Lesser Restoration
- Level: 2
- School: Abjuration
- Class: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger
- Casting Time: Bonus Action
- Range: Touch
- Components: V, S
- Duration: Instantaneous
You touch a creature and end one condition on it: Blinded, Deafened, Paralyzed, or Poisoned.
Tactical Usage
Condition Removal: Lesser Restoration provides instant relief from four specific debilitating conditions: Blinded, Deafened, Paralyzed, and Poisoned. The bonus action casting makes it highly responsive to tactical emergencies.
Combat Support: The bonus action economy allows healing serious conditions without sacrificing your main action, making it excellent for maintaining party effectiveness during encounters.
Resource Efficiency: As a 2nd-level spell with significant condition removal power, Lesser Restoration provides excellent value for addressing specific types of debilitation that could otherwise cripple party members.
Spell Combinations
Healing Word Follow-up: After using Lesser Restoration to remove a condition, Healing Word can restore hit points as a bonus action on subsequent turns, providing comprehensive support.
Mass Cure Wounds Coordination: Use Lesser Restoration to remove conditions preventing movement, then position for optimal Mass Cure Wounds placement to heal multiple allies efficiently.
Counterspell Protection: Remove conditions that might prevent allies from using Counterspell effectively, maintaining the party's magical defenses against enemy spellcasters.
Material Component Details
Component-Free Casting: Lesser Restoration requires only verbal and somatic components, making it highly reliable regardless of material component availability or equipment restrictions.
Touch Delivery: The touch range creates intimate healing moments that strengthen bonds between characters while requiring positioning to reach affected allies safely.
Somatic Precision: The somatic component involves healing gestures that channel restorative energy, creating visible manifestations of divine or arcane healing power.
Creator Notes
Condition Specificity: The spell only affects four specific conditions, making it valuable against certain threats but useless against other debilitations like charm, fear, or exhaustion effects.
Prevention vs Treatment: Lesser Restoration treats existing conditions but provides no prevention against future exposure. Plan accordingly for environments with ongoing condition-causing hazards.
Spell Slot Management: While only 2nd-level, repeated condition removal can quickly deplete spell slots during encounters with condition-heavy enemies or environmental hazards.
Environmental Interactions
Poison Environments: In areas with ongoing poison sources, Lesser Restoration provides temporary relief but doesn't prevent re-exposure. Consider environmental protection alongside condition removal.
Sensory Deprivation: The spell can restore sight and hearing lost to magical or mundane sources, making it valuable for overcoming environmental challenges or trap effects.
Magical Conditions: The spell removes conditions regardless of their source, working equally well against magical effects, natural toxins, or supernatural debilitation.
Common Rulings & Clarifications
Single Condition: Each casting removes only one condition, requiring multiple spell slots if a creature suffers from multiple qualifying effects simultaneously.
Instant Relief: The bonus action casting provides immediate relief, allowing affected creatures to act normally on their current turn after condition removal.
Touch Requirement: The caster must be able to touch the affected creature, potentially requiring movement or positioning in dangerous combat situations.
Alternative Applications
Torture Recovery: Remove conditions inflicted through torture or interrogation, providing immediate relief to rescued prisoners or hostages without complex medical treatment.
Performance Enhancement: Remove temporary conditions affecting performers, athletes, or workers to restore their full capabilities for important tasks or competitions.
Daily Life Support: Address common ailments like food poisoning, temporary blindness, or other conditions that affect civilian populations during adventures.
Related Spells
Greater Restoration: Higher-level version that removes additional conditions including charm, curse, and exhaustion. Use Lesser Restoration for covered conditions and Greater Restoration for more complex debilitation.
Protection from Poison: Provides advantage against poison and resistance to poison damage but doesn't remove existing poisoned conditions. Combine both for comprehensive poison defense.
Cure Wounds: Restores hit points but doesn't address conditions. Use both spells in coordination for complete healing support addressing both damage and debilitation.
Scaling Analysis
Early Levels (3-6): Lesser Restoration provides crucial condition removal when conditions can completely incapacitate low-level characters and alternative solutions are limited.
Mid Levels (7-12): Remains valuable as conditions become more common and dangerous while the 2nd-level slot cost becomes more manageable with increased spell slot resources.
High Levels (13+): While individual conditions become less threatening, the spell maintains utility for quick condition removal and resource efficiency compared to higher-level alternatives.
Narrative Flavor
Healing Touch: Warm, restorative energy flows through your hands as you touch the affected creature. The debilitating condition dissolves like shadows before dawn as natural function returns.
Condition Dispersal: Dark veins of poison fade from the skin, clouded eyes clear to normal vision, or rigid paralysis melts away as your healing magic counters the underlying magical or natural cause.
Divine Intervention: Whether through divine blessing or arcane manipulation, the healing represents supernatural intervention that restores natural function and removes impediments to normal life and activity.