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Have you ever done a dragon's breath build? I feel like with optimization and a familiar this spell can be op. Especially if you go and buff the familiar (mage armor + blur + mirror image) at Higher Levels you basically have a pet dragon that has its own turn and can do up to 7d6 per round for 10 rounds with only 1 6th level spell. That's like 70d6 and if you add things like elemental adept.....
Death Ward is actually a must-have spell for this build, but it's not for your allies - you cast it on yourself. The weakest link in the Healer strategy is that when the healer goes down the party will be quick to follow, assuming your DM is ratcheting up the difficulty to give your party a challenge in light of the healing you can put out. Intelligent enemies in particular may focus a renowned healer, the most ruthless of whom may use insta-kill spells, which Death Ward neatly counters.
Death Ward is just a great spell in general, especially on Clerics. Clerics might have the worst 4th level spell selection, with Banishment being the one big spell at that level, and even then Banishment being save-or-suck means it is pretty situational despite its immense power when it does work. I am shocked Warlock can't learn it. Cheating death through a pact with an otherworldly being is totally in the warlock job description but they can't learn this useful spell that they would actually get a lot of use out of due to pact magic???
44:25 the reason is quite simple. Jeremy Crawford said himself in the official cleric video, it was intended so you could cast spells like Raise Dead, Animate Dead, Geas, Planar binding, etc as an action. It's supposed to be like an epic "well I actually can do that, as my god gives me their powers to do so in an instant" type of thing. I think Jeremy's example was Raise Dead in the video but yeah Basically a "Minor Wish" just like the Genie Warlock, or just Wish at 20th level
@@charlesboots6508 man I wish there was a spell in the game that would let you touch someone to make them do more damage on their next attack, so someone could run through a group of Warcaster players and get on massive team powered super attack
Something I just realized: since both Thaumaturge and Magician boost your Arcana checks separately, you're adding your wisdom modifier twice to the check. That's pretty high Arcana for a build that dumped Intelligence. Not sure how useful that is in game, just noticed and thought it was interesting.
Why is everyone talking about hallow with divine intervention? Prayer of Healing now gives everyone a SHORT REST. You can restock your team with their rechargeable skills mid combat! Two action surges.... 4 warlock spells... think of whatever but I think this is the go to spell for divine intervention
I believe now during a short rest you cna use as much hit dice as you want vs only using an amount = your constitution modifier or half your amount of hit dice, whichever it was.
@@tj1156 It's not as if there has ever been a module printed that needed optimized characters. I doubt it's going to be any different when the MM finally comes out next year lol.
@@Amrylin1337 optimized is a playstyle. There's no need for a variety of playstyles. That doesn't mean opinions about playstyles aren't valid. I'm offering my two cents on the matter as Colby tends to enjoy optimized characters.
I'd love to see a magic item wishlist for builds, since there are now rules for crafting magic items and even a DM distribution sheet for tracking the amount of items per party. I feel like magic items are going to be much more common, generally.
And thief rouge can use magic items as a bonus action! So scrolls or enspelled weapons. You can quite easily scribe your own scrolls if you are proficient at arcana or with caligrapher tools.
I like the flexibility here. Yes, you can sneak out of chalice mode just to spam Archer damage, free guiding bolts, Cantrip damage, then toss out an aura of Vitality to top off, then as needed toss out a major heal. As for the new Healer feat, with all the healing this build does, the players can afford to blow at least half of their HD every day on healer kit assistance. Save on spell slots a bit. And don’t forget, the Healer feat lets you rerolling ones on all of those extra healing dice
I think the War Caster beneficial spell loophole is probably unintentional, but I also think I'd probably allow it purely for the sake of consistency -- basically I can't come up with a satisfying reason why you *shouldn't* be able to cast a helpful spell under the exact same circumstances that allow you to cast a harmful one. (Honestly, I can't believe I've never seen someone at least try that argument even with old War Caster.)
This is my argument for it as well. I can't think of any logical reason why you are able to cast a spell on a hostile creature as they move past but at the same time cannot target a non-hostile creature as they move past. I can see limiting the scope of the spell you use based on the argument that this is a split second reaction compared to a full 6 second combat term (I suggested in Colby's short teaser video yesterday that it would be reasonable to, unless the spell is a reaction spell, treat any spell cast in this manner as cast at their base level regardless of the spell slot they used and only target the one who provoked the reaction even if the spell could normally target several creatures...but this would have to apply to all spells cast as a reaction, not just those targeting allies). I get this is super powerful but "it's powerful" is not a good enough reason to disallow it when it logically makes sense.
If you have a player wanting to have a satisfying healer experience, I think you need to explore finding ways to make dropping to 0 a bigger deal than it is in the core rules. A mechanically easy homebrew that makes narrative sense: 1 level of exhaustion when a character drop to 0 hp. Exhaustion reduces a character's d20 rolls, scales with each level, and it's cumbersome to remove; all making the idea of going to 0 repeatedly in a fight highly inefficient; thus healing would be desirable generally whenever anyone has taken 30% or more of their hp in a single round of combat.
I agree. I would like this change/homebrew it in. I think also reducing their hit point maximum until they finish a long rest or something could also help?
In our games you only get a point of exhaustion if you roll of death save. So if your party can get to you before your turn comes or you take more damage, than theres no penalty. Its really made them rush to get pcs up.
at that point you have to wonder whether you're helping one person live out their healing fantasy to the detriment of the rest of the party. As you said, exhaustion is cumbersome to remove and all-encompassing. If you're in a fight where you keep going down, after the second level of exhaustion (-4 to ALL rolls) might as well leave the table and come back in an hour
@@alegbh8713 As it is in the core rules, a life domain cleric is much better off ignoring their subclass features, and instead using their spell slots to deal damage to remove targets from the board in fewer rounds, and then healing if someone goes down. Things don't really get interesting until PW: Kill, Disintegrate, or Finger of Death enter the picture. But for all levels of play, If you significantly penalizing going unconscious (whether you choose exhaustion or not), then you are making it the most efficient option to heal before the party members get critically endangered, and healers are more than capable of doing that task for 5-6 rounds of difficult combat with good choices being made.
We've tried this, and we abandoned it pretty quickly. All it did was mean our melee characters were exhausted all the time. All it does it make melee even less attractive and even though tactically it makes sense for everyone to play defensively and evasively, it didn't feel like very epic battles, especially for our melee characters who WANTED to wade into battle and take a bunch of hits with their high AC. Yes healing felt more meaningful, but overall it was not fun. Honestly I just don't think dnd combat enables a fun healing archetype.
I think the real winner for Divine Intervention - at least with this kind of cleric - is Prayer of Healing, for a one-action short rest in combat. With beacon of hope active, you're not only maximizing the spell's healing, but also any hit dice your allies spend during this instant short rest. Depending on interpretation, this also trigges Musician and Inspiring Leader. All of that on top refreshing features, like all the warlock's spell slots, the bard's bardic inspiration, our own channel divinity, fighter's action surge, etc. Now, unless the rule has changed, casting a spell without a spell slot, unless otherwise specified, is cast at it's lowest possible level. Thus, a divine intervention cure wounds would be 1st level. But, even with this, an in-combat short rest is just too crazy to pass up, and the healing on the spell itself is not bad.
For me, if your table allows you to use older subclasses, I like the idea of using a Divine Soul sorcerer for the party's healer/support. I always thought the problem before was their limited number of prepared spells. Getting full access to both the cleric and sorcerer spell lists means they have a lot more versatility now with the extra prepared spells. Plus, being able to use metamagic on cleric spells adds even more flexibility. Is it going to heal as much as a life cleric? No. But it will offer you the essential healing your party needs plus damage, control, and support.
I've played the Circle of Stars/Twilight Cleric build in a campaign, and it's so powerful it can carry multiple unoptimized characters to victory. It's so good and the free Guiding Bolts allow it to contribute in bringing things down. I felt just as good playing that character as I did playing my Conquest Paladin/Divine Soul Sorc/Echo Knight. That Paladin kicked the crap out of a Tiamat campaign and I have you to thank for it. OH and your builds for BG3 were great too.
This might be my favourite new build. Something where you can be an absolute monster healer one combat, then turn on spirit guardians and archer form another and rip things up. Best of all, it has something interesting to do at all levels, but evolves in strategy as different combinations and options unlock. Looks really fun, not game breaking, and best of all your party will love all the help you're giving them!
I feel like to make the healing feel better they'd want to penalize going down more. I liked hearing about exhaustion for going back up. I could also see things like: • You *resist* healing while down, so healing is worth more while up • It costs hit dice to get back up (like 4E healing surge) • PF wounded in some form
BG3 had a simple solution. On the turn you get back up after being unconscious you don’t have your action. So you essentially loose your turn in most cases.
I have implemented a tier of 10 exhaustion levels that just add a -1 to any d20 roll. Anytime you hit 0 you get a level of exhaustion until you finish a long rest. So you can absolutely yoyo your health but you will become more and more inefficient the longer it goes on.
