D&D 5E Goodberry + Unicorn Spirit ( Circle of Shepherd Feature )

[Lucas Blackstone]

If you subscribe to the Disciple of Life ( Life Cleric ) bonus healing working with Goodberry ruling ( as per Sage Advice ) would you also agree that Goodberry and Unicorn Spirit from Circle of Shepherd druid subclass should interact similarly?

Unicorn Spirit reads as follows:
Unicorn Spirit. The unicorn spirit lends its protection to those nearby. You and your allies gain advantage on all ability checks made to detect creatures in the spirit’s aura. In addition, if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level.

Disciple of Life reads as follows:
Disciple of Life. Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.

I personally do not agree with the Disciple of Life/Goodberry interaction. It seems clear to me that someone eating a goodberry did NOT cast a spell to restore hit points to a creature. That is when a goodberry heals someone. Not when the spell is cast. But if that was the intent of the class feature, then it seems to me that Unicorn Spirit should also work with Goodberry.

Just looking for people's opinions on it, if they agree with the Disicple of Life/Goodberry "combo" working. If you don't then obviously you wouldn't think this one should work either.

 

[DnD Warlord]

If you subscribe to the Disciple of Life ( Life Cleric ) bonus healing working with Goodberry ruling ( as per Sage Advice ) would you also agree that Goodberry and Unicorn Spirit from Circle of Shepherd druid subclass should interact similarly?

Unicorn Spirit reads as follows:
Unicorn Spirit. The unicorn spirit lends its protection to those nearby. You and your allies gain advantage on all ability checks made to detect creatures in the spirit’s aura. In addition, if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level.

Disciple of Life reads as follows:
Disciple of Life. Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.

I personally do not agree with the Disciple of Life/Goodberry interaction. It seems clear to me that someone eating a goodberry did NOT cast a spell to restore hit points to a creature. That is when a goodberry heals someone. Not when the spell is cast. But if that was the intent of the class feature, then it seems to me that Unicorn Spirit should also work with Goodberry.

Just looking for people's opinions on it, if they agree with the Disicple of Life/Goodberry "combo" working. If you don't then obviously you wouldn't think this one should work either.

I see no reason not to allow it...

heck I see no reason why you could not stack both on a multi class character.

I mean burn a 3rd level spell slot on a 3rd druid2nd cleric Would heal 2+3 discp life and 3 from unicorn spirt and base 1. So 9hp per berry 10 berries each require a minor action to eat... so for 10 bonus actions and 1 standard action a 3rd level spell slot, a multi class that costs you a whole level of spell known, you can heal 90hp

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I see no reason not to allow it...

heck I see no reason why you could not stack both on a multi class character.

I mean burn a 3rd level spell slot on a 3rd druid2nd cleric Would heal 2+3 discp life and 3 from unicorn spirt and base 1. So 9hp per berry 10 berries each require a minor action to eat... so for 10 bonus actions and 1 standard action a 3rd level spell slot, a multi class that costs you a whole level of spell known, you can heal 90hp

The healing is better then that I think which is why I think it might be too strong. Let's say your party is 4 characters. This seems like a reasonable assumption. At level 2 when they get this ability, each berry eaten is worth up to 9hp. 1 hp for who eats it, and then 8 more hp ( 2 per party member ), as long as your party gets inside the spirit radius, for a grand total of 90hp and a minute of time. At level 5, its 1 and 20 bonus hp for 1 berry, total 210 hp in 1 minute and the low low cost a 1/short rest ability and 1 first level spell slot. Compare this to Prayer of Healing. 10 minutes, and 2d8+(caster mod ) and a second level spell slot. Also it has a cap of 6 creatures. The Unicorn spirit is 30 foot radius, so not including squeezing or the vertical aspect of a 30 foot radius spell, that's up to 144 medium or small creatures.

I'm not worried about how much 100+ targets affects the spell's power since 7 or 8 is getting up there for a D&D party. That is why I used a modest and realistic party size of 4. The healing magnitude is insane with more targets.

 

[Undrave]

If you subscribe to the Disciple of Life ( Life Cleric ) bonus healing working with Goodberry ruling ( as per Sage Advice ) would you also agree that Goodberry and Unicorn Spirit from Circle of Shepherd druid subclass should interact similarly?

Unicorn Spirit reads as follows:
Unicorn Spirit. The unicorn spirit lends its protection to those nearby. You and your allies gain advantage on all ability checks made to detect creatures in the spirit’s aura. In addition, if you cast a spell using a spell slot that restores hit points to any creature inside or outside the aura, each creature of your choice in the aura also regains hit points equal to your druid level.

Disciple of Life reads as follows:
Disciple of Life. Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.

I personally do not agree with the Disciple of Life/Goodberry interaction. It seems clear to me that someone eating a goodberry did NOT cast a spell to restore hit points to a creature. That is when a goodberry heals someone. Not when the spell is cast. But if that was the intent of the class feature, then it seems to me that Unicorn Spirit should also work with Goodberry.

Just looking for people's opinions on it, if they agree with the Disicple of Life/Goodberry "combo" working. If you don't then obviously you wouldn't think this one should work either.

