Clerics are the ultimate devotees of a god, using their divine power to heal their creatures. They use their Wisdom modifier when a cleric spell refers to their spellcasting ability and when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell. Wisdom determines your Spell Attack Bonus, for spells that use it, your Spell Save DC, and how many spells you can prepare at one time.
All clerics have the power to heal, but those who draw from the power of the Life domain are unrivaled paragons of preserving and renewing life. Wisdom is used whenever a cleric spell refers to their spellcasting ability and when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell. For a cleric using their Wisdom modifier or a bard using their Charisma, this healing can be a crucial buffer between an ally and themselves.
Clerics and Druids need wisdom as it’s their spell modifier, as it does not affect the damage or healing power of a spell. The power of your spells comes from your devotion to your deity, and you use your Wisdom whenever a cleric spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you won’t heal better with healing spells by getting more wisdom (it’s your cleric level that is used for that).
📹 Healing in D&D 5e: In combat healing
Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:20 Healing in combat 3:44 Life domain 5:53 Dedicated healers 7:00 Exceptions to the rule 9:49 Cleric …
What are clerics proficient in?
The character is equipped with light, medium, and shielded armor, as well as simple weapons, but lacks any tools. In terms of saving throws, these characters possess wisdom and charisma. Their skill set encompasses history, insight, medicine, persuasion, and religion.
Do war clerics need wisdom?
War Domain clerics must balance strength and wisdom to deal maximum damage with their chosen melee weapon. Both are at 16 for optimal potency. The secondary ability score is Constitution, with a secondary score of 14. Dexterity is 10 for saving throws, while magic is used for ranged damage. Charisma is 10 for neutral roll during conversation checks, and Intelligence is eight for the least useful ability score for clerics. However, Intelligence and Charisma can be swapped if desired. The secondary ability score is Constitution, with Dexterity at 10 and Charisma at 10.
Are clerics intelligence or wisdom?
Wisdom is a concept that focuses on common sense, willpower, instinct, and intuition. A cleric needs to be highly wise to adhere to their faith and follow signs given by their deity. They may appear strong in their faith but may not excel in book-learning or deductive thinking.
People often know someone with high intelligence but low wisdom in their lives. Understanding this difference is crucial for roleplaying such characters. High-intelligent characters may be smart but lack common sense, as seen in Sherlock Holmes. In classic stories, he may use cocaine to stimulate his work, while in modern BBC series, he may alienate his loved ones and struggle to comprehend the consequences of faking his own death.
Do you add proficiency to healing spells?
Proficiency bonuses can be applied to attacks, saves, and ability checks; however, they cannot be applied to damage or healing throws. Proficiency in a skill merely enhances the probability of a character’s success in an endeavor, rather than augmenting the damage inflicted in an attack or the amount of HP restored during healing.
What is the least important stat for a cleric?
Clerics are a diverse and interesting class that can fit various playstyles, making them a great introductory class or suitable for Dungeons and Dragons veterans. They are the best healers in the game, offering support, utility, and divination options. They can also be effective in defensive or offensive roles. Intelligence (INT) is the dump stat for Clerics, while Wisdom (WIS) is the most important stat for Clerics, as it powers their spells and rolls.
Charisma (CHA) is not required for Clerics. They are also known for their support, utility, and divination options. The Cleric class is a great choice for those looking to keep the party alive and master their abilities.
What is a clerics most important stat?
The Cleric class is a diverse and interesting class that fits various playstyles, making it an excellent choice for beginners and Dungeons and Dragons veterans. They are the best healers in the game, offering support, utility, and divination options. Wisdom Constitution (CON) is a good hit point for Clerics, while Intelligence (INT) is a dump stat. Wisdom (WIS) is the most important Cleric stat, as it powers spells and rolls. Charisma (CHA) is not required for Clerics. They are also effective in defensive or offensive roles. The Cleric class is a great introduction to the game and can be mastered with the right skills.
Are clerics proficient in constitution saving throws?
As a cleric, proficiency is gained in the domains of Wisdom and Charisma, while proficiency is diminished in the domains of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence. A cleric gains hit points at a rate of 1d8 per cleric level, with 8 at the first level and 5 at subsequent levels. The character’s wound point advancement is of the medium variety. The character exhibits high proficiency in the domains of Wisdom and Charisma.
How much Wisdom does a cleric need?
Wisdom is one of the six ability scores, with a minimum natural score of 15 or 17 required for cleric and druid dual-class combinations. High wisdom grants extra spell slots per spell level, which are cumulative. Shamans, Rangers, and paladins do not gain such bonuses, as their spell slots are determined solely by their exp level. However, magic defense, saving throws adjustments, and spell failure are not implemented in actual gaming. Wisdom also adds a bonus to a character’s base lore value, which can range from -20 at 6 WIS to +40 at 25 WIS. High wisdom is useful for achieving the best results from Wish and Limited Wish.
Does life cleric need Wisdom?
In the context of the Life Domain Cleric, the dump stat is Intelligence, which is the least important stat. It is possible to customize the character according to one’s preferences. However, for an efficient build, it may be advantageous to consider a setup such as the following. In the event of uncertainty regarding the optimal species selection, it is recommended to consider one of the aforementioned options with the objective of maximizing one’s strengths.
Do clerics use Wisdom for spells?
Wisdom represents the capacity to cast cleric spells, which is derived from one’s devotion to a deity. This is employed when a spell makes reference to one’s spellcasting ability and when establishing the saving throw DC for a spell that has been cast. The spell save DC is equal to 8 + the player’s proficiency bonus + the player’s Wisdom modifier, while the spell attack modifier is equal to the player’s proficiency bonus + the player’s Wisdom modifier.
