Author(s) This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. With Disciple of Life you're healing 1d4+5, which is enough to get an unconscious ally back into a fight and maybe even enough for them to get hit again without going down. Harness Divine Power (Addition): For divine domains with poor or situational Channel Divinity options, this offers a great way to make use of a resource which might otherwise be ignored for several sessions at a time. But if they play a master healer who shoots divine lasers and smites the wicked, that's totally fine. The Satyr's non-humanoid creature type and Magic Resistance make the Satyr very durable, which is a great asset when you're the party's healer, and the additional skills make you very durable. Default Rules: Two flexible increases is enough to make the half-elf work for any cleric build, and the Charisma increase makes it easy to make your cleric a Face without sacrificing your emphasis on spellcasting. I go into more detail on my Cleric Subclasses Breakdown. If my main focus is being a cleric, how much should I dip into rogue? These optimized character builds use homebrew, house rules or third party resources. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases (each subrace provides an additional +1) and Darkvision. Practical Guide to Optional Class Features, Ability Score Improvement (Wisdom 16 -> 18), Ability Score Improvement (Wisdom 18 -> 20), Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 16 -> 18), Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 18 -> 20), Ability Score Improvement (Strength 14 -> 16). Even then, you get four and only need one. People need to stop comparing classes like they're in line for 1v1 gladiator fights. Sacred Flame for actions after setup.. So you're probably not going to see much healing from this ability. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, one skill and one tool. You can cast Create or Destroy Water, but the amount of water produced simply isn't enough to submerge yourself. Guiding Bolt is a Cleric's standard damaging spell, and scales fairly well too. Relentless Endurance is great since the party's cleric dying often means that the rest of the party is going to die, too. Divine Intervention: This won't be reliable until 20th level (10%-19% of the time, works every time), but when it works it should be extremely potent. For more on multiclassing, see my Practical Guide to Multiclassing. I recommend allowing the expanded spell list on all clerics. While the design intent for Dragonmarks was that they would offer some innate spellcasting for everyone, every dragonmark includes an expanded spell list which is arguably a more significant benefit than most of the provided racial traits. With that dizzying number, you also get Blessed Healer. 5e Optimized Character Build Preload; Booming Blades ; Can't Touch This! And excellent choice if you need durability and expect to encounter spellcasters. You don't have to be putting bolts through people's chests to be effective. Long-limbed is neat and can help with delivering spells like Inflict Wounds and Harm, but it only works with attacks so you can't use it to deliver Cure Wounds for some reason. If we assume armor class and saving throw bonuses are directly proportional with regards to success/failure chance, then yes, it would. [–]Legless1000Got any Salted Pork? Nothing at this level except 8th-level spells. Customized Origin: The Customizing Your Origin rules make no meaningful changes to the Warforged. You might drop one of those skills in favor of Medicine, but Medicine is extremely limited and your healing capabilities come from your magic rather than your skills. You can now use Channel Divinity as many times per day as there are encounters in a full day of adventuring as recommended in the "Adventuring Day" rules in the DMG, allowing your party to recieve ample quantities of healing after every encounter. A lot of people think this is the worst Cleric subclass. Dwarfs are very durable, which is a good thing when you're the party's healer. Excellent, versatile, and it works for any subclass. BugbearEGtW: See above under the general Races section. Martial Weapon proficiency unlocks two … When concentration wasn't a problem i would often just have the warlock hex an enemy's strength and then grapple it, then the pally would knock it prone and suddenly we had such an upper hand without spending a single spell slot. One of the character concepts I recently enjoyed thinking of is a trickery cleric. The Draconblood and Ravenite subraces are addressed under Races of Wildemount, below. Do you have a complete beginner’s guide for … Distracting enemies (Trickery Domain excels at this) and allowing for your party to sneak past with advantage or some similar bonus is one such example. If you're interested, I made a custom background (literally last night) for one of my players who wants to play a shadow monk but wants to be non-evil. Default Rules: Not a single Wisdom increase to be found. Your racial traits won't fix that no matter how good they are. That leaves Loxodon Serenity as the Loxodon's only interesting trait, and consider how common Charm and Fear effects are it's a good asset. