You touch a living creature that has 0 hit points. The creature becomes stable. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.

My Comments: A long time ago, in a game near-forgotten, I remember somebody saying at a table one night “If you have access to Spare the Dying and you don’t take it, you’re probably just a jerk.”

I wouldn’t go that far, but anybody with an urge to play a healer should definitely have it. Especially the first version. I was in one of the test groups that was playing “D&D Next” before the official version of 5th edition came out. In that case, Spare the Dying didn’t just stabilize the creature, it bumped them to 1 hp.

We had a great time with a Dwarf fighter getting knocked down, my Life Cleric bringing him back to 1 hit point, he would do damage and then get knocked down…. wash, rinse, repeat. I think I did the spell on him 4 times before we finished that battle. It was fun and ridiculous and a great example of why WotC nerfed it to just stabilization. Basically, it’s very similar to just an auto-success with a medicine check.

[pssst… want to draw a card from The Deck of Many Things?]

[P.S. Check out the Wacky Dungeon game just above the footer!]