What is the most important attribute for a cleric?
The 5th edition D and D Cleric subclasses are organized as Divine Domains, each determining the types of abilities the Cleric will learn. Wisdom is the most important ability score for a Cleric, regardless of their build. Constitution determines hit points, and healing classes should max this out. Dexterity can be switched with Strength, with more offensive builds prioritizing it. Intelligence is more important for spellcasting abilities than Charisma, and Charisma is more important for party leadership or persuasion. Some Domains may not be available due to factors like moral alignment, module usage, or racial background.
📹 Cure Wounds vs Healing Word | Magic in D&D 5e
Cure Wounds vs Healing Word | Magic in D&D 5e 0:00 – Intro 1:34 – Cure Wounds 4:05 – Healing Word 6:54 – To Sum It Up 8:21 …
The only edition of D&D that’s ever had decent in-combat healing is 4th. At the very least, the fact that most healing powers healed 1/4 of the target’s max hit points meant that a single Healing Word from a Cleric (or a Warlord’s Inspiring Word, or the other equivalents) represented a meaningful recovery. The fact that you only be healed a limited number of times per day (6-10 based on class, plus a bonus number equal to Con bonus) provides a natural limit to the adventuring day that isn’t just about the caster’s resources. Further, 4e had more severe Death Save rules than 5e does: you didn’t stabilise after 3 successful death saves, and failed saves stayed with you until your next short rest (short rests were only 5 minutes, but that still means your failed death saves remain for the entire fight even if you get healed), so you were encouraged to try and keep allies on their feet rather than letting them drop to 0 and then healing them back up (the common tactic in 5e). I think that some of this dynamic can be imported to 5e. For a start, the death save changes make for more tense and interesting play in my experience. But for the healing itself, why not have healing spells additionally let the target spend some of their hit dice immediately as well. Maybe a limited amount per spell (say, up to Proficiency Bonus hit dice). That allows a character to receive more healing when they really need it, tying it to hit dice means that healing is more proportionate to their maximum (avoiding that case where a Barbarian or Fighter gets a smaller % of their maximum hp back than a rogue or wizard would), but it comes at the cost of personal resources.
The luck part is really important to consider when healing. Your Cure Wounds is more likely to roll very low than it is to save someone in the miracle 5% chance they get hit by a critical. Several times I’ve cast Cure Wounds and then it healed an amount comparable to healing word and I’m just there thinking “thanks, there goes what could have been a bonus action”. These sort of realisations are what made me realise that Cure Wounds is generally just a bad spell, both for in combat and out of combat healing.
This article is reminding me of my Genie Warlock/Grave Cleric multiclass that I’ve been playing for over two years now. I took the Cleric dip for Spare the Dying and some other utility spells, plus the extra spell slots are a godsend. In that entire time, I’ve barely used the healing spells at all because my entire party are all a bunch of legends who know how to keep themselves alive. The one time a party member does go down and I finally have a chance to use my healing spells on them, that party member rolls a Nat 1 on their death save before my turn and they die anyway. 😭
The bulette example is interesting because it’s an outlier, many monsters of the same CR have multiattack instead of just one powerful attack: The troll has one bite and two claws (7/11 dmg). The otyugh is similar, one bite and two tentacles (12/7+4 damage). The fire elemental has two attacks (10 dmg) and they can also catch someone on fire. Barbed Devil has two claws and one tail (6/10 dmg). The gladiator can make 3 melee attacks (11-13 dmg or 9+ prone) The roper has one “big” damage, but it does 22 with a bite… for a creature that can’t move that much and needs to use their tentacles to attract it’s prey. The giant shark is also similar, it does 22 damage… but hey, it’s a fucking shark, it’s scary because you have to fight it underwater. The giant crocodile is also a heavy hitter, it does 21 with a bite and 14 with the tail (it also knocks you prone)…. So why the fuck the bulette, the thing that it’s mostly a landshark does more damage than the giant shark??? because it’s the fucking MM, this monsters barely follow any kind of guideline for CR. So in summary, the example of the bulette is kind of misleading, because the PCs are fighting something that can easily one-shot anybody… they shouldn’t be healing, they should be retreating. It’s interesting to note that the bulette in 3.5 used to do 3 attacks, one bite and 2 claws (or 4 claw attacks if it’s leaping). Those attack did 17 for the bite and 11 for the claws…quite a lot of damage for 3.5… and rightfully, the monster is CR 7.
Celestial Warlock FTW! Eldricth Blast at level 5 will push your Bullette back up to 20 ft from the fighter as an action. Healing Light as bonus action. “You have a pool of d6s that you spend to fuel this healing. The number of dice in the pool equals 1 + your warlock level.” (DnD Beyond. No spell slots consumed. But you have a 3rd level spell slot for Cure Wounds if needed.
04:15 (FIX) “Channel Divinity: Preserve Life” . As a Magic Action, you present your holy symbol and evoke healing energy. . Choose any number of creatures within 30 feet of you (including youself). . Distribute among the chosen creatures a number of Temporary_Hitpoints equal to five times your cleric level. . Inmediatly after, each of the chosen creatures (that is not a construct or undead or is Unconcious), can choose to consume up to half (rounded down, minimum of 1) of the Temporary_Hitpoints provided by this feature to heal themselves, regaining that ammount of Hitpoints.
