Dungeons & Dragons Nerfs a Popular Healing Spell

A new printing of one of Dungeons & Dragons' rulebooks contains a nerf to one of the game's most [...]

By Christian Hoffer

A new printing of one of Dungeons & Dragons' rulebooks contains a nerf to one of the game's most inadvertently powerful healing spells. Earlier today, a Redditor on /r/DnD pointed out that their copy of Xanathar's Guide to Everything contains different rules for the "Healing Spirit" spell than what previous copies of the spell contains. The revised rules clarifies that Healing Spirit can only heal a number of times equal to 1 + the caster's spellcasting ability modifier before disappearing. Previously, the Healing Spirit lasted for one minute and could heal an unlimited number of creatures during that period.

While some questioned whether the rules change was an April Fools' Day prank, D&D lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford confirmed that "Healing Spirit" was one of several rules that was modified as part of an upcoming errata for Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Crawford also noted that the official errata would be released very soon.

The change is meant to counteract the "conga line" of healing that allowed low level players to quickly heal themselves after an encounter. While the Healing Spirit only doled out a small amount of healing per turn, players simply needed to run through the Healing Spirit as many times as they could to get healed up to their full amount. Compared to other 2nd Level healing spells, Healing Spirit was super-powerful, especially outside of combat.

Although players will likely be disappointed that they can't use Healing Spirit to quickly heal their entire party, the rule change does bring it in line with other 2nd level spells. And the ability to heal multiple party members by only expending one spell slot still makes it an effective spell, just not as effective as it was before.

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