D&D 5E Blessed healer and mass cure spells.

[jaelis]

I think you all are arguing in circles here because you actually agree. It might help if I try to rephrase noko's first post, now that I understand their style a little better.

You know, Mass Healing Word does not infer that the caster is included in "up to six creatures of your choice, that you can see, within range..." as the general thought is not that you can't really see yourself. The boost to the healer applies in that case. Mass Cure Wounds heals those selected by the caster and if I'm casting a radiant spell and choose myself because I'm wounded 3d8+ ability modifier gain is what I'm looking for rather than a 7+modifier point boost, much better odds.

"Keep in mind that the caster is not automatically included as a target for Mass Healing Word. Since the caster can see himself just fine, there is no justification to treat targeting himself any different than targeting someone else. As long as the caster targets some other creatures, the benefit from Blessed Healer will apply. This is not unbalanced: if the caster is injured enough to justify being included as a target of the spell, then the extra healing from Blessed Healer is not making much difference either way."

I don't think anyone actually disagrees with that, assuming I got it right...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, you folks seem to raise a fair point. I've also polled the players of my to 5e groups (coincidentally, both have a life cleric that's about to get to 6th level) and so far opinions are varied.

Obviously, it's your game, but the RAW is real clear. So long as at least one creature that isn't you gets healed by the spell, you get Blessed Healer. Doesn't matter if you're also healed or not, because that's entirely outside the scope of the RAW. I daresay the RAI is in line with the RAW, or we'd have seen a clarification from Crawford by now.

As for "opinions being varied", well, yes sad to say but a lot of people are simply wrong in their understanding of a lot of rules and yet very confident about it, or just think anything that sounds good needs to be "nerfed" (except stuff that applies to their own PC, of course). I'm sure I've been one of them at times. But looking at the actual RAW resolves 95% of confusion re: rules, and it's extremely clear and indisputable here.

You see that on any D&D messageboard, and in most D&D groups, in my experience. Just go through rules-question threads here. Very often the first person or the first few people to answer, literally don't understand the rules. Often they clearly haven't even read them. We saw this with the whole "chicken" deal with Hex recently (the initial bit, the later chicken thing was more nuanced and valid). Then other people will claim rules exist that don't to "counteract" that initial misunderstanding, or will make up totally unneeded house rules to "correct" a problem that only exists because they didn't read the RAW. In fact that's a major sub-genre of house-rules in 5E - maybe 30-50% of the house rules I've seen quoted on messageboards or reddit are to deal with problems that only exist because the person making the house rules doesn't know the real rules!

I remember people saying "always play it RAW first before making house rules", and thinking this was a bit silly, but with 5E, I find it to be true, because the 5E RAW is so much more solid than any previous edition (4E was close, but 3E was a long way behind, and 2E hundreds of miles behind that!).

 

[Blue]

Just to add a few bits to the target yourself:

1. You can see yourself. So you may (but are not required) to include yourself in the Mass Healing Word.

You are a creature. Can you see yourself?

D&D Sage Advice ·

www.sageadvice.eu

1a. If you are invisible, you can not target yourself with a spell that explicitly requires you see the target, such as Mass Healing Word.


2. If you target and heal someone else with Mass Healing Word, you have satisfied the requirements of the subclass feature and it will trigger once per spell. There are no limitations on healing others, including yourself, in the description of the feature.

 

[jaelis]

Just to say, I think it is a bad rule that you can't see yourself when you are invisible. It raises all kinds of questions about how you could fight effectively when you can't see your weapons. Or pick a lock, or get the right spell components out of your bag. And I don't see how the nerf to targeting yourself is needed in terms of balance.

Not saying it isn't the rule, its implied by the invisibility text and confirmed by Crawford's tweet. But I don't play that way and I haven't had any cause to regret it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just to say, I think it is a bad rule that you can't see yourself when you are invisible. It raises all kinds of questions about how you could fight effectively when you can't see your weapons. Or pick a lock, or get the right spell components out of your bag. And I don't see how the nerf to targeting yourself is needed in terms of balance.

Not saying it isn't the rule, its implied by the invisibility text and confirmed by Crawford's tweet. But I don't play that way and I haven't had any cause to regret it.

Yeah I think it's a bit dubious. You should be able to fight just fine, because you fight with proprioception, muscle memory, and so on. Anyone who has even fenced knows you don't look at your sword whilst fencing (unless something very weird is happening, like it's failing to score a point on the electric point things, even though it's bending against their jacket). You can tell were it is because of proprioception. The same would be true for the vast majority of activities. You're going by proprioception and reflex memory and training and so on.

However yes, I do agree that it opens a can of worms, because there's also a bunch of stuff where you do look at yourself, at least to some extent. Getting spell components out as fast as D&D characters can is implausible even when you can see, and without the ability to see them? Totally implausible. The same for say, picking the right potion, if the bottles were even vaguely similar in shape/feel. Picking a lock would be hard not so much because of the lock, you'd be doing that largely by feel anyway, but because you couldn't see which picks you were picking, or if they were in your hand right - at the very least it would slow you down a lot.

Basically it's a needless ruling that opens a minor can of worms. Rather out of character for Jeremy Crawford, who likes to keep cans of worms closed, by and large. Let's not even start on how it raises the question of whether it's possible to close your eyes to avoid gaze attacks or the like (I would have to say no, given the "invisible even to yourself" ruling).

 

[77IM]

Pro Tip: If you think something is clear, and others disagree with you, then by definition it is not clear.

...I think this rule, though, is pretty clear.

 

[fearsomepirate]

So basically, if you're alone in the forest and invisible, there's no way for you to get any healing by casting Mass Healing Word.

 

[jaelis]

So basically, if you're alone in the forest and invisible, there's no way for you to get any healing by casting Mass Healing Word.

That's what Mass Healing Wood is for.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Just to say, I think it is a bad rule that you can't see yourself when you are invisible. It raises all kinds of questions about how you could fight effectively when you can't see your weapons. Or pick a lock, or get the right spell components out of your bag. And I don't see how the nerf to targeting yourself is needed in terms of balance.

There's nothing in the rules about fighting that requires you to be able to see your weapons. Or a lock. Or your spell components.

It's just a simple rule: there are certain spells that can only be cast on visible targets. In Darkness? No line of sight? In a Fog Cloud? Blinded? Target's invisible? Spell doesn't work.

 

[jaelis]

There's nothing in the rules about fighting that requires you to be able to see your weapons. Or a lock. Or your spell components.

100% true. Doesn't mean I have to like it