Even with the buffs, I would probably only cast healing word, given it is a bonus action and actually upcasts better than before. I’ve stopped taking spiritual weapon in the recent times, so it works out for me. But there was a time when I came to hate all forms of healing briefly and that’s purely due to how awful combat healing can be. Oh this should be fun. I normally find healing in combat awful. The one time I played a cleric, my party turned me into a heal bot and it was truly awful. I was pretty new to d&d and it left a bad taste in my mouth and I steered clear of clerics. Given all my actions were spent on either healing word or cure wounds and eventually concentrating on aura of vitality. While in reality all I wanted to was swing my giant glowing spiritual weapon and have the little spirits from spirit guardians surround me. Spending your website divinity as a life domain just to do more healing is truly awful. I wanted to be a cleric to use spells like bless, bane, silence, locate object, dispel magic and spirit guardians. Not spam the same healing spells every three rounds. I’d much rather play a monk than do that. It didn’t help that the life domain does extra healing with all their features, so despite having a druid in the party, the party would flock to me for all their healing and I would stare in silence as I marked down my spellslots. Now outside the combat, I don’t really mind healing people. That’s why I tend to go wizard with the strixhaven background or the new rune carver bg these days, just to grab goodberry.
A thought occurred to me. Imagine a healing spell putting a 1 round buff on the recipient. Out of combat healing becomes less attractive comparatively. Like a brief shield of sorts on the healed. +5 AC for one round Or a saving throw bonus for one round Damage resistance A bonus to attack or damage Lastly: the rider could be inverted for Harm or Wounding Spells
I feel the best healing is preventative. I usually play a bard and I’ve found that using Aid and Inspiring Leader have a number of advantages. This combo stacks, Aid lasts 8 hours and be not only adds the 5 hp buff at second level it also raises the HP max for three allies. IL can be used anytime the bard has 10 minutes and out of combat Song of Rest while it doesn’t give a huge regenerative bump to healing doesn’t cost the party resources.
I had a good combo in one of my games. I was playing as an Oath of Devotion Paladin. When the party needs a lot of Healing, my Paladin would case Beacon of Hope and the we have a Bard with Mass Cure Wounds. Beacon of hope maximizes ALL healing for 1 minute. Upcasting Mass Cure Wounds can get 40-50 points of Healing for each character. It was a great combo after the DM hit us with multiple Fireball spells in a single round.
I wish this had touched on the dark side of how the extreme efficacy of things like 1hp lay on hands/healing word+death saves wind up being so effective that all of the other ways of proactively mitigating damage start to become pointless or or so much less than optimal that the opportunity cost involved in using them starts rising too high to really justify them stillmaking enough difference
In defense of the cleric casting cure wounds for the “insignificant amount” of 25 yes the Bullette can knock him down again no problem but he can’t outright kill the fighter anymore. I used a bullete in one of my campaigns and it got a crit on our sorcerer, who instantly died. Then it proceeded to tpk the rest of the party (tunneling). A little bit of healing can go along way, and if the group works together you can get more turns to get them out of the red. I use a few rules to prevent yo-yo healing specifically so that the guy who plays the healer has his job really matter instead of just resurrecting the party as they drop. You are right though, having a heal-bot 9000 is only useful when you get hit, so they are less useful then a character who can heal and still contribute to the combat, and it takes a good player to be the healer because you need to be very efficient with how you fight and heal otherwise your wasting resources or making stupid plays and drag the team down. And despite all that, the party still wants a healer, so someone might as well be good at it.
One of the things I’ve done as a tank was think of the opposite for healing, but getting healed. 3 levels of warlock isn’t impossible for some paladins builds and 3 levels warlock can get you pact of the chain and the “gift of the everliving ones” which maximizes how much I get healed if the familiar is alive. This could make the Druid cleric over 30hp on me (24+4+5=33 hp) and if I go celestial, I can heal myself for 6x the number of dice I spend on the feature it gives.
As an optimizer who has played a life domain cleric from first to 18th levels in his first ever campaign, this article speaks to me. I’ve long asserted that 5e has a problem where healing spells simply did not scale well enough. I was of the opinion that each upcast leveling of healing should include your spell mod again (e.g 2nd level cure wounds would be 2d8+10). The playtest 8 packet effectively does this by not only increasing the base dice of each healing spell, but also making them scale better as well. I am seriously looking forward to seeing how impacts the new campaigns I’ll be running with a lot of the 2024 playtest spells.
I played a decent variety of article games before ever getting a chance to try D&D, and am someone who prefers filling a damage sponge and/or support role, so I am used to healing for tanks ranging from good to arguably not enough. However, once I finally got the chance to play D&D, I was dumbfounded by how horribly inadequate the healing was in 5E for everyone, let alone for someone remotely tanky. Part of my initial issues with healing in this game likely did come from a combination of below average healing rolls (this is my biggest gripe with the healing in this game: too much variability in healing due to rolling) and party comps that didn’t lend themselves well to healing a tanky character. However, 3 years after beginning my D&D journey and as someone that rarely multi-classes due to a lack of good narrative reasons to do so (so far), even my beefiest Life Clerics and Armorer Artificers only work as tanks because they lean heavily on their higher than average AC & HP (and my DMs’ penchant for rolling less than stellar to-hit rolls against me more often than not). Until UA “Player’s Handbook Playtest 8” came out, their ability to tank via healing rather than AC was not great. Now that UA23PT8 is out I now actually have a chance to be what I consider to be a good tank both because of high AC and because healing spells actually restore a respectable amount of HP. In case anyone is curious, yes I have known since I started playing D&D that Paladins, Barbarians, and Fighters make for better tanks than Artificers (I have played as a Battle Master Fighter before).
