D&D 5E The Healing Spirit Nerf=Complete Overkill

[Captain Panda]

This party has access to Leomunds Tiny hut, but somehow lacks Hit dice to heal, and has no other access to healing magic or potions?

In that example, that's actually part of my point. Even without healing spirit there are plenty of extremely efficient ways to recover hp that render an overtuned out of combat healing option redundant. However, for the sake of argument, if a party is unwise and lacks recovery options for hit points but does have a wizard, they can retreat and bubble. And I have seen this happen.

Hell, I've seen them not retreat. I've seen them Tiny Hut inside the dungeon to sleep. So at that point I have to either bring the entire dungeon to surround the bubble to teach them a lesson or sigh heavily and not derail the campaign by having monsters surround the bubble with all their friends.

 

[Blue]

I don't think that really is the assumption though. The baseline of 6-8 encounters per day is predicated on a certain amount of difficulty per encounter (not very difficult). The real assumption, to balance long and short rest classes, is 2 short-rest per long rest. This means the real "requirement" is 3 encounters per day (with a short rest between each encounter). However, if you want to keep the same daily challenge as 6-8 encounters / day, you need to increase the per encounter challenge.

I've used the above guideline and it has worked wonderfully for our group. FYI, we average about 3+/- encounters per long rest.

Encounter guidelines address two different needs. As you mention, total challenge can be balanced with fewer, more deadly encounters. However, it also deals with the balance between at-will recovery classes like the rogue or EB-only Warlock, and the long-rest-recovery classes like casters, and hybrids like paladin and barbarian.

Simply, high level spells do more per action than at-will focused characters. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. If we have a single combat a day, harking back to the 5 (or 15) minute adventuring day, casters with their ability to nova will be a lot stronger.

Now, the fun part is that at-will focused characters do do more than cantrips. So we have higher level spells > weapons > cantrips. So to balane between the classes, we need to reach a point where their efficiency per action balances out. The at-will classes are fairly even on this, so the way to do it is to have enough encounters that the long-rest-recovery classes add in enough actions doing cantrips to bring the average down from what their high level spells do.

Again, it's not enough to run them out of spells - if casters aren't spending a large number of actions with cantrips to bring their average per action down, their output well surpasses the at-will-primary characters.

There's a second aspect - some long-rest-recovery abilities are even more efficient in longer battles. A single 1 min buff lasting for 8 rounds in a bigger battle will do more than in a 3 round battle. The easiest way to show this is to think about the barbarian - a 5th level barbarian has 3 rages. Are they making better use of rage (and all the goodies it brings) if they are raging in every battle during the day (fewer tougher battles), or in half the battles per day (6-8 recommended).

Now, I'm not saying we're all DMing wrong. I am saying that the design team picked the wrong number of encounters per day to balance the classes on because no one regularly runs that many, and runs more than that as often as they run less.

So it can feel satisfying to have a few big deadly battles a day. I do it. But it favors one category of classes over another. And the short-rest recovery classes can also be advantaged or disadvantaged by the opportunities (or lack) the DM gives for those as well.

 

[Captain Panda]

Please, without comparing it to higher level spells (which offer things lower level spells don't), please show me how that's not balanced now.

Healing spirit heals, over time and at concentration cost, 3 or 4 d6 of hp at the level you get it (depending on if you're a ranger or druid, I'm assuming 14 or 16 wisdom). That's 10.5 or 14 hp for a second level slot, over time, at the cost of concentration.

Cure wounds, which is a very inefficient spell, cast at level 2 will do 2d8+2 (or 3), so: 11 or 12. It outheals the ranger's spirit, and narrowly underperforms the druid's. But cure wounds is an instant rush of healing. It also takes an action, so one must account for that as well, but the most key point here is that this is a spell that is slow, takes your concentration, and cannot be used in the vital ways that cure wounds/healing word can be used.

