D&D 5E Preserve Life (Life Domain Cleric Feature): do you like it?

[Staffan]

I don't really agree with this, at least IMO. There are a lot of poor 2nd level channel divinity options, but the Knowledge, Light, Tempest and Trickery domains all have very potent channel divinity options, all of which I would put ahead of Preserve life.

Let's see how well those do when used at 6th level.

Radiance of the Dawn: 2d10+6 points of radiant damage to all hostiles within 30 ft, plus dispelling magical darkness. 17 points of selective AOE is OK, with a situational additional benefit.
Knowledge of the Ages: +3 to a skill you're not proficient in for 10 minutes. It can be clutch, but it's highly situational. I'll grant that Read Thoughts is great, but my comparison was with the basic 2nd-level Channels.
Destructive Wrath: It will increase a shatter upcast to 3rd level from 4d8 (average 18) to 32 points - a bonus of 14 points in a small AOE. If you're in the right circumstances (outdoors in a storm) it might instead increase a single bolt from call lightning from 4d10 (average 22) to 40, a bonus of 18 points, but in most cases it would be 3d10 (average 16) to 30, a bonus of 14 points. Both spells have fairly small AOEs (10 ft radius for shatter, 5 ft radius for call lightning). Now, if you somehow have the ability to cast lightning bolt instead, this becomes more impressive (from average 28 to 48 damage, +20, with a huge AOE), but that requires something outside of the class (multiclassing or an item).
Invoke Duplicity... yeah, I can see your point there. It does eat your concentration unlike most other uses of Channel Divinity, but on the other hand it does allow you to project your spells up to 120 ft away, or to get advantage on melee attack rolls. That's fairly nifty, albeit situational.
And finally, Preserve Life. It heals 30 points of damage, spread out among any number of recipients within 30 ft. It can bring back a fighter from death's door to half their hit points (well, almost), or bring several PCs that just got hit with an AOE back into reasonable numbers of hps. If it was just 30 hp healing, it would be merely OK, but it's the versatility that lets you either focus all the healing on a single target or top off multiple allies that I like about the ability.

I'll add that Radiance of the Dawn, Knowledge of the Ages, and Destructive Wrath all make the cleric better at something clerics are normally bad at - either giving a skill proficiency the cleric normally doesn't have, or doing AOE damage. But Preserve Life makes the cleric better within their main area of expertise, namely healing.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

Let's see how well those do when used at 6th level.

Radiance of the Dawn: 2d10+6 points of radiant damage to all hostiles within 30 ft, plus dispelling magical darkness. 17 points of selective AOE is OK, with a situational additional benefit.

30' radius is a massive AOE for a damage effect. More importantly though, it's a massive AOE that does not have friendly fire. Though, this ability REALLY shines at lower levels. At 2nd level, it's the best blast in the game by a pretty large margin.

Knowledge of the Ages: +3 to a skill you're not proficient in for 10 minutes. It can be clutch, but it's highly situational. I'll grant that Read Thoughts is great, but my comparison was with the basic 2nd-level Channels.

It isn't +3 to a skill. It's +3 to any single skill or tool. The distinction is important.

I should point out that "situational" generally implies that the situation where a spell or ability to be useful is not particularly likely to come up.

A situation where your character doesn't have proficiency in a skill or tool that would be useful to have comes up all the time. The weakness of this ability isn't that it's situational, it's the opposite, that the situations where you could use it come up WAY more often than once per rest.

Destructive Wrath: It will increase a shatter upcast to 3rd level from 4d8 (average 18) to 32 points - a bonus of 14 points in a small AOE.

For the record, that's a damage increase of 78%. Average fireball damage is 28. Also, we are talking about Thunder damage, which is a rare resistance. Also, it stacks with Thunderbolt Strike. It's true that some people overestimate this ability, but it is undeniably solid. Again, it's an ability that really impresses at lower level. When you can do 20 points of damage with a reaction at 2nd level, or 16 damage with a Thunderwave, those are devestating hits for the level.

