D&D 5E Xanathar's Healing Spirit is 10d6 healing to the whole party out of combat?

[FrogReaver]

Is it? Other second level healing spells are... well, prayer of healing, which can't be used in combat at all and is significantly worse out of combat, and upcast 1st level cure wounds and word of healing. So, then an upcast cure wounds is going to hit for 2d8, which is better than 1d6, but then stop. So, for a round after round long fight, Healing Spirit is better, for short, quick fights, upcast Cure Wounds is better. Word of Healing deals with an entirely different angle -- it doesn't really heal damage so much as get people up from 0, and the odds of it being upcast are pretty slim outside of having no 1st level slots available. Even then, it's not better than Healing Spirit, which can do the same but then continue to heal allies, outside of the action economy. So, then for the other 2nd level healing spells in combat, Healing Spirit is clearly better than Prayer, and conditionally better or worse than the other two healing spells.

Out of combat, it's absolutely no contest. Healing Spirit is far and away a better choice than any of the other available 2nd level healing spells. Not even an contest.

So, then Healing Spirit is competitive in combat, and clearly superior out of combat. The question remains, does it unbalance the game at all because of this?

You keep asking for a point at which it would actually unbalance a real game in play. Well, I offer my game as an example. Recently, the party finished an encounter and knew it couldn't take the time to rest and that additional encounters were likely. This pushed the party cleric to using his 2nd level slots (the party is 3rd level) to upcast some cure spells to deal with the large amount of damage 2 of the characters had taken. This made the choice to continue a risk, as the cleric no longer had those slots available to contribute. Had the party druid been able to use 1 2nd level slot to heal everyone (something that didn't happen, as 3 of the 5 characters carried damage into the next fight), that choice wouldn't have been made, and the party would have been able to continue with 1/2 the spell resources spent and all of their hitpoints returned. Could I modify the encounters to account for this? Sure, but if I have to modify the way I present encounters and their pacing based on whether or not there's a caster of Healing Spirit in the party, then I can easily say that Healing Spirit distorts the game all on it's own. Being able to counter it doesn't mean that it's not a problem. I'm the DM, I can counter anything I want. The question is: should I have to make as big a change as healing spirit requires and only if it's present?

Further, as I'm running a sandbox, altering the game in that manner isn't something I'm willing to do merely because Healing Spirit is present. So, it will very much alter how my party engages what was built - prior to XGtE - as an exploration and survival based game by making survival far less of a challenge while exploring. Unless I change it up because HS is present.

HS is a problem for my game. I've solved it by saying it only works once per round- so only 1 healing per round no matter how many people wander through it. The caster controls when it heals, so it's up to them who gets the goodies. This makes it still better than Prayer of Healing, but not by much, and still lets it be useful in combat, but, again, not as abuseable by tactically minded players (like mine). Further, it upscales by 1d6 every 2 levels, not every level. This helps me as well, as my Druid player can contribute to healing in a useful way, but not totally outshine my Life cleric player.

Just curious if the player had instead used a single slot to cast prayer of healing (let's assume he prepared it) what would the effect have been?

 

[FrogReaver]

That something doesn't "break the game" is the laziest excuse anyone could use. A car without seatbelts, windows or shocks can still move under its own power so it's not "broken" in the sense it can still operate but it's not a car people would choose to drive if they had better options.

In any event, the statement that the spell "will not break anyone's game" isn't even true. I took the spell in my AL game for one session with my Ranger. The Life Cleric, Druid (who couldn't take it because of stupid PHB+1 reasons) and the Bard were all rendered useless for healing. It literally "broke our game" to the point no one wanted to continue playing with the spell.

"It won't break the game" is lazy game design and lazy excuse making and it might not even be true when you use the lazy excuse.

maube it was just that no one wanted to continue playing with you using that spell? I'm guessing you saved every slot for it and never cast any other 2nd level or higher spells?

i believe the right person trying to prove a point can make nearly anything unfun. Not sure if that's what happened but simply saying it broke the game with no supporting story of what occurred during play with it and how it was used during play doesn't really help the situation.

 

[5ekyu]

maube it was just that no one wanted to continue playing with you using that spell? I'm guessing you saved every slot for it and never cast any other 2nd level or higher spells?

i believe the right person trying to prove a point can make nearly anything unfun. Not sure if that's what happened but simply saying it broke the game with no supporting story of what occurred during play with it and how it was used during play doesn't really help the situation.

Wow!

Yeah.... That's your guess?

OK

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[FrogReaver]

Wow!

Yeah.... That's your guess?

OK

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

You really need to stop putting words in people's mouths.