First, the opportunity cost. Here are some spells (won't go higher than 3) you could be concentrating on instead:

Heat metal: You'll do damage with no save, and if you target a weapon the target is either going to be disarmed or swinging at a disadvantage. One or two misses from that and you have out "healed" healing spirit, and done decent damage.

Spike growth: If you can catch even a couple enemies without strong ranged attacks in this at a bit of distance, you can stop them cold. At bare minimum it's easy to use to slow something down so it has to dash for a turn and take some damage. One ogre gets caught by this for one turn and you have outperformed healing spirit in damage prevented.

Summon beast: You have a pet with 20-30 hit points. You're either doing solid damage and controlling space, or it gets attacked and takes, at minimum, its hit points in damage. This spell is the same level as healing spirit.

Conjure Animals: And if you have this one, this is what you should be concentrating on. It lasts an hour, you should be able to get 3-4 fights of usefulness out of this. That's 3-4 combats you have a wall of meat to protect you in addition to doing top tier dps for the level. You can argue that this spell is higher level, and sure it is one level higher. But healing spirit costs the same concentration this spell does, and this one allows your team to win fights for an hour.

Almost any other option is better than healing spirit. A spell that is slow and eats your concentration needs to pay for that cost by being more effective overall.

But let's do an apples to apples comparison. Prayer of healing is a spell people always want to compare healing spirit to for some reason, but I think a closer, fairer example is aura of vitality. It's a spell that is concentration, lasts a minute, and is one that actually gets a lot of use, unlike prayer of healing.
AoV at Level 3, 20d6.
Healing spirit cast at 3, assuming 16 wisdom: 8d6.

But wait, it's worse than that, because aura of vitality is a better spell for other reasons. You can use AoV to yo-yo heal, you cannot reliably use healing spirit for the same function. So not only is AoV now overwhelmingly better at healing, whereas before the overtuned healing spirit outhealed it (and yeah, it shouldn't have), now AoV is superior in healing and in function. Tank falls down? Hit them with 2d6 healing, they're up. If you use healing spirit, you can move the spirit as a bonus action, but they are still down until the start of their turn. Better hope two kobolds don't stroll up and kick the tank in the face.

One might protest that healing spirit scales, and AoV doesn't. True enough. I do not think wasting spell slots of level 4 and higher on out of combat healing is ever a great idea, myself.

 

[cbwjm]

Except your leaving out a huge part: short vs long rest. The whole point of certain number of encounters is to balance short vs long rest. The reason they don't explicitly say 6-8 encounters is that it can balance with far fewer, but more difficult encounters. I find the sweat spot to be 3-4 encounters with 2 short rests.

You are making assumptions by reverse engineering that leads you to partial truths. If 6-8 encounters was sacrosanct, they would say it. It is not.

I was just wondering about this. 6-8 encounters has become so inherent to the thinking of people who talk about short/long rests that I thought it must have been mentioned in the DMG. From what I can see though, it just says that a party will likely need 2 short rests over a full adventuring day, I can't find anything about a set number of encounters. All this time I thought I was ignoring something in the books.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

1. Encounter require time to play, especially if you use a battle grid. 6-8 encounters means setting up 6-8 encounters. If you're only able to play 3-5 hours a week, it's actually somewhat reasonable that you don't have time to fit in 6-8 encounters unless you're literally running 6-8 connected rooms. Yes, even if they're at half difficulty like 5e encounters are. Sure, you could use two game sessions to split one adventuring day, but my experience is that few game groups do that. Most game groups want to start a session at the end of a long rest so that they don't have to remember their character state from a week or two ago at the start of the next session.

In my decades of playing D&D, I have never played in a game where long rests are limited to sessions or vice versa.
Sometimes it is convenient to end a session at a long rest, if the timing matches, particularly if the group has levelled up. However never been determined by that.
I have encountered games that do do it, however given the sample size I'd say pretty solidly less than 10%.

Wrryyyyyyy....