Invoke Duplicity... yeah, I can see your point there. It does eat your concentration unlike most other uses of Channel Divinity, but on the other hand it does allow you to project your spells up to 120 ft away, or to get advantage on melee attack rolls. That's fairly nifty, albeit situational.

Again, you and I clearly see "situational" in very different ways. Again, when I use the word "situational" to describe a spell or ability, I'm suggesting the situation where it could be used is not likely to occur.

Being able to cast Revivify at 120 feet range is lovely, but situational. Advantage on attack rolls however, is not situational.

And finally, Preserve Life. It heals 30 points of damage, spread out among any number of recipients within 30 ft.

It would be terrific if it did that and we could ignore the important things omitted from this statement. However, if we don't ignore those emissions, what it means is that if your ally has a 60hp max, and is down to 29hp (pretty badly wounded), you provide them 1 hp of healing. Another ally, with a max HP of 50 is down to 28, and you can't heal them at all. The poor sorcerer, with only 32 hp max, is down to 0 hp, you heal him 16 hp (the maximum you could ever heal them with this ability). Only an ally with a very high HP max, that is down to a very low amount of HP is going to receive 30 HP of healing.

Let's just put this in perspective. This is a maximum effect of 5HP/level but cannot heal anyone past 1/2 their maximum. That means that any character who does not average at least 10hp per level cannot possibly receive the maximum, even if they are at 0hp!

Really, the only time this ability is appropriate, it if you have several allies all down to VERY low HP. OK, so THIS. THIS is where the word situational applies.

I'll add that Radiance of the Dawn, Knowledge of the Ages, and Destructive Wrath all make the cleric better at something clerics are normally bad at - either giving a skill proficiency the cleric normally doesn't have, or doing AOE damage. But Preserve Life makes the cleric better within their main area of expertise, namely healing.

You are saying that redundancy is a point in favor of Preserve life. I would claim the opposite.

 

[aco175]

I like the feature as is, but the out of character knowledge comes through in my game more than with other spells like this. We tend to put the red circle on the mini to show that they are very hurt and could use some healing. The cleric can choose to give them some by seeing the circle or having the PC yelling for healing works as well. With this feature it comes down to the players talking about how much can they use and can I give 5 to this PC and 12 to that one- oh, and how much does your PC need. Feels like it could be cleaner.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It isn't +3 to a skill. It's +3 to any single skill or tool. The distinction is important.

I should point out that "situational" generally implies that the situation where a spell or ability to be useful is not particularly likely to come up.

A situation where your character doesn't have proficiency in a skill or tool that would be useful to have comes up all the time. The weakness of this ability isn't that it's situational, it's the opposite, that the situations where you could use it come up WAY more often than once per rest.

But how often are you in a situation where a skill or tool proficiency would be useful for you to have. Proficiency in thieves' tools isn't useful to a cleric, given that their Dexterity is unlikely to be greater than 14. If you're playing an unusual character concept, and you do happen to have 20 Dexterity, then you probably already have proficiency with thieves' tools because that's the role you're playing for the party. And if that's not your character concept, then you might as well leave the attempt to the ranger who has a total of +5 to the check even though they aren't proficient.

Even then, after spending your Channel Divinity, the bonus is only about +4. On average, if you use this ability five times, it will end up mattering exactly once.

It would be terrific if it did that and we could ignore the important things omitted from this statement. However, if we don't ignore those emissions, what it means is that if your ally has a 60hp max, and is down to 29hp (pretty badly wounded), you provide them 1 hp of healing. Another ally, with a max HP of 50 is down to 28, and you can't heal them at all. The poor sorcerer, with only 32 hp max, is down to 0 hp, you heal him 16 hp (the maximum you could ever heal them with this ability). Only an ally with a very high HP max, that is down to a very low amount of HP is going to receive 30 HP of healing.

Let's just put this in perspective. This is a maximum effect of 5HP/level but cannot heal anyone past 1/2 their maximum. That means that any character who does not average at least 10hp per level cannot possibly receive the maximum, even if they are at 0hp!