@@James-kv3ll It is simple, but not very fun. In BG3 you control all characters, so missing a turn on one of them isn't a huge deal. The same cannot be said for DnD, that's also why conditions like stun always feel so bad, because it means you're just waiting around for 20-30 min for a turn where you can't do anything.
I like a mechanic like this, but I also hope they address this in monster design. Now that Bloodied is a condition I have added traits to my monsters like "Ruthless: The monster deals an additional die of damage against a bloodied creature" or "Bloodthirsty: The monster has advantage on attacks against bloodied creatures" You could also have some kind of ability that gives the monster a buff or cool effect when they bring a creature to 0 hitpoints making Yoyoing increasingly dangerous. I do think it might be more difficult for DMs to remember such conditional abilities though.
You can hold the magic action to cast cure wounds with the trigger of “when my owl familiar touches Steve”, then on your familiar’s turn it flies over and touches Steve, you cast, familiar uses their reaction to cast it, then your owl flies away with fly-by protecting them.
But don’t forget, if you ready a Magic action, it requires Concentration until you cast it, so this tactic would break your Concentration if you were using it for another spell effect.
You should really look at shepherd druids' unicorn spirit. 4 level life cleric with the rest into shepherd druid, using unicorn spirit can heal for a lot of damage single target, and heal the whole party a good bit as well, or using mass healing word / mass cure wounds, can heal the whole party a very large amount. You'd have to make assumptions about party size to be able to compare it properly, but healing your whole party for your druid level each time you heal anyone is pretty amazing
Opportunity Attacks are first covered on pg 26, under the main heading Melee Attacks. It says: "Combatants watch for **ENEMIES** to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your **FOES**, you put your-self in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack." I would argue it still only applies to your enemies and not your allies. Love the videos Colby, you are the best 🤩
That's the description blurb though not the rules. The rules for making an opportunity attack just say "when a creature that you can see leaves your reach" specific>general would be my ruling. But up to the dm 🤷🏼
Thanks. I think it's pretty clear with that text in mind, that it still only applies to enemies - at least that's how i'm going to rule it. Btw. I really hate that I can see the page number in the digital version.
@@shawntoups2454I disagree. I think that more applies to being able to attack a creature that isn’t YET hostile to you. Even if it was intended to include allies, it still 100% seems like it was an oversight when combined with war caster
@@sortehuse In the section it's written enemy in the first part, but then when it mention the actual rules it says when a creature you see leaves your reach. I'm not a fan of the interaction with warcaster it's most likely not RAI but it works RAW, I won't allow it at my table for all spells maybe I would make a specific exception for cure wounds just so the healer doesn't feel forced to heal as an action when a party's member HP run low. No haste no Enlarge person or other buff just cure wounds as a quality of life feature for healers
I am glad to see a non-damage build on the channel again. I like the healing and tanking videos and wouldn't mind seeing other types, like maybe an "Ultimate Face" video where you see what chance of success you can manage for Persuasion, Deception or Intimidation at different DCs over the levels. There are three things I wanted to mention about the druid splash that could be useful (sorry if someone mentioned them already; there’s a lot of comments and it isn’t really easy to search them): 1. When you Wildshape you get a chunk of temporary hit points. They don’t say they go away when you leave Wildshape. So, you could use your action on your turn, then bonus action Wildshape to gain the temp hit points (and maybe an increased move speed) and then on your next turn use your bonus action to dismiss Wildshape and be able to use your action to cast again, keeping the Temp HP if you didn’t lose it already. This can be particularly helpful if you are going to use Warding Bond. 2. There is a less restrictive way to use your familiar to cast Cure Wounds on your allies. On your turn you take a Ready action to cast Cure Wounds when your familiar touches your ally. Then, on the Familiar’s turn, it does Flyby and touches the ally as it passes by. At that moment, you spend both your reaction and your familiars reaction to cast the spell. That allows the familiar to stay in a safe spot that is central to the party and get to anyone that needs healing, though it does cost your reaction. 3. You mentioned that you could go Sage instead of Healer if you wanted for the origin. If you do, that would give you access to True Strike, which combined with Shillelagh, gives you a pretty potent offensive melee option without expending resources. That said, count me as one of the people that think removing the limit on Healer is a net buff to the feat, so I would be tempted to take Healer instead of getting True Strike (though I would consider going Human to get both).
Just rechecked the temp hit points and realized its 3 hit points per level for Moon and 1 per level for everyone else. Thought it was more. Probably not really worth it unless you really need the movement.
I like the ally OP Atk idea; it still costs your reaction, but adds great flexibility especially with warcaster, so why not enjoy the additional tactical options and make the game more interesting 😎🌈
How about the new Second Wind having multiple charges? Put that with the Bannerett restoring hp = your fighter level. If we get a good rework, it'll be a great contender
55:17 Firstly, love the vid. Secondly, i got to talk about bon iver - he (Justin Vernon) is the man. I would nominate him for King of Indie or at least King of Indie-Folk. My favorite song is Minnesota, WI. His ability to go from crazy deep to falsetto is unmatched. Another good show song is iMi. Each of his albums are unique and sincere. Recommend taking a "deep dive" into more bon iver.
On the whole “hostile” language being removed from AoO and the war caster feat - I think it was intentional and is a genuine improvement to the flow of the game. (1) It makes utility wizards/clerics way more viable in the wake of the “one spell level per turn” rule. You no longer have to choose between a damage dealing spell vs. Buff spell for your whole turn. (2) It also just makes sense to remove the word ‘hostile’ based on the actions being taken. It’s not that you can only hit hostile creatures that move away from you, it’s that, unless they take the disengage action, any creature is open for attack when moving away. By using your reaction, you make the AoO melee attack. What war caster does is just expand that to also making a spell attack. And if you are already casting a one-action spell, what does it matter if the spell is harmful or helpful? In 2014, your reactions really were limited to just hurting your enemies. Now, there’s a bit more decision making given back to the players. I like It! ❤❤❤
I too think it's intentional just not for the reason you suggested. They removed the word Hostile because some DMs might rule that a creature retreating from combat is not longer hostile and therefore doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. In typical WotC fashion they completely forgot about War Caster and how it would be impacted. They also failed to consider the new unarmed strike rules. I fully expect this to be addressed in Sage Advice and/or fixed as errata at some point. I also expect that many DMs will not allow this even if it was intended.
As a rule, I will not ban something that has not yet made itself a clear problem at the table. I think of this as the Law of Premature Rulings. This works well as a moderation of the Rule of Cool.
Beacon of hope is such an underrated spell. It gives fighting classes that are down more chance to get up and more healing in future turns (although it's a concentration but still one of my favorite at lvl 3)
The problem I see with the gunk is that I don't see anything in the new rules that technically enhances the gunk in any way, other than the fact that the base class is better. In fact the removal of the damage from Sharpshooter decreases the benefit, and the better abilities of the base class that you're ignoring just make it feel a bit worse to play with the new baseline. You could probably still make something viable, but not anything I would call optimal.
Hey Colby, for future support builds, you may want to consider choosing Elf and the Chef feat so you can make treats for 4hrs while everyone else is finishing their long rest since you finish one in 4hrs instead of 8. This means that for each of your damage reports you could add in an additional 45 temp Hp at Lv 6, 80 at Lv 9, 125 at Lv 13, and 180 at Lv 17. And this is not even including any short rests, you just get this every time you long rest regardless of any other factors, so might be really nice for your numbers!
@ Yeah and I love that you add it so much, but I don’t believe you’ve ever combined it with elf to get way more temp Hp right? Or have you done that already and I am forgetting?
Well, we don't have many to go on, but looking at the Elephant specifically in the PHB: AC, HP, Ability scores, and to-hit numbers are all the same between the two (though this is not true for some other animals). The 2014 version attacks only once for 3d8+6, and can force people to make a save at DC 12 or be forced prone if it charges. If they do knock someone prone, they can attack a second time for 3d10+6 as a bonus action. The 2024 version has multiattack, getting two attacks for 2d8+6 each (much higher damage total) and automatically knocks people prone if it charges. It can use a Bonus Action to make anyone who is prone next to it (whether it made them that way or not) make a DC 16 Save or take 2d10+6 damage (and still take half damage even on a success). So the listed damage numbers are technically lower, but the in-practice damage is quite a lot higher (especially for a Druid due to multiattack). And that's just one CR 4 monster...I suspect the others will also be changing quite a lot.
Nice to see what can be done with raw healing power. When Colby mentioned power word fortify though... it would be funny to see that in combination with Armor of Agathys. Not that it would be easy to get enemies to trigger that but oh well I would be in for the memes.
There are a lot of soft taunts in the game that can be very helpful for that. A raging barbarian to which you have advantage to attack and disadvantage to everyone else could make a very interesting case for a consistent target
Divine Intervention bypassing cast times could also be used to upcast Prayer of Healing instantly mid-combat which is 5d8 healing, but also hits everyone with a Short Rest, allowing them to spend their Hit Die + Con Mod to recover health. On a level 13 d8 character with 16 con that's ~97.5 average potential healing, plus another 22.5 from the 5d8 for 120 total average healing. More or less depending on hit die and con mods.
