Quickleaf
Legend
Yes, I concur about Counterspell, Healing spirit, and Leomund's tiny hut. Also agree that Guidance and Suggestion could use work.
Counterspell feels too binary and there is no significant risk involved. I've considered removing it as a spell and making it an ability any arcane spellcaster can attempt as a reaction using thematically opposed spells (e.g. a fireball might be countered using watery sphere), potentially with some kind of roll similar to the optional scroll mishaps or potion mixing tables in the DMG. I like the potential for a fireball counterspelled by watery sphere to erupt unpredictably with a concussive blast of steam.
Healing spirit is broken when it comes to healing outside of combat. The druid player in my party has used this spell after combats a whole lot, and since I didn't have the foresight to ban it in advance, we just laugh off the "conga line healing." I know Jeremy Crawford defended it since "their default design has every encounter assuming the PCs are at full hit points", but even James Haeck writing at D&D Beyond expressed the sentiment that healing spirit breaks down outside of combat. And that's not even addressing the overall impact it has on Hit Dice over the course of an adventuring day.
Leomund's tiny hut falls into a small category of spells that change the way overland travel / long-term exploration looks (e.g. I'd include wind walk in this category). What bothers me most about this spell is its internal inconsistence – the spell descriptions describes it as a dome (definition of dome implying no floor) while the range lists it as a hemisphere (definition of hemisphere implies a floor). Even Jeremy Crawford contradicts himself in his tweets replying about the spell, initially going with the floor-less dome interpretation and a year later pivoting to go with the yes-floor hemisphere interpretation.
Guidance is a bit different in that in some cases it feels right within the narrative and in others it feels dead wrong narratively, depending on how the player uses it. At my table, over time I saw it become a "slap on bonus" that rarely received any description or explanation. Someone about to jump over a slippery pit? Guidance. Someone attempting to remember a bit of lore about undead you have no personal experience with? Guidance. Someone going to haggle with a goblin merchant? Guidance. It became so ubiquitous as to feel distinctly un-magical. It was route. And, at least at my table, it didn't engender interesting roleplaying. I was fortunate to have a player who recognized these issues and chose to swap it out himself.
Suggestion I've seen inspire sufficient debate and questions at the table that I wonder if it could use a list of example "reasonable" suggestions, much in the same way the wish spell lists a few things you can do with wish before reaching the realm of DM adjudication.
Speaking personally, nothing eats up time at the table like trying to parse a spell that's either over-written, under-written, or has convoluted explanations hidden on Twitter or Sage Advice (wall of force acting as total cover preventing line-of-sight spellcasting? I am looking at you). I've found that I really dislike adjudicating spells on the technical level – on the imagination level, I love it – but the technical level of design intent? Ugh, that can be a real guessing game. It seems like some spell technicality comes up at least every 3 sessions for my current group. Of course, 5e spells are a vast improvement over, say, AD&D and I understand there are a lot of spells to design and playtest in the PHB alone, and things are going to slip through the cracks, but when they do slip through the cracks it's a drag as a DM to be the one to make sense of it all.
Counterspell feels too binary and there is no significant risk involved. I've considered removing it as a spell and making it an ability any arcane spellcaster can attempt as a reaction using thematically opposed spells (e.g. a fireball might be countered using watery sphere), potentially with some kind of roll similar to the optional scroll mishaps or potion mixing tables in the DMG. I like the potential for a fireball counterspelled by watery sphere to erupt unpredictably with a concussive blast of steam.
Healing spirit is broken when it comes to healing outside of combat. The druid player in my party has used this spell after combats a whole lot, and since I didn't have the foresight to ban it in advance, we just laugh off the "conga line healing." I know Jeremy Crawford defended it since "their default design has every encounter assuming the PCs are at full hit points", but even James Haeck writing at D&D Beyond expressed the sentiment that healing spirit breaks down outside of combat. And that's not even addressing the overall impact it has on Hit Dice over the course of an adventuring day.
Leomund's tiny hut falls into a small category of spells that change the way overland travel / long-term exploration looks (e.g. I'd include wind walk in this category). What bothers me most about this spell is its internal inconsistence – the spell descriptions describes it as a dome (definition of dome implying no floor) while the range lists it as a hemisphere (definition of hemisphere implies a floor). Even Jeremy Crawford contradicts himself in his tweets replying about the spell, initially going with the floor-less dome interpretation and a year later pivoting to go with the yes-floor hemisphere interpretation.
Guidance is a bit different in that in some cases it feels right within the narrative and in others it feels dead wrong narratively, depending on how the player uses it. At my table, over time I saw it become a "slap on bonus" that rarely received any description or explanation. Someone about to jump over a slippery pit? Guidance. Someone attempting to remember a bit of lore about undead you have no personal experience with? Guidance. Someone going to haggle with a goblin merchant? Guidance. It became so ubiquitous as to feel distinctly un-magical. It was route. And, at least at my table, it didn't engender interesting roleplaying. I was fortunate to have a player who recognized these issues and chose to swap it out himself.
Suggestion I've seen inspire sufficient debate and questions at the table that I wonder if it could use a list of example "reasonable" suggestions, much in the same way the wish spell lists a few things you can do with wish before reaching the realm of DM adjudication.
Speaking personally, nothing eats up time at the table like trying to parse a spell that's either over-written, under-written, or has convoluted explanations hidden on Twitter or Sage Advice (wall of force acting as total cover preventing line-of-sight spellcasting? I am looking at you). I've found that I really dislike adjudicating spells on the technical level – on the imagination level, I love it – but the technical level of design intent? Ugh, that can be a real guessing game. It seems like some spell technicality comes up at least every 3 sessions for my current group. Of course, 5e spells are a vast improvement over, say, AD&D and I understand there are a lot of spells to design and playtest in the PHB alone, and things are going to slip through the cracks, but when they do slip through the cracks it's a drag as a DM to be the one to make sense of it all.
), its kinda dull for everyone at the table. 
