D&D 5E Healing spirit has been updated?

[Greenstone.Walker]

What I wrote is correct: it can only affect a target once per round. But since you missed the meaning I will be more explicit: it can only affect each target once per round. Sorry for the confusion.

That is not correct, both pre- and post-errata.

On their turn, a player moves their character into and out of the healing spirit. They get healed. They Ready Movement. On someone else's turn in the same round, they use their Reaction and move into and out of the healing spirit. They get healed. Later in the same round, someone else uses Shove to push the character into the healing spirit. They get healed.

There is 3 instances of healing in the same round.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It is my belief that there is a contingent of 5E D&D players who don't want characters to be larger than life heroes (people who despite their birth circumstances are a clearly above the average humans in the world inherently) as opposed to being normal Joe Schmoes that decided to put down a plough share and pick up a sword and go adventuring. They want it to return to a time when there was no short rest, spellcasters ran out of spells and had to shoot crossbows, and PCs made characters and half of them died on the first adventure.

That's an unfair characterization. Short rest healing doesn't make characters more heroic; it makes them less heroic. If short rest healing exists, then your ability to keep going in spite of your "wounds" is not even worth mentioning, because you were never actually wounded in the first place. When the only reasonable way to recover HP is with magic, we're much more free to describe HP loss as being substantially physical, and thus anyone who can survive such wounds is much more heroic by comparison.

Likewise, there's no correlation between rare magic and wanting characters to die. Many players would be happy with characters who generally survive their adventures, while also wanting to keep magic as rare and special. The only thing that at-will cantrips add to the game, is that it's less interesting when the wizard uses magic, because they do it all the time.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's an unfair characterization. Short rest healing doesn't make characters more heroic; it makes them less heroic. If short rest healing exists, then your ability to keep going in spite of your "wounds" is not even worth mentioning, because you were never actually wounded in the first place. When the only reasonable way to recover HP is with magic, we're much more free to describe HP loss as being substantially physical, and thus anyone who can survive such wounds is much more heroic by comparison.

Likewise, there's no correlation between rare magic and wanting characters to die. Many players would be happy with characters who generally survive their adventures, while also wanting to keep magic as rare and special. The only thing that at-will cantrips add to the game, is that it's less interesting when the wizard uses magic, because they do it all the time.

You have a much different notion of heroism than I do.

 

[Essafah]

The problem wasn't that Healing Spirit healed too much; the problem was that it healed too much in comparison to other spells. That is a game balance and design issue and has little to nothing to do with one's preferred play-style.

Again my counter argument to this is not to look at spells in vacuum because spells are limited by class in addition to level. The spell was balanced by the fact that the classes that had access to it generally do not heal as well paladins and clerics who have access to a wider range of healing and restorative spells. Even in the section on spells it mentions spells are generally compared by level. Generally, meaning in addition to general there will sometimes be specifics like the casting time of a spell, or the material components of a spell, or the classes that have access to as a balancing factor.

 

[Essafah]

That's an unfair characterization. Short rest healing doesn't make characters more heroic; it makes them less heroic. If short rest healing exists, then your ability to keep going in spite of your "wounds" is not even worth mentioning, because you were never actually wounded in the first place. When the only reasonable way to recover HP is with magic, we're much more free to describe HP loss as being substantially physical, and thus anyone who can survive such wounds is much more heroic by comparison.

I suspect many people may disagree with your idea of heroic as many (mostly OSR fans) will disagree with mine. Short rests to me or heroic because they allow people to heal without magic and keep the action moving so literally someone could be like a Conan, etc and keep battling and keep going through an adventure without having to heal. Indeed, my only problem with the short rest in 5E that it is an hour instead of 5 min. The way I envision short rest is PCs have a tough battle but they are in the dungeon and need to keep going so after fighting a tough opponent they stop and catch their breaths (Short rests) and keep adventuring. Catching a breath should not take one hour which is why when it is my turn to DM I will be implementing the faster short rests rules in the DMG.

Likewise, there's no correlation between rare magic and wanting characters to die. Many players would be happy with characters who generally survive their adventures, while also wanting to keep magic as rare and special. The only thing that at-will cantrips add to the game, is that it's less interesting when the wizard uses magic, because they do it all the time.

