was famous for herbalists and the Crown Paladin took the inspiring leader feat. Either of those at first level does wonders for the groups survivability.


I addressed non - combat use, Inspiring word is better then too.

You use healer kits to recover HP with the Healer feat, I though that was obvious, its my mistake if it wasn't. You can use healing kit right before rest and then right after. A healers kit is 5 gp and can be used 10 times with healer feat, that's 10 x (Level+4+d6). Something that cheap should be stocked up on in any sort of fantasy town or cobbled together from various shops or even found in dungeons, bad guys need healing also. Your DM can also add various things to treasure that increase its effectiveness once he knows someone has that feat. A PC wizard put downtime into premade bandages and used mage hand to slap them on from a distance. I thought it was a good idea.

Herbalism is a very important thing to get from a background since you can create healing potions and antitoxin. So a background can get you Herbalism proficiency and the kit costs you 5 gp so you can make potions at half price. Finding ingredients can be road encounters, and Xanthars has rules and costs and making healing potions. A pc with this skill would certainly harvest exotic creatures for materials like trolls blood. Downtown is there for reason, make sure you use it. If not Herbalism is wasted.

Yes, HD can be used for healing, and if its 4-6 encounters between rests to spend them and 12-18 before you get half of them back then you better manage resources correctly, better find non-magical, non-rest solutions like Healer and Inspiring leader, and better realize that you don't get to go into every encounter at full health ready to use half your abilities because another rest is only 1 more encounter away. There will be some non-player healing around sometimes also for tough dungeons, like the fountain in PoTA: "An ancient blessing provides the fountain with modest healing powers; anyone who drinks from it gains the benefits of having finished a short rest, but an individual who benefits from the fountain’s magic can’t do so again for 24 hours."

I don't see it getting abused. Using to heal during combat is one less heat metal or hold person to fight against, less rounds of a druid wild shaped into something tearing into something, etc. Using during rest means the PC burned a 2nd level spell before the next encounter even started.

What I see getting far more abused is resting (or expecting to do so) in the middle of an active dungeon after 2 encounters or making a pact with an entity in the Shadowfell then abandoning it to pursue another profession (proliferation of Hexblade 1/anything X MC.)