For level 10 in cleric (character level 13 with this build), then prayer of healing is unironically the best healing option, especially if you haven't used your healers kit on any allies yet. You give them all their short rest stuff back, you allow them to heal (for this video) 13d8 + 13 x con mod in hit points plus 5d8 from the spell itself, that is a ludicrous amount of potential for one action at this level with the total (assuming Beacon of Hope because why not and +2 con, 13) per character (up to 5) 170 healing from hit dice and the spell combined, now would each character need that much healing no ofc not but the beauty is that they can control it themselves. As an added benefit of casting prayer of healing you get to cast your channel divnity again meaning 5*13 extra hit points, for a grand total of 915 potential healing in the midst of combat from you casting prayer of healing with your divine intervention! Also also prayer of healings radius isn't the biggest so maybe you can't get everyone in range but still incredible potential that only goes up as the characters have more hit dice. Granted for the healing calculations done by Colby here, we are already getting a lot of the healing from the hit dice, but that is a slow trickly compared to the above 9th level mass heal capabilities that a the Divine Intervention feature can provide if need be. PS. Colby remember that mass cure wounds and mass healing word are an option and if you have multiple allies that need healing then they are still better healing wise than an upcasted cure wounds of that level (3/4 for mass healing word and 5-8 for mass cure wounds, with the full amount (6) of allies needing healing ). It does require that multiple allies need healing which can't always be true, and they have to be pretty close to eachother so millage may vary.
Personally, im a fan of using a reaction to cast touch spell on Ally. i just kind of wish it wasn't tied to war caster. Its already a powerful feat that feels like you almost have to take as a caster, i think it could be cool if they made a different feat, specifically for using on allys (also with a secondary maybe third effect) meaning we get that fun mechanic but theres still some sort of cost tied to it.
Something to consider... in 2024, whether we have a Bastion or not, we can craft an Enspelled Staff of Cure Wounds. This will allow us to cast Cure Wounds with our action, and then cast a bonus action healing spell like Healing Word, Mass Healing Word, or even Healing Spirit. Combined with the other features, this can let us hit a lot of targets for a not-insubstantial amount of health with surprisingly few resources. It almost makes me wonder about taking 3 levels of Thief rogue to be able to use the staff as a bonus action...
Go listen to "perth" by Bon Iver, amazing song. And for general information. Its pronounce " bon iver" as in Bon Hiver in french. As her mother use to tell him
Thanks for bringing up the changes to the Healer feat. It was actually really good in 2014 and I HATE the new version using up a resource (hit dice) to do its thing. I felt like that was being ignored.
I hope if we do get that "Warcaster working as intended" confirmation you revisit this concept with an order domain cleric. Not only because it would be probably the most powerful support ever but because I got the funniest mental imagine of a barbarian running past the cleric, getting slapped on the ass and then clobbering a nearby enemy thanks to voice of authority like a full on tsundere blushing profusely and calling the cleric a BAKA lol
Lifeberry also ended up cut off from the other end, 5e's Goodberry was an Action to eat, so you could have at least cheesed the "on the turn you cast the spell" bit some even if to nowhere near the old degree by Readying an Action to eat one when they appeared, but they also changed 5.5 Goodberry to a Bonus Action to eat, which in most cases is a buff, but in the specific scenario of Disciple of Life the fact that you can't RAW Ready a Bonus Action hits the snag.
Everyone arguing about "beneficial casting" with War Caster, over the language of Opportunity Attacks against "enemies" - this is directly addressed in the DMG. "Attacks are for enemies." This is noted in the section about rules exploitation - it is not allowed by the rules as intended, and would be considered an exploit. Some tables are good with that, but there ya go, pays yer monies and makes yer choices.
If you go just cleric you get a lot more at level 17. Though even with your build with druid levels you should probably take the cartomancer feat to access the spell mass heal.
Exhaustion for going unconscious with the new rules sound like a perfect way to nerv the JoJo healing. Healing word looks like one of the spells, that is hit the hardest with the just one leveled spell per round change. Maybe "healers" should watch out for means to use their action beneficial if they end up using bonus action for healing word.
Is it not worth mentioning that the Healer feat also gives you this ability? Healing Rerolls. Whenever you roll a die to determine the number of Hit Points you restore with a spell or with this feat’s Battle Medic benefit, you can reroll the die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new roll. It's not massive, of course, but it does seem worth mentioning. Love your videos!
I wish UA content could've gotten another chance for this. There's a feat called Baleful Scion which deals necrotic damage and heals you for that damage.
I know it's not technically "healing", but the inspiring leader feat would be great for adding a buffer to the whole party, similar to power word fortify, after every short and long rest. Especially since it works with both wis and cha and is a half feat now. Don't know what level would be the best to add it at though.
A buff for abjurer wizards is that cure wounds and healing word are now abjuration spells. Picking healing word from an origin feat (background/human) i think is a must have for any abjurer wizard
Hi mate, Thanks for the vid, a lot of useful information and things I had overlooked. But you implied that once a character reaches level 19 any of their feats are Epic boon feats, but I think if you take another look, you'll see that class level 19 grants an Epic boon option, not character level 19. Maybe that's just my interpretation, but i had to say something
@@Xanderriggs that was my original understanding as well. I’ve debated it long and hard with other UA-camrs. In the end though, if you build it out in dndbeyond, epic boons unlock at character level 19, regardless of whether or not you have 19 levels in a single class, so until WotC comes out with a clarifying statement and/or they change it in dndbeyond, I guess that’s how it works.
This may be a bit of a hard-line answer to making unconsciousness scary, but I've found that simply being willing to focus-fire downed players tends to make healing more desirable. The enemies aren't dumb; they should know that an unconscious adventurer is likely to be healed as long as they aren't dead. (And as long as your party's past level 5, they should have resurrection magic anyways).
Have you thought about doing a tank build using the new upgraded fiendish vigour? I haven't cooked too hard on it yet but 12 temp hp as an action an unlimited number of times is very strong. I've thought about doing an archfey warlock tank, misty stepping and either soft taunting with Taunting Step or giving out temp HP with Refreshing Step. You'd only need 3 levels in warlock for the basis of the build to come online. Feels like a really unique and flavourful tank build and I'm curious to see what there is there.
Really good at low levels, doesn't scale that well unless you start using spell slots for False Life. At which point other options are likely more optimal, even upcasting Cure Wounds on yourself might be better.
@ I agree, super powerful earlygame. I think finding ways to get the temp HP to go further (with resistances? Heavy armour master?) is probably how I would get it to scale a bit better. Multiclassing sorcerer to quicken the spell to still have actions could be good too. Also comboing it with *Armour of Agathys* could work well as the spell is changed to remain as long as you have temporary hitpoints.
As someone who enjoyed playing a pure healer Life Cleric, I can understand the Disciple of Life nerf to make it only work on cast. Getting the benefit on every Goodberry or every pulse of Aura of Vitality was almost certainly unintended since Cleric didn't even have access to the spells originally (got Vitality eventually). Basically moreso a "loophole close" like Abjuration Wizard with Armor of Shadows Invocation nerf.
during your last healing report you forgot you don't need to concentrate on beacon anymore for max healing, not sure if it would effect your numbers much, but it would probably squeak out a few mor hp.
With 2024 D&D here, I want to sit down and revisit my skill monkey that gets expertise in all skills. In case anyone is curious, the old concept is V Human Scout Rogue 12/Barbarian 2/Ranger 1/Knowledge Cleric 1/Lore Bard 4. Background really doesn't matter because you can fill in gaps in your skill selection. Feats are Skilled and half feats to squeeze out the last of the expertises. The weakest skills are +11 and always roll at least 10 from Rogue 11, meaning you always pass DC 21 skill checks.
With three levels thief rouge you can use magic items as a bonus action. If you craft an enspelled weapon you can cast a free spell as a bonus action 1d6 times a day. Then buy/scribe a bunch of healing scrolls for emergencies. Its not using a spell slot so you could heal twice a turn i believe?
Death Ward on yourself is a good counter to Warding Bond's persistent damage to yourself. Warding Bond the paladin or barbarian, and then when they take a huge spike of damage you won't suddenly die lol
Yo, what about conjure celestials? It synergizes amazingly with life cleric, since you can heal 4d12 at level 7, scaling 1d12 for every level of upcast, per TURN. With the life cleric capstone, that's an automatic 48 hit point heal for everyone on the area, and every subsequent turn the ally would be healed as well if it was inside the area of the spell. And that's not even considering the 6d12 damage it deals to enemies as well
When you mentioned how much you love power word fortify - I was reminded by another of your videos (can’t remember which one) where you talked about armor about armor of agathys and the temporary hp it gives. Have you thought of a combo between the two?
I'd argue that Disciple of Life was never intended to function with healing-over-time spells, especially Goodberry. So it's less of a nerf and more of closing a loophole.
The idea of an op attack on an ally doesn't make sense in terms of the *name* of the feature, but it does make sense as a thing you should be able to do. If you can do stuff to an enemy when they go past you, it makes complete sense to be able to do stuff to an ally too.
