Talk:Healing Ray (5e Spell)

I feel that this spell is a little too OP for being a cantrip. Official spells do not have any cantrip healing, and even if it was to be kept mostly as is, I would say that only caster level hit dice could be used. That is, only the hit dice from the class that gained the spell can be used for this cantrip. Aurora 'Latius' Lucias (talk) 13:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

At first I'd have disagreed, since this is a cleric spell, there's not many good multiclass combos that would be worth it (à la, take a level of cleric as a barbarian to get more healing). But really the biggest danger of this spell is taking it with the Magic Initiate feat, and obviously taking Guidance as the other Cantrip. It's in a position where it's balanced for Cleric (maybe the range should be touch) but very unbalanced for anyone else wishing to take it. Oh, and you can see and target yourself, making this out of combat healing equal to a short rest sans the CON bonus per hit die. Not extremely busted but most likely unintended.

Overall it's a nice spell, it's even balanced to underpowered if you're playing with the recommended amount of short rests per long rest. I like the design space it carves out in the cantrip slot by using other resources, but it needs more limiters to ensure it doesn't get abused.

I sure hope some strapping young editor gets to fixing it someday. vladulenta (talk) 16:46, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the main reason why I'm unsure about it. Perhaps we have it where the expended hit die would heal for the Cleric's HD regardless then? Aurora 'Latius' Lucias (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)