D&D 5E The Blade Domain; Stabby Clerics

[Herosmith14]

Okay, dumb titles aside, this is meant to be a melee cleric that uses swords. I drew heavy inspiration from the Blade Bard and Hexblade Warlock, with a little bit of the Berserker Barbarian. I'll admit, the root of this idea was to have a class that automatically got the Shadow Blade spell at the lowest level possible and could actually use it well. As is obvious, Shadow Blade got ditched for Flame Blade, which better meshes wth Blade Acolyte and seems to be a little more powerful. Let me know what you guys think.

Cleric: Blade Domain​

Most cultures bost some god of war, and many clerics follow them as Clerics of War. You follow a more specialized path than your brothers in faith, for among those deities of combat, lie the gods and godesses of swordsmanship. Those like Elistraee, Kord, Malar, and Hercules grant their followers skill with the sword, and magic to go with it. Many Blade Clerics follow typical gods of war, but while their cousins are the commanders and supporters, using their magic to keep the force strong, you are on the front line, wielding the power granted to you like a deadly blade.

[h=1]Blade Domain Spells[/h]

Cleric Level	Spell Name
1st	Shield, Wrathful Smite
3rd	Flame Blade, Spiritual Weapon
5th	Blinding Smite, Elemental Weapon
7th	Staggering Smite, Fire Shield
9th	Banishing Smite, Animate Objects

[h=1]Bonus Proficiencies[/h]At 1st level, you gain proficiency with two of the following; shortswords, longswords, rapiers, scimitars, or greatswords.

[h=1]Fighting Style[/h]Also at 1st level, you gain one of the following fighting styles.
[h=5]Dueling[/h]When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
[h=5]Two-Weapon Fighting[/h]When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

[h=1]Blade Acolyte[/h]At 1st level, you have learned to let your deities power flow through your blade. At the end of a long rest, you may choose one dagger, scimitar, rapier, shortsword, longsword, or greatsword that you are proficient with. You may use your Wisdom modifier for attack and damage rolls with that weapon.

[h=1]Channel Divinity: Divine Blade[/h]At 2nd level, you may use your channel divinity to enhance your blade.
As a bonus action, you may present your holy symbol, and for one minute, any attack you make with a sword for the next minute does extra radiant damage equal to twice your cleric level.

[h=1]Extra Attack[/h]Starting at 6th level, whenever you take the attack action on your turn, you may make two attacks, instead of one.

[h=1]Divine Strike[/h]At 8th level, you have learned to infuse your blade with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you may cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 of that weapons damage.
At 14th level, the extra damage equals 2d8.

[h=1]Divine Retaliation[/h]Starting at 17th level, whenever you are hit with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against the creature that attacked you. The attack crits on a roll of 19 or 20.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Its probably worth checking that you're aware that none of those features do anything for Flame Blade.

I personally am not a fan of being able to turn your prime spellcasting ability score into your prime melee ability score for a weapon-based subclass either.

I'd have to run the maths on this, but the numbers in my head, I think that this class would be able to outdamage a Paladin in purely melee at-will attacks. On top of being a full caster class.

 

[Satyrn]

Along with what the Cap'n said about using Wisdom on attack rolls, I don't like clerics getting extra attack. The Divine Strike feature looks like it was meant to play the same role, upping the cleric's damage.

So what giving extra attack and divine strike feels like to me is giving the blade cleric the equivalent of the fighter's third attack, and doing so 3 levels earlier than fighter gets it.

 

[cbwjm]

I would probably make the following changes:

Bonus proficiencies.
You gain proficiency with all martial swords.

Fighting style.
Add great weapon fighting style. As is, there is no reason to select the greatsword as a weapon since you can't gain a fighting style to support it.

Blade acolyte.
Not too sure about this one. Not a huge fan of changing the attack stat, but then we do have a precedent in the hexblade. I might model this after other cleric abilities and allow them to use this ability A number times per day equal to their wisdom modifier.

Channel divinity.
Model this after the death cleric and I think it would be fine. I can't quite remember the formula (5 + twice your level, I think) but it is a once only thing when you hit with a weapon attack and expend your channel divinity (or maybe it isn't the death clerics channel divinity but I do think it would be a good model for this ability).

The rest of the class seems fine.

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[Ancalagon]

This seems too good quite frankly...

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[Ancalagon]

The warlock is almost, but not quite, a full caster, and if she wants two attacks she has to sacrifice another invocation...

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[jgsugden]

Adding twice your cleric level to each attack is a definite no go. A 20th level cleric with this domain could be attacking 5 times (Multi for 2, Bonus, Haste, Reaction) for 65 damage a pop. As the characters attacking for 30 a pop are arguably overpowered in current rules...

Further, if they want multi-attack, the cleric generally needs to multi-class to fighter/paladin - and that is for a good reason. Giving the Cleric Multi-attack allows it to be the best of both cleric and fighter. There is a reason War clerics do not get it.

For the record, if I were to build a character worshipping a God of Skill in Battle, I would likely build a multiclass Paladin 6, Cleric 14.

If you want to stick with this idea:

Bonus Proficiencies

At 1st level, you gain proficiency with two of the following; shortswords, longswords, rapiers, scimitars, or greatswords.

Fighting Style

Also at 1st level, you gain one of the following fighting styles.
Dueling

When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Two-Weapon Fighting

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Blade Acolyte

You are proficient with all martial weapons and all armor.
After each long rest you may select one sword as your Signature Blade until you next take a long rest. You may use your Wisdom modifier, rather than Strength or Dexterity, as your attack and damage modifier for melee attacks with that weapon.

Channel Divinity: Divine Blade

At 2nd level, you may use your channel divinity to enhance your blade.
As a bonus action, you may present your holy symbol, and for one minute, whenever you deal damage with a melee attack with your signature weapon or make an attack roll with a spell that creates or enchants a weapon attack, you may reroll the damage once and use the best result.

Blade master

At 6th level, When you attack with your signature weapon or make an attack roll with a spell that creates or enchants a weapon and you miss with that attack, you may make an additional attack as a bonus action with that same weapon against the same target.

Divine Strike

At 8th level, you have learned to infuse your blade with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you may cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 of that weapons damage.
At 14th level, the extra damage equals 2d8.

Divine Retaliation

Starting at 17th level, whenever you are hit with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against the creature that attacked you. The attack crits on a roll of 19 or 20.