D&D (2024) December 1st UA Spell changes

[James Gasik]

Do they? I haven't seen any numbers on this, so I have no idea. In my games, players seem to feel otherwise - that it is sometimes fun and produces memorable moments, but most of the good times come from doing almost anything but combat. I agree that you need it to add consequences and danger to the story, but geez do I wish it was more streamlined and took half as long.

Going to the discussion of healing, if you buff healing you really alter the base design of the game, and would have to revamp a ton of other stuff. 5e combat is already extremely low stakes. If you buffed healing and left everything else as is, there would either be almost no risk, or DMs would have to offset the increased healing with harder hitting foes, so it would still be a wash. Or you could balance it by raising creature DPS but again...it's a wash. But you can't just buff healing and not expect anything else to change.

I mean if you want hard numbers, good luck. I don't know where anyone would get them. So all I have is anecdotal evidence on this. Even in 4e, which could have very long combats (it wasn't unusual to have a fight take up to an hour through a combination of multiple enemies with varying abilities, interesting terrain or environmental factors, players dithering about the best course of action to take, and players using multiple abilities in a turn, not to mention both sides using out of turn actions), players would be quite happy to beat stuff up, even when other avenues of progression exist.

When I played 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, which were mechanically dense experiences with a great many rules to recall, decision points for characters, and a pile of feats, class abilities, races, spells, and magic items to sift through, forcing you to learn how to evaluate them in order not to end up with a dud character, time and again, I would see people build combat characters, and relish any opportunity to turn enemies into piles of treasure and xp.

I got into 5e through AL, and it was much the same- even when I started playing home games with people I met through AL, optimizing a character for combat, and waiting to see what kind of crazy battles they could experience was a main draw.

While people might complain about a combat being grueling or hard during the encounter, never once did I hear anyone say "hey, maybe we could have less intense fights, or have a session more about roleplay or exploration?".

Things which I'm totally on board with, because when I'm in a combat, my first priority is to end the fight as soon as possible, to get to the interesting parts. It's not that I can't derive some visceral enjoyment out of rolling big numbers, but I'm more of a strategist- I see combat as a puzzle to be solved, and I want to make the optimal moves to end it in the best way possible for my party.

Most TTRPG's are terrible combat simulators in the first place, yet again, it's been my experience that players seem to enjoy wanting to fight in them, even if the rules are terrible.

I mean, for a non-D&D example, I played Vampire the Masquerade since the 90's. And for decades now, despite the fact that, as a potentially immortal being who should want to avoid combat like the plague, and the fact that the combat systems are some of the most atrocious experiences I've ever had in an RPG, people will still make combat characters and quite happily get into a fight.

I don't understand it, but that's how it is.

Now, in all fairness, yes, there are players who don't care for combat, and prefer roleplaying and story. And I know quite a few of them. Some, in fact, have no head for combat mechanics at all, and once you start talking about die rolls and modifiers and maneuvers, their eyes get this glazed over look.

But they always seem to be in the minority. I can't explain it, and I'm sure a lot of people will chime in about how they've had the opposite experience and cannot conceive of my reality, lol. But it is what it is.

 

[Maxperson]

The Aboleth which can hit three times for 12 damage, curse you with a disease to be unable to recover hp unless underwater, which cannot be removed except by a 6th level spell? And of course, we all know Aboleths are physical threats, not like they can enslave the Fighter to carve you up for far more damage.

The Cambion, who can attack twice for 11 damage and can charm people as well.

The Chuul who can attack twice for 11 damage, and sets up for a 1 minute paralysis

The Cyclops who attacks twice for 19 damage or once for 28 damage. (BTW, hill giants do two attacks of 18)

The Barlgura who attacks once for 9 and twice for 11 damage.

The Glabrezu who can attack twice for 16 and twice for 7 (or cast a spell)

Number of attacks is irrelevant. We're talking about whether A hit(singular) can take down someone with 18. Can attack twice = can miss twice, can hit once and miss once, or can hit twice. The latter is not guaranteed.

