D&D General Does Beacon of Hope maximize the damage from Vampiric Touch?

[Silam]

Seems like by the RAW it might.

Beacon of Hope​

Level 3 Abjuration (Cleric)
Casting Time: Action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Choose any number of creatures within range. For the duration, each target has Advantage on Wisdom saving throws and Death Saving Throws and regains the maximum number of Hit Points possible from any healing.

Vampiric Touch​

Level 3 Necromancy (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)
Casting Time: Action
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon life force from others to heal your wounds. Make a melee spell attack against one creature within reach. On a hit, the target takes 3d6 Necrotic damage, and you regain Hit Points equal to half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt.
Until the spell ends, you can make the attack again on each of your turns as a Magic action, targeting the same creature or a different one.
Using a Higher-Level Spell Slot. The damage increases by 1d6 for each spell slot level above 3.

Either way, whether it maximizes the damage or not, it seems fairly clear that it should maximize the healing. It does not say that if/when you roll dices for an effect that directly and exclusively produces healing, then you can maximize those dices. It is defined more broadly than that: regains the maximum number of Hit Points possible from any healing.

As for Vampiric Touch, it is very unambiguously described as a healing effect, in the very first sentence: siphon life force from others to heal your wounds.

Therefore, a Vamp Touch under the Bacon should heal a flat 9 HP per successful melee spell attack hit, +3 more per upcasted spell slot level.

The big question then is: does it only maximize the healing, while still rolling for damage? If so, then the spell’s very precisely defined mechanics are derailed, and it can even lead to somewhat weird outcomes like rolling 3 necrotic damage but regaining 9 HPs, possibly even letting two lucky mages have an infinite loop of HP going between them (which clearly goes against the intent of Vampiric Touch).

But if we want to maintain the clearly defined mechanics of both of the spells, then the only way to achieve that is to ensure that the ratio of necrotic damage to healing remains 2-to-1, and that means the damage must be maximized as a side-effect of the healing being maximized.

Are there any other spells or effects besides Vampiric Touch that have interesting interactions with the Bacon?

 

[aco175]

I would le the PC gain the full amount of damage dealt from Vampiric Touch. The 'max number of HP possible from any healing' crossed with 'takes 3d6 necrotic and gains half the amount of necrotic damage dealt.' I can see this to mean the max damage is also the max healing.

I could also see this to be that the max you can gain is static at half the amount dealt already. It is already the 'max' at half since there is no variable such as deal 3d6 damage and gain 1d6 of this as healing. Same as if the spell said deal 3d6 damage and gain 5hp, the 5hp is the amount and is maxed already.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My instinct would be the same as @aco175 's second paragraph, which is that the healing amount is based precisely upon the damage dealt from the spell. Beacon of Hope has no impact on Vampiric Touch's damage dealt, thus the damage amount is whatever you roll for the attack. As a result, the healing it produces is not variable-- it is precisely 1/2 of that damage (and thus already at its "maximum".)

Obviously every DM can interpret the rule in their own way, but that is probably how I would personally rule it-- Beacon of Hope does not interact with Vampiric Touch.

 

[Li Shenron]

Since Vampiric Touch transfers HP, and the randomness is at the source, I would say no.

 

[Silam]

Thanks for chiming in. I think the RAI is that Bacon should not affect damage dealt, and maybe even that it should not affect the Vamp Touch healing either.

But in my opinion the RAW is leaning strongly towards maximizing the healing, and leaning slightly towards maximizing the damage as well.

Regarding the RAI, Crawford put out a Sage Advice in 2017 about a very similar case (interaction of the Bacon with the Life Transference spell, rather than Vamp Touch). And while Life Transference (from XGE) had not been reprinted since then, so one might argue that the SA is still valid as far as that specific combo is concerned, the Bacon spell has been reprinted in the 2024 PHB and therefore that outdated SA loses its validity, and the RAW regains its full legal strength. It is especially clear since the community voiced that they had doubts about the RAI, Crawford addressed the question, it was recorded in a SA, and later during the editing of 2024 the designers chose to ignore the SA and not clarify the Bacon spell.

So we are left in this awkward position of RAI (which may or may not have changed) vs RAW (which definitely did not change, and has been officially reaffirmed).

If we look at the key passage from Vamp Touch:

On a hit, the target takes 3d6 Necrotic damage, and you regain Hit Points equal to half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt.

We see that two results (separated by "and") happen on a hit. If the wording had been "and then", I think there could have been a stronger argument that these two results happen sequentially, and therefore "by the time" we get to determining the amount of the healing, the prior factor of damage determination has already been fixed, and therefore the healing is effectively static (i.e., @aco175 ‘s 2nd interpretation). But since there is no such structure, I have two assume that these two results not only stem from the same trigger ("on a hit") but also happen simultaneously. At the instant before the hit, neither the damage amount nor the healing amount are fixed, and when the hit lands, both are determined as part of a single resolution, with the 2:1 ratio applied. As part of determining these amounts, we need to take all relevant effects into account.

Is the Bacon Touch mage hitting a Monk 13+ who uses their Reaction to reduce the damage taken (via Deflect Energy)? If so, then the damage dealt is reduced, and the healing must also be reduced accordingly. Same goes for resistance to necrotic damage, or any other effect that would reduce the "damage dealt".

And likewise on the healing side of the equation, if any effect increases the amount healed, that needs to be resolved, and it will affect the damage dealt as part of the 2:1 ratio. The Bacon spell is one example, but if the mage casting Vamp Touch happened to be a Life Cleric, that would also increase the amount healed (though since 2024 it would only do so on the first round Vamp Touch is cast, not on subsequent rounds). And if the mage had Chill Touch affecting them, then they could not regain any HP at all, and that should mean Vamp Touch does zero damage, even on a hit.

Balance-wise I don’t think any of the above is a problem. Gameplay-wise, maybe some DMs/tables might find the simultaneous effect interaction a little harder to deal with, and might prefer to make the effects sequential (as if the spell was written with "and then") to streamline combat, and that is a completely reasonable take.

As I always say, whatever works at your table is great and the DM’s word is the law. I’ll never argue with that.

My only interest is to explore the RAW and its downstream implications.

Bonus: I think a Bacon-powered Arcane Vigor forces you to spend two HDs, even though the spell normally lets you choose to spend one or two.

 

[Stormonu]

Mmmm....Bacon.

I agree with @Li Shenron that it wouldn't maximize the damage caused by Vampiric Touch. By RAW it seems it just would ensure that the amount you heal via it would not be reduced.

 

[VashVet]

I would argue that Beacon of Hope applies to spells where healing is the primary function, I.E. Cure spells, where the healing is random. Vampiric Touch does necrotic damage and transfers half of the damage as healing. The healing is a fixed amount based on the damage. Beacon of Hope doesn’t maximize the damage.

I actually think D&DBeyond’s spell description makes it easier: it affects spells where the damage/effect is Healing.

 

[Silam]

I actually think D&DBeyond’s spell description makes it easier: it affects spells where the damage/effect is Healing.

Where do you see this? The description I’m seeing on DDB seems to be the same as in the PHB.

 

[Deset Gled]

I'd rule no.

Beacon obviously does not affect the damage roll, as it is not healing.

The damage healed is simply "half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt". That is not a roll, so cannot be maximized. The maximized version of "half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt" is still "half the amount of Necrotic damage dealt". It is essentially a null effect.

 

[AlViking]

I would rule that it does not because you are not rolling dice for the healing from Vampiric Touch, you're rolling damage; you then regain HP based on the damage dealt. Vampiric Touch in my mind is not technically a healing spell.