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

[Luke Hector]

Trickery - isn't that the one that normally gets panned as being no good? I can see however what you mean about me having a lot of characters who could potentially sneak well and the Rogue would just love me. They do get some nice spells I must admit though I hate that the duplicity thing uses up your concentration because that means no Bless right? Or am I missing out how Concentration works?

 

[Luke Hector]

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.

With regards to Knowledge - we're doing Strahd in the Adventurer's League, I don't know how much is combat and how much is roleplay/etc but our group is going to be lacking on Intelligence greatly unless the Rogue took any decent ranks in it.

 

[XMorsX]

You will lack knowledges as you say, and only a wizard can fix it properly while being a great fit in your team but you said that you would rather no play one. If you wish to play one though, diviners make the best allrounders and abjurers make very durable ones if you can cheese the ward, either by being a gnome with snifervin magic, having the alarm spell or dipping two lvls of warlock. Bladesingers are the best at keeping concentration and have the highest AC if this is your cup of tea.

You also said that you may want to avoid bard, but life cleric 1 / lore bard x makes for a great armored healer (probably the best from 7th lvl and onwards thanks to goodberry) while retaining all the awesomeness of the bard, who is just so much better compared to the bard of previous editions (without a ton of splatbooks at least). Definately much better than a pure life cleric.

Knowledge cleric is subpar as a main class, although it makes for a great dip for a wizard.

All the other suggestions that have been done are also good fits for your group for the reasons that have been mentioned. Basically, the damage and tanking part have been covered and you can amplify the efficiency of your group by supporting them, be it controlling the battlefield, buffing them or healing them. If you can also provide good dpr in the same time good for you, but it is not necessary.

 

[Herobizkit]

Strahd, eh. If it's anything like the Strahd games of the past, it's going to be RP/Knowledge heavier than most AL's.

To be fair, my personal bias is in play - I make the character that rounds out a team. You have three characters who will unquestioningly deal out gobs of melee damage, but probably to one target at a time. That's a generally smart way to fight... but they have practically ZERO magic support.

Light Cleric is great if you wanna hose a bunch of enemies and there's no law against throwing Int in there if you want to, say, roll Half-Elf and take Sage background - Arcana, History, plus two of any skill, then the two from Cleric. Even a 14 is more than ample if you want to be a skill man AND do everything else you want.

With a 27 Point buy, you could enjoy a (after mods) 8 12 12 14 16 14 and cover a lot of bases with talking and knowing stuff.

Of course, the other option is to just goon up with the rest of them. :3

 

[mellored]

Strad might also mean undead. And all clerics come with AoE turn undead. So knowledge might be the more optimum choice.

That said play what you w think will be most fun.

 

[Luke Hector]

I still don't know if I want to be a blasty damage type though. Arrgggg why is it so hard? I get what you're saying though about the benefits of light.

I can't cover everything though, I can't cover Lore (Rogue has INT as highest stat but doesn't have proficiencies in Lore based skills I don't think), AOE's, healing and tanking all in one build easily. So I think I got two domain choices in the end. Life or Knowledge. I either go for the armoued up healing tank with Heavy Armour Mastery, heavy armour, hill dwarf and take care of the healing/tanking role OR I take Knowledge, concentrate on Wis/Con and then Int/Cha ignoring STR and Dex, but take the necessary races/backgrounds (half elf sage maybe) to acquire all 4 lore skills at proficiency plus extra and still manage to heal/buff nicely, but stick to medium armour + shield with spiritual weapon/normal weapon in combat. I think AOE's are going to be on the short side unless I go Light and I don't know if I want to go that route, we may just have to suck it up, I'm sure our DPS munchkins will take care of hordes right?

I enjoy healing and buffing a lot and tanking so Life sounds great. But then I like being the resources/support guy so Knowledge is fun too but it's highly dependant on campaigns and the DM. You either end up being such a useful resource out of combat or you end up just sucking.

 

[mellored]

If you don't want to blast, then don't. It's more important to have fun with your character. And base clerics have a few AoE spells.

Life is the safe bet. Healing my not always be optimal, but it's always useful. Plus you can partially ignore Wis and tank up. I would ignore weapons either way. You can use sacred flame in melee and it even makes a better OA with war caster.

 

[Kithas]

Having blasty damage spells doesnt make you a 'blasty damage type' perse. what it does is adds to your options in a given situation. Sometimes burning hands is the right choice and even if you only use it a couple of times it's still useful to have.
That said as people have mentioned you have gobs of melee damage. The question I have is do you have a tank? Do you have anyone that will anchor the group and just be impossible to kill? Clerics actually do quite well at this. War, life, tempest, and nature clerics are best for this. Basically you will maximize your con and wis scores, if you go dwarf(hill is really the perfect race) you wont have a penalty for your heavy armor, alternatively wood elf leaves you at 25' speed after the pnalty too if you like that better. Grab a shield as your holy symbol and forget the weapon, sacred flame(thorn whip if nature) will be plenty to replace your melee attack, and having a free hand means no worries about v.s. spells.
As far as the pros of each one;
Tempest gives you the best damage, maxxing out a top level thinuderwave is devastating not to mention all the great spell options.
War gives you possibly the best aura in the game(crusader's mantle) and lets you bend fate for your allies.
Nature gives you some massive battlefield control with thorn whip and the domain spells, th cd is nice too.
Life makes it easy to keep yourself and your allies alive while still being a threat.

Biggest thing is exactly what mello said. Choose a path that sounds fun to you! The perfect choice mechanically is worthless if you don't enjoy it. That is the reason you are playing!

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm going to sneak back in here and say that if you can't pick between Light and Knowledge, take neither and go Arcane.

Having detect magic and magic missile as ready-to-go options means you're always covered for lore or pew.

In addition to blowing up undead with turning, you'll also be able to turn celestials, elementals, fey and fiends.

As for race, depends how much of a bruiser you wanna be.

• If you want to theme, High Elf (who doesn't love Cantrips? 3 wizard in total!)
• If you want to straight-up Lore, Half-Elf (+2 skills, languages, being pretty).
• If you want some beef, Hill Dwarf (martial weapons and +1 HP/level).
• If you want more beef and to smash faces, Half-orc (you get knocked down, but you get up again).

EDIT: Druids can cover Lore, AOE, tanking and healing in one build, starting at level 2 (if you roll Half-Elf for those bonus skills, but consider a Halfling Druid... no one expects the little guy until it's too late.)