Are Goodberries affected by the Life domain class features?

Question

How are Goodberries affected by the cleric class features from the Life domain, if at all? I read somewhere that the Life domain's healing bonuses apply to each berry created by the spell — do they? Are there any official answers to this question?

Answer 1

Yes, a Life Domain cleric's Goodberrys are great.

The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level slot. (Sage Advice Compendium for fifth edition.)

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For any who aren't aware, "Sage Advice" is the long-standing name given to TSR's, then WotC's, official clarifications to rules. Each month questions worth clarifying are answered by Jeremy Crawford, "rules manager" for 5e, and are concatenated into a Sage Advice compendium.

There is a commonly-referenced website called "Sage Advice" which should not be confused with the articles--this site compiles tweets about D&D rules from various sources, and is not authoritative. But it is informative, as some of those tweets come from the designers of D&D5e, including Jeremy Crawford.

Answer 2

Yes

Disciple of Life activates when a spell of first level or higher is "used" to restore hit points:

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.

Goodberry is level 1, and it certainly is used to restore hit points:

Eating a berry restores 1 hit point

This also applies to other spells which are used to restore hit points directly, as well as indirectly; such as Healing Spirit, Aura of Life, or even Wish.

Answer 3

Sage Advice says yes, RAW says no

As nitsua60 points out in their answer, the Sage Advice Compendium says that Disciple of Life applies to Goodberry. However, this is not supported by RAW.

The condition for Disciple of Life is:

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

The Goodberry text is as follows:

Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one berry. Eating a berry restores 1 hit point, and the berry provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day.

Goodberry is not a spell that restores hitpoints to a creature. The Goodberry spell makes magic berries appear in your hand. When someone eats one of the berries, you are not using a spell. It's the same as bonuses to spell attacks not applying for the attacks of summoned creatures.

For Disciple of Life to apply we have to rule that eating a berry is using the spell. If we do that, it still wouldn't apply for anyone other than the cleric. Since Disciple of Life says "Whenever you use a spell..." (emphasis mine). When a creature eats a goodberry, they are using the berry. Consequently, a Life Domain cleric would receive this bonus for any goodberries they eat, even those created by characters without Disciple of Life.