Talk:Healing Touch (5e Spell)

I made an attempt to fix this spell. Please let me know how I did and if it's more balanced than it was previously. Thanks! Benk207 (talk)

Is both the risk of exhaustion and having to wait at least 1 minute really necessary?

Since you're risking giving the creature exhaustion with every casting of the spell, I feel like having to wait so long is unnecessary. Call me crazy, but what if the creature itself cannot benefit from the spell's healing for that long instead? Or the creature has to take a short rest before it can benefit from the spell again? I just think you shouldn't be the one who has to wait to cast the spell again, or at least for so long. I mean, even a single level of exhaustion is pretty terrible, and by the time a creature does get one, you aren't likely to risk inflicting a second, right? Or have I gone senile? --IntellectMaster (talk) 19:46, 22 April 2021 (MDT)

In the Dungeon Master's Guide, it explicitly says that no cantrip should give away healing, as it basically means that a creature can heal another creature at will. While I am a supporter of homebrew (as we all are here on the wiki), this is a guideline that should not be ignored. Exhaustion is pretty terrible, yes, but if it wasn't there, then they could just heal creatures at will. Even a cooldown of a few minutes makes this a really powerful cantrip. I don't really see a winning scenario with this- either you get a cantrip that heals creatures super easily, as the delay is barely a setback, or you regain a small amount of hitpoints and then gain exhaustion because of it. If there was some middle ground, then yes, that would be preferable. The best way to fix the spell I can see right now would be to simply make it a higher level and remove the exhaustion, as cantrips shouldn't offer healing in the first place but exhaustion makes this spell really not worth taking, as it causes more harm than good unless you're a really high level and you have greater restoration. --MarshDASavage (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2021 (MDT)

This cantrip isn't "giving away healing" as I see it: this still has a cost associated with it, albeit not one that can measured linearly like spell slots can. I am aware of the guidelines in the DMG, and I agree that it's very powerful even as is, but I'm not talking about a buff or a nerf, which seems to be the impression of how I cam across. I was just wondering about whether, in their current form, the combined restrictions/penalties feel right. Increasing the spell level and removing the exhaustion literally makes this a worse cure wounds, and the intent is for it to be a cantrip that, eventually, will provide true healing without being broken. Maybe instead of the target making the saving throw, you make the save against exhaustion, or maybe it both requires the target to take a short rest before benefiting a second time and you have to wait 1d4 or 1d6 or something rounds instead of minutes (rounds are not unheard of as a time period for spells, they just aren't very common). Honestly, I don't think any form or combination of restrictions/penalties will ever feel "good" or "right" for a healing cantrip, but we can at least get it to a point where it isn't completely broken, OP, or more punishing than helpful. I'm all for risk-reward effects, but make them too risky for not enough reward and it just isn't fun. --IntellectMaster (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2021 (MDT)

If you want a solution, make it only usable in fights. Connect it to adrenaline somehow in the fluff. It’s a free heal, and it doesn’t cripple you, but you can’t just spam it out of fights, which is the primary concern. --SwankyPants (talk) 11:47, 23 April 2021 (MDT)

"You touch a creature, stimulating its natural ability to repair its own damage. It regains hit points equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

Forcing a creature's body to quickly repair its own damage is not a gentle process, and will resist further attempts to do so. Once you cast this cantrip on a creature, it cannot regain hit points from this cantrip again until it finishes a short or long rest."

How does this look as an alternative? I'm considering adding the saving throw back in, but this time with a fixed DC of X - your spellcasting ability modifier, and if the creature succeeds on the save, it regains the hit points. Either that, or the creature can expend a hit die to receive the fixed amount of healing described (losing a hit die to expend during a short rest in return for possibly less hit points now). Whatd'y'all think? --IntellectMaster (talk) 09:34, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

I mean, unless it scales past that point, it’s basically worthless past 3rd, maybe 4th level. I’m still more for “limited use conditions” over “one and done”. --SwankyPants (talk) 09:50, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

Honestly, that is not a great alternative. Like SwankyPants said, it becomes useless after just a few levels. I agree with SwankyPants on this one- make it limited use instead of single use. Maybe make it so they can only regenerate health if they have taken damage within the past minute and if they haven't had the cantrip used on them yet during this period? Or maybe have a less severe side effect to casting the spell on a creature, such as having disadvantage on the next attack roll they make? I don't really know. I'm still strongly opposed to having healing as a cantrip. However, having a conditional or some sort of side effect feels better than a one-and-done thing. --MarshDASavage (talk) 14:53, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

I mean, it's not really "one and done" effect, since with this proposed revision it can be cast on every member of your party in a single combat to restore hit points without expending a spell slot and replicates the effects of the Healer feat's second bullet point without requiring you to have a healer's kit that you expend uses from, but OK. If a cantrip is only good if it's constantly improving as you gain levels and having its numbers grow, then I suppose minor illusion, dancing lights, and guidance are all terrible and are also worthless at any level after 4th.