I think that the problem with Opportunity Attack is that they did not include the full text from Chapter 1 - Combat in the Rules Glossary. In the introduction to Opportunity Attack there, it is far more clear that it is related to Enemies or Foes. "Opportunity Attacks Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your foes, you put yourself in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack. Avoiding Opportunity Attack. You can avoid provoking an Opportunity Attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when you are moved without using your movement, action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if you fall past an enemy. Making an Opportunity Attack. You can make an Opportunity Attack when a creature that you can see leaves your reach. To make the attack, take a Reaction to make one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike against that creature. The attack occurs right before it leaves your reach."
The occasional liberal interpretation of the rules is partially the reason I think the series is still going after so many episodes. I know I for one enjoy them a lot! 😁 I have yet to use them in one of my character, but I think most people watching just want some comfy content with an interesting dnd build, presented by the one and only. 😉😎
From a game balance perspective I agree that WotC probably didn’t intend for war caster to allow players reaction buff each other. Buuut, from a logical perspective if a person can blight a creature that is actively trying to avoid them, they ought to be able to heal a friend as they pass by.
I see someone else guessed and were way off with a bunch of levels in Warlock. So I'm gonna take a swing with an overly complex build and a simple one. Simple: Stars Druid... that's it. Druid gives amazing crowd control, Chalice buffs healing and Druid has some of the best crowd control spells to prevent damage in the first place. Overly convoluted: 14/15 or 16/17 levels in Divine Soul Sorcerer or Clockwork making sure to take Distant Spell Metamagic since this and a Familiar lets you cast from range, likely gained through Magic Initiate or a cheap 50g 1st lvl Spell Wrought Tattoo can also grab you Find Familiar. This entire thing is assuming you can use Metamagic on Scrolls and Items that allow you to cast spells like an Enscribed Staff, from what I read and understand this is good but some people online said no because they didn't like the idea, 3 levels in Thief Rouge for Fast Hands to use Scrolls and an Enscribed Staff as a bonus action, maybe 1 Level in Bard if going Clockwork, but even for Divine Soul you might still need that bard level too because Spell Scroll casting and Magic Item Crafting requires the spell in question to be on your spell list and prepared, and Divine Soul technically doesn't add Cleric spells to your spell list in that way RAW, and finally optionally because the one you really need to heal is yourself- 2 levels in Warlock for Pact of the Chain and Gift of the Everliving Ones to max all healing done to yourself while your Familiar is near. And/or everyone in the party takes 2 levels of Warlock for this to maximize all healing... I don't think Colby is going to try or mention the party wide Warlock dip though. A full party of Reborns with these Invocations go so hard they can dance with Michael Jackson. Having Spell Scrolls of Cure Wounds or an Enscribed Staff of Cure Wounds while being a Thief allows you to use them as a Bonus Action, and since they're not expanding a spell slot you can still cast your normal spell a turn which can be damage, crowd control or hey look at that even more Cure Wounds. Find Familiar lets you do so from range, but it can be a little clunky depending on how the Familiar is ran, meanwhile 1 sorcery point turns Cure Wounds into a range spell of 60 ft. Quickend Spell won't let you cast multiple leveled spells in a turn due to it's own restriction, the game rules have a 1 leveled spell a turn and Quickend Spell follows that rule and it's own which says you can't even if you're not using a slot. Fast Hands also doesn't cost any sorcery points to use unlike Quicked Spell so it won't eat your resources. If you don't need a level of Bard to use the said Scrolls then Divine Soul is probably better since at high levels you'll also have the chance to learn more Cleric spells and technically 9th level spells at level 20. However Clockwork can also give an ally a ton of Temp HP with their lvl 6 feature Bastion of Law, and using the new Polymorph trick for Temp HP on a different Ally as well. Control spells also help prevent a lot of damage... and hey if you happen to get/make a couple scrolls of Fireball who's really gonna care if you have Careful Spell Metamagic or not since you can heal so much. Realistically Colby's build is probably going to be a Cleric+Druid combo with maybe a dip in Fighter for Con Saves, Druid would be enough TBH... but this build, aka Fast Hands Sorcerer with Cure Wounds Stick, could cast multiple Cure Wounds in a turn from range using minimal resources, and can keep doing this for a long time, Font of Magic letting you make more and more 1st level slots for "small" bits of healing, or using your proper action and a high level spell for large healing, assuming Divine Soul. Though I am assuming you'll be able to craft an uncommon magic item, which would be about 200g and 5-10 days, or make/buy Spell Scrolls for 50g each, same as a Potion of Healing but get's a lot more expensive as making 8 or buying 4 scrolls/potions would cost the same as crafting 1 staff. And as far as I'm aware you can attune to multiple Enscribed Items of Cure Wounds, so you don't have to even be using Spell Slots most of the time. But not every DM will let their players craft Magic Items, even items that have been designed to be crafted and customized by the players.
I might have gone overboard with a long comment again... whatever I'm kind of excited about the idea of a Thief dip for spellcasters to use Fast Hands, like a money powered Action Surge that isn't limited to once a short rest. But the dip kinda sucks unless you're primarily a Rouge with 1 level dip in Wizard for True Stike/Booming Blade but that's very different, and what I like to call the Money "Wizard" or Cash Blade. I kind of wish Scribes Wizard had a feature like this but only for spell scrolls or only scrolls that you've crafted yourself, like replace the 10th level ability for something like "Speedy Scrolls", which let's you cast Scrolls with a casting time of an Action as a Bonus Action, and keeping the single sentence feature that cuts the money and time needed in half to craft scrolls as well.
Check out The Mystery of Witchhaven here! www.kickstarter.com/projects/obviousmimic/the-mystery-of-witchhaven-a-5e-solo-adventure?ref=22iegz - and here's their main website: obviousmimic.com/discount/COLBY10 - and don't forget their patreon: www.patreon.com/obviousmimic
Also casting prayer of healing with divine intervention and gave every member of party a short rest in the middle of combat would be mental
Have you ever done a dragon's breath build? I feel like with optimization and a familiar this spell can be op. Especially if you go and buff the familiar (mage armor + blur + mirror image) at Higher Levels you basically have a pet dragon that has its own turn and can do up to 7d6 per round for 10 rounds with only 1 6th level spell. That's like 70d6 and if you add things like elemental adept.....
@@dubiraitport6391 It's been a minute, but this one made a lot of use of Dragon's Breath, I believe.... ua-cam.com/video/v2oeHRWNYWM/v-deo.html
Shouldn't You sing a "Circle of life" when making ultimate healer? 😁
Death Ward is actually a must-have spell for this build, but it's not for your allies - you cast it on yourself.
The weakest link in the Healer strategy is that when the healer goes down the party will be quick to follow, assuming your DM is ratcheting up the difficulty to give your party a challenge in light of the healing you can put out.
Intelligent enemies in particular may focus a renowned healer, the most ruthless of whom may use insta-kill spells, which Death Ward neatly counters.
Death Ward is just a great spell in general, especially on Clerics. Clerics might have the worst 4th level spell selection, with Banishment being the one big spell at that level, and even then Banishment being save-or-suck means it is pretty situational despite its immense power when it does work. I am shocked Warlock can't learn it. Cheating death through a pact with an otherworldly being is totally in the warlock job description but they can't learn this useful spell that they would actually get a lot of use out of due to pact magic???
44:25 the reason is quite simple. Jeremy Crawford said himself in the official cleric video, it was intended so you could cast spells like Raise Dead, Animate Dead, Geas, Planar binding, etc as an action. It's supposed to be like an epic "well I actually can do that, as my god gives me their powers to do so in an instant" type of thing. I think Jeremy's example was Raise Dead in the video but yeah
Basically a "Minor Wish" just like the Genie Warlock, or just Wish at 20th level
"You are being [healed, buffed, moved,] please do not resist."
Embrace the Hype Tunnel, Colby!
@@charlesboots6508 man I wish there was a spell in the game that would let you touch someone to make them do more damage on their next attack, so someone could run through a group of Warcaster players and get on massive team powered super attack
The Ultimate Healer 2.0: D&D Ep #189
Level 01 (see above) [cleric 1, divine order species & background]
Level 02 (see above) [cleric 2]
Level 03 (@16:07) [cleric 3 & subclass]
Level 04 (@19:21) [cleric 4 & feat]
Level 05 (@21:57) [cleric 5]
Level 06 (@26:22) [cleric 6]
Level 07 (see above) [druid 1 & primal order]
Level 08 (@32:33) [druid 2]
Level 09 (@34:43) [druid 3 & subclass]
Level 10 (see above) [cleric 7 & blessed strike or potent spell-casting]
Level 11 (@42:24) [cleric 8 & feat]
Level 12 (@42:35) [cleric 9]
Level 13 (@43:47) [cleric 10]
Level 14 (see above) [cleric 11]
Level 15 (@47:53) [cleric 12 & feat]
Level 16 (@48:10) [cleric 13]
Level 17 (@49:24) [cleric 14]
Something I just realized: since both Thaumaturge and Magician boost your Arcana checks separately, you're adding your wisdom modifier twice to the check. That's pretty high Arcana for a build that dumped Intelligence.