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases. Each subrace offers a transformation with a damage boost (plus other stuff) which notably applies to both attacks and spells. We made it so her character defected from the monastery and joined the ranks of the Maskarran as a spy (though the background works for a character that has always followed Mask). With a little bit of Intelligence you can make knowledge skills a good option, and Knowledge Domain seems like a natural choice for the Vedalken. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, Darkvision, and two skills. Ultimate SAD Build ; Unkillable ; Untouchable Fighter/Wizard/Cleric ; War Wizard ; Warlock sential ; Third Party Rules. You could argue that combining Surprise Attack with an attack spell like Inflict Wounds is worthwhile, but I don't think that gimick is good enough to make this a go-to option. [–]MYule90 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (1 child), Also consider that if something has resistance to non magical weapons, sacred flame, sacred flame helps out. Introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everyting, Optional Class Features offer ways to add additional features or replace existing ones. Right now the monk does serious damage but is super squishy, especially from our lack of healing/buffing magic. I was envisioning playing a former thief turned priest of Mask, who likes to steal from the rich and helps the poor (aka Robin Hood). 3EK/3TC actually gets you Mirror Image 1 lvl faster, and with more spell slots than straight EK. At level 1 you have 18 AC while you're holding a shield. trickery cleric 5e. For your starting equipment, select a warhammer, chain mail, a dagger or a light crossbow and bolts, either pack, and a shield and holy symbol. [–]lunaras13 3 points4 points5 points 3 years ago (0 children). Using your action to deal damage will end encounters faster, which will lead to a smaller total strain on your party's healing resources for the day. CentaurMOoT: See above under the Races of Ravnica section. Once you hit EK4/TC4, you will indeed have access to 3rd level spell slots (1/3 of your EK and full TC = 1+4 = 5th level spellcaster slots). 4. Lvl 1 be a hill dwarf nature cleric with stats (using point buy) as follow: OrcERLW: See above under the general Races section. Because your choice of Divine Domain so greatly affects your capabilities, Clerics can fit a variety of roles and play styles. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, one skill, and fixed 17 AC from natural armor. Nimble Escape is great for getting out of melee if you don't want to be there, but if you're worried about getting dragged into melee you can learn Word of Radiance and suddenly getting into melee with you is much less appealing for your enemies. If you go for Arcana Domain, Booming Blade combines well with Nimble Escape, allowing very effective hit-and-run tactics in melee. Beyond your race's ability score increases, look for useful things like Darkvision (the spell Darkvision isn't on the Cleric's spell list, though you can cast plenty of spells to produce light), additional skill proficiencies and weapon proficiencies if you'll use either, and other things that can broaden your capabilities beyond what your class offers or complement your class features. At 1st level Clerics get to choose their Divine Domain. Used medium armor and TWF with handaxes to fish for orcy crits, but occasionally put on a shield to help protect a good concentration spell. Your role in the party is to keep your teammates alive with healing and buffs. If you use your illusions to lure a few guards away where your party can ambush them and dispatch them without using any resources or losing any health, that's one less guard you have to deal with in a fight later on. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, two damage resistances, Darkvision, and Healing Hands and Light Bearer feel like natural additions to the Cleric. I wouldn't consider the Changeling for anything except Trickery Domain. You can't get anything which you couldn't already have, so it doesn't make your character more powerful. A life cleric is equal parts tank and divine artillery piece, but they're mostly a mountain of healing. This double functions as a single mirror image and lasts for a number of rounds equal to your cleric level, or until the illusory duplicate is dispelled or destroyed. GoblinERLW: See above under the general Races section. Default Rules: Bad ability spread, and few of the Half-Orcs other traits work well for the Cleric. I also won't cover Unearthed Arcana content because it's not finalized, and I can't guarantee that it will be available to you in your games. Proficiencies: Medium armor and shields will give you a decent AC, especially if you're not building for melee combat. I probably should have put this in the OP, but this could be a replacement character for a campaign I'm currently in. Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator update v1.5: Emblems, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft cover revealed (courtesy of Barnes & Noble), Description of the New Ravenloft Campaign Book on Amazon, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft Product Page. You might also choose to reduce your Strength to put those points into other ability scores. EK4 was good for the war caster feat, no more putting away a weapon nonsense. This is a "Staple Build". The biggest problem you'll have is that clerics rarely have the Dexterity to act early in initiative, and you may have trouble making more than one attack in your first turn. Sphereswere direct priestly correlations to the wizardly schools of magic; they represented divine portfolios, areas of influence that a god would have d… containing closed content from WotC or any third party (any non-SRD content) will be removed without explicit consent from the content owner. But that's one combination, and one decent combination doesn't make the Kobold a consistently good race choice. Customized Origin: Relying on Strength-based weapon attacks is not a good idea for the Cleric. It's a great resource, but if you're not actively using it, you've payed a huge opportunity cost for little benefit. Except for Healing Word, none of those options require rolling. Spellcasting: The Cleric is a Wisdom-based full caster. Medium-armored Clerics should try to have 14 to boost their AC. AasimarEGtW: See above under the general Races section. Now, the Trickery Domain is the most criticized Cleric domains in 5e. I really wouldn't worry that much about trying to optimize a cleric for combat at this point. You’re free to build a lot more into Strength and Constitution in order to be a bruiser. At this level you have just a 10% chance to receive Divine Intervention. Consider multi-classing- rogues are a good combo with trickery clerics. TortleEGtW: See above under the general Races section. © 2021 reddit inc. All rights reserved. The Palid Elf subrace is addressed under Races of Wildemount, below. Since clerics never get Extra Attack, the most reliable way to use this in conjunction with AOE damage spells. After reading this handbook, I encourage you to read my Cleric Subclasses Breakdown and my Cleric Spells Breakdown. Use any spare Action to attack with your light crossbow (unless you gain access to the heavy crossbow, that is!) Use this frequently, if only so that you'll have a chance to actually trigger the effects. But the majority of the hit-point restoration you'll be doing via spells is either going to be Healing Word to get allies back on their feat in a hurry, Heal, or Channel Divinity: Preserve Life which isn't a spell. This gave the priest different mechanical edges and disadvantages, depending on what kit was chosen. You'll need to work with your DM to determine the exact effect of the ability, but if your DM is open-minded you can get away with something very exciting. Firbolg: [+2 WIS +1 STR] ... Trickery Cleric: I’m a big fan of Charm and Illusory magic which the Trickery Cleric gets in spades. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, Darkvision, and fire resistance. Default Rules: Potentially a good trickery cleric, but Dexterity can be hard for a cleric to use. A weapon-based cleric is playable, but a well-built weapon-using cleric will struggle to be just barely as effective as a cleric who is using cantrips. The Digital Dungeon Master's created 5e character sheets to help you get going. [–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (0 children). Your total amount of healing provided by Channel Divinity: Preserve Life is already immense, and a third use of Channel Divinity further expands that massive pool. Stone's Endurance is great on front-line clerics and easily makes up the difference between the Cleric's d8 hit die and d10 hit dice more common among front-line martial classes, and it saves you healing resources which might otherwise cut into your spell slots. Remaining safely out of melee is a massive tactical asset, and most of the Cleric's best offensive options work at range. Customized Origin: +2 increase, Superior Darkvision, and Pack Tactics. Most subraces/variants offer innate spellcasting of some kind. Firbolg Magic and Hidden Step offer some interesting magic options which most clerics can't replicate, but it doesn't add much to the Cleric's capabilities. More Wisdom does a lot for the cleric. A channeled divinity lightning bolt at level 7 going to break some fights early, and stays relevant for the entire game. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases and two skills.Limited Amphibiousness can be difficult in land-locked campaigns, but in campaigns where you're at least water-adjacent it's manageable. [–]Legless1000Got any Salted Pork? Savage Attacks is neat, but not especially impactful since clerics don't use weapons enough to benefit in any meaningful way. However, I know the trickery domain isn't super optimal and I want to make sure my character is useful in combat too. When you create a cleric, you get to choose a domain of power. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases and one skill. If by "in combat" you mean "once initiative has been rolled," try to not fall into the trap of thinking that a Trickery Cleric needs to be a Rogue. The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Read on for all the tips, tricks, and the best Strategies for Clerics in DND5e! But the best time to use that combination is early in a fight when you should be casting spells to set the stage for your party to succeed, and if you want to use your Bonus Action for damage there's nearly nothing that competes with Spiritual Weapon. It's good to have options, [–]fanatic66[S] 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children), Good point. Stat wise, he will start at level 3 and I was going to pick a half-elf (probably drow for flavor reasons) with the criminal background. I recommend allowing Blessed Strikes on any cleric who takes a divine domain with the Divine Strike feature which is rated orange or red. Default Rules: The increases are great for a lightly-armored Cleric, and flight is always fantastic. A second use of Channel Divinity means that you can use Preserve Life twice between short rests, dramatically increasing the amount of healing which you can provide in a day. I will not include 3rd-party content, including content f… 13.5 vs. 2d8+2 avg. To cast one of these Spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. Default Rules: Fantastic for any cleric who would normally be in medium armor, the Tortle's ability increases are perfect, and their natural armor means that you don't need to put points into Dexterity to fill out medium armor's dexterity cap. The intent is for everyone to act as civil adults. You want to do most of your magical healing using Healing Word while you're in combat. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases (each subrace provides an additional +1. If you took the Acolyte background you may end up with two holy symbols, but it's nice to have a spare. AarakocraEGtW: See above under the general Races section. Deities that best fit a cleric of Trickery are Garl Glittergold, Lolth, Shar, and Bane. Keep a bit if you're a Knowledge Cleric, or if you need to use Knowledge skills. All levels! Str: Lightly-armored and medium-armored Clerics can dump Strength. Racial feats are discussed in the Races section, above. 3rd level brings Spiritual Weapon as a domain spell, which is great because it's a significant boost in your damage output. As happens, got greedy looking forward. Today, I want to talk about Trickster Clerics. However, sacred flame ignores cover, is a damage type that is rarely resisted, and looks way cooler. A Trickery Cleric is still, first and foremost, a Divine Strike Cleric, and as such your standard optimal combat protocol is the same as any other DS Cleric: Keep Spiritual Weapon up and have it attack each turn unless you need your bonus action for something else, keep an appropriate concentration spell active (there are many feasible options, but when in doubt I … The Life domain's capabilities dramatically improve the Cleric's already excellent healing capabilities, raising them to the point that you're often free to focus your prepared spells on other concerns while still being a better healer than other clerics. Default Rules: High Dexterity is nice for lightly armored Clerics, and Perception is a great skill for Clerics due to their high Wisdom, but only one subrace that isn't setting-specific provides a Wisdom bonus so the Elf is a hard choice. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, Darkvision, and one skill. We cover the best background for Rogues in our 5e Rogue Guide, the only changes would be: Hermit: Your pumped INT score can make the two INT skills (Medicine and Religion) more viable. The innate spellcasting is borderline useless, but magic resistance and immunity to poison are extremely helpful for front-line builds which will attract a lot of attacks. Tanky Striker Cleric (5e Optimized Character Build) From D&D Wiki. Cantrips work fine in place of a weapon, so physical ability scores are largely unimportant. Excellent for any kind of cleric. [–]Pencilry 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (1 child). GoblinGGTR: See above under the general Races section. Affiliate links are not allowed. https://docs.google.com/document/d/13pxyhFeQ4PdMO-3nAiyquQ1c6IxTFtOK-rdRq9JOOVk/edit?usp=sharing. Fortunately, Clerics have the best healing abilities in the game, so they can easily compensate for a small pool of hit points. Optional Class Features are detailed below under Optional Class Features. Natural Armor matches the AC of heavy armor, provided that you can get to 20 Dexterity, which is appealing for a stealthy cleric since you can get 18 AC (not counting shield, spells, etc.) Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases (each subrace provides an additional +1), Darkvision, and one skill which you'll probably leave as Perception. Default Rules: With the exception of the Fierna Tiefling, Tiefling's don't work well as clerics due to their lack of a Wisdom increase. Retrain the weapon proficiencies unless you're dead set on using them. They're great at not having stuff happen to their minds, but that's about it. Dump Strength and Dexterity, and focuys solely on spellcasting and mental skills. The Orc of Exandria entry from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount omits the Powerful Build trait, but it's not clear if that was an intentional change. