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Cooking Up Contingency Plans
(i.imgur.com)
Since my polymorph meme has only garnered three downvotes so far I thought I'd offer a bit more controversial take, and see if I can manage to stir the pot a bit with this one.
So this sent me down an absolute rabbit hole. As a DM there's a few ways I'd consider to stop this being entirely game-breaking:
Personally I would instead depart from RAW and point out a version of option 2, but a lenient one. Something like "you can do this but you are sapping your very essence to do it. Every time you do it, you permanently lose 10% of your HP" or "every time you do this you increase the number of death saving throws you must succeed before you die". Or my personal favourite: "every time you do this you perturb the very laws of nature. Nature is rather fond of its laws and so decides to perturb you right back. Roll on this table to see what happens." and make the table include the above alongside a few other things and maybe a roll on the wild magic table.
In the end I enjoy ingenuity but the role of DM gives you a lot of latitude to... handle... those who believe they found a loophole.
It goes off but doesn't heal you because the text specifically says
Doesn't say "exclusively from others". Without casting this spell you couldn't do that normally.
It also says,
No qualifiers about the target having to be a creature other than you. It just has to be a creature within your reach.
Also as regards:
Do you also ban death ward and healing word? What about wizards who dip a level into virtually any other spellcaster or take a feat for a healing spell who can do this kind of thing without even having to make an attack roll or take necrotic damage?
Except it does say “from others”. Highlighting “can” just shows that this spell gives you the ability to do so. Another way of writing the text would be “The touch of your shadow wreathed hand gives you the ability to siphon life force from others”