 

[5ekyu]

You really need to stop putting words in people's mouths.

Hilarious!

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just curious if the player had instead used a single slot to cast prayer of healing (let's assume he prepared it) what would the effect have been?

The now alerted enemies in the next area would have had 10 minutes to fortify their position and get reinforcements rather than the ~1 minute prep time they did get. The party would have faced a harder encounter with more hp resources.

Compare to Healing Spirit. The enemy has the roughly the prep time, the party has better spell resource usage, and they are at peak hp. Easier encounter, more resources for it.

Now, again, that's not insurmountable, but it does remove a interesting choice: press while not being at full hp or take the time and let the enemy prepare but be closer to full hp. HS removes this choice by allowing the party to both press and be at full hp when they do so, all for a single 2nd level slot. At higher levels, when hp max is higher, it's a 3rd level slot. Even top tier parties, with a barbarian in the party, don't need to really go above a 4th level slot for HS to get everyone up to full in 1 minute (40d6 averages 140 hp healing per character, or 2 heal spells per character). Most of the time, the raging barbarian doesn't eat 280 damage per encounter. The scaling on HS is absolutely ridiculous -- adding 10d6 healing per spell level per party member out of combat is redonkulous in the extreme.

This spell is so good at healing out of combat that it obviates every other means of out of combat healing. Unless the healing needed is less than a 1st level slot cure wounds can handle (ie, 1 character out a handful of hitpoints), HS is more efficient than any other option, by far.

 

[FrogReaver]

The now alerted enemies in the next area would have had 10 minutes to fortify their position and get reinforcements rather than the ~1 minute prep time they did get. The party would have faced a harder encounter with more hp resources.

Compare to Healing Spirit. The enemy has the roughly the prep time, the party has better spell resource usage, and they are at peak hp. Easier encounter, more resources for it.

Now, again, that's not insurmountable, but it does remove a interesting choice: press while not being at full hp or take the time and let the enemy prepare but be closer to full hp. HS removes this choice by allowing the party to both press and be at full hp when they do so, all for a single 2nd level slot. At higher levels, when hp max is higher, it's a 3rd level slot. Even top tier parties, with a barbarian in the party, don't need to really go above a 4th level slot for HS to get everyone up to full in 1 minute (40d6 averages 140 hp healing per character, or 2 heal spells per character). Most of the time, the raging barbarian doesn't eat 280 damage per encounter. The scaling on HS is absolutely ridiculous -- adding 10d6 healing per spell level per party member out of combat is redonkulous in the extreme.

This spell is so good at healing out of combat that it obviates every other means of out of combat healing. Unless the healing needed is less than a 1st level slot cure wounds can handle (ie, 1 character out a handful of hitpoints), HS is more efficient than any other option, by far.

Curious again. 10 minutes isn't a long time to fortify a location. What kinds of extra fortifications would the players have encountered with using prayer of healing?

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]

You do bring up higher tier play and maybe the issue with healing spirit lies more there than lower level play? I could see that. It's a much more flexible spell when your second level slots are considered low slots and it still restores a ton of hp to a high level party for a 2nd level slot.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Curious again. 10 minutes isn't a long time to fortify a location. What kinds of extra fortifications would the players have encountered with using prayer of healing?

You have obviously never dug a foxhole.

Tables from the next room would have been brought forward to provide cover and block flanking passages. Fires would have been set to do the same. Instead of holding the next door, the boss of the goblins (it was goblins) would have left a few goblins to harass the party as they fell back into the best defensive position that would have funneled the party onto a narrow bridge when the goblins could hold at the end and also set up flanking fire from a nearby platform only reachable from the area across the bridge.

They would have brought shaman forward and been able to use his magics to harass the party from the same platform, and also the grey ooze the shaman kept in a clay pot, which could have been hurled into the party once they were committed to the bridge assault.

In short, in ten minutes the goblins would have gone from disorganized to well organized, from exposed living conditions to defensive strongpoints fortified by makeshift barriers, from a running string of small encounters to a combined front, from dealing with only the melee might to also dealing with the magic might of the clan, and, in general, a triple deadly fight in poor tactical conditions for 3rd level characters instead of the string of hard, easy, easy, hard that was there if they pressed the assault.

Any more questions?

 

[Ovinomancer]

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]

You do bring up higher tier play and maybe the issue with healing spirit lies more there than lower level play? I could see that. It's a much more flexible spell when your second level slots are considered low slots and it still restores a ton of hp to a high level party for a 2nd level slot.

It's still by far the most effective and efficient healing available in tier 1 -- far outstripping other options. In higher tier play, it's pretty much the only healing you need outside of the occasional Heal spell.