D&D 5E It's been a while, I need help building a suitable 5e cleric (NO MULTICLASSING)

[Luke Hector]

Hi

It's been a while since I did DnD but the mates want to start an Adventurer's League game from Level 1 and carry it on for a bit. Sounds good to me, something that is episodic, modular and doesn't require me to commit every single session on pain of death and even allows me to DM sometimes.

But the hard part - designing a suitable character. Now I tend to play support roles and at first I was going to try a melee build fighter/paladin/cleric but now I know more about what the others are planning to be and that changes things. So far I'm told:

One will be a typical hard hitting barbarian.
One will be a monk. . . . . . . . god help him
One will be a rogue with a mix of sword melee and dagger ranged ability.

Note however that as we may take it in turns to DM, occasionally randoms may join or more than likely it will be 3 people and one DM, so some of those above roles aren't going to be present at times.

So that really leaves us a bit messed up in the spell casting department. Now I didn't want to do a wizard as it's too many spells to juggle, but divine casting I'm fine with. So naturally given my support nature a Cleric (or maybe a Paladin I won't rule that out if you have good ideas) sounds decent. But with them already filling up the melee roles pretty well my previous idea of a tank cleric doesn't seem that required now. It sounds like I need to be the ranged attacker whether by weapon or spell, but also provide some decent healing to the party without simply being a healbot who can do nothing but heal like previous editions of DnD have done (note I've not actually played a decent length game of 5e yet).

I've read through the guide and looked at Life, Nature and Light clerics, but where to go based on the group and Adventurer's League style, I don't know. I figured you guys would know more.

What ideas suggestions do you have for me to fill a support role that can heal reasonably in a group such as the above that is built up of mainly front-liners? Note I can't be bothered with anal levels of min-maxing when multiclassing is concerned, I want to make the best of the 20 levels in one class only. We start at Lvl 1 and work our way up, all normal and uncommon races allowed but none of the weird sourcebook stuff. And I believe feats are fine also.

My best guess initially is that I need to ignore STR/Melee and focus on Wis and Dex style builds. Be more agile and flashy with spells? I don't want to be the kind that always requires saving by the other party though. A little protection yes, but not like if I get looked at I'm going to die type thing.

Thanks!

 

[Herobizkit]

Cleric is one of the most adaptable classes. There's practically nothing you can't accomplish with some type of cleric.

Thoughts:

• Light clerics add ranged Fire spells to their list, making them more Wizard-y.
• Nature clerics are more Druid-y (without Wild Shape).
• Life clerics are most like your traditional 3x clerics - they heal more HP than anyone else.
• Tempest and War are your front-liners. They're Fighter-y and get combat boosts (Tempest get some rad Lightning powers, too).
• Trickster clerics are Rogue-focused; you have enough of those. :3

Your team is running defensive/armor light (Barbarian gets an AC bonus from CON and damage resistance, Monk gets Evasion and AC bonus from WIS, and Rogues get Evasion and can eventually take half damage from anything).

Clerics get Medium armor and Shield out of the box. Life, War, Tempest, and Nature (!) get Heavy armor.

Also of note - combat roles are less clearly defined in 5e. You can make a melee-focused Wizard or a Ranged-focused Fighter if you want; everyone has Melee and Ranged potential.

Clerics also have one direct damage Cantrip, should you take it - Sacred Flame. Nature Clerics get one bonus Druid Cantrip; most usually take Shillelagh to make a one-handed magic D8 staff all day.

Considering your're playing AL, there's likely a lot of Lore/Skill checks called for that your party likely won't have. I direct you to:

Knowledge and Arcane (from the Sword Coast Adventure Guide [SCAG]) clerics - they're pretty amazing. KNowledge clerics focus on Divination bonus spells which are always useful. Arcane clerics gets some always-prepped Wizard spells (like Magic Missile at 1st level) and two bonus Wizard Cantrips that count as cleric.

If you wanna do some magic blasting, Arcane or Light is the way to go.
If you wanna be the brains of the team, Knowledge.

If you'd like, slap on some High Elf for an Int buff, +1 Wizard Cantrip, and some longsword action.

Of note: there is no penalty for two-weapon fighting in 5e if you wanna get real saucy - you only get the die damage of your off-hand weapon, but hey.

Finally, if all you want is healin' spells, you could always roll Bard.

 

[Luke Hector]

Thanks for being the first to help!