Not sure how useful that is in game, just noticed and thought it was interesting.
Magic item crafting maybe? I know that it needs arcana proficiency, but I don’t know if it needs a skill check
.....wait. what the fuck
I love it, combine it with a wizard with a mizzium apparatus and you basically have 3 full spell lists at will
@@samuelhawkins3820 No checks needed
Why is everyone talking about hallow with divine intervention? Prayer of Healing now gives everyone a SHORT REST. You can restock your team with their rechargeable skills mid combat! Two action surges.... 4 warlock spells... think of whatever but I think this is the go to spell for divine intervention
True
I believe now during a short rest you cna use as much hit dice as you want vs only using an amount = your constitution modifier or half your amount of hit dice, whichever it was.
I truly believe that no DnD party is going to be optimized unless they have a level 10 cleric to use Divine Intervention with Prayer of Healing.
@@tj1156 It's not as if there has ever been a module printed that needed optimized characters. I doubt it's going to be any different when the MM finally comes out next year lol.
@@Amrylin1337 optimized is a playstyle. There's no need for a variety of playstyles. That doesn't mean opinions about playstyles aren't valid.
I'm offering my two cents on the matter as Colby tends to enjoy optimized characters.
Before I watch it I predict fighter 1, paladin 1 selestial warlock 18.
Edit: Well I was completely off on my guess 😂
Well, since he only builds up to 17, I’m going to go out on a limb and disagree. 😛
Why go with 1 level in fighter if you’re gonna get Paladin anyway.
@@James-kv3llcon saving throw proficiency… also there’s a little joke where he uses fighter in a ton of multiclass builds
@@alexlittle92Yup.
@@James-kv3llCon save and Memes
I'd love to see a magic item wishlist for builds, since there are now rules for crafting magic items and even a DM distribution sheet for tracking the amount of items per party. I feel like magic items are going to be much more common, generally.
And thief rouge can use magic items as a bonus action! So scrolls or enspelled weapons. You can quite easily scribe your own scrolls if you are proficient at arcana or with caligrapher tools.
The martyr build was one of my favorites of yours from ye olde 5e, looking forward to seeing how this one surpasses it!
I like the flexibility here. Yes, you can sneak out of chalice mode just to spam Archer damage, free guiding bolts, Cantrip damage, then toss out an aura of Vitality to top off, then as needed toss out a major heal. As for the new Healer feat, with all the healing this build does, the players can afford to blow at least half of their HD every day on healer kit assistance. Save on spell slots a bit. And don’t forget, the Healer feat lets you rerolling ones on all of those extra healing dice
Know who could use all this healing? Berzerker Barbarian build!
Another excellent build Kolby!
Next week! ;)
Thanks for the always encouraging words
I think the War Caster beneficial spell loophole is probably unintentional, but I also think I'd probably allow it purely for the sake of consistency -- basically I can't come up with a satisfying reason why you *shouldn't* be able to cast a helpful spell under the exact same circumstances that allow you to cast a harmful one. (Honestly, I can't believe I've never seen someone at least try that argument even with old War Caster.)
This is my argument for it as well. I can't think of any logical reason why you are able to cast a spell on a hostile creature as they move past but at the same time cannot target a non-hostile creature as they move past. I can see limiting the scope of the spell you use based on the argument that this is a split second reaction compared to a full 6 second combat term (I suggested in Colby's short teaser video yesterday that it would be reasonable to, unless the spell is a reaction spell, treat any spell cast in this manner as cast at their base level regardless of the spell slot they used and only target the one who provoked the reaction even if the spell could normally target several creatures...but this would have to apply to all spells cast as a reaction, not just those targeting allies).
I get this is super powerful but "it's powerful" is not a good enough reason to disallow it when it logically makes sense.
What WOTC should have said is a Cantrip not any spell.
If you have a player wanting to have a satisfying healer experience, I think you need to explore finding ways to make dropping to 0 a bigger deal than it is in the core rules. A mechanically easy homebrew that makes narrative sense: 1 level of exhaustion when a character drop to 0 hp.
Exhaustion reduces a character's d20 rolls, scales with each level, and it's cumbersome to remove; all making the idea of going to 0 repeatedly in a fight highly inefficient; thus healing would be desirable generally whenever anyone has taken 30% or more of their hp in a single round of combat.
I agree. I would like this change/homebrew it in. I think also reducing their hit point maximum until they finish a long rest or something could also help?
In our games you only get a point of exhaustion if you roll of death save. So if your party can get to you before your turn comes or you take more damage, than theres no penalty. Its really made them rush to get pcs up.
at that point you have to wonder whether you're helping one person live out their healing fantasy to the detriment of the rest of the party. As you said, exhaustion is cumbersome to remove and all-encompassing. If you're in a fight where you keep going down, after the second level of exhaustion (-4 to ALL rolls) might as well leave the table and come back in an hour
@@alegbh8713 As it is in the core rules, a life domain cleric is much better off ignoring their subclass features, and instead using their spell slots to deal damage to remove targets from the board in fewer rounds, and then healing if someone goes down. Things don't really get interesting until PW: Kill, Disintegrate, or Finger of Death enter the picture. But for all levels of play, If you significantly penalizing going unconscious (whether you choose exhaustion or not), then you are making it the most efficient option to heal before the party members get critically endangered, and healers are more than capable of doing that task for 5-6 rounds of difficult combat with good choices being made.
We've tried this, and we abandoned it pretty quickly. All it did was mean our melee characters were exhausted all the time. All it does it make melee even less attractive and even though tactically it makes sense for everyone to play defensively and evasively, it didn't feel like very epic battles, especially for our melee characters who WANTED to wade into battle and take a bunch of hits with their high AC. Yes healing felt more meaningful, but overall it was not fun.
Honestly I just don't think dnd combat enables a fun healing archetype.
I think the real winner for Divine Intervention - at least with this kind of cleric - is Prayer of Healing, for a one-action short rest in combat. With beacon of hope active, you're not only maximizing the spell's healing, but also any hit dice your allies spend during this instant short rest. Depending on interpretation, this also trigges Musician and Inspiring Leader. All of that on top refreshing features, like all the warlock's spell slots, the bard's bardic inspiration, our own channel divinity, fighter's action surge, etc.
Now, unless the rule has changed, casting a spell without a spell slot, unless otherwise specified, is cast at it's lowest possible level. Thus, a divine intervention cure wounds would be 1st level. But, even with this, an in-combat short rest is just too crazy to pass up, and the healing on the spell itself is not bad.
Thanks Colby- I’m totally psyched about the new cleric ❤
Thank you for the work on these videos, I enjoy them a lot.
This is awesome Colby! I can’t wait to try this out in a future campaign!
For me, if your table allows you to use older subclasses, I like the idea of using a Divine Soul sorcerer for the party's healer/support. I always thought the problem before was their limited number of prepared spells. Getting full access to both the cleric and sorcerer spell lists means they have a lot more versatility now with the extra prepared spells. Plus, being able to use metamagic on cleric spells adds even more flexibility. Is it going to heal as much as a life cleric? No. But it will offer you the essential healing your party needs plus damage, control, and support.
I've played the Circle of Stars/Twilight Cleric build in a campaign, and it's so powerful it can carry multiple unoptimized characters to victory. It's so good and the free Guiding Bolts allow it to contribute in bringing things down. I felt just as good playing that character as I did playing my Conquest Paladin/Divine Soul Sorc/Echo Knight. That Paladin kicked the crap out of a Tiamat campaign and I have you to thank for it. OH and your builds for BG3 were great too.
This might be my favourite new build. Something where you can be an absolute monster healer one combat, then turn on spirit guardians and archer form another and rip things up.
Best of all, it has something interesting to do at all levels, but evolves in strategy as different combinations and options unlock. Looks really fun, not game breaking, and best of all your party will love all the help you're giving them!
Divine intervention is so good. Love it. One of the best class features in the game!
I feel like to make the healing feel better they'd want to penalize going down more. I liked hearing about exhaustion for going back up. I could also see things like:
• You *resist* healing while down, so healing is worth more while up
• It costs hit dice to get back up (like 4E healing surge)
• PF wounded in some form
BG3 had a simple solution. On the turn you get back up after being unconscious you don’t have your action. So you essentially loose your turn in most cases.
I have implemented a tier of 10 exhaustion levels that just add a -1 to any d20 roll. Anytime you hit 0 you get a level of exhaustion until you finish a long rest. So you can absolutely yoyo your health but you will become more and more inefficient the longer it goes on.
@@James-kv3ll It is simple, but not very fun. In BG3 you control all characters, so missing a turn on one of them isn't a huge deal. The same cannot be said for DnD, that's also why conditions like stun always feel so bad, because it means you're just waiting around for 20-30 min for a turn where you can't do anything.
