Is revivify a trap/unbalanced/impossible to use? [closed]

Question

In the past I've often ran a cleric, and our team always just plays the low levels, retiring around level 5-6 and starting over then.

I have noticed however that I take revivify each time, and make sure I always have a diamond with me to revive someone, to the lengths of selling all my equipment if I have to.

However it also meant that at low levels I almost certainly cannot really do much in a fight, even at 4th level only able to use 2 level 2 spells a day for the "possiblity that I need to revive someone".

Further I notice that if we didn't have a cleric which has revivify prepared the DM would ever so slightly either nudge the balance to make sure people don't really die. (or people are content with rerolling a character anyways when they go on a suicide mission).

This left me in a place where I wonder: is revivify worth keeping a spare spell slot open for? Or even going to the lengths of getting the diamonds at level 3 and preparing it in the first place?

Is it a trap as decent play prevents deaths anyways, and there are other ways to revive someone using sidequests? (often much more easy than 300 gp). And in the single case I noticed that where deaths happened it was a tpk anyways with the bad guys "focus the healer".

Answer 1

At the level that you can first take it, the duo of holding onto a slot of your highest level "in case" and "selling all my equipment if I have to" are an incredible burden on a character.

I would recommend not preparing Revivify until you have both higher level slots, and the party as a whole has bought a diamond, or it is a trivial amount of money to your character and they are charitable.

It sounds like you have approached the D&D cleric like a healer class from an MMORPG (or similar style of game), where tough fights involve the enemies dealing damage that is multiple times the participants HP totals. That isn't the case in D&D, healing spells don't recover enough HP compared to the incoming damage, and are a rare enough resource, that in-combat healing is not worth it, outside of reviving someone at 0HP.

In D&D, it is much better to stop your allies from taking damage by ending the fight, than from reactively healing them. At 5th level you should be looking to use your 3rd level slots on spells like Spirit Guardians.

At higher levels revivify is better in terms of spell slots, material cost and casting time than any of the other spells that bring the dead back, with the downsides being the time from death requirement, and the intact body requirement it shares with Raise Dead.

Check the following with your DM before setting out, as I can imagine some might not like the interaction (see this question about it). It does still require you to "hold a slot", but not one of your highest level.

You can instead prepare Gentle Repose, and keep a 2nd level slot open for that. If anyone dies, you cast that instead, with the slot, and have 10 days (or any number of days, it is a costless ritual) to purchase a diamond (from their share?) and prepare revivify.