The DMG does not mandate 6-8 encounters. I swear nobody ever reads that section for themselves and instead takes someone else'sword for it. Running one big encounter is a bad idea, but running 6-8 is not mandated or promoted by the rules, never has been

Its a good guideline. As a DM learns, they can aim for more nuanced targets like "Even the casters are down to at-will attacks for 1/3rd of the time" on average or similar. Its in the same way that the CR system is aimed for a new DM designing encounters for new players.

If you wanted to get the same effect without eating the caster’s reaction every round, you could even just say it can only heal once per round.

That is essentially how I used it for a druid I played. Not a houserule, since the DM hadn't made a ruling on it. It was often my go-to concentration spell in combat and not encouraging a conga-line in the middle of a fight seemed sensible while still getting good use out of the spell without abusing it.

Yep, what they really want is about 2 short rest per long rest (roughly) to achieve balance between long and short rest classes. That only requires 2-3 encounters per day. You just need to make those encounters more difficult if you want to challenge the party.

That isn't quite the case. 2-3 encounters a day, even with short rests in between, will still massively favour primary casters over most other characters.

 

[Blue]

Healing spirit heals, over time and at concentration cost, 3 or 4 d6 of hp at the level you get it (depending on if you're a ranger or druid, I'm assuming 14 or 16 wisdom). That's 10.5 or 14 hp for a second level slot, over time, at the cost of concentration.

Cure wounds, which is a very inefficient spell, cast at level 2 will do 2d8+2 (or 3), so: 11 or 12. It outheals the ranger's spirit, and narrowly underperforms the druid's. But cure wounds is an instant rush of healing. It also takes an action, so one must account for that as well, but the most key point here is that this is a spell that is slow, takes your concentration, and cannot be used in the vital ways that cure wounds/healing word can be used.

First, the opportunity cost. Here are some spells (won't go higher than 3) you could be concentrating on instead:

Heat metal: You'll do damage with no save, and if you target a weapon the target is either going to be disarmed or swinging at a disadvantage. One or two misses from that and you have out "healed" healing spirit, and done decent damage.

Spike growth: If you can catch even a couple enemies without strong ranged attacks in this at a bit of distance, you can stop them cold. At bare minimum it's easy to use to slow something down so it has to dash for a turn and take some damage. One ogre gets caught by this for one turn and you have outperformed healing spirit in damage prevented.

Summon beast: You have a pet with 20-30 hit points. You're either doing solid damage and controlling space, or it gets attacked and takes, at minimum, its hit points in damage. This spell is the same level as healing spirit.

Conjure Animals: And if you have this one, this is what you should be concentrating on. It lasts an hour, you should be able to get 3-4 fights of usefulness out of this. That's 3-4 combats you have a wall of meat to protect you in addition to doing top tier dps for the level. You can argue that this spell is higher level, and sure it is one level higher. But healing spirit costs the same concentration this spell does, and this one allows your team to win fights for an hour.

Almost any other option is better than healing spirit. A spell that is slow and eats your concentration needs to pay for that cost by being more effective overall.

But let's do an apples to apples comparison. Prayer of healing is a spell people always want to compare healing spirit to for some reason, but I think a closer, fairer example is aura of vitality. It's a spell that is concentration, lasts a minute, and is one that actually gets a lot of use, unlike prayer of healing.
AoV at Level 3, 20d6.
Healing spirit cast at 3, assuming 16 wisdom: 8d6.

But wait, it's worse than that, because aura of vitality is a better spell for other reasons. You can use AoV to yo-yo heal, you cannot reliably use healing spirit for the same function. So not only is AoV now overwhelmingly better at healing, whereas before the overtuned healing spirit outhealed it (and yeah, it shouldn't have), now AoV is superior in healing and in function. Tank falls down? Hit them with 2d6 healing, they're up. If you use healing spirit, you can move the spirit as a bonus action, but they are still down until the start of their turn. Better hope two kobolds don't stroll up and kick the tank in the face.

One might protest that healing spirit scales, and AoV doesn't. True enough. I do not think wasting spell slots of level 4 and higher on out of combat healing is ever a great idea, myself.