I like a mechanic like this, but I also hope they address this in monster design. Now that Bloodied is a condition I have added traits to my monsters like "Ruthless: The monster deals an additional die of damage against a bloodied creature" or "Bloodthirsty: The monster has advantage on attacks against bloodied creatures" You could also have some kind of ability that gives the monster a buff or cool effect when they bring a creature to 0 hitpoints making Yoyoing increasingly dangerous. I do think it might be more difficult for DMs to remember such conditional abilities though.
Looking good, Colby! Love the shirt!
Awsome build i love it. As always amazing video, great work!
You can hold the magic action to cast cure wounds with the trigger of “when my owl familiar touches Steve”, then on your familiar’s turn it flies over and touches Steve, you cast, familiar uses their reaction to cast it, then your owl flies away with fly-by protecting them.
But don’t forget, if you ready a Magic action, it requires Concentration until you cast it, so this tactic would break your Concentration if you were using it for another spell effect.
You should really look at shepherd druids' unicorn spirit. 4 level life cleric with the rest into shepherd druid, using unicorn spirit can heal for a lot of damage single target, and heal the whole party a good bit as well, or using mass healing word / mass cure wounds, can heal the whole party a very large amount. You'd have to make assumptions about party size to be able to compare it properly, but healing your whole party for your druid level each time you heal anyone is pretty amazing
Opportunity Attacks are first covered on pg 26, under the main heading Melee Attacks. It says: "Combatants watch for **ENEMIES** to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your **FOES**, you put your-self in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack." I would argue it still only applies to your enemies and not your allies. Love the videos Colby, you are the best 🤩
That's the description blurb though not the rules. The rules for making an opportunity attack just say "when a creature that you can see leaves your reach" specific>general would be my ruling. But up to the dm 🤷🏼
Thanks. I think it's pretty clear with that text in mind, that it still only applies to enemies - at least that's how i'm going to rule it.
Btw. I really hate that I can see the page number in the digital version.
They specifically changed the wording from enemy to creature. That seems to imply that they wanted to change it to effect allies as well as enemies.
@@shawntoups2454I disagree. I think that more applies to being able to attack a creature that isn’t YET hostile to you.
Even if it was intended to include allies, it still 100% seems like it was an oversight when combined with war caster
@@sortehuse In the section it's written enemy in the first part, but then when it mention the actual rules it says when a creature you see leaves your reach. I'm not a fan of the interaction with warcaster it's most likely not RAI but it works RAW, I won't allow it at my table for all spells maybe I would make a specific exception for cure wounds just so the healer doesn't feel forced to heal as an action when a party's member HP run low. No haste no Enlarge person or other buff just cure wounds as a quality of life feature for healers
You get all hit dice back on a long rest now so the healer feat is still incredibly good
I am glad to see a non-damage build on the channel again. I like the healing and tanking videos and wouldn't mind seeing other types, like maybe an "Ultimate Face" video where you see what chance of success you can manage for Persuasion, Deception or Intimidation at different DCs over the levels.
There are three things I wanted to mention about the druid splash that could be useful (sorry if someone mentioned them already; there’s a lot of comments and it isn’t really easy to search them):
1. When you Wildshape you get a chunk of temporary hit points. They don’t say they go away when you leave Wildshape. So, you could use your action on your turn, then bonus action Wildshape to gain the temp hit points (and maybe an increased move speed) and then on your next turn use your bonus action to dismiss Wildshape and be able to use your action to cast again, keeping the Temp HP if you didn’t lose it already. This can be particularly helpful if you are going to use Warding Bond.
2. There is a less restrictive way to use your familiar to cast Cure Wounds on your allies. On your turn you take a Ready action to cast Cure Wounds when your familiar touches your ally. Then, on the Familiar’s turn, it does Flyby and touches the ally as it passes by. At that moment, you spend both your reaction and your familiars reaction to cast the spell. That allows the familiar to stay in a safe spot that is central to the party and get to anyone that needs healing, though it does cost your reaction.
3. You mentioned that you could go Sage instead of Healer if you wanted for the origin. If you do, that would give you access to True Strike, which combined with Shillelagh, gives you a pretty potent offensive melee option without expending resources. That said, count me as one of the people that think removing the limit on Healer is a net buff to the feat, so I would be tempted to take Healer instead of getting True Strike (though I would consider going Human to get both).
Just rechecked the temp hit points and realized its 3 hit points per level for Moon and 1 per level for everyone else. Thought it was more. Probably not really worth it unless you really need the movement.
I like the ally OP Atk idea; it still costs your reaction, but adds great flexibility especially with warcaster, so why not enjoy the additional tactical options and make the game more interesting 😎🌈
Ah yes - more healing means more hitting the shit out of my players. Muahahaha 😈
@@wyattfraga2213 also true :3c 🔥💖
Thank you for your videos!! I really enjoy them! You are like my DnD sensei
Being able to use a reaction on allies as well as enemies makes sense and is a good quality of life upgrade.
I actually agree, it offers greater opportunity for teamwork, and if more party members get to use reactions, it keeps players better engaged
How about the new Second Wind having multiple charges? Put that with the Bannerett restoring hp = your fighter level. If we get a good rework, it'll be a great contender
I would never play this build - healing overkill - but I enjoyed how this build demonstrates how so many of features and rules changes work.
55:17 Firstly, love the vid. Secondly, i got to talk about bon iver - he (Justin Vernon) is the man. I would nominate him for King of Indie or at least King of Indie-Folk.
My favorite song is Minnesota, WI. His ability to go from crazy deep to falsetto is unmatched. Another good show song is iMi. Each of his albums are unique and sincere. Recommend taking a "deep dive" into more bon iver.
@@benjaminstrate6808 will do - thanks!
On the whole “hostile” language being removed from AoO and the war caster feat - I think it was intentional and is a genuine improvement to the flow of the game. (1) It makes utility wizards/clerics way more viable in the wake of the “one spell level per turn” rule. You no longer have to choose between a damage dealing spell vs. Buff spell for your whole turn. (2) It also just makes sense to remove the word ‘hostile’ based on the actions being taken. It’s not that you can only hit hostile creatures that move away from you, it’s that, unless they take the disengage action, any creature is open for attack when moving away. By using your reaction, you make the AoO melee attack. What war caster does is just expand that to also making a spell attack. And if you are already casting a one-action spell, what does it matter if the spell is harmful or helpful? In 2014, your reactions really were limited to just hurting your enemies. Now, there’s a bit more decision making given back to the players. I like It! ❤❤❤
Exactly! Well explained.
I too think it's intentional just not for the reason you suggested. They removed the word Hostile because some DMs might rule that a creature retreating from combat is not longer hostile and therefore doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.
In typical WotC fashion they completely forgot about War Caster and how it would be impacted. They also failed to consider the new unarmed strike rules. I fully expect this to be addressed in Sage Advice and/or fixed as errata at some point. I also expect that many DMs will not allow this even if it was intended.
As a rule, I will not ban something that has not yet made itself a clear problem at the table. I think of this as the Law of Premature Rulings.
This works well as a moderation of the Rule of Cool.
Beacon of hope is such an underrated spell. It gives fighting classes that are down more chance to get up and more healing in future turns (although it's a concentration but still one of my favorite at lvl 3)
51:15 Gosh darn it! *So* close to being able to call this the '2024 Healer Build'. :)
Thanks Colby
I'm really excited to see if we get a gun build soon. the true strike rogue is a neat idea. I also think a gunk could be cool with the new rules
I would also like to see that. Guns seem so weak compared to other weapon options.
The problem I see with the gunk is that I don't see anything in the new rules that technically enhances the gunk in any way, other than the fact that the base class is better. In fact the removal of the damage from Sharpshooter decreases the benefit, and the better abilities of the base class that you're ignoring just make it feel a bit worse to play with the new baseline. You could probably still make something viable, but not anything I would call optimal.
Hey Colby, for future support builds, you may want to consider choosing Elf and the Chef feat so you can make treats for 4hrs while everyone else is finishing their long rest since you finish one in 4hrs instead of 8. This means that for each of your damage reports you could add in an additional 45 temp Hp at Lv 6, 80 at Lv 9, 125 at Lv 13, and 180 at Lv 17. And this is not even including any short rests, you just get this every time you long rest regardless of any other factors, so might be really nice for your numbers!
Chef has been a staple on most of my support builds :).
@ Yeah and I love that you add it so much, but I don’t believe you’ve ever combined it with elf to get way more temp Hp right? Or have you done that already and I am forgetting?
Could we please get a Moon druid build? 👀🙏
I'm desperate
This seems like something that needs to wait for the 2024 MM unless it's just gonna get redone in six months...
@@DeadmanwalkingXI Thats fair, but how different would they be? Ive seen some 2024 beast stat blocks on DND beyond but they’re probably place holders.
Check out latest CMCCBuilds moon druid
Well, we don't have many to go on, but looking at the Elephant specifically in the PHB:
AC, HP, Ability scores, and to-hit numbers are all the same between the two (though this is not true for some other animals).
