D&D 5E Healing spirit has been updated?


log in or register to remove this ad

This change if true makes the spell nigh useless especially for rangers which are already an underwhelming class due in no small part to their more limited spell casting abilities as opposed to paladins who can get spells like prayer of healing and change the spells daily, etc. I also like the Healing Spirit help make it more plausible to have a party keep going and completing adventures in a herioc fashion without a cleric or dedicated healer in the group.

It is my belief that there is a contingent of 5E D&D players who don't want characters to be larger than life heroes (people who despite their birth circumstances are a clearly above the average humans in the world inherently) as opposed to being normal Joe Schmoes that decided to put down a plough share and pick up a sword and go adventuring. They want it to return to a time when there was no short rest, spellcasters ran out of spells and had to shoot crossbows, and PCs made characters and half of them died on the first adventure.

For many people that style of play was not fun. I enjoy herioc level PCs with cinematic action. For the more average Joe pick up a sword game there are games like Warhammer Fantasy, etc. So, I hope on general Xanathar's does not cave to a vocal enclave of DMs and weaken everything non the book. As it stands Healing Spirit as previewed went from gold to coal and I wouldn't take it.
 

This change if true makes the spell nigh useless especially for rangers which are already an underwhelming class due in no small part to their more limited spell casting abilities as opposed to paladins who can get spells like prayer of healing and change the spells daily, etc. I also like the Healing Spirit help make it more plausible to have a party keep going and completing adventures in a herioc fashion without a cleric or dedicated healer in the group.

It is my belief that there is a contingent of 5E D&D players who don't want characters to be larger than life heroes (people who despite their birth circumstances are a clearly above the average humans in the world inherently) as opposed to being normal Joe Schmoes that decided to put down a plough share and pick up a sword and go adventuring. They want it to return to a time when there was no short rest, spellcasters ran out of spells and had to shoot crossbows, and PCs made characters and half of them died on the first adventure.

For many people that style of play was not fun. I enjoy herioc level PCs with cinematic action. For the more average Joe pick up a sword game there are games like Warhammer Fantasy, etc. So, I hope on general Xanathar's does not cave to a vocal enclave of DMs and weaken everything non the book. As it stands Healing Spirit as previewed went from gold to coal and I wouldn't take it.

Paladins do not have prayer of healing. It's a unique cleric spell. Prayer of healing has no value in combat while prayer of healing is better than healing word for emergency healing.

Paladins do get aura of vitality 4 levels after rangers can get healing spirit and still lack multiple target healing in the same round even though both spells heal 2d6 per target in the same slot.

It's hard to call useless. It's still competing with 3rd level spells (mass healing word and aura of vitality).

After some additional thought, the once per round suggestion from earlier would make it better than aura of vitality due to the exact same healing in the same slot but better action economy.

2nd level spells should not out perform 3rd level spells in the same applications.
 

Even with the change, the spell is still great to use in combat. If someone is in the front line and they drop, they will heal at the start of their turn and be able to get back up and have their turn. With other healing magic like healing word, anyone who drops could miss their turn while waiting for the healer to cast their healing magic on them and if they are still healthy the spell provides a limited amount of healing over the course of battle with the healer moving it as needed on their turn.
 

It's official on April Fools, from the guy who has posted an April Fools joke pretty much every year since he arrived at WOTC.

Still not buying it until this is actually official.
Guy who asked crawford posted a video of his book with the change. If it is an April Fool's joke - it is an elaborate one.

Post to twitter (with image of book), get confirmation from JC, then post again video of book with change
 

The simplest fix seems to be "Once per round..."

Indeed. The image of each PCs jumping into the HS area and out of it on every turn to exploit the spell is really ridiculous, it makes the game look very, very dorky. And that is actually still the case.

If they had removed "moves into the space for the space time in a turn" and left either "starts its turn" or otherwise used "ends its turn", it would have removed the multiplier by number of PCs, and it would have been very much balanced even with the original amount of HP healed.

But let's assume the designers like and fully intended this spell to make everyone look dorky, the new MAX HP limit is probably better. If the new limit was equivalent to using it once per round i.e. total of 10d6-80d6 (between 2nd and 9th level) then HS would still heal a smaller total HP than Prayer of Healing until level 8th (and then at 9th level everything is anyway inferior compared to Mass Heal).

However, I don't get why the primary comparison is between Healing Spirit and Prayer of Healing... The latter is abviously meant as an out-of-combat spell. Healing Spirit should probably lose the comparison with PoH, but instead it should heal MORE than other healing spells which are instantanous, considering that HS spreads its healing over consecutive rounds and requires concentration (so part of its effects can be lost).
 

While most healing spells get benefits from casting modifiers, I really liked that Healing Spirit was agnostic. Even among groups that did not abuse it, it was a lovely healing spell for low wisdom characters like a-typical druids and rangers. Now a low wisdom character only gets 2d6.
 




Remove ads

Top