I think part of the problem is legacy design. Imagine a world where healing is effective, but has dynamic elements to it: juggling durations on regeneration abilities, knowing when to pop off a large, spare usage heal, heals that are vampiric so damage dealt becomes an important support component, etc. all allow for more nuanced and dynamic versions of supporting allies than “spell slot=a little healing”. Some designs (like heal, life transference, and the oft overlooked Wither and Bloom) all provide cool moments for the game that Cure Wounds just doesn’t.
Our cleric regularly uses Life Transfer to keep our front line up so they don’t go down. Then he heals himself with his staff of healing, potions, etc. May not be the best use of his action economy, but it lets our barbarian lock down the biggest band guy and go toe to toe with foes otherwise out of his weight class.
My biggest problem with Healing in 5E is that with combat is that same at 1 HP which also encourages concentrated attacks on one at a time. My solution for my game was to have penalties for being under half total HP and again when under quarter total HP. That has encouraged spreading damage and healing earlier in fights. DNDBeyond combat tracker helps with this since that is when images shift to red and then to flashing when taking damage.
An entire article dedicated to showing how healing spells work, while using only a single specific example of a fight is just invalid. How many combats are just a single big enemy with no minions? Not many. Even in this specific fight a key point Chris misses here is that every time you bring back a character from dying, the bulette uses another attack to knock it down again. Effectively taking the bulettes turn away at the cost of a level 1 spell. During this time the other 2 or 3 party members are doing whatever they want, since they arent being attacked.
While it makes perfect sense, it’s always somewhat disheartening to hear: “You chose a subclass supposedly designed to maximize your effectiveness at this one function? Well, actually, you can be better at that one function if you multiclass…,”. As someone playing a Life Cleric, while I chose it knowing that it really wouldn’t be all about healing, its design still is somewhat disappointing because of how healing works in the game. It’s frustrating that they essentially didn’t change it’s design at all in OneDnD with this in mind. There is a lot they could do to make in-combat healing more interesting and worthwhile besides just boost its power slightly. Maybe add a limited-use reaction-based heal for when someone goes down, or a feature that adds a temporary HP buffer or a 1-turn sanctuary-like effect when the Life Cleric heals someone, to help prevent them immediately going back down on the next attack…really anything more than, “You heal for a bit more, but still not enough to make a difference in most cases,”…
Seeing this article in my mailbox healed my boredom, so healing can’t be that bad. Also I really like the Oath of the Ancients Paladin ability (available at 1st level!) in BG3 that heals a target a small amount as a bonus action, but then at the start of the target’s next turn. I really think a spell with an effect like that could be very effective.
An interaction I’m considering trying in my next campaign is playing a Divine Soul Sorcerer with Life Transference. Assuming you only take the damage once, which is how I’m interpreting it at this point in time, that’s 72 points of healing on average for a third level spell slot when using the twin spell metamagic and 3 sorcery points. Decently expensive in sorcery point terms, but a really cool burst heal option that lets my character be the battle medic instead of sticking to picking up aura of vitality to heal outside of combat. In fact this heals about the same as a 3rd level Aura of vitality, which over the course of a minute heals an average of 70 hit points, though without the self damage and sorcery point investment. Though I’ll acknowledge something like Extended Spell can easily make Aura of Vitality outshine this, and at a lower sorcery point cost. But hey in combat healing is cool.
cries in Healing Spirit I feel I had to take this on my Ranger is CoS, since BOTH Cleric and the Paladin wanted to change characters, and the other Cleric stopped playing. Feels bad, man. There ARE some decent uses for Healing Spirit, thankfully I got a lot out of it last night. The BA heal is helpful for action economy, and at least you can keep healing on other rounds, but 1d6 is pitifully low… 😢
This is one of the reasons I simply allow potions to provide maximum healing at my table. You know it will always heal 10, 20, 40, 60 (for each tier of potion). I still keep it at an action to use potions though. Even if it “feels better” to use a BA, 5e characters don’t need more convenience in that specific manner if you ask me.
Honestly level 7 build life domain 2 stars druid. Take healer feat. Turn one activate your chalice form as a bonus action and spiritual guardians as action. Then you could use your action for healer kit for 1d6+4+7 bonus action for healing word 1d4+4+3 and finally chalice 1d8+4. This healing could be split 3 ways. The healer kit would be limited use but you could just use it on other party members that need it.
It’s funny, I just got done tweaking a homebrew Rogue healing subclass. I had to couch the amount of healing they did by saying “look how much healing everyone else (especially a cleric) can do, they’re not even healing as much as these other classes can”, all while knowing that the amount of healing the average character can do is terrible in comparison to damage received.
I’ve houseruled yo-yo healing out of my game by requiring a scaling medicine check from a party member to restore consciousness, or a short rest. Healing word is still useful for stabilisation, but it doesnt remove the unconscious condition. Of course my party has adapted to this, and my encounter balancing takes it into account. I will be very curious to see how changes to healing may affect the value of healing in the context of my house rule.
