How does the Healing Spirit spell interact with a Life Domain cleric's Disciple of Life feature?

Question

How does the healing spirit spell interact with a Life Domain cleric's Disciple of Life feature?

This is a multi-class question regarding the possible synergy between the druid/ranger spell healing spirit and the Life Domain cleric feature Disciple of Life (DoL).

The Life Domain cleric's Disciple of Life feature (PHB, p. 60) says:

Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

The relevant part of the description of the healing spirit spell (XGE, p. 157) says:

Until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit’s space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required).

Can Healing Spirit benefit from a Cleric's DoL domain feature (i.e. healing each target an additional 2 + spell level)?

I appreciate suggestions, including whether it is a DM's call on how to interpret the interaction.

Answer 1

Yes, Disciple of Life clearly triggers when using healing spirit.

Let's address the rules first. Disciple of Life states 3 conditions:

1. use a spell
2. of 1st level or higher
3. to restore hit points to a creature

Healing spirit is a spell of 1st level or higher that you can cause (use) to restore hit points. It almost word for word fulfills the conditions required for Disciple of Life. This is how this feature works.

Addressing some concerns

It should not work because there is no action required to restore hit points.

Disciple of Life does not require you to use an action, it does not mention the action economy at all.

Also as @jgn pointed out, it is useful to note here that Disciple of Life does not trigger when you cast a spell but rather any time you use it to restore hit points. (This is somewhat unusual since many features trigger when casting a spell, but it is an important distinction.)

It is not the character but the spirit who is causing the healing.

The spirit is not a creature, it is not referred to as a creature or anything that would have any mechanical in-game impact or agency besides healing and moving which you cause it to do. It is how the spell takes effect. You are not commanding a spirit do something, you are causing a physical manifestation of a spell to do it. If the spell summoned an elemental creature that could heal on its turn this argument would make sense, but that is not what healing spirit does.

A similar argument could be made for the goodberry spell (you are not restoring hit points, eating the berry does), but it was clarified in the Sage Advice Compendium (which contains official rulings on how to interpret the rules) that Disciple of Life does, in fact, work with the goodberry spell:

If I’m a cleric/druid with the Disciple of Life feature, does the goodberry spell benefit from the feature? Yes. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level spell slot.

Healing spirit is too strong.

In the end, it is the job of the DM to manage the game. If they feel the healing spirit is too powerful they can ban it or change it to be less powerful.

If this is the case, I would suggest changing the text of the spell to:

Once per round until the spell ends, whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit’s space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, you can cause the spirit to restore 1d6 hit points to that creature (no action required).

(highlighted text added by me)

Answer 2

Yes. The Disciple of Life feature benefits a spell when that spell restores hit points.

Jeremy Crawford (unofficially) has clarified this kind of interactions.

Question: Does each instance of regaining hit points from the Regenerate spell benefit from Disciple of Life?

Jeremy Crawford: The Disciple of Life feature benefits a spell when that spell restores hit points. This means the feature applies whenever the regenerate spell heals someone, assuming the spell was cast by a Life cleric.

Answer 3

A case of Rules and Interpretation

The spell appears to meet the requirements for Disciple of Life every time someone enters its space. The requirements for Disciple of Life state that...

Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature

you gain the benefits of...

the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level.

Note, this does not say you must "cast a spell" only that you use the spell. Now let's refer to Healing Spirit. The spell states...

you can cause the spirit to restore ld6 hit points to that creature (no action required)

which is using the spell to restore hit points to a creature. Again we note the above quote in that it says no action required. In addition it is you who initiates whether something is healed or not.

Now the interpretation that I have seen some DMs make would be that, as T.J.L.'s answer states, the spirit causes the healing and is independent from the "you" clause of Disciple of Life. Additionally this spell is listed as Conjuration and states that it summons a spirit, not that you create a spirit of healing. Now this is a valid interpretation of the rules and, barring official guidance, DMs are left to their own devices as to which interpretation to follow. As T.J.L. mentions in their footnotes, sometimes RAW and RAI do not match, and in particular Disciple of Life interacts with spells that it normally shouldn't be able to interact with.

In summary, the decision that Disciple of Life and Healing Spirit interacts or does not is left to the DM. There are reasonable interpretations of the rules that can go either direction. And personal belief can decide how you should interpret the rules. People who believe in harder, grittier games might seek to limit the spell while more high fantasy games might not. In my opinion as your ruling is fun for your group that's what matters.

Answer 4

This is kind of a tough one.

Yes...

The most permissive reading is "It's a spell that heals, so of course it does!" and if I were playing a character with that combination in a game with a DM that allowed it, you can be sure I'd take advantage of it.

...and No.

That said, considering how powerful Healing Spirit already is, I'm inclined to parse things a bit more closely, in order to reign in an unbalanced (albeit official) spell.

The key element of my ruling would be "Whenever you use a spell" from Disciple of Life and "you can cause the spirit [...] (no action required)" from Healing Spirit. The spell summons a spirit, so it is not the character doing the healing, it's the summoned spirit that's doing it. The character isn't spending an action beyond the initial casting, and that casting doesn't heal anybody, so it doesn't qualify for Disciple of Life.

By the same logic¹, I don't apply Disciple of Life to Goodberry, because the spell doesn't actually heal anybody, it creates objects that can later be used to heal.

By contrast, I would apply the Disciple of Life bonus to something like Aura of Vitality, because it requires an (bonus) action to trigger.

¹_{For the record, the ruling in SAC v2.3 doesn't agree, but the actual published text doesn't support their ruling. Either Goodberry or Disciple of Life needs an errata for their conclusion to be valid. They have the power of errata, and can make RAW match RAI, but have not done so.}