I don't know if Arcane is available to us - it sounds like that's another sourcebook so I don't know if we're allowed it, but if the Adventurer's League guide allows it it's an option. (EDIT - apparently it is, it's on the sidebar on the AL Guide so I'll have a peek at Arcane too, but I guess I wouldn't want to simply be a wizard/cleric)

I wasn't seeing a lot of love for Knowledge Clerics on the guide, but divination spells have their uses and I feel like the other 3 members of the party can handle dishing out damage (though Light clerics do look interesting too). I wasn't aware that AL would call for lots of lore/skill checks, but if that's the case, then that's another argument in favour of Knowledge.

I don't think Nature will work for me as I wasn't expecting to require melee weapons mainly. Tempest apparently seems to be used for some Dex ranged builds, but of course, Life and Knowledge fit my style more - I'm not usually the one doing the DPS, I'm supporting the party, granted my ability to think of a good conversation in roleplay situations does suck a little at times, but I'm typically the one going "take this cool buff/heal, now have at them" and getting thanks for it.

Edit - looking at Life clerics a bit more, they might be worth considering again. After all someone has to do good healing, the domain spells free up slots for utility spells, healing will be overpowered and heavy armour does allow me to be a front liner as well, our party will just suck for long ranged combat I guess!

 

[mellored]

You could use some AoE. So tempest or light would be my suggestions. They are also all melee, so some focus on ranged is good too.

 

[Luke Hector]

Light would probably be the preferred one, although Tempest does allow for a ranged Dex style cleric. My only worry with Light is whether their healing/utility is compromised at the expense of being a laser beam death machine.

 

[mellored]

My only worry with Light is whether their healing/utility is compromised at the expense of being a laser beam death machine.

Somewhat, but you have flexibility.

Ready both cure spells and AoE spells, and use them depending on the situation. Against a dragon, use bless and cure wounds. Against a hordes, use fireball and your channel divinity.

 

[Luke Hector]

Light will be one of the choices then - I can't see myself enjoying being a Lore guy again, I've done that before with a Bard. I'm still looking at Life also though, I know I said I didn't want to be a healbot, but I'm reading more on it and one big advantage is that because your healing goes further you can prep other spells rather than all the heals and you get a very nice domain list. We still get access to nice CC options like Spiritual Guardians and to a lesser extent, Spiritual Weapon. Plus I do like the idea of being a healer on the front-line tanking and healing rather than been the squishy. A Mountain/Hill Dwarf would be awesome for that with their extra proficiencies. But I know I'd miss the feat - WarCaster has its uses and even Heavy Armour Proficiency would be fun to suck up the damage - though I'm curious as to how quickly it loses effectiveness as you level.

One other thing I thought off - I'm with a Monk/Barbarian/Rogue

Now of course if I DON'T go Light we're not that great on hordes, but we should be ok, how often do you meet hordes anyway and to be honest I can't cater for everything. But Barbs and Rogues will be dealing out a ton of damage and the Monk won't do too bad so DPS isn't really what I need, which suggests something like Life or Knowledge would be better as even though the damage isn't as much, it's not a big issue.

 

[GrumpyGamer]

Monks and Rogues can be sneaky so there is good synergy with a trickery cleric. Depending on the Barbaian, he/she could also be somewhat stealthy as well with ability to not use armor. Trickery also gives you access to dispel magic, which might be a good thing to have in the party, as you will be the only caster.

Edit: You might also want to take a look at the Circle of the Land Druid. They have a good selection of spells including healing spells and crowd control spells and are a divine casters.

 

[mellored]

You don't need much AoE, or to use it often, but it's good to some. 1 fireball = 1 dead horde and let the others clean up. The rest of your spells can go into support. And light can be perfectly fine on the front line healing. Their channel divinity kinda require it.

Life is probably too much healing in most cases.

Knowlage is a good option. Possibly better then light if you have a more story driven campaigns and less good in dungeon crawls.

You might also want to consider trickster. You have 3 classes that can (potentially) sneak. So adding an illusion to help setup ambushes could be fun.

 

[RulesJD]

I'm sorry but if you want AoE you can't really beat Tempest. That channel divinity is monsterous when combined with Call Lightning/Shatter. Puts Fireballs to shame and better yet deal lightning/thunder damage which are resisted far less.

But at the end of the day your main DPR will come from Spirit Guardians. Once you realize just how dominating that spell is, you'll never turn back.