No, we are talking healing. And I'm not cherry picking. I talked earlier about how cure wounds can't counter burning hands.

Okay. And?

Also, again, stop being disingenuous with the monster's abilities. Cure wounds takes your entire action. That dragon doesn't do 15 damage (it also doesn't have a tail attack at all). Instead it does three attacks for 13+13+20 or 46 damage. Sure, you could cast a 2nd level cure wounds as a life cleric, healing 2d8+4+4 for 17 hp, and stop one of those attacks. But you only have three 2nd level spells.

Disingenuous is assuming that monsters always hit with all attacks. And...

"Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to h it, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d8 + 8) bludgeoning damage." You should read the dragons you are using better. You're the one who used an adult red dragon, not me.

 

[Stalker0]

Take for instance an opening move by a CR 10 Young Adult Red Dragon. They breathe fire and hit the five members of the party for 56 damage. That is 280 damage from a single, rechargable, action. What can a cleric do about that?

To be fair, this is the alpha strike of one of the most physical imposing creatures in the game by design. Regardless of which side you are on this debate, this is simply a poor example to prove any point about healing, as this is certainly not the standard fare.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Um... all designers have "rules lawyery" knowledge about the design they made. So... huh? Or are you saying that you can't introduce a spell of the appropriate power level if X percentage of players aren't saavy enough to realize that the other versions are incredibly weak?

I'm really not sure what this sentence is meant to convey here

Ok. I reiterate: you only get healing for everyone if you dance throught the spirit's square.
If it was meant to heal more than one person, it would not require such a mechanic.

I don't think it was the intended design and the designers were fast to nerf it, because it seems, that it was indeed not intended.

To the power: no, you can't introduce a single spell that is so much more powerful that it makes healing between combats that trivial compared to anything else.
It is like: fighters don't do enough damage with one handed weapons, so splatbook x has "the katana" which is finesse and deals 3d8 damage. It does nothing for the root of the problem and makes the game boring, because every fighter now has to take that weapon or feel way underpowered.
It also steps on the two weapon users' feet who might bot have taken great weapon and polearm master.

So if the designers intended to heal more than 1 person per round, they should have made the area of effect bigger (spirit's square and adjacent squares or so) and limit the healing to 1 per round on all those squares.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Do they? I haven't seen any numbers on this, so I have no idea. In my games, players seem to feel otherwise - that it is sometimes fun and produces memorable moments, but most of the good times come from doing almost anything but combat. I agree that you need it to add consequences and danger to the story, but geez do I wish it was more streamlined and took half as long.

Going to the discussion of healing, if you buff healing you really alter the base design of the game, and would have to revamp a ton of other stuff. 5e combat is already extremely low stakes. If you buffed healing and left everything else as is, there would either be almost no risk, or DMs would have to offset the increased healing with harder hitting foes, so it would still be a wash. Or you could balance it by raising creature DPS but again...it's a wash. But you can't just buff healing and not expect anything else to change.

It will alter the game, but that doesn't mean it will alter it hyper-drastically.

After all, you state that there would be "almost no risk" but... does every fight need to be a risk of PCs dropping to zero? I certainly don't think so, that seems not only rather silly but against how the game is designed now. Additionally, you already acknowledge the chance of PC death is low as the game is designed, and we have the constant discussion about how Healing word is the most powerful spell in the game because it prevents death as a bonus action. Doubling all healing wouldn't change that, but it would make OTHER strategies more viable.

Instead of making all the play and counter-play circle around 0 hp characters and how often DMs attack them, you could actually deal with healing vs damage as a straight concept. You could have people who want to play pacifist healers ACTUALLY benefit the party by doing nothing but healing, because their healing will be significant enough that it will contribute to victory.