The 2014 version attacks only once for 3d8+6, and can force people to make a save at DC 12 or be forced prone if it charges. If they do knock someone prone, they can attack a second time for 3d10+6 as a bonus action.
The 2024 version has multiattack, getting two attacks for 2d8+6 each (much higher damage total) and automatically knocks people prone if it charges. It can use a Bonus Action to make anyone who is prone next to it (whether it made them that way or not) make a DC 16 Save or take 2d10+6 damage (and still take half damage even on a success).
So the listed damage numbers are technically lower, but the in-practice damage is quite a lot higher (especially for a Druid due to multiattack). And that's just one CR 4 monster...I suspect the others will also be changing quite a lot.
Nice to see what can be done with raw healing power. When Colby mentioned power word fortify though... it would be funny to see that in combination with Armor of Agathys. Not that it would be easy to get enemies to trigger that but oh well I would be in for the memes.
There are a lot of soft taunts in the game that can be very helpful for that. A raging barbarian to which you have advantage to attack and disadvantage to everyone else could make a very interesting case for a consistent target
Divine Intervention bypassing cast times could also be used to upcast Prayer of Healing instantly mid-combat which is 5d8 healing, but also hits everyone with a Short Rest, allowing them to spend their Hit Die + Con Mod to recover health. On a level 13 d8 character with 16 con that's ~97.5 average potential healing, plus another 22.5 from the 5d8 for 120 total average healing. More or less depending on hit die and con mods.
Came for the build, stayed for the "Really Loud Helicopter Overhead". 😂
Nice work on this one, Colby.
For level 10 in cleric (character level 13 with this build), then prayer of healing is unironically the best healing option, especially if you haven't used your healers kit on any allies yet. You give them all their short rest stuff back, you allow them to heal (for this video) 13d8 + 13 x con mod in hit points plus 5d8 from the spell itself, that is a ludicrous amount of potential for one action at this level with the total (assuming Beacon of Hope because why not and +2 con, 13) per character (up to 5) 170 healing from hit dice and the spell combined, now would each character need that much healing no ofc not but the beauty is that they can control it themselves. As an added benefit of casting prayer of healing you get to cast your channel divnity again meaning 5*13 extra hit points, for a grand total of 915 potential healing in the midst of combat from you casting prayer of healing with your divine intervention!
Also also prayer of healings radius isn't the biggest so maybe you can't get everyone in range but still incredible potential that only goes up as the characters have more hit dice.
Granted for the healing calculations done by Colby here, we are already getting a lot of the healing from the hit dice, but that is a slow trickly compared to the above 9th level mass heal capabilities that a the Divine Intervention feature can provide if need be.
PS. Colby remember that mass cure wounds and mass healing word are an option and if you have multiple allies that need healing then they are still better healing wise than an upcasted cure wounds of that level (3/4 for mass healing word and 5-8 for mass cure wounds, with the full amount (6) of allies needing healing ). It does require that multiple allies need healing which can't always be true, and they have to be pretty close to eachother so millage may vary.
Healing through a familiar is great!
Personally, im a fan of using a reaction to cast touch spell on Ally. i just kind of wish it wasn't tied to war caster. Its already a powerful feat that feels like you almost have to take as a caster, i think it could be cool if they made a different feat, specifically for using on allys (also with a secondary maybe third effect) meaning we get that fun mechanic but theres still some sort of cost tied to it.
23:01 insert goldfish falling off cliff here
I understood that reference!
Something to consider... in 2024, whether we have a Bastion or not, we can craft an Enspelled Staff of Cure Wounds. This will allow us to cast Cure Wounds with our action, and then cast a bonus action healing spell like Healing Word, Mass Healing Word, or even Healing Spirit. Combined with the other features, this can let us hit a lot of targets for a not-insubstantial amount of health with surprisingly few resources. It almost makes me wonder about taking 3 levels of Thief rogue to be able to use the staff as a bonus action...
You’re good people, Colby
Go listen to "perth" by Bon Iver, amazing song. And for general information. Its pronounce " bon iver" as in Bon Hiver in french. As her mother use to tell him
Colby at the end: "Math, Math, Math, Math, and more Math"
Amazing as usual.
Combat Medic is my favorite healer build
Thanks for bringing up the changes to the Healer feat. It was actually really good in 2014 and I HATE the new version using up a resource (hit dice) to do its thing. I felt like that was being ignored.
I hope if we do get that "Warcaster working as intended" confirmation you revisit this concept with an order domain cleric. Not only because it would be probably the most powerful support ever but because I got the funniest mental imagine of a barbarian running past the cleric, getting slapped on the ass and then clobbering a nearby enemy thanks to voice of authority like a full on tsundere blushing profusely and calling the cleric a BAKA lol
Lifeberry also ended up cut off from the other end, 5e's Goodberry was an Action to eat, so you could have at least cheesed the "on the turn you cast the spell" bit some even if to nowhere near the old degree by Readying an Action to eat one when they appeared, but they also changed 5.5 Goodberry to a Bonus Action to eat, which in most cases is a buff, but in the specific scenario of Disciple of Life the fact that you can't RAW Ready a Bonus Action hits the snag.
Everyone arguing about "beneficial casting" with War Caster, over the language of Opportunity Attacks against "enemies" - this is directly addressed in the DMG. "Attacks are for enemies." This is noted in the section about rules exploitation - it is not allowed by the rules as intended, and would be considered an exploit. Some tables are good with that, but there ya go, pays yer monies and makes yer choices.
We need Needler 2.0
If you go just cleric you get a lot more at level 17. Though even with your build with druid levels you should probably take the cartomancer feat to access the spell mass heal.
Exhaustion for going unconscious with the new rules sound like a perfect way to nerv the JoJo healing. Healing word looks like one of the spells, that is hit the hardest with the just one leveled spell per round change. Maybe "healers" should watch out for means to use their action beneficial if they end up using bonus action for healing word.
Is it not worth mentioning that the Healer feat also gives you this ability?
Healing Rerolls. Whenever you roll a die to determine the number of Hit Points you restore with a spell or with this feat’s Battle Medic benefit, you can reroll the die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new roll.
It's not massive, of course, but it does seem worth mentioning.
Love your videos!
@@christaylor9929 for sure. Knowing I was going to be using beacon of hope probably caused me to ignore it, but it’s a nice little bonus otherwise :)
I wish UA content could've gotten another chance for this. There's a feat called Baleful Scion which deals necrotic damage and heals you for that damage.
I’m confused, is baleful scion not an official feat from planescape?
@Kevin-fe4kp I think its considered UA playtest material because I've never heard it being considered official
I want to play this character so bad. Only outlet I have for DnD though is BG3.
I know it's not technically "healing", but the inspiring leader feat would be great for adding a buffer to the whole party, similar to power word fortify, after every short and long rest. Especially since it works with both wis and cha and is a half feat now. Don't know what level would be the best to add it at though.
A buff for abjurer wizards is that cure wounds and healing word are now abjuration spells.
Picking healing word from an origin feat (background/human) i think is a must have for any abjurer wizard
Why would you get epic boons at cleric 16 and druid 4? I thought the boons were the incentive not to multiclass.
Hi mate,
Thanks for the vid, a lot of useful information and things I had overlooked. But you implied that once a character reaches level 19 any of their feats are Epic boon feats, but I think if you take another look, you'll see that class level 19 grants an Epic boon option, not character level 19.
Maybe that's just my interpretation, but i had to say something
@@Xanderriggs that was my original understanding as well. I’ve debated it long and hard with other UA-camrs. In the end though, if you build it out in dndbeyond, epic boons unlock at character level 19, regardless of whether or not you have 19 levels in a single class, so until WotC comes out with a clarifying statement and/or they change it in dndbeyond, I guess that’s how it works.
This may be a bit of a hard-line answer to making unconsciousness scary, but I've found that simply being willing to focus-fire downed players tends to make healing more desirable. The enemies aren't dumb; they should know that an unconscious adventurer is likely to be healed as long as they aren't dead. (And as long as your party's past level 5, they should have resurrection magic anyways).
Have you thought about doing a tank build using the new upgraded fiendish vigour? I haven't cooked too hard on it yet but 12 temp hp as an action an unlimited number of times is very strong. I've thought about doing an archfey warlock tank, misty stepping and either soft taunting with Taunting Step or giving out temp HP with Refreshing Step. You'd only need 3 levels in warlock for the basis of the build to come online. Feels like a really unique and flavourful tank build and I'm curious to see what there is there.
Really good at low levels, doesn't scale that well unless you start using spell slots for False Life. At which point other options are likely more optimal, even upcasting Cure Wounds on yourself might be better.
@ I agree, super powerful earlygame. I think finding ways to get the temp HP to go further (with resistances? Heavy armour master?) is probably how I would get it to scale a bit better. Multiclassing sorcerer to quicken the spell to still have actions could be good too. Also comboing it with *Armour of Agathys* could work well as the spell is changed to remain as long as you have temporary hitpoints.
a bit surprised to hear nothing about the new conjure celestial here:) but i do love the spell buffs a lot!
