D&D 5E Powergamer Cleric= Variant Human?

Zardnaar said:

1E Dragon article iirc but 2E made it official.

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2e Totally Rocked on Character Class Flavor ( the mechanics didnt necessarily follow suit) but I totally love the class descriptions better than any edition

Yeah 2E had that. IMHO it's aged better than most D&D's. Surprisingly a few younger players locally love the settings as well. The internet/ critical roll.

Garthanos said:

When they introduced Priests of Specific Gods (someone will tell us when I am sure) I started to find the flavor improved.

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It was done best in the Complete Priests Handbook.

Tony Vargas said:

It was done best in the Complete Priests Handbook.

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That book outright sucked. It basically nerfed the cleric and most of the examples presented also sucked. It's not like the cleric was overpowered. It one of the worst class handbooks in 2E.

That is why I was giving my opinion on building below 10th level.

Why did you bring up an argument for PAM in games up to 10th level if the characters aren't taking it? The variant human can start with 16 STR and 16 WIS. Heavy armor wearers want 15 STR so the bump to 16 is already basic. 2 ASI's bumps both to 18's to match the 18 wisdom your example has leaving it without the gain for having taken shillelagh.

Taking resilient con starts the cleric with 16's in STR, CON, and WIS if the character doesn't mind 8's for DEX, INT, and CHA on point buy variant human. 5 ASI's later that's two 20's and an 18, or 16 CON adding another feat like PAM. Going with an 18 in WIS or STR for a small dip and 16 CON allows for PAM plus GWM. plenty of room for melee power, spell casting, and benefits for concentration. Tossing in GWM easily beats shillelagh, which cannot use that feat. Swapping resilient for HAM gives the same ability score spread and it's a lot more useful for lower levels than shillelagh.

The melee clerics invest in strength if they wear heavy armor and dexterity if they wear moderate armor. That's not different than the str / cha paladin.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but only the Arcana cleric can get Green Flame Blade as a cleric spell. This means they can add their wisdom bonus to the fire damage. Any other cleric would have to use their Int or Cha bonus.

It doesn't matter for Booming Blade as it gains no benefit from it's casting stat.

Tempest Clerics can use their "Destructive Wrath" to do maximum damage with Booming Blade. But it takes a use of Channel Divinity, so YMMV.

Ashrym said:

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That is why I was giving my opinion on building below 10th level.

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Why did you bring up an argument for PAM in games up to 10th level if the characters aren't taking it? The variant human can start with 16 STR and 16 WIS. Heavy armor wearers want 15 STR so the bump to 16 is already basic. 2 ASI's bumps both to 18's to match the 18 wisdom your example has leaving it without the gain for having taken shillelagh.

Taking resilient con starts the cleric with 16's in STR, CON, and WIS if the character doesn't mind 8's for DEX, INT, and CHA on point buy variant human. 5 ASI's later that's two 20's and an 18, or 16 CON adding another feat like PAM. Going with an 18 in WIS or STR for a small dip and 16 CON allows for PAM plus GWM.

Mix and match to taste and there's​

plenty of room for melee power, spell casting, and benefits for concentration. Tossing in GWM easily beats shillelagh, which cannot use that feat. Swapping resilient for HAM gives the same ability score spread and it's a lot more useful for lower levels than shillelagh.

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The melee clerics invest in strength if they wear heavy armor and dexterity if they wear moderate armor. That's not different than the str / cha paladin.

It doesn't take medium armor master. Heavy armor proficiency is the same feat cost but gives up needing the dexterity investment to save build points. The reason to take that medium armor master is for stealth with a higher armor class. It's not a way to build armor class on a cleric unless that cleric is dex / wis who likes to use stealth in armor.

Melee clerics start with enough STR or DEX depending on the armor that adding more isn't a big issue. Neither is risking a +1 hit/damage difference in a <10th level game. The +1 damage on a single attack class is extremely minor and can be mitigated with higher damage weapons at the expense of AC if a person really values it that much. The +1 to hit only matters once in every 20 attacks on average assuming no advantage and the high the cleric levels the more likely the cleric is to use actions on spells instead of attacks.

Taking magic initiate as a feat has an opportunity cost. The real benefit of shillelagh is to open up room for feats instead of ASI's at high levels. PAM with 18 STR and 18 WIS at 10th level is better than shillelagh with 20 WIS and no PAM at 10th level. At 12th level when you take PAM the non-shillelagh cleric just tops up another ASI. That's also not optimizing. It's basic. The opportunity cost on taking shillelagh is the issue when looking at having taken resilient for concentration. I'd still rather spend that bonus feat on resilient con as a melee cleric because that benefits me better in the long run over the +1 hit/damage.

I have done the shillelagh + green-flame blade as well. At 6th level on a lore bard and on a 3rd level warlock via book of shadows, both with moderately armored as the bonus 1st level feat on a variant human. It's a relatively easy way to get a melee option on a caster but hardly optimized. It's more of a niche than a standard recommendation.

ymmv
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Very sure in my OP I excluded point buy, and referred to the default array. If you are willing to soak up 3 dump stats and then later on run into having to choose to buff strength or wisdom.
Remember by level 8 or 12 you will have a 20 wisdom and 2 feats. Well maybe not knowledge.

You have to have a 20 in one or two 18s and 3 8s. Mr Stickman has a 20, 14, 14, 12, 10, and 8 to play with. Stickman is better in combat IMHO and a lot better outside of it assuming both clerics are using guidance.

The nature cleric can skip magic initiate and takes PAM.

The others will skip it, maybe take it later or take a different feat.

A level 1 PAM nature cleric in medium armor isn't a bad deal. I would probably take warcaster over asi if I was planning on using spiritual guardians melee build.

The 3 builds.

Nature cleric, PAM lvl 1.

Arcana cleric. Magic initiate, GFB.

Every other type of cleric

Magic initiate.

All will probably take warcaster lvl 4 or 8.

As previous poster stated only arcane cleric can get gfb keyed off wisdom. At level 8 they can double stack their wisdom modifier on it.

I have also seen war, tempest, death, life clerics in action. None of them impressed me in melee, the light cleric was good at being a spellcaster.

Also what if you're not picking the best domains? My magic initiate trickster or knowledge cleric would work alright yes?

If you take Magic Initiate you can grab Shield as your first level spell. This can whack your AC up to 24/25 (27 stacked with Shield of Faith). You don't need to make concentration saves if you don't get hit.

Zardnaar said:

Very sure in my OP I excluded point buy, and referred to the default array.

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You excluded rolling and referred once to default array. If you really want to restrict discussion to just standard array, i'm bowing out. That's not an interesting discussion for me.

Paul Farquhar said:

If you take Magic Initiate you can grab Shield as your first level spell. This can whack your AC up to 24/25 (27 stacked with Shield of Faith). You don't need to make concentration saves if you don't get hit.

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Magic Initiate shield spell can't be used with cleric spell slots. However, 1 level of sorcerer allows con saving throw proficiency and a shield spell and an absorb elements spell that both can be used with spell slots.

While I really hate the delay in cleric spells - this 1 level dip is promising IMO