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, a skill, Darkvision, and Relentless Endurance. Select Page. TabaxiEGtW: See above under the general Races section. If it was updated before November 17th, it has not been updated to include the new content. Clerics rarely make attacks on their own, but it looks like you can attack with Spiritual Weapon at Advantage if you meat the criteria for Pack Tactics. More details on Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Default Rules: Darkvision is a great start, but there's little that we want from the Shifter's subraces. if you want to be able to wear medium armor, check out the Winged Tiefling. Instead, this section will cover the options which I think work especially well for the class, or which might be tempting but poor choices. Trickery based Clerics are the only currently playable "dark" clerics. Cleric is one of 5e’s strongest and most diverse classes. Forge Domain Check out our Forge Cleric 5e Guide Knowledge Domain. Int 10 All of that said, my advice is to remember that out-of-combat utility eventually translates to in-combat utility. Partly because the trickery domain is so different from the standard heavy armor, melee tank cleric. ... Light Domain Cleric Example Build. A Trickery Cleric is still, first and foremost, a Divine Strike Cleric, and as such your standard optimal combat protocol is the same as any other DS Cleric: Keep Spiritual Weapon up and have it attack each turn unless you need your bonus action for something else, keep an appropriate concentration spell active (there are many feasible options, but when in doubt I advise Bless on your martials/warlocks when dealing with groups or Bane on particularly dangerous, boss-type enemies), and cast your other non-concentration spells as necessary, remembering that optimal Cleric play usually involves the role of a force multiplier (mitigating damage to your friends, helping them deal more damage) rather than putting out high raw damage yourself. Default Rules: Strong, wise, and with a small pile of active abilities and innate spellcasting which nicely complements the Cleric's spellcasting. I felt so inspired yesterday that I wrote a whole long backstory for this character, along with personality traits and potential plot hooks for the DM. The best way to capitalize on the Vedalken's traits is to go for a back-line caster build where spells and special abilities will make up a larger portion of the things pointed at you since you're typically out of range of melee attacks. According to the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, the Feral Variant is compatible with other variants. Personally I would stick Sacred Flame and only draw your hammer if you might need to make an opportunity attack, but if you're going to cast Bless on the party you'll be accurate enough that your hammer will be a better source of damage. [–]beastsbox 1 point2 points3 points 3 years ago (0 children), Spirit guardian+ mirror image= win.. Wis: The Cleric's spells depend on Wisdom. If your party is hurting for a Cleric, this could be a solid option. Fine advice but nothing you mention pertains to optimizing playing a Trickery cleric. Default Rules: Charisma doesn't do much for a cleric, but the flavor works very well, and the Aasimar's other racial traits and their subraces work for a variety of cleric builds. There are definitely advantages to multiclassing certain spellcasters, but I think you may be misunderstanding how it works with regard to spell slots. This section does not address every published background, as doing so would result in an ever-growing list of options which don't cater to the class. Its a 3 person party and currently we have a open hand monk who rolled insane scores (18 dex and wis with racial bonuses), a bladelock, and a dragonborn barbarian (my current character). Default Rules: Bad ability spread, and none of the cleric's cantrips use attack rolls so you'll need to rely on weapons to benefit from Long Arms and Surprise Attack. Customized Origin: +2/+1 increases, Darkvision, and two skills. [–]ebrum2010 0 points1 point2 points 3 years ago (0 children). As for which of those is better, if you are not planning to bump your Dex at level 4 it will be kind of a tossup, and the "optimal" choice will swing back and forth. No low-effort/OC/image posts outside megathreads - Image posts showing table set ups/minis/dice bags/character drawings/maps and other "OC"-type material are to be limited to the weekly AutoModerator thread. In this post, I'm going… Once you have 20 Wisdom, consider introducing feats once you're more confident in your understanding of the game. But 10 rounds w/advantage is just as good if not better than the 2 bonus attacks/day I would have got from war domain. Divine Intervention jumps from 19% effective to 100% effective. You don't have to agree with them, but you also don't have to argue or harass them about it. Default Rules: Versatile and fantastic at everything.