Rare magic is fine if the PCs have buy-in to it. I personally like the change in D&D5 5E where characters are powerful because they themselves are powerful vs. the magic item they have. To me a magical sword should not be about giving a bonus to hit which is needed to pay a feat tax but rather it should be some kind of iconic item that expands the characters repertoire (a frost blade to do cold dmg, etc) vs helping her hit. The character should not need a + to hit from a weapon because she should already be highly proficient at that. So when I run magic items are rarer but magical spell abilities that characters possess are not. In my experience, cantrips which is a carry over from At-will spells from last edition (Thank you 4E!) are a great addition to the game because when PCs play a caster they want to be a caster not a crossbowman.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Short rests to me or heroic because they allow people to heal without magic and keep the action moving so literally someone could be like a Conan, etc and keep battling and keep going through an adventure without having to heal.

Nobody can take a short rest to heal, though. Not without magic, at least. In 4E or 5E, you can take a short rest to recover HP, but that's just catching your breath. You could also take a short rest to catch your breath in older editions, but it wasn't tied to the HP mechanic.

The other change that they added to the game, alongside fast healing, is that enemies became much more accurate and combat became much longer. In 2E or 3E, Conan could breeze through half a dozen battles without stopping, but it would mostly involve easy fights where he doesn't really get hit at all. In 4E or 5E, Conan can still breeze through half a dozen battles without stopping; the only difference is that now his Hit Points are going up and down. It's the same narrative taking place, but with different (unnecessarily complicated) game mechanics for it.

In my experience, cantrips which is a carry over from At-will spells from last edition (Thank you 4E!) are a great addition to the game because when PCs play a caster they want to be a caster not a crossbowman.

Some people want their casters to be one-trick ponies who can only use magic, and can't do anything else. Coming from older editions, I find that to be a very limiting perspective.

A wizard isn't supposed to be less than a non-wizard. You don't forget how to use your hands, just because you've learned to cast spells. A wizard is a person who has added magic to their skill-set. Of course they should be able to fire a crossbow! I mean, what kind of weird entity isn't even capable of using a simple mechanical device?

 

[dave2008]

That's an unfair characterization. Short rest healing doesn't make characters more heroic; it makes them less heroic.

Unless you assume short rest healing is something only available to heroic types (adventurers), which I kinda think is the assumption. Not saying that is good or bad.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nobody can take a short rest to heal, though. Not without magic, at least. In 4E or 5E, you can take a short rest to recover HP, but that's just catching your breath. You could also take a short rest to catch your breath in older editions, but it wasn't tied to the HP mechanic.

The other change that they added to the game, alongside fast healing, is that enemies became much more accurate and combat became much longer. In 2E or 3E, Conan could breeze through half a dozen battles without stopping, but it would mostly involve easy fights where he doesn't really get hit at all. In 4E or 5E, Conan can still breeze through half a dozen battles without stopping; the only difference is that now his Hit Points are going up and down. It's the same narrative taking place, but with different (unnecessarily complicated) game mechanics for it.


Some people want their casters to be one-trick ponies who can only use magic, and can't do anything else. Coming from older editions, I find that to be a very limiting perspective.

A wizard isn't supposed to be less than a non-wizard. You don't forget how to use your hands, just because you've learned to cast spells. A wizard is a person who has added magic to their skill-set. Of course they should be able to fire a crossbow! I mean, what kind of weird entity isn't even capable of using a simple mechanical device?

Seems reasonable that wizards should be significantly worse with a crossbow than martial characters. Lower Accuracy and Lower reload speed would come to mind.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Seems reasonable that wizards should be significantly worse with a crossbow than martial characters. Lower Accuracy and Lower reload speed would come to mind.

I agree. And the numbers back that up, at least in 3E. (I don't recall whether wizards could even use crossbows, in earlier editions.) Of course, there's a difference between being worse than someone else at a given task, and being so bad at a task that you would never even try it. A low-level wizard in 3E is worse with a crossbow than a fighter would be, but the still use it.

Martial types are supposed to be better than caster types when it comes to at-will efficacy, anyway, to make up for spellcasters being better when they go all-out. That doesn't actually change at all, whether the wizard's inferior at-will action involves a crossbow or a firebolt. It's just a cosmetic choice, whether you want magic to be more common or less common.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I agree. And the numbers back that up, at least in 3E. (I don't recall whether wizards could even use crossbows, in earlier editions.) Of course, there's a difference between being worse than someone else at a given task, and being so bad at a task that you would never even try it. A low-level wizard in 3E is worse with a crossbow than a fighter would be, but the still use it.

Martial types are supposed to be better than caster types when it comes to at-will efficacy, anyway, to make up for spellcasters being better when they go all-out. That doesn't actually change at all, whether the wizard's inferior at-will action involves a crossbow or a firebolt. It's just a cosmetic choice, whether you want magic to be more common or less common.

Wizards are just as good if not better than using a crossbow than your average peasant.

Are we saying that someone with no training should be better than average with a weapon?