Im playing a Order Cleric 1/divine soul 7 focussing full support (still got the needed fireball), Inspiring leather and Healer feats, Extended Aid max up cast before sleep, twinned deathward, extended aura of vitality between combat. Healer save a lot of spell slot, Inspiring leather + Aid rise the HP a tons, i vortex warp the rogue or the barbarian around giving them more attack. I could have taked Life cleric for insane extended aura of vitality but with my party the Order ability was too good. We play with a house rule that every time you go to 0 HP you get 1 level of exhaustion (the -1 to every d20 roll and the DC of spells like in the first One DND playtest) we use this because one time the barbarian got the “0 -> healing word -> 0” train 16 time and it was pretty ugly to see and play
As much as the life domain website divinity CAN feel shitty because it only heals up to half of a player’s max HP, it is still AS powerful as the Paladin’s Lay on Hands, up and to the point of being at Half HP. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve yanked someone back from the death or the brink of death with Action: Preserve Life into Bonus Action: Healing Word or Mass Healing Word. Sure you can only do this once per Short rest levels 1-5, and twice per Short rest 6-17, but that’s usually more than enough for emergency “get back in the fight” healing. On the Multiclass point, 2 levels of Stars Druid is VERY strong on a Life Domain cleric build, but 1 level of Life Domain is equally 100% worth the dip on a Shepheard druid build. Disciple of Life + Unicorn is quite potent. If you’re playing Low to Mid op, it should be more than adequate in combat healing.
As an in combat healing specialist, Healing Word is the worst healing spell in the entire game lol, it destroys action economy because you will always have a better bonus action, especially for attacks, and never heal when someone is down, heal when they are at 25% HP, and then they will never go down again, also, the best healing spell in the game is ….. Wither And Bloom, ranged healing with d10’s and d12’s, damaging enemies, and saving bonus actions for attacks it’s worth upcasting to 3rd every time, until you get Mass Cure Wounds which is your best friend, these tactics have avoided a 100+ potential TPK’s
I really wish this was common knowledge but sadly it isn’t. For whatever reason I usually end up being the last person to join a campaign before it starts, which in turn usually means I end up playing a Cleric because nobody else wants to, which is fine because I enjoy the class, except for one thing. People will always say “Oh good, we have a healer” and I have to quickly counter with “No, you don’t” because if I don’t, they’ll get extremely cocky, do something extremely stupid and then expect me to burn all of my spell slots to dig them out of trouble. Case in point, this last weekend during a Phandelver campaign we were wildly outnumbered by bandits. We’re only level 3, they’re all in a big room so we decide to funnel them through a doorway so the bandits with ranged weapons didn’t shoot us up and kill us all. Our Fighter and Warlock decided to completely ignore the plan, both charge into the room and then are shocked to discover the easily discernable fact that every single bandit had a turn before the rest of us did so they proceed to surround our Fighter and Warlock and drop them both in a single turn. Now they’re begging me to heal them both and I have to explain to them why what they did is extremely stupid and how healing them would do literally nothing except waste a spell slot. I can honestly say that once One D&D drops I’m never going to touch Cleric or any other class that can cast a heal again. The improvements to healing is just going to encourage extremely stupid behavior that the classes that can’t heal will expect you to burn all of your spell slots to fix.
Hit point inflation + attack damage inflation (3e bulette bite 2d8+8 vs 5e 4d12+4) has greatly outpaced healing, which remains at 1e level (~1d8 × spell level). Under those conditions I would double regular cure wounds dice. Healing will still fall short of combat damage, which it should. It should always be easier to kill than to heal. Managing healing resources is a lost art in this age of take-a-nap self-healing.
This article is cap, as the kids say. Treantmonk starts with a claim of healing in general. Then follows with an example that supports his claim. So far so good…expect he chose the HIGHEST DAMAGE MONSTER AT CR5 to support his claim. And on top of that it crits with its highest damage attack??? That’s 1/20 encounters where the monster has a crit opener. The only other monster at CR 5 to come close to 60 damage(with a single crit attack, so no multi-attack crits) is the Triceratops at 48 damage. We continue for 20 more minutes with more examples of how every other healing choice or mechanic will not save you from a 30/60 damage attack. Come on man…. If the claim of this article is “reactive healing is lower on the meta power tier list, and preventive healing is higher rank”, sure I absolutely agree 100%. But I would not say that a heavily focused healing PC isn’t VIABLE. Treantmonk (and maybe players at large) seem to forgot that if you could heal the bulette’s damage, you would be effectively ‘disarming’ the monster every turn, with nothing the monster could do. Healing can still be a great way to keep the fighter up long enough to take 4 rounds of attacks and finally fall to 0hp at the 5th round. But we are so focused on every heal needs to be 1 damage to 1 health, that Treantmonk and others will make a article to show only 1 side of the power of healing in combat, which in their eyes is bad. With all that being said, I hope this criticism doesn’t come off as baby raging. Treantmonk makes excellent articles, I just disagree with this one.
I don’t like yo-yo healing, so I really like enemies to continue multiattack without carring if a PC reached 0. I also like effects like burning, aura-damage at the turn start, killing if 0 hp is reached. Even if one of these happen once in 3-4 games it’s enough to stop players think, that 0 hp is not a big deal.
I think you accidentally showed why people are leaving 5E for OSR. Or are homebrewing Rules that make 0HP mean death with 1 save after the fight. (The fighters going up and down again is why I woefully I subbed. You’re a great YouTuber but I am increasingly losing interest in 5E and it’s whiny @$$ players it attracts—nothing you did.)