The healing is better then that I think which is why I think it might be too strong. Let's say your party is 4 characters. This seems like a reasonable assumption. At level 2 when they get this ability, each berry eaten is worth up to 9hp. 1 hp for who eats it, and then 8 more hp ( 2 per party member ), as long as your party gets inside the spirit radius, for a grand total of 90hp and a minute of time. At level 5, its 1 and 20 bonus hp for 1 berry, total 210 hp in 1 minute and the low low cost a 1/short rest ability and 1 first level spell slot. Compare this to Prayer of Healing. 10 minutes, and 2d8+(caster mod ) and a second level spell slot. Also it has a cap of 6 creatures. The Unicorn spirit is 30 foot radius, so not including squeezing or the vertical aspect of a 30 foot radius spell, that's up to 144 medium or small creatures.

I'm not worried about how much 100+ targets affects the spell's power since 7 or 8 is getting up there for a D&D party. That is why I used a modest and realistic party size of 4. The healing magnitude is insane with more targets.

See, I think the Unicorn spirit is worded differently from Disciple of Life and I don't think it would work the same way. Instead of granting extra HP when someone eat a berry, I would let Unicorn Spirit trigger when you originally cast Goodberry. Disciple of Life triggers on restoring HP to a creature, but Unicorn triggers on CASTING a spell that can restore HP. Anyway, that's how I would rule it.

As for the Goodberry/Disciple of life interaction, to me, is alright because you need some kind of MC or Feat to get Goodberry as a Life Cleric, there's ressources going into it and if someone wants to be the best at recovering HP it usually means not being as good at other Cleric-y things.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing about healing is for it to be of any use the party has to take than much damage in the first place...

 

[ninjayeti]

Arguably "use a spell" from disciple of life applies to eating a goodberry but "cast a spell" from unicorn spirit does not. In other words eating the berry is not casting a spell (spell was cast earlier, maybe by a different character), but it is using a spell by activating the effect. You could also argue that when you CAST goodberry the unicorn spirit effect activates because Goodbery is a spell that "restores hit points" even those HP are not being restored at the time you cast the spell.

Personally, I agree that Crawford goofed on the original Sage Advice, but even if I was following that I wouldn't extend that reasoning to Unicorn Spirit.

 

[DnD Warlord]

The healing is better then that I think which is why I think it might be too strong. Let's say your party is 4 characters. This seems like a reasonable assumption. At level 2 when they get this ability, each berry eaten is worth up to 9hp. 1 hp for who eats it, and then 8 more hp ( 2 per party member ), as long as your party gets inside the spirit radius, for a grand total of 90hp and a minute of time. At level 5, its 1 and 20 bonus hp for 1 berry, total 210 hp in 1 minute and the low low cost a 1/short rest ability and 1 first level spell slot. Compare this to Prayer of Healing. 10 minutes, and 2d8+(caster mod ) and a second level spell slot. Also it has a cap of 6 creatures. The Unicorn spirit is 30 foot radius, so not including squeezing or the vertical aspect of a 30 foot radius spell, that's up to 144 medium or small creatures.

I'm not worried about how much 100+ targets affects the spell's power since 7 or 8 is getting up there for a D&D party. That is why I used a modest and realistic party size of 4. The healing magnitude is insane with more targets.

I miss read unicorn I thought it was adding to every berry.
Well I still think they can stack I now change it to

when you CAST good berry everyone heals and the good berries are worth more thanks to the life ability

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not going to try and argue what's RAW or what's Sage Advice. I'm simply going to state the way I run it in my own games, because I think it's the best and most balanced way to play it.

Life Cleric: Goodberry creates 13 berries. 10 + 2 + 1 (for spell level).

Shepherd Druid, Unicorn Spirit: Goodberry heals everyone in the aura on casting of the spell, not on consumption of any individual berry. This makes it useful for downtime healing, much less so for combat healing.

 

[ninjayeti]

Arguably "use a spell" from disciple of life applies to eating a goodberry but "cast a spell" from unicorn spirit does not. In other words eating the berry is not casting a spell (spell was cast earlier, maybe by a different character), but it is using a spell by activating the effect. You could also argue that when you CAST goodberry the unicorn spirit effect activates because Goodbery is a spell that "restores hit points" even those HP are not being restored at the time you cast the spell.

Off topic here, but thinking further about this, it undercuts the rationale of the original Goodberry Sage Advice. The phrase "use a spell" in the Disciple of Life ability can be interpreted to mean:

1) it just means casting the spell. In that case you only "use" goodberry once and the benefit should only accrue once; OR

2) it means "trigger the spell effect." In which case you "use" goodberry x10 and should get the benefit x10....but only if the person EATING the berry has the Disciple of Life ability. The person casting the spell doesn't matter because they never "use" the spell, the person eating the berry does.

Either interpretation seems reasonable, but the Sage Advice is a mix and match that makes no sense.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I agree with everyone that thinks the original Sage Advice makes no sense since the spell is done being used when it is cast. I think it's a stretch to say using the goodberry spell to heal counts for disciple of life healing, but not unicorn spirit.

If I said I use my fly spell to cross the chasm, noone would assume I cast fly, let it expire, and cast jump to get over it. I would have had to fly over the chasm WITH the spell I said I used. Casting Goodberry never heals anyone in and of itself, so if it triggers one feature it should trigger the other. Maybe the initial casting for both features would make sense to me, or at least be more consistent.