As someone who enjoyed playing a pure healer Life Cleric, I can understand the Disciple of Life nerf to make it only work on cast. Getting the benefit on every Goodberry or every pulse of Aura of Vitality was almost certainly unintended since Cleric didn't even have access to the spells originally (got Vitality eventually). Basically moreso a "loophole close" like Abjuration Wizard with Armor of Shadows Invocation nerf.
That's freaking awesome. Healbot go!
At my table we doubled all the healing spells including Heal a few years ago
We also made healing spells out of combat do the Maximum amount.
Highly recommend the song Holocene by Bon Iver :)
Jump does not require you to move 10 feet first.. It just says ''spend 10 foot of movement''
true!
Cozy build Colby.🕯️🕯️😇
I agree, an attack of opportunity will not work vs an ally on my table.
during your last healing report you forgot you don't need to concentrate on beacon anymore for max healing, not sure if it would effect your numbers much, but it would probably squeak out a few mor hp.
With 2024 D&D here, I want to sit down and revisit my skill monkey that gets expertise in all skills.
In case anyone is curious, the old concept is V Human Scout Rogue 12/Barbarian 2/Ranger 1/Knowledge Cleric 1/Lore Bard 4. Background really doesn't matter because you can fill in gaps in your skill selection. Feats are Skilled and half feats to squeeze out the last of the expertises. The weakest skills are +11 and always roll at least 10 from Rogue 11, meaning you always pass DC 21 skill checks.
With three levels thief rouge you can use magic items as a bonus action. If you craft an enspelled weapon you can cast a free spell as a bonus action 1d6 times a day. Then buy/scribe a bunch of healing scrolls for emergencies. Its not using a spell slot so you could heal twice a turn i believe?
the creature that leaves your reach doesnt have to be hostile but it does have to be foe or enemy and must move heedlessly past, as per the rules.
Death Ward on yourself is a good counter to Warding Bond's persistent damage to yourself. Warding Bond the paladin or barbarian, and then when they take a huge spike of damage you won't suddenly die lol
I'd start with the Dragonmarked Halfling from Ebberon.
Yo, what about conjure celestials? It synergizes amazingly with life cleric, since you can heal 4d12 at level 7, scaling 1d12 for every level of upcast, per TURN. With the life cleric capstone, that's an automatic 48 hit point heal for everyone on the area, and every subsequent turn the ally would be healed as well if it was inside the area of the spell.
And that's not even considering the 6d12 damage it deals to enemies as well
When you mentioned how much you love power word fortify - I was reminded by another of your videos (can’t remember which one) where you talked about armor about armor of agathys and the temporary hp it gives. Have you thought of a combo between the two?
I'd argue that Disciple of Life was never intended to function with healing-over-time spells, especially Goodberry. So it's less of a nerf and more of closing a loophole.
The idea of an op attack on an ally doesn't make sense in terms of the *name* of the feature, but it does make sense as a thing you should be able to do. If you can do stuff to an enemy when they go past you, it makes complete sense to be able to do stuff to an ally too.
I love the content and your passion for the hobby. I wish these videos were easier to follow. I just can’t keep up lol
I think that the problem with Opportunity Attack is that they did not include the full text from Chapter 1 - Combat in the Rules Glossary.
In the introduction to Opportunity Attack there, it is far more clear that it is related to Enemies or Foes.
"Opportunity Attacks
Combatants watch for enemies to drop their guard. If you move heedlessly past your foes, you put yourself in danger by provoking an Opportunity Attack.
Avoiding Opportunity Attack. You can avoid provoking an Opportunity Attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack when you Teleport or when you are moved without using your movement, action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an Opportunity Attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if you fall past an enemy.
Making an Opportunity Attack. You can make an Opportunity Attack when a creature that you can see leaves your reach. To make the attack, take a Reaction to make one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike against that creature. The attack occurs right before it leaves your reach."
The occasional liberal interpretation of the rules is partially the reason I think the series is still going after so many episodes. I know I for one enjoy them a lot! 😁
I have yet to use them in one of my character, but I think most people watching just want some comfy content with an interesting dnd build, presented by the one and only. 😉😎
31:51 It’s an OK Berry
From a game balance perspective I agree that WotC probably didn’t intend for war caster to allow players reaction buff each other. Buuut, from a logical perspective if a person can blight a creature that is actively trying to avoid them, they ought to be able to heal a friend as they pass by.
I see someone else guessed and were way off with a bunch of levels in Warlock. So I'm gonna take a swing with an overly complex build and a simple one.
Simple: Stars Druid... that's it. Druid gives amazing crowd control, Chalice buffs healing and Druid has some of the best crowd control spells to prevent damage in the first place.
Overly convoluted: 14/15 or 16/17 levels in Divine Soul Sorcerer or Clockwork making sure to take Distant Spell Metamagic since this and a Familiar lets you cast from range, likely gained through Magic Initiate or a cheap 50g 1st lvl Spell Wrought Tattoo can also grab you Find Familiar. This entire thing is assuming you can use Metamagic on Scrolls and Items that allow you to cast spells like an Enscribed Staff, from what I read and understand this is good but some people online said no because they didn't like the idea, 3 levels in Thief Rouge for Fast Hands to use Scrolls and an Enscribed Staff as a bonus action, maybe 1 Level in Bard if going Clockwork, but even for Divine Soul you might still need that bard level too because Spell Scroll casting and Magic Item Crafting requires the spell in question to be on your spell list and prepared, and Divine Soul technically doesn't add Cleric spells to your spell list in that way RAW, and finally optionally because the one you really need to heal is yourself- 2 levels in Warlock for Pact of the Chain and Gift of the Everliving Ones to max all healing done to yourself while your Familiar is near. And/or everyone in the party takes 2 levels of Warlock for this to maximize all healing... I don't think Colby is going to try or mention the party wide Warlock dip though. A full party of Reborns with these Invocations go so hard they can dance with Michael Jackson.
Having Spell Scrolls of Cure Wounds or an Enscribed Staff of Cure Wounds while being a Thief allows you to use them as a Bonus Action, and since they're not expanding a spell slot you can still cast your normal spell a turn which can be damage, crowd control or hey look at that even more Cure Wounds. Find Familiar lets you do so from range, but it can be a little clunky depending on how the Familiar is ran, meanwhile 1 sorcery point turns Cure Wounds into a range spell of 60 ft. Quickend Spell won't let you cast multiple leveled spells in a turn due to it's own restriction, the game rules have a 1 leveled spell a turn and Quickend Spell follows that rule and it's own which says you can't even if you're not using a slot. Fast Hands also doesn't cost any sorcery points to use unlike Quicked Spell so it won't eat your resources.
If you don't need a level of Bard to use the said Scrolls then Divine Soul is probably better since at high levels you'll also have the chance to learn more Cleric spells and technically 9th level spells at level 20. However Clockwork can also give an ally a ton of Temp HP with their lvl 6 feature Bastion of Law, and using the new Polymorph trick for Temp HP on a different Ally as well. Control spells also help prevent a lot of damage... and hey if you happen to get/make a couple scrolls of Fireball who's really gonna care if you have Careful Spell Metamagic or not since you can heal so much.
Realistically Colby's build is probably going to be a Cleric+Druid combo with maybe a dip in Fighter for Con Saves, Druid would be enough TBH... but this build, aka Fast Hands Sorcerer with Cure Wounds Stick, could cast multiple Cure Wounds in a turn from range using minimal resources, and can keep doing this for a long time, Font of Magic letting you make more and more 1st level slots for "small" bits of healing, or using your proper action and a high level spell for large healing, assuming Divine Soul.
Though I am assuming you'll be able to craft an uncommon magic item, which would be about 200g and 5-10 days, or make/buy Spell Scrolls for 50g each, same as a Potion of Healing but get's a lot more expensive as making 8 or buying 4 scrolls/potions would cost the same as crafting 1 staff. And as far as I'm aware you can attune to multiple Enscribed Items of Cure Wounds, so you don't have to even be using Spell Slots most of the time. But not every DM will let their players craft Magic Items, even items that have been designed to be crafted and customized by the players.
I might have gone overboard with a long comment again... whatever I'm kind of excited about the idea of a Thief dip for spellcasters to use Fast Hands, like a money powered Action Surge that isn't limited to once a short rest. But the dip kinda sucks unless you're primarily a Rouge with 1 level dip in Wizard for True Stike/Booming Blade but that's very different, and what I like to call the Money "Wizard" or Cash Blade.
I kind of wish Scribes Wizard had a feature like this but only for spell scrolls or only scrolls that you've crafted yourself, like replace the 10th level ability for something like "Speedy Scrolls", which let's you cast Scrolls with a casting time of an Action as a Bonus Action, and keeping the single sentence feature that cuts the money and time needed in half to craft scrolls as well.
I love how the subtitles think you are saying ASMR when you say Aasimar lol
My man is doing a Healer support build: « At first level, I'm taking fighter » xD
Joke: I'm still in the intro! :P
I’d love to see a build that is the best support character using the new rules. What do you all think is the best class for a support role?