Really, the only time this ability is appropriate, it if you have several allies all down to VERY low HP. OK, so THIS. THIS is where the word situational applies.

Situational, perhaps, but that situation may or may not occur with relative frequency. The main use of Preserve Life is if someone drops, and you can probably bring them all the way back up to half (give or take a few points). Does that happen infrequently in your games? It's a regular occurrence at mine. (Death is rare, but someone falling unconscious from HP damage is something that happens about once per short rest.)

The other major use is after a tough fight, when the whole party is low, it can get everyone to a more comfortable position before you start taking a rest. This is definitely a less common situation, but the impact in that case can be significant. I don't know whether your rests are often interrupted, but bringing everyone up into the low double digits can significantly increase the likelihood of surviving a random encounter.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't like Life Domain clerics in general. They have too much healing - way more than is actually needed by a standard adventuring party. And strategically, it's better to divide healing between multiple party member secondary healers than to focus eveything onto one character who the DM will make sure to kill first.

 

[smbakeresq]

I don't like Life Domain clerics in general. They have too much healing - way more than is actually needed by a standard adventuring party. And strategically, it's better to divide healing between multiple party member secondary healers than to focus eveything onto one character who the DM will make sure to kill first.

Strategically that is true. Life clerics do have a lot of healing of you follow the rest all the time suggestions in the DMG. If you do not though, and I don’t, then they really become good. It’s also a good dip for PC that want to pull off a combat medic or hospitalier build.

 

[Staffan]

30' radius is a massive AOE for a damage effect. More importantly though, it's a massive AOE that does not have friendly fire. Though, this ability REALLY shines at lower levels. At 2nd level, it's the best blast in the game by a pretty large margin.

At 2nd level, I'll give you that Radiance of the Dawn is awesome. I just don't think it scales very well.

It isn't +3 to a skill. It's +3 to any single skill or tool. The distinction is important.

It's +3 to any single skill or tool that you're not already proficient in, and when you have a round to prepare.

By comparison, guidance is a cantrip and gives +1d4 to any ability check (and uses concentration). Sure, they stack, guidance only lasts for a minute, and doesn't scale, but on the other hand you can cast guidance on an ally and not just yourself.

Knowledge of the Ages serves a similar role as the bard's Jack of all Trades, in that it lets you shore up skill weaknesses. JOAT does it by adding half your proficiency modifier to any skill/ability check (which includes initiative), whereas KOTA lets you get full proficiency, but only for about one situation. I like playing bards, and Jack of all Trades is definitely neat, but it's not a powerhouse ability.

A situation where your character doesn't have proficiency in a skill or tool that would be useful to have comes up all the time. The weakness of this ability isn't that it's situational, it's the opposite, that the situations where you could use it come up WAY more often than once per rest.

But how often does it come up when no-one in the party is proficient in something, or where it's a matter where the whole party has to roll? Also, Knowledge clerics already have pretty good proficiencies - usually four (or five if your race gives you proficiency with something, which most do) skills with regular proficiency plus two with expertise. That's one third of all skills covered already.

For the record, that's a damage increase of 78%. Average fireball damage is 28. Also, we are talking about Thunder damage, which is a rare resistance. Also, it stacks with Thunderbolt Strike. It's true that some people overestimate this ability, but it is undeniably solid. Again, it's an ability that really impresses at lower level. When you can do 20 points of damage with a reaction at 2nd level, or 16 damage with a Thunderwave, those are devestating hits for the level.

But all of those require expenditure of some other limited resources as well. The damage attributed to Destructive Wrath would only be the 78% damage increase on the shatter or similar spell (the exact percentage would vary, but going from average to max will usually be a bit under doubling, so about 75%).

You'll note that in my comparison with Preserve Life, I don't also include casting a mass healing word in the healing totals, just Preserve Life itself.

Being able to cast Revivify at 120 feet range is lovely, but situational. Advantage on attack rolls however, is not situational.

