Making healer builds more worthwhile?
Healing in D&D 5e 2014 has often just felt a little too unimpactful. It’s not the sexiest role in the party anyway. You don’t get to swing a big axe like a barbarian or hurl fireballs like a wizard, you don’t get to sneak about like a rogue or flirt with everything with 2 legs (you know what, the bard isn’t that fussy, he doesn’t care how many legs they’ve got). Sadly, healers aren’t nearly as fun.
And yet they are a hugely useful and almost an integral part of a party. And the potency of healing spells has long been an issue that exacerbated this. In fact, this has led to the phenomenon of the damage dealing cleric. And while clerics certainly can go about striking down foes for the gods, their primary role is supposed to be as a healer.
D&D 2024 has sought to address this by making healing spells more potent, but just how much more potent are healing spells in the new edition. I’ve put together a comparison to find out.
Comparing healing spells between editions
To work this out, I’ve listed all the healing spells available in D&D 5e that were refreshed for D&D 2024 and listed the healing of each so you can easily see how they’ve all changed:
| Spell | Level | Classes | Healing 2014 | Healing 2024 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cure wounds | 1 | Artificer, bard, cleric, druid, paladin, ranger | 1d8 + modifier | 2d8 + modifier | +1d8 |
| Goodberry | 1 | Druid, ranger | 10 x 1 (needs action to eat) | 10 x 1 (needs bonus action to eat) | Bonus action to consume instead of action |
| Healing word | 1 | Bard, cleric, druid | 1d4 + modifier | 2d4 + modifier | +1d4 |
| Prayer of healing | 2 | Cleric, paladin (2024 only) | 6 x 2d8 + modifier | 5 x 2d8 + effects of a short rest | 1 less creature but benefits of short rest too |
| Aura of vitality | 3 | Cleric, druid, paladin | 2d6 each turn | 2d6 each turn | None |
| Mass healing word | 3 | Bard (2024 only), cleric | 6 x 1d4 + modifier | 6 x 2d4 + modifier | +1d4 per creature |
| Vampiric touch | 3 | Sorcerer (2024 only), warlock, wizard | Half 3d6 | Half 3d6 | None |
| Mass cure wounds | 5 | Bard, cleric, druid | 6 x 3d8 + modifier | 6 x 5d8 + modifier | +2d8 per creature |
| Heal | 6 | Cleric, druid | 70 | 70 | None |
| Regenerate | 7 | Bard, cleric, druid | 4d8 + 15 + 1 each turn for 1 minute | 4d8 + 15 + 1 each turn for 1 minute | None |
| Mass heal | 9 | Cleric | 700 across any number of creatures | 700 across any number of creatures | None |
| Power word heal | 9 | Bard, cleric | All HP | All HP | None |
It’s also worth noting that false life now grants 2d4 + 4 temporary hit points rather than the 1d4 + 4 it granted in D&D 2014.
How much have healing spells improved in D&D 2024?
A lot of lower level healing spells got a modest buff. The most common healing spells in healing word and cure wounds both got an extra die to beef them up. Particularly with cure wounds, the healing now is enough to withstand more than just a decent sized attack. Similarly with healing word, the challenge here was that you revived a creature on 0HP only for them to be tickled back to 0HP on the next enemy turn. The healing still isn’t huge (this is a bonus action heal after all), but it is decent enough that you might survive just a bit longer.
Mass cure wounds gets the biggest buff though. An extra 2d8 per creature (so up to an extra 12d8 of healing) is a huge increase.
Comparing healing with damage dealing spells
The big question though is does this make healing a more worthwhile endeavour than causing spell damage? If we compare cure wounds to inflict wounds which are kind of counterparts as heal and damage spells, inflict wounds causes 2d10 damage with a touch (half as much on a successful saving throw). That’s 11 average damage on a hit. Cure wounds will average about 12-14 depending on your spellcasting modifier, but it will always work, whereas inflict wounds may deal half damage. In that direct sense, cure wounds is more potent than inflict wounds. It’s also more potent than the guaranteed damage of magic missile which will average 10.5 damage.
If we compare mass cure wounds with cone of cold, cone of cold deals 8d8 damage (or half as much on a successful saving throw). Mass cure wounds heals 5d8 plus modifier to up to 6 creatures. It’s hard to account for successful saving throws and numbers of creatures, but assuming the same number of creatures affected, the total healing/damage probably isn’t too dissimilar at this point, whereas the 2014 version of mass cure wounds had a gap in potency.
So I’d say that not only have healing spells shown clear improvements in D&D 2024, they now feel much more comparable in potency to their damaging counterparts.
I’ve not had chance to play a healer build yet in D&D 2024, but it does feel more appealing now. How have you found the healing changes in D&D 2024? Do they go far enough? Let me know in the comments below.
