D&D 5E Why ever play a cleric?

n00b f00 · Feb 19, 2016

From a purely mechanical perspective they are full casters with medium armor keying off wisdom with a varied spell list. Few other full casters get medium at 1, no other full caster can get heavy with a sub class. You use wisdom which is a much better save than int or charisma, it's the perception stat which is the most important skill.

You get spells arcane casters don't like spritual guardians and contagion. You also get a d8 which is bettee than sorc and wiz. On top of this you can get a little extra melee or stealth or skill monkey utility or whatever. But that extra stuff is just to help you excel a bit more at a particular niche, it's not to give you equal normal attacks as a fighter.

The best classes to compare them to are bards, wizards, druids, sorcerers.

Not eldritch knights and paladins. While there is cross over between a martial type cleric and those classes. They are on different ends or the martial caster spectrum.

Ovarwa · Feb 19, 2016

I'm a bit late to this party... one other great thing about clerics is that they don't need more than one great attribute. Some good cleric builds do want more than one, sure, but between domain differentiation and lots of choice when it comes to ASIs, there are many possibilities for customization. A straight D&D5 cleric is at least decent at almost everything, very good at a few things, some of which can change from day to day by choosing from the entire spell list (which slowly grows as books come out), without having to be fragile or MAD. This isn't a D&D3.x cleric but still rather nice.

Greg Benage · Feb 20, 2016

I've played my tempest cleric from 1st up to 17th level now. Against tough solo monsters (if that situation is actually possible in 5e...it really hasn't been for...many levels) my most effective role would really be a little control along with buffing, debuffing and healing. Against multiple opponents (i.e. pretty much every encounter) I'm fairly certain I have both the highest sustained damage output and highest nova (AoE) in our group, at least since the wizard dropped. Along with spiritual weapon, spirit guardians and sacred flame for high sustained damage over time, I can hit those half-maximized destructive waves for 48 average damage (friendly) to every enemy within 30 feet of me (DC 19 for half!). I have at-will no-concentration flight outside now, which is most of the time in our campaign. I dropped my first mass heal last week, though I wasn't able to use all 700 points of healing.

I guess the only reason not to play one is...you'd rather play something else?

THEMNGMNT · Feb 20, 2016

Last weekend I played a Life Cleric in my first ever experience with con/public play/Adventurer's League. I chose the class simply because I wanted to make sure I was useful at the table no matter what everyone else was playing. I like to hit hard, and I didn't hit particularly hard. However, bless was an absolute powerhouse spell when it came to helping the rest of the party make their saves against some nasty charm/dominate effects. Other players thanked me for stepping in to play the support class and save their hides. I definitely felt like my cleric turned the tide of battle more than once. For the right type of player, it's a deeply satisfying class to play.

THEMNGMNT · Feb 20, 2016

I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while. I'd like to play warforged tempest cleric, but use Intelligence as my casting ability instead of Wisdom. The idea is that character is basically an arcane battery, and all those lightning blasts are coming from his/its/her internal power source.

Zardnaar · Feb 20, 2016

I have noticed a lot of players are selfish. They expect the cleric to heal them but won't he;lp out with Inspiring Leader or the Healer feat generally spending their feats on stuff that makes them better. I have a wizard with the healer feat lol.

Kite474 · Feb 20, 2016

Maybe its because I started in 3.5, but why are clerics considered heal-bots? They were never good at it unless you hyper specialize into it. Even then though your barely breaking even...

Zardnaar · Feb 20, 2016

Kite474 said:
Maybe its because I started in 3.5, but why are clerics considered heal-bots? They were never good at it unless you hyper specialize into it. Even then though your barely breaking even...

If you played AD&D Clerics were more or less the only ones who could do it very well. Druids got cure lt wnds as a 2nd level spell in 1E and in AD&D they got cure light wounds but could not raise dead. Until 3E being good at healing was more or less a cleric exclusive ability. Maybe a speciality priest in 2E as well. 5E has moved more towards clerics are the best at healing much like 4E I suppose, in 3.x you had wands of cure light wounds.

In earlier editions for example class abilities were almost exclusive. Heavy armor for example was out right better than the other types (no maximum dexterity modifier to AC) and the only classes that got it were Paladins, Clerics and Fighter (Rangers in 1E not 2E).

In 5E a lot of classes and abilities can restore hit points, the healing domain cleric is the best at it and there are a lot of cleric exclusive (or near exclusive) spells the other classes lack in regards to restoring ability score damage.

It could be a powerful ability in previous editions. Clerics could ask for a tithe (10% of treasure is reasonable) to heal you so that is 10% more xp in 1E for example. The cleric could also have the choice in life or death situations if they could only save 1 person so giving the cleric 1st pick of magic items was also an option as if the fighter took that +1 mace you might be dead a few days later if the cleric withholds healing. Letting the cleric get slightly more treasure and get more xp was often a good idea anyway and clerics leveled up fast so having a level 7 cleric in a 5th level party for example was nice.

Kite474 · Feb 20, 2016

Zardnaar said:
If you played AD&D Clerics were more or less the only ones who could do it very well. Druids got cure lt wnds as a 2nd level spell in 1E and in AD&D they got cure light wounds but could not raise dead. Until 3E being good at healing was more or less a cleric exclusive ability. Maybe a speciality priest in 2E as well. 5E has moved more towards clerics are the best at healing much like 4E I suppose, in 3.x you had wands of cure light wounds.

In earlier editions for example class abilities were almost exclusive. Heavy armor for example was out right better than the other types (no maximum dexterity modifier to AC) and the only classes that got it were Paladins, Clerics and Fighter (Rangers in 1E not 2E).

In 5E a lot of classes and abilities can restore hit points, the healing domain cleric is the best at it and there are a lot of cleric exclusive (or near exclusive) spells the other classes lack in regards to restoring ability score damage.

It could be a powerful ability in previous editions. Clerics could ask for a tithe (10% of treasure is reasonable) to heal you so that is 10% more xp in 1E for example. The cleric could also have the choice in life or death situations if they could only save 1 person so giving the cleric 1st pick of magic items was also an option as if the fighter took that +1 mace you might be dead a few days later if the cleric withholds healing. Letting the cleric get slightly more treasure and get more xp was often a good idea anyway and clerics leveled up fast so having a level 7 cleric in a 5th level party for example was nice.

OK makes sense. Now are we talking in combat healing or out of combat healing? In 3.5 healing in combat was often useless have not played with a life cleric in 5e yet so no experience on that. Your last paragraph kind of reaffirms my desire to never touch 1e even with a 20ft stick lol

Zardnaar · Feb 20, 2016

Kite474 said:
OK makes sense. Now are we talking in combat healing or out of combat healing? In 3.5 healing in combat was often useless have not played with a life cleric in 5e yet so no experience on that. Your last paragraph kind of reaffirms my desire to never touch 1e even with a 20ft stick lol

1E is kind of fun because of the madness in it. For example the Druid leveled up very fast, got level 2 spells at level 2