Advantage on melee attack rolls (well, technically to attack rolls where both you and your dupe is within 5 ft of the target, but if you're within 5 ft of the target and making ranged attack rolls the disadvantage cancels out the advantage). For a medium-armor caster. At the cost of concentration. I'd rather use my concentration on bless or spirit guardians.

It would be terrific if it did that and we could ignore the important things omitted from this statement. However, if we don't ignore those emissions, what it means is that if your ally has a 60hp max, and is down to 29hp (pretty badly wounded), you provide them 1 hp of healing. Another ally, with a max HP of 50 is down to 28, and you can't heal them at all. The poor sorcerer, with only 32 hp max, is down to 0 hp, you heal him 16 hp (the maximum you could ever heal them with this ability). Only an ally with a very high HP max, that is down to a very low amount of HP is going to receive 30 HP of healing.

The point of Preserve Life isn't the massive heal it can bring to a single target. It's that it's an area heal, being able to hit multiple allies who are all below full hp. In my campaign, that situation has been fairly common.

You are saying that redundancy is a point in favor of Preserve life. I would claim the opposite.

D&D is a game that generally rewards specialists over generalists. Life clerics are specialist healers. Thunder clerics, by comparison, make OK healers and so-so blasters. I'd rather have the specialist healer and leave the blasting to the wizard.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

At 2nd level, I'll give you that Radiance of the Dawn is awesome. I just don't think it scales very well.

We are in agreement, though once the Light Cleric gets fireball, wall of fire, etc, they have plenty of AOE blast options for tougher baddies and can use Channel Divinity to clear weak minions when friendly fire would be an issue. Radiance of the Dawn is strong when they need it to be.

Sure, they stack

Yes. Exactly this.

I like playing bards, and Jack of all Trades is definitely neat, but it's not a powerhouse ability.

JoaT is fantastic, but that's another debate for another time

But how often does it come up when no-one in the party is proficient in something, or where it's a matter where the whole party has to roll?

The latter more than the former. The latter quite often actually. Particularly with Athletics (whether it be climbing, jumping or swimming) and Stealth I find.

(the exact percentage would vary, but going from average to max will usually be a bit under doubling, so about 75%).

Depends on the die type. 78% on d8's.

You'll note that in my comparison with Preserve Life, I don't also include casting a mass healing word in the healing totals, just Preserve Life itself.

If you are talking about in-combat use, this doesn't just use more resources, it uses more actions. Outside of combat...well you probably aren't using mass healing word for party healing very often.

Advantage on melee attack rolls (well, technically to attack rolls where both you and your dupe is within 5 ft of the target, but if you're within 5 ft of the target and making ranged attack rolls the disadvantage cancels out the advantage). For a medium-armor caster. At the cost of concentration. I'd rather use my concentration on bless or spirit guardians.

Trickery Cleric is a melee-based Cleric (as in one that gets bonus to melee damage), so it would seem likely to me that using a melee weapon would be common.

Naturally I would rather have Spirit Guardians too. It's one of the best spells in the game. However, it's use is limited. Also, you can't set it up in the same round as Spiritual Weapon, which is another of the best spells in the game.

The point of Preserve Life isn't the massive heal it can bring to a single target. It's that it's an area heal, being able to hit multiple allies who are all below full hp.

Why do you keep omitting the most important detail? It most certainly is not capable of healing multiple allies who are all below full hp, unless those same multiple allies are all below 1/2 max hp. It's the limitation you've omitted that is my issue with the ability, as I mentioned before. Furthermore, if those multiple allies aren't all significantly below 1/2 max HP, the healing they receive is likewise not significant.

D&D is a game that generally rewards specialists over generalists.

Both specialization and versatility are power in the sense of character optimization. If you think the former is moreso than the latter, consider this:

Sorcerers, by way of metamagic are by far the best spell specialists in the game.

Wizards have the advantage of versatility of spells available to cast.

Which do you think most players would find has been better rewarded?