I mean, I've already seen people talking about how the new Cleric's divine spark is mediocre damage but far too much healing. They are the same amount. 30 damage =/= 30 healing in the meta and that is bizarre to me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Number of attacks is irrelevant. We're talking about whether A hit(singular) can take down someone with 18. Can attack twice = can miss twice, can hit once and miss once, or can hit twice. The latter is not guaranteed.

No we aren't. The single hit comes from those enemies who deal single hits, not from multi-attacking foes. Even in the post you were quoting, I referenced this exact thing with the hook horror and went through it. We are talking about a single ACTION.

Okay. And?

If the most powerful 1st level heal in the entire game can't counter the damage from a 1st level spell.... isn't that a problem? Doesn't it show that damage =/= healing? And again, single ACTION not single attack.

Disingenuous is assuming that monsters always hit with all attacks. And...

If a monster misses then your healing wasn't needed. Notably, monsters with multi-attack do not have less accurate attacks than single target monsters. Additionally, this is about comparing damage to healing, not accuracy. Because guess what? A Barbarian granting advantage (not raging) and having an AC of 13 is trivially easy for a creature with a +9 to hit, while a Bladesinger with magical gear to increase AC and the shield spell, with Bladesong active to push their AC to 27 isn't.

And we aren't comparing builds, a healer shouldn't be balanced as more or less effective depending on the AC of their party member, that's silly.

"Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to h it, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d8 + 8) bludgeoning damage." You should read the dragons you are using better. You're the one who used an adult red dragon, not me.

You should read other people's posts better. It would make you look less silly.

Take for instance an opening move by a CR 10 Young Adult Red Dragon. They breathe fire and hit the five members of the party for 56 damage.

Of course, you could also read the monster stat block better, and notice that the Adult Red Dragon is CR 17, not CR 10, and their breath weapon does 63 damage, not 56. You really had every single chance here.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If a monster misses then your healing wasn't needed. Notably, monsters with multi-attack do not have less accurate attacks than single target monsters. Additionally, this is about comparing damage to healing, not accuracy. Because guess what? A Barbarian granting advantage (not raging) and having an AC of 13 is trivially easy for a creature with a +9 to hit, while a Bladesinger with magical gear to increase AC and the shield spell, with Bladesong active to push their AC to 27 isn't.

So we could just make healing 3 times as powerful, but have it only affext you on a roll of 1 and 2 on a d6?
This would be 3 times as good as before?

Edit: what about a ray of healing?
You need to hit your target and it does 3 times as mich healing as healing word?

 

[Chaosmancer]

To be fair, this is the alpha strike of one of the most physical imposing creatures in the game by design. Regardless of which side you are on this debate, this is simply a poor example to prove any point about healing, as this is certainly not the standard fare.

Sure, it isn't the standard fare, but it isn't actually the most physically imposing creature. That'd be the Ancient Red Dragon who does 91 per creature, this is a young adult, as CR 10. This isn't supposed to be a challenging fight for a party of level 15 characters, and yet the Cleric with their 8th level spell slots has no hope of countering this damage. Not even close.

And actually, let's take that truly terrifying single most imposing creature. It unleashes that breath weapon and does 90 damage to the party. Can the cleric fully heal a single party member? Only with a 9th level spell, Power Word Heal, or Mass Heal. The Heal spell is too little, and it is the third best amount of healing in the game behind those two which both heal truly massive amounts.


And it isn't like 70 or more damage is impossible at high CRs. The average damage of a CR 14 creature is supposed to be 70, and that's the best a cleric can do without 9th level spells gotten at LV 17. This is just the extreme end demonstration that healers are always behind the 8-ball. They cannot output enough healing to deal with at-will attacks, or to counter single massive attacks. This is part of why some people say things like Counterspell is the best healing spell in the game, because it can prevent more damage to the party than a cleric could ever possibly heal with a 3rd level slot.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ok. I reiterate: you only get healing for everyone if you dance throught the spirit's square.
If it was meant to heal more than one person, it would not require such a mechanic.

