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Guest 6801328
Guest
I would love to have seen more options for spending HD. The "Blood Sorcerer" concept, for example.
D&D 5E Is Xanathars The New UA? AKA A Munchkins Book
I would love to have seen more options for spending HD. The "Blood Sorcerer" concept, for example.
jgsugden
Legend
Average or better - meaning in the top 50% of characters efficiency? You don't need to be that efficient for the game to work wonderfully. As long as the PC isn't woefully inefficient, you can have a great amount of fun.
For example, I've seen an orc wizard that started with a 15 Intelligence and a spellbook he'd stolen from a farmer that was a low level wizard. All of his starting spells and cantrips were the spells that he thought a farmer would want to have to tend to a farm. There were a lot of inventive uses of magic by the wizard. He was not great with combat magic - at first, but grew into a mighty Eldritch Knight over time. I'd say that he was a very inefficient character - especially at very low levels, but he was always a blast.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Okay. I get where you're coming from. I've heard about that playstyle on these boards, but it doesn't bear out in my experiences. In the games I play, clerics are actually casting Cure Wounds in combat, to bring someone from 15 up to 22; and it is sometimes the difference between success or failure in combat.
That is not my experience. We cast Prayer of Healing fairly regularly, usually while the wizard is ritual casting Detect Magic.
At your game, Healing Spirit may be a welcome relief, because your playstyle doesn't allow for the alternatives. At my game, Healing Spirit is fantastically overpowered, because the existing spells are sufficient for what we need them. (I expect there are also differences between our games in terms of pacing, and encounter difficulty.)
I would also posit that Healing Spirit was designed for the type of game I play, and balanced around the assumption that it would be used during combat, where the trade-off in action economy brings it more into line with Cure Wounds II. It was just designed poorly, because that balancing assumption is so easy to bypass. Unless someone has outside information, though, that will have to remain as speculation.
Treantmonklvl20
Explorer
That's interesting, I haven't heard before of Prayer of Healing getting regular use.
Not at all, in fact, nobody has even bothered to cast it up to this point. We tend to find rests sufficient for between combat healing, so I end up using 2nd level slots on spells I will get more use out of, like the afforementioned Pass Without Trace. Again, although I think Healing Spirit is a good spell as written (I rated it GREEN in my Xanathar's guide (4/5), which is my "good" rating, but not my best rating), it's nowhere near the most powerful spells for their level.
Pacing is all over the place in the games I play. It's not uncommon for a single encounter in a day, so between combat healing becomes irrelevant. Encounter difficulty is all over the place too, though who is DM'ing makes a big difference.
Here's my final thoughts for our conversation:
- neither of us know the intentions of the designers, so let's not bother guessing.
- I think a lot of players banned Healing Spirit under the untested assumption it would ruin their game if they allowed it.
- I suspect a lot of those same players allow Polymorph, Animate Objects, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Arcane Eye, Pass Without Trace, Goodberry, Find Familiar, Find Steed, Simulacrum, Contingency and Glyph of Warding.
- If you are worried about Xanathar's power creep from spells, I recommend looking at Find Greater Steed, Soul Cage, Absorb Elements and Thunder Step before worrying about Healing Spirit
- All those spells I mentioned are more powerful for their level than Healing Spirit, and more likely to break their game. I've undoubtedly missed many others.
I began this conversation with this observation about Rope Trick and Healing Spirit:
"I still don't get it, and nobody has been able to explain to me why one of the above spells I describe is absolutely fine, and the other breaks the game."
Considering your last post on the matter was concession that the two spells were probably similar in power level, I think I can safely say that the lack of explaination remains.
For the record (btw), I rated Rope Trick as purple (3/5) in my wizard guide - nowhere near the top of 2nd level spells.
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Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
No. Average being the baseline that the game expects PCs to be at, which as you note isn't all that powerful. You can still make a PC that is much weaker than normal and has trouble, but it's actually fairly difficult. Most of the complaints that I have seen about trap options in 3e involved people comparing those options to fully optimized PCs. There were actually very few traps.
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
I can wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, and I once played a Truenamer, so I can speak from experience.
That was pretty funny, I have to admit.
In reality, though, we covered the exact scenario in our game last night. The party decided to Rope Trick short rest after the first room of the dungeon, after fighting just two tiefling guards. (We're playing "Three Faces of Evil" from the Age of Worms adventure path.)
First, we had a civil discussion of what it means to have the 'window' that the PCs can see out of be 'centered on the rope' if the rope has been pulled into the extradimensional space. We decided that the 'window' is fixed in the same location, centered on the space where the rope entered the extradimensional space, even if the rope isn't outside the space anymore. (Other options: the 'window' closes when the rope is pulled into the space, the 'window' remains open and remains centered on the rope, even if the rope is moved within the space. Complicating matters is that the spell is silent on what happens to the rope once it is pulled into the space (is one end still fixed to a given point in the space?), and there is no explicit definition of how large the space is, only how many creatures it can hold.)
The two backup guards came out ten minutes after the party entered the rope trick, examined the area, and pulled their dead colleagues into the temple. They then remained out of sight for roughly 40 minutes -- they were reporting to the priest of Hextor, who deduced that the party was likely hiding out in a rope trick, as the only other exit from the dungeon was to climb up a 200-foot length of chain, but decided that it wasn't worth expending the resources to expose them, preferring to send his tieflings out into the chamber to report when the party emerged from the rope trick so that he could release the temple's giant boar against them.
It might have been fun to send the high priest out into the chamber to dispel the rope trick, but he's a smart guy and would rather face the party on the ground he'd already prepared for their encounter. There's basically zero chance, though, that the party was going to take that temple by surprise.
--
Pauper
You know how I like to say that optimization is a bad playstyle because it drives out all other playstyles? This is a great example of that.
--
Pauper
the Jester
Legend
XGtE has a few problematic bits, but it's hardly fair to compare it to the book that was full of stuff like the 1e cavalier, anything items, and the like. The ratio of gold to crap is much higher in Xanathar's, in my judgment.
Ancalagon
Dusty Dragon
Yup. Also a great illustration of how the myriad of choices can be an illusion once optimization is a factor...
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