Talk:Grum's Fix 'em/Hurt 'em (5e Spell)

Whoever said this needs balance.. the balance is in the direct damage the player character receives for healing someone else.. which requires a to hit roll and a component that costs hp.

Also there is a possibility from 1-5th level that the effect will be 0 due to 1d4-1.. if a roll of 1 happens it is a wasted action a wasted action is a serious drawback.

One hp for 10 castings is a joke. That's 15 hp for 1 hp, and we have no idea when this 1 hp is taken to allow the castings. Just take a long rest, take all but 1 hp, take another long rest, and this whole spell becomes even worse. P.s. Do not belittle other users, or you will be blocked. --Green Dragon (talk) 08:41, 14 September 2018 (MDT)

I'd agree the current version of this spell is unbalanced. Even if we imagine that everything else with the spell is fine, it doesn't pass the "sack of hamsters test." You can get the self-healing benefit by attackinh any creature, from allies, from creatures otherwise summoned, from rats in the dungeon, for the sack of hamsters you bring with you, and technically even insects. It's pretty easy to get infinite out of combat healing with this spell, even if in-combat it's not that useful.

Aside from that, the spell breaks many conventions (most notably cantrips as leveled spells) for seemingly no purpose.

One more thing. It's a relatively minor issue, but ideally the grammar and phrasing of this spell could use some simplificayion and improvement. E.g., the entire first line could easily be, "Make a melee spell attack against a creature you try to touch."

I'm not sure if these problems can be resolved without fundamentally changing the spell. - Guy 08:59, 14 September 2018 (MDT)

Balance Questions

The balance of this spell is in the fact that it has at least 6 drawbacks. It is essentially a lesser version of a permanent Vampiric Touch spell.

1. A drop of 1hp worth of fresh blood must be obtained, usually from the caster. Foul blood can cause really bad effects(At the DMs discretion).

2. The spell requires a melee touch, which can miss and waste a turn. Or a willing or incapacitated target.

3. The spell requires you to choose either to heal or damage, you can't do both on the same turn.

4. If the caster is healing someone, the caster will take the same amount of damage, and can even be killed by the damage.

5. If the caster is damaging a target and hits full health the spell only does half damage to the target with any further damage.

6. Amount of damage or heal is very low. The 1d4-1 means that if you rolled a 1, it would do no damage, or heal no amount. It would be a wasted action, that is a 25% chance of wasting your turn at low level. At higher level, or if you increase the spell to take up a slot space, it actually does less damage and heals less than a spell of the same level. a 1st level spell would heal or damage 2d4-1(1-7dmg/heal) IF it hit. A 3rd level slot fireball for example does 8d6(8-48)as a basic spell. A 5th level character, that cast this as a 3rd level spell would only do 4d4+1 damage(5-17), IF it hit, AND the caster would be in melee range of an attacker.

With all these disadvantages to the cantrip and the spell slot versions of the spell, I feel that this spell is adequately balanced. Those that say differently should look outside the box.

I don't know why the response was made on the content page instead of this talk page. But none of those six points address the fact this spell can provide almost infinite out-of-combat healing, which vampiric touch can't do by nature of the fact it requires finite spell slots. Even if it's only 1 hp per action (which it isn't), it's still 10 hp per minute and 60 hp per hour (or per short rest) without requiring resources other than a bit of time and a nearby anthill (if you forgot your sack of hamsters). - Guy 20:43, 14 September 2018 (MDT)