To fit with your desires for "limited use conditions" rather than "one and done", here's a different draft of the effects, heavily paraphrased and lacking fluff: "Touch creature less than 1/2 hp max, regains casting mod hp and has disadv on its next atk roll w/in 1 min. x2 regained hp at level 5, x3 at 11, and x4 at 17." This satisfies all the conditions of: having limited conditions under which it functions; is undeniably, 100%, without-a-doubt not a "one and done" effect; improves as you gain levels at the standard rate of any other cantrip that improves with gained levels; and has a less severe side effect. Now, is this a better draft in your eyes? I'm not particularly liking it myself, but if the majority of the community thinks this is better, then I'm probably wrong and might need to freshen up my spell balance knowledge. It has been a while since I thoroughly poured through the DMG's section on it: I've been using the wiki's guideline as a refresher, and have probably forgotten something important (besides the fact that, normally, a cantrip should not provide healing for the exact reasons already stated by Swanky). --IntellectMaster (talk) 22:53, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

Sure, being able to throw the cantrip at your entire party certainly does a fair amount of healing, but everyone does just get 5 hitpoints. That's like a single dagger stab from a above average dexterity creature. Maybe 20 hitpoints is a fair chunk, but due to it being seperated, it's nigh worthless. Again, this was further worsened by leveling past 4th, as 5 hitpoints goes from maybe 15-20% of your total to about 10%, and it keeps getting lower and lower.

Guidance doesn't increase over time, but that's because a +2 to just about any d20 roll is still handy at most levels. Minor Illusion is weak, and doesn't increase in power, but it does still serve a non-mechanical purpose which could be really useful. I can't say the same for dancing lights since everybody gets darkvision, but the other can still be relevant at higher levels. But, as you level, 5 extra hitpoints slowly becomes less and less useful. You know how monsters scale, and by god, 5 hitpoints does nothing against anything past CR 7.

Essentially, check bonuses are always useful, non-combat abilities can be useful, but hitpoints are a numbers game, and if it doesn't increase, it will become worthless.

Anyways, that suggested version seems fine. I wouldn't oppose it. --SwankyPants (talk) 23:09, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

The usefulness of what is more likely 3 hit points of healing (even worse) is not the percentage of your hit points that you regain by having it cast on you, but rather what it does when cast on a creature at 0 hit points. It's effectiveness is more in the ability to bring someone back from the clutches of death than as a pure hit point dump. It's like cure wounds: useful as pure healing early on, but worthless as pure healing at later levels. You would NEVER cast cure wounds on the fighter at 80/100 hit points just to give him ~9 more hit points when you could just take a short rest, but you would cast it on the fighter at 0/100 hit points in the midst of combat to get him back up and fighting again. Same goes for this cantrip, and making it too powerful would make it the one and only cantrip any character with the option to pick it would ever want to pick because you'd be stupid not to. (DMG pg. 283: "If a spell is so good that a caster would want to use it all the time, it might be too powerful for its level." The FIRST thing the DMG tells you to consider when creating a spell.) Consider the only other cantrip that can save a creature from death in official content: spare the dying: can be infinitely spammed but only prevents the creature from making death saving throws. The fair trade of not being infinitely useful in return for restoring even a single hit point is perfect balance in my eyes. This cantrip should be your backup healing spell, not the first thing that comes to mind whenever you want to restore hit points. Everything else in 5e that involves healing requires the expenditure of a resource: as a cantrip, there wouldn't be anything expended except possibly as part of the cantrip's effects. My earliest suggestion of following the restriction of the Healer feat still stands, though, especially since making a healing cantrip in and of itself basically makes spare the dying obsolete (without hefty restrictions, far more hefty than the joke of a draft I put above). And you mentioned 20 hit points being spread out is night worthless: if so, then why the hell is mass healing word a 3rd-level spell? Some food for thought, as we all take a moment to realize just how terrible healing spells are in terms of raw hit points. (Until you get access to heal, that is. Everything changes after that. Oh, and healing spirit, which is just insanely powerful, except for the concentration possibly ending it early due to damage.)

Also, side note: Putting 8 colons in front of these paragraphs is really funny! --IntellectMaster (talk) 14:32, 26 April 2021 (MDT)

A more powerful cantrip like this one would ideally offset the cost for casting it from a spell slot to some other consumable resource. As an example, my soaking hands cantrip offers healing in the form of expending a creature's own hit dice, a limited healing resource that is directly baked into every character. This particular cantrip is weird because that cost is instead expressed in the form of both a random chance to suffer a notoriously hard-to-remove debuff and an arbitrary time penalty after casting. Endermage77 (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2021 (MDT)

Just use Hit Dice

An idea for allowing the cantrip to heal hit points but keep a limit to it: make the cantrip spend hit die of the healed creature. Would be, at least on my view, a fun way to spend a resource that any character has while limiting the healing. And, at higher levels, you can cause the character to spend additional hit dice (up to 2 dice at 5th, 3 at 11th and 4 at 17th). What's everyone think about that? Anastacio (talk) 18:47, 26 April 2021 (MDT)

I see no issue with it, other than the idea kinda already being covered by the cantrip above. It would work, but we’d just have two of the same spell again, like so many others. --SwankyPants (talk) 18:49, 26 April 2021 (MDT)

This is why i should read conversations first, before throwing myself into them, hehe Anastacio (talk) 18:52, 26 April 2021 (MDT)