D&D 5E Excluding Healing Spirit, is 5e Healing too weak?

[Stalker0]

I have brought up my concerns with healing spirit to my party before, and their universal response has been "its the only good healing spell in the game, all other healing is just way too weak".

Now while you can argue that 5e introduces easier in-combat healing with thing like healing word, the amount of healing does seem to have gone down compared to 3e (and much lower than 4e's abilities).

So what do people think? Are the other healing spells too weak in general?

 

[commandercrud]

No.

 

[Salthorae]

There are a TON more ways to handy out temp hp in 5e which prevents the need to heal hp in the first place.

Healing spells are basically on par with what they were in 3.x though 1d8+ability is roughly equivalent to 1d8+CL (max 5) for the 1st level cure, plus you can upcast it. There are Mass cure spells, they're just higher level.

There are also at least 2 subclasses that toss out random healing dice at range as a bonus action (Celestial Patron warlock & Circle of Dreams Druid). Not to mention the Bard's Song of Rest.

3.x also didn't have the concept of healing HD on a short rest which shows up in 5e. That takes care of a lot of out of combat healing in a day.

I'd say if anything healing in 5e or the ability to mitigate damage is MORE prevalent than in any edition before. Though I didn't play 4e.

Healing Spirit is fine you don't need to worry about it either.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So what do people think? Are the other healing spells too weak in general?

They're 'weak' enough to be a poor choice in combat, and HD take up the slack out of combat, but I expect that's by design, to allow the classes 'burdened' with access to healing spells the opportunity to do other things, while still there to stand the fallen in emergencies.

 

[Zardnaar]

Relative to incoming damage healing spells are weak to the point they're barely worth using. Except emergency bonus action stuff like healing word.

Healing Spirits better than a good level 3 Paladin Spell that they get at level 9.

I think we are gonna remove healing spirit as it obsoletes everything else.
It's basically bonus action heal 35 hit points to everyone in the party.

 

[Burnside]

The purpose of healing spells in 5E is to save characters from dying. They are very effective at doing that, when used strategically.

This is a significant design change from previous editions. In 5E, short rests and spending hit dice do jobs that used to be done by healing spells in previous editions. This makes the burden less onerous on characters with healing magic who would otherwise be obliged to reserve the bulk of their spell slots on healing spells and spend the bulk of their time in combat casting those spells, which often isn't very fun.

If you expect healing spells to be able to keep pace with damage taken by the party, and top everybody back up after or during every fight as was possible in earlier editions, then yes they probably seem weaker.

I think the design change is a major improvement.

 

[NotAYakk]

Healing Spirit is fine if it only applies to one creature per turn.

Until the spell ends, once per round when you or a creature you can see moves into the spirits space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore ld6 hit points to that creature (no action required).

It is now a level 2 spell that heals 10d6 over a minute. Solid.

And the sort of ridiculous "everyone run through this space repeatedly during downtime" goes away.

---

And yes, the HP "battery" of PCs is mostly their HP and their HD. Healing magic no longer dominates over the innate toughness of a given PC.

If you follow the DMG guidelines, and have 3 scenes per long rest (with a short rest between scenes), and a roughly "deadly" encounter budget in each scene (often broken up into sub encounters), players should value their HP and HD as much as their spell slots.

With 3e and earlier era healing, your HP where not a source of toughness -- a cleric's HP reserve from healing spells was greater than 3 fighter's HP pool typically.

 

[Zardnaar]

Healing Spirit is fine if it only applies to one creature per turn.



It is now a level 2 spell that heals 10d6 over a minute. Solid.

And the sort of ridiculous "everyone run through this space repeatedly during downtime" goes away.

It's still a lot better than say prayer of healing.

The spell you describe is a level 3 Paladin spell. It was worth stealing as a lore bard to turn it into a level 3 normal spell is cast it at level 6 instead of 9.

Your version would be level 3 IMHO.

 

[NotAYakk]

It's still a lot better than say prayer of healing.

The spell you describe is a level 3 Paladin spell. It was worth stealing as a lore bard to turn it into a level 3 normal spell is cast it at level 6 instead of 9.

Your version would be level 3 IMHO.

Prayer of Healing is 2d8+stat times 6, or 12d8+24 total healing, or 78 average.

I wouldn't say 10d6, or 35 average, is way better than that at downtime healing.

Now, healing spirit does scale really well, and can be spread better; it gains +35 HP/slot level and prayer gains +27, and prayer forces an even spread over 6 targets.

 

[Zardnaar]

Prayer of Healing is 2d8+stat times 6, or 12d8+24 total healing, or 78 average.

I wouldn't say 10d6, or 35 average, is way better than that at downtime healing.

10 minute cast time vs bonus action.

The non broken version of healing spirit is a level 3 Paladin spell. That you get 6 levels later.