It's not a single hit though. It's a single hit per character per round for the whole of the combat.
I have seen it used a lot and I have never seen it take up a "single hit per character" for even one round even, let alone a whole combat. As matter if fact I don't think I have even seen every character stay inside the 30-foot area of effect for a round. At most I have seen 3 characters (including my cleric) who were in the AOE AND also took damage, I only remember that happening once and the amount of temp hps it gave was less than a single hit did. Certainly it was nice to have those hps, but it is not close to what is claimed here. FWIW it was 3 abomitable Yeti's we were fighting at level 6 and they did about 20 damage per hit.
Note in this discussion I am not counting when I used it during a riot and used it to keep a host of peasant militiamen from dying. I was in the middle of a mob of peasants and it probably saved 20 or more civilians over the course of 10 rounds of combat but that was more of a role play use as we were not even rolling for the 200+ combatants engaged. FWIW I also used all my spell slots on sleep in that "combat" and those probably saved more lives.
Come on now. Hold Person, Banishment, Sunbeam, Earthquake, Greater Invisibility .... What spells are your clerics casting?It's far more effective than any concertation spell I've ever seen a cleric cast ........but I have seen one of these played to level 17, and it's not a little overpowered. It is very very very overpowered.
If you want a direct comparison Aura of Life is a 4th level concentration spell. Aura of life will literally stop any ally within 30 feet from staying down for its 10-minute duration. Period. Your allies can not be kept down at all and can't be killed unless an enemy does enough damage on a hit to kill them outright or hits them so many times they get 3 failed death saves before their turn starts. Anything less and the ally gets 1 hp and is swinging a sword and slinging spells on his turn. Anything that can punch through all that to kill an ally before his turn comes around will EASILY punch through the temp hps he gets with TS as well. With Aura of Life active a level 3 Barbarian will beat a CR15 Purple Worm 1V1 and there is nothing the Worm can do to win (as long as the Worm stays within 30 feet and does not lose concentration).
At level 17 the ability to give out half cover about 23 temp hps per person per turn is nothing when you can cast mass heal or even heal ... or as noted above Aura of Life. This takes an action, are you really going to give up casting Gate and bringing the most powerful ally you know (perhaps your God even) to your side.
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