Got it. You can not find a more efficient 2nd level in-combat healing spell. You could have said so in a lot less words. You gave examples of damage, and we have a nice ratio in Cure Wounds (d8+ability) and Inflict Wounds (3d10). So we know the designers have damage about 3 times as much for the same level spell. The amount Healing Spirit does vs. Heat Metal (the only direct damage concentration spell you listed) shows a much better ratio than this, so it's more powerful.

You did reach up to higher level spells, even after I mentioned that higher level spells let you do things lower level spells don't. So that's not part of this discussion.

Basically, it looks like you failed as hard as you can to write a long post that in no way shows more efficient 2nd level in-combat healing spell.

 

[Charlaquin]

Now, I'm not saying we're all DMing wrong. I am saying that the design team picked the wrong number of encounters per day to balance the classes on because no one regularly runs that many, and runs more than that as often as they run less.

You know, I wonder if this might have had to do with adventures they used to playtest the system. The open playtest came with conversions of Keep on the Borderlands and later Isle of Dread (and also an adventure in Blingdenstone that I think was original). Both adventures are set up in such a way that the players are likely to have many simple, short encounters in rapid succession, with little happening in-between. That might have caused skewed results, showing that the average party was indeed going through 6-8 encounters between long rests.

 

[Captain Panda]

Got it. You can not find a more efficient 2nd level in-combat healing spell.

I literally opened by showing how cure wounds can heal more efficiently if you are one of the two classes that uses the spell.

But also: goodberry, prayer of healing (which, again, almost never sees use). Three spells. There aren't that many healing spells in the game to compare it to.

I used a lot of words to demonstrate the spell is useless. You ignored the words because if you didn't you would have to admit you're wrong. I disagree that comparing a spell to a comparable spell of a single level difference is unreasonable, especially as I also compared it unfavorably to lower level spells.

 

[dave2008]

As long as you're getting 2 short rests to every long rest, the classes largely balance, and you only need 3 encounters for that.

Yes, that is what I have been saying. Did it appear I was saying something else?

I don't think that really is the assumption though. The baseline of 6-8 encounters per day is predicated on a certain amount of difficulty per encounter (not very difficult). The real assumption, to balance long and short rest classes, is 2 short-rest per long rest. This means the real "requirement" is 3 encounters per day (with a short rest between each encounter). However, if you want to keep the same daily challenge as 6-8 encounters / day, you need to increase the per encounter challenge.

I've used the above guideline and it has worked wonderfully for our group. FYI, we average about 3+/- encounters per long rest.

Yep, what they really want is about 2 short rest per long rest (roughly) to achieve balance between long and short rest classes. That only requires 2-3 encounters per day. You just need to make those encounters more difficult if you want to challenge the party.

Except your leaving out a huge part: short vs long rest. The whole point of certain number of encounters is to balance short vs long rest. The reason they don't explicitly say 6-8 encounters is that it can balance with far fewer, but more difficult encounters. I find the sweat spot to be 3-4 encounters with 2 short rests.

You are making assumptions by reverse engineering that leads you to partial truths. If 6-8 encounters was sacrosanct, they would say it. It is not.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was just wondering about this. 6-8 encounters has become so inherent to the thinking of people who talk about short/long rests that I thought it must have been mentioned in the DMG. From what I can see though, it just says that a party will likely need 2 short rests over a full adventuring day, I can't find anything about a set number of encounters. All this time I thought I was ignoring something in the books.

It’s in chapter 3 of the DMG, under the header, “The Adventuring Day.”

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.

In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely toprogress.

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.

So, 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters is what the game expects players to be able to handle in one day, and that is the baseline the math is built around. Again, this is not a mandate, you can deviate from this and it’ll be fine. It’s just the assumption around which things are balanced. The fulcrum. And while this isn’t explicitly stated in the DMG, it is evident from an analysis of the math underlying various systems, and from anecdotal experience.