You don't need to "dance through". Creatures can occupy the same 5ft space outside of combat. Ever seen a football huddle? And if that was what they wanted to fix, it would have been a trivial fix. "One creature within the spirit's square". It was absolutely meant to heal more than one person per round though, that is why it is worded the way it is.

I don't think it was the intended design and the designers were fast to nerf it, because it seems, that it was indeed not intended.

There are far easier ways to make it heal only one person per round if that was the intent. It wasn't the intent.

To the power: no, you can't introduce a single spell that is so much more powerful that it makes healing between combats that trivial compared to anything else.

If every other healing spell is too weak, then this one is actually on-par. And why is it bad to make healing between combats easy with a 2nd level slot?

It is like: fighters don't do enough damage with one handed weapons, so splatbook x has "the katana" which is finesse and deals 3d8 damage. It does nothing for the root of the problem and makes the game boring, because every fighter now has to take that weapon or feel way underpowered.
It also steps on the two weapon users' feet who might bot have taken great weapon and polearm master.

But if the problem is that 1-handed weapons don't do enough damage, and "the katana" actually does the proper amount of damage for a 1-handed weapon, instead of nerfing it to do too little damage, shouldn't you buff everything else to do enough damage?

It sounds like what you are saying is "We have a general problem, this specific thing doesn't have that general problem and actually works. So we need to break this thing so it has the same problem, then fix the general problem" And that's just bizarre to me.

So if the designers intended to heal more than 1 person per round, they should have made the area of effect bigger (spirit's square and adjacent squares or so) and limit the healing to 1 per round on all those squares.

You realize that this doesn't solve any of your actual complaints right? Except that you think it looks stupid to "Dance through the space" which you don't need to do. You'd still be able to heal the entire party 10d6 between combat. All this does is make it worse IN combat, when that is when it is least problematic.

So we could just make healing 3 times as powerful, but have it only affect you on a roll of 1 and 2 on a d6?
This would be 3 times as good as before?

Making it more powerful, but less reliable does not fix the issue, no. Why would you think that is a viable solution? This just offers the chance to not only not deal with the enemies in any capacity, but risk wasting your entire turn.

Edit: what about a ray of healing?
You need to hit your target and it does 3 times as mich healing as healing word?

As a 1st level, bonus action spell? Again, no one would take it. Because if you hit, you have done nothing to defeat the enemy. And if you miss, you have done nothing at all. The risks are not balanced here.


Let's try a different tactic to explain this instead of me just saying "unreliable healing but more is bad" . Let's white room for a second.

You have two warriors who are equally matched. Each Warrior has 50 hp and deals 10 damage on an attack. At this stage, whoever wins initiative likely wins. However, 2 - 1 is an unfair match, so the warrior who has a cleric on their side will win.

But, what should the cleric do if they have a choice between healing 5 hp, or dealing 7 damage?

The enemy warrior wins initiative and begins striking, in 5 rounds your ally will lose. If you heal 5 hp every round, then your ally will win, with 25 hp left, in round 5. But if you deal 7 damage every round, then your ally wins in round 3 with 30 hp left. You have left them with more health and they have won victory sooner. Dealing damage "heals" more than healing.

Now, you can only heal 3 times during the fight, before you are completely out of healing. What leaves your ally with the most health? Just attacking and doing zero healing. Again. I'm sure there is some mathematical way to turn this around, so that you can heal enough that even if you miss healing X% of the time, you will leave your ally with more than 30 hp, but with limited resources for healing, making it also unreliable doesn't actually make it the better choice.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Snip.

I disagree with your resonings and prefer not to defute your arguments step by step.
I just iterate: having one clearly more powerful spell or weapon is not a fix for the underlying problem. It just makes the game more one dimensional.

If this is how you like your game to be balanced. Ok. But it is not good game design.

@unreliable spell: why do you think, hit chance does not have anything to do with average damage vs healing rate?