I wrote a guide on giantitp a while back focused exclusively on healing, which pretty much followed this advice to a T. This was pre-tashas, but imho the healthiest and best healer is still Life Cleric 1/Shepherd Druid X. Druids focus heavily on concentration/control which gives it an amazing Plan A. Lifeberries make out of healing absurdly efficient. And in combat healing with unicorn spirit and healing word gives you an extremely strong burst heal(that can repeat each round for another 1st level healing word) WITHOUT eating concentration. The mix of summons, control spells, efficient out of combat healing, and potent burst healing in combat just comes together incredibly well. I know the change to Disciple of Life was good for the game, but I will miss a lot of the ways you could multiclass it to be amazing.
Why the only healing build I play is thieve rogue flavoured as a field medic for I thieve the dying from the reaper. level 3 Fast Hands Bonus action to use a healer kit if you take the healer feat at lv1 or 4 depending on if human variant/custom lineage or not. A rogue has damage from sneak attack & you get 6 ASI as a rogue so not a massive resource dedication to fulfil the healer role & more. You heal d6+4+maximum number of hit die for a bonus action once on all party members, self or Npc’s between short rests. Healer & potions on a bonus action who needs a healing spells. Note: Take tavern brawler at level 1 variant human or custom lineage & you can throw acid, alchemist fire vials or oil as bonus action as well when not healing. Become a grenadier & medic for 2 feat of 7. A dip into another class for green Flame blade is worth consider as a melee cantrip a you can match martial damage even without getting of sneak attack. Being able to grapple is nice for a bonus action as well upon a melee hit in certain circumstances then the next tur you can use the shove action to guarantee sneak attack. Dexterity 15+(1 human) & 14+(2 tavern brawler & Human) with 10 all stats except 13 charisma for dip usually warlock hex blade dip. Green flame blade & armour of agathy’s is to good not to mention shield & medium armour proficiency is to good to pass up. 4 ASI for the 2 feat mentioned & 2 ASI for 20 dexterity you have 3 ASI’s if played to level 20 to use as you please If you can get a belt of giant strength to get a 21 strength or plus for with bonus action grapple you can achieve some shenanigans on top of the grenades as nothing more funny then grabbing a fella after sneak attacking to then throw them off a building in 1 turn a green flame blade strike then bonus action grapple.
Healing in pretty much every game sucks. Down with the triangle! I truly hate the dps/healer/tank triangle, even when it’s super wonky like in D&D. But yeah especially in D&D. Combat is so spicy that it only lasts a few rounds. Often you don’t know if you’ll heal enough to absorb a full attack from an enemy, so you are better off waiting for someone to go down and then healing them back up, rather than wasting a heal on them just for them to go down anyway. But if people want a very quick fix for healing, why the hell doesn’t it involve hit dice?
Healing in the middle of combat can also be useful if there’s a rider on providing an effect. Order cleric does this very well. Did the rogue need healing?, no but the reaction attack that he got to make due to the rider effect was worth it, especially when you are able to influence more than 1 ally/creature through a spell like wither and bloom, silvery barbs, polymorph or an ability like the chalice’s chain healing, even better if you can combine it. A character concept of mine that does this is: 1 order cleric, 2 stars druid (mostly chalice, but dragon has it’s use) and the rest bladesinger tortle. Since tortle you can focus on decent WIS and INT and passable CON and DEX/STR (I like strength since it gives greater weapon choice and some of the normal considerations aren’t needed like AC since tortle has that covered) after all as a wizard hitting things shouldn’t be your primary contribution anyway.
Hm… Im thinking hospitality halfling, divine soul sorcerer X, celestial warlock 3, and twilight druid 2. This NPC is a Medical Center technician, dedicated to all forms of healing, natural to the supernatural. Take feats like leadership, healer. Those warlock slots make for wonderful use of either goodberry or aid. Get effectively free distant spell with pact of the chain imp. Celestial healing, med kits. Lots of variety with regards to just hp management. But I love to splash sneaky control spells like bane, mind spike, Tasha’s whip. Who needs high level of spells?access to glyph of warding, if one wants to be clever with spell traps
In one of my current campaigns I switched characters mid-campaign from a Twlight cleric to an order of scribes wizard. The cleric character was fine but when I have a new character idea I tend to get obsessed and have to play them immediately or never. However, as a considerate player, I realized that replacing the support character with a wizard (even if order of scribes which I didn’t realize how busted it was until after playing her for months) might be tough on the party’s survivability. Answer: mark of healing halfling as the race. This worked out perfectly because I wanted her to be a halfling regardless (just felt like the vibe, Y’know) and then there was the literal perfect subrace to solve all my qualms about switching characters. I do know that dragon marked races are not always allowed so ask DM permission as always. However, being able to add healing word to my spell book has kept my party alive far better than the ranger with cure wounds. I also now have aura of life which has become a go to spell for tough encounters. No need to use another spell slot if they will pop up on their turn anyway. Oh and I can cast it from my manifested mind to keep my squishy wizard self out of harms way (aka not having to make concentration checks). I have used these spells to save the lives of extremely important NPCs that the DM was fully expecting to die as well as my own party members. And this is all on top of casting lightning flavored fireballs every so often because I can
I can see why it’s suboptimal, but on the other hand, as a DM who had a life domain cleric on a 1-20 game, I can tell… on tiers 3&4 he had the power to heal more than the enemies dmg output, combining his website divinity with spells or even the healer feat with the spells. It was kinda expensive to do it but when he needed, he had that option. And I swear to god, even tho his character was nothing close to be optmized, he was annoying as F. The party: fey lock life priest, champion/vengeance ranged cbe ss fighter bm war priest/fig bm
Imho, healing in D&D really sucks. It makes those wanting to play a ‘healer’ feel inadquate. Getting someone up from death saving throws is nice, but it would make a ‘healer’ feel better if they could keep their party members from reachig 0 hp in the first place, and right now in D&D 5e that is not possible.
One other very critical question is how aggressive are the enemies to downed players. Some DM’s won’t hit a downed player, others will continue their 3 hit multi attack after you go down on the first hit. I’ve seen many players think they were safe when they were downed by the boss only to die to chump minions. In combat healing is good for the scenarios where downed effectively means dead. CR3 demonstrated this well in the Otohan fight where the party bounced a few bodies, so she started confirming her kills Not all damage is combat damage too. Environmental damage from traps and obstacles will wear your party down before you even get to the fight. Traits such as Fiendish Vigor or arcane ward are great because they give you a restorable buffer against chip damage.
Currently 9 levels into a game as a dedicated healer. Shepard 8, Life 1. Party gets to go into every combat at full hp, and unicorn totem gets multiple allies up and spreads chip healing around the whole squad. Plus as a summoner you have very good ways to put more HP on the field which are pro-active in nature.
I realy wish they will change healing. I like changes in Playtest 8, need to test them. I would like to see changes because in current state I hate how healing someone slightly injured is not best action, but letting him fall to the ground and then heal him to 1-2 HP is better. We had fights when each of players and bad guys went to 0 HP at least once and my character went to 0 and back three times. It was silly. I know DnD is not real world but for me it was immersion breaking. While I understand if someone does not like this but I would love to see a little bit more MMO Style healing where your healing can actually outpace or be similar to damage taken.
I standby what I said last article, in that the improvements to healing spells in playtest 8 feel really good, but aren’t enough to solve the problem completely. Beacon of hope carries it hard, and that Spell isn’t very good due to its action cost and spell level, which likely won’t be fixed… but if the effect was incorporated into life cleric or something, (say I spend a website divinity to use the max healing of this spell I cast, kind of like how tempest cleric works with thunder) that would feel pretty good while not taking away from what cleric does in general
The simplest solution for healing I can think of is increase the size of the dice of all healing spells/abilities that rely on die by 1, so 1d6 is now 1d8, 2d8 is now 2d12, 5d12 could be 5d20 but that might be too much so maybe at d12 you just add half the spell levels worth of die so 5th level that does 5d12 would now do 7d12, doesn’t seem insanely broken but I just thought it up so it might be too much.
I would like to point out the interesting interaction between grave clerics power and mass healing spells. Grave clerics power maximizes the spell if a target is on 0 HP. We had situations where we damaged one of our own party members to 0 HP so the cleric could then have his spell be maximized for all of us.
In the context of the Order Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer 8 I’m currently playing, I’ve had seen some mileage done by a combination of three spells: Aura of Vitality; Aid; Wither and Bloom Extended Aura of Vitality – for a measly 1 sorcery point – allows me to bring up the average healing upwards to 140 hit points per combat. It’s the bet healing spell in my toolbox, so, the trick is making sure my allies last that long. Aid is an easy upcast for me since – as a multiclass dip – I lack a spell known for 5th level spells. An extra 20 hit points (60 in total) is a nice enough value next to the potential of other spells such as Mass Cure Wounds. Finally, the third tool is Wither and Bloom. Not the greatest damage spell, but since our party has 3 frontliners, it’s the one I can the most easily use in a melee. The damage is nothing overly impressive, but if one of them is flagging, I can upcast it for a pitance more damage… but the main point is the opportunity to use hit dice to heal then-and-there. A 4th-level upcast allows the one of the frontliners a equivalent or greater amount of healing than an upcast Cure Wounds of the same level; on top of triggering a Voice of Authority Reaction attack. Yes, it costs hit dice, but they barely use them since I’ve obtained Aura of Vitality. In the right kind of melee (say, 3 targets), I can – in a single action with a 4th-level Wither and Bloom – deal 40ish damage over my 3 targets, have the fighter do an attack dealing an extra 12ish damage on hit, and heal said fighter 4d10+4.
I’m curious why you don’t mention Regenerate. Yes, i probably wouldn’t use it in combat much (unless i’m expecting the same party member to repeatedly get downed), but out of combat it’s a little over of 600 points of healing to a single target for a 7th level slot. I think i’ve heard optimizers tend to not like Regenerate, but i can’t figure out why.
Two mistakes: 1. Players should not assume the Aid spell can be used to remove the Unconscious condition from a creature they target with the effect, since it is only removed if the creature “regains” hit points. 2. Sometimes, a healing spell can be useful to get an ally to take their turn before the enemy creatures. Even if the enemy creatures go before your ally, a readied action can heal your ally with better timing.
I can’t help but think how this is brilliant design. Healing in 5e is very good, but specialising just isn’t really worth it. No more will the new player be forced into the boring healbot role. Healing can still be amazing, but having your character do other (and cooler) things is the best way, encouraging players to explore and learn the game.
I think one of the design flaws of 5E is there is no cost to getting dropped to 0. Characters can keep tubthumping, and as long as they don’t take a kill shot it’s fine. I’ve used house rules that inflict a level of exhaustion on a dropped character, and tactics switched to mitigation and healing before the character could get dropped, which feels more realistic than saying “Let Fritz the Fighter get dropped. One healing word and he’ll be fine.”
Just want to say, having played very efficient healing characters in 5e…. we really don’t want efficient in combat healing in dnd It slows down the pace of combat to absurd levels, having cure wounds at level 1 heal for an average of 12 (!) is a massive problem. If you think about it in rounds, a first level cure wounds in playtest currently heals the expected DPR of 3 goblins. So you’ve slowed down combat by 1-2 rounds with a single action, without progressing the game state in any real terms. Basically, if healing becomes optimal, the game will becomes like an MMO, you’ll need a healer, and combat will double in length, which tbh would make me drop the system, 5e combat is already pretty slow. Massive amounts of temp hp is also a pacing problem, twilight cleric, celestial warlock etc, or the new power word fortify.
I use a few homebrew rules to make healing in combat more reasonable. Players reduce bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage by an amount equal to 1/5 of their Armor Class from a given instance. (Think Heavy Armor Master) If the character is wearing magical armor, it can reduce all other types of damage as well. This makes the hp they receive from healing more effective as they reduce damage. Players gain 1 level of exhaustion (using 10 levels, every level is a -1 penalty to everything) each time they are reduced to 0 hit points. This discentivizes bouncing back from 0 repeatedly. Player hit points are maximized instead of averaged. This makes players much less likely to get one shot. A level 5 Fighter has 65 hit points instead of 49. You can block the bonus damage from critical hits a number of times equal to the armor you are wearing before needing to be repaired. Light = 1, Medium = 2, Heavy = 3. This further prevents characters from being one shot. Any character’s temporary hit points has a maximum equal to their constitution score + their level, unless a single instance sets it above their max. This allows temporary hp “healing” to stack easier without going to waste. And lastly, long rests are rare. This means your hit point pool will be middling for most of the game and healing is valued with less spell slot availability.
I enjoy using Paladin for combat healing due to the natural mitigation / buff / debuff abilities inherent in the class and subclasses. You can be in a fight doing something else entirely and then all of a sudden lay on hands Oh right, the dude with the massive sword can do MASSIVE heals. Towards mid level, when your fighter is tossing around a second wind of d10+8 and you pump them with 40hp, the cleric suddenly feels less bad about preparing Harm instead of Heal. I was in a party where the paladin WAS the healer and the cleric was more dps/control. It helps when you only smite on crits, lay on hands for major heals, and since you have limited spell slots, you’re not healing 24/7 so youre trying to find other things to do anyways.
Would cure wounds being changed to 10 HP restored and upcasting by 10 additional HP for each level above 1st make it a viable in-combat option? It would have the same scaling as Heal at that point, just without the range and other removed conditions (Heal also starts of at a higher base pool of healing).
I was playing a Grave cleric, which is the only subclass that rocks with cure wounds, because of Circle of Mortality, which: “”At 1st level, you gain the ability to manipulate the line between life and death. When you would normally roll one or more dice to restore hit points with a spell to a creature at 0 hit points, you instead use the highest number possible for each die.” We were 6th level in a tough fight. Our paladin got hit with a crit in round 1. I moved up to him and cast healing word… 8 x 7 = 56 HP! The pally’s max hp was 68, so 56 wasn’t bad at all. After that, in other fights, I was almost hoping the paladin or someone else would go down so I would do another massive heal, but it didn’t happen again until level 10. So, useful when it happens? Hell yes. But if it people aren’t going down, well… not so much.
I LOVED my Twilight cleric but I spent about 20% of the time healing in combat due to unlucky crits, surprise attacks & the “tank” being one-shot in a C-tier, unoptimized group to keep them up. Otherwise the majority was healed with Aura of Vitality out of combat. I knew how valuable preventative damage would be from playing MANY MMOs over the years (love you discipline priest – WoW) & that covered about 70-80% of the overall damage done to the party (5 characters). I didn’t use sanctuary that often, but abused the hell out of Spirit Guardians, Moonbeam for AoE & Toll the dead to pick off stragglers & Banishment for something particularly troublesome. Zone of Truth, Command, Silence & Mending came in handy too for utility.
This is the issue I have with as you call it optimizers. If I’m playing a character who cares about his friends I am not going to not heal them because I as a character do know how damage calculations work. I am going to dump everything I have into trying to save my friend. I don’t know about HP totals or that a dagger does a d4 and a long sword a d8 etc etc You seem to forget it’s a role playing game, not war hammer 40k but that’s my opinion. I don’t care how you enjoy your games I just disagree with it.
Come on man, “waste of space”? You know characters have more to bring to the table than just combat abilities. And even if they don’t, if that player is having fun they’re playing the game right. If their playstyle is lowering your fun, you should talk to them about it. Furthermore, the idea that someone can be a “waste of space” if they’re not useful in a specific way is pretty damaging. Even if it’s a fictional character. There’s a lot of people who worry that they’re not contributing anything, and that the world would be better off without them. A lot of them are secluded. A lot of them are nerds. A lot of them are into dnd. Please do not broadcast this kind of messaging.
Well, for ME!, there aren’t many healing spells in 5e. Most of the heling spell you can take are 1st to 3rd level spells, you take no healing spell of 4th level, and after that you only have one option to choose, from Mass cure wounds-5th, Heal-6th and if you concider the Regenerate-7th level spell as a healing spell, these are the only option between 4th to 7th level spells, which means you have about 10 healing spells between Level 1 -5. Then you only get 3-4 heling spells from level 6-14. Most campaigns and adventures reach level 10 characters. So in order to take the big guns which are Mass Heal and Power Word Heal, you need at least a 17th level character in a single class that gets those spells. Yes, you can combine multiclassing to get a combination of some good class and subclass features that increse healing and hp-regain, but if we’re talking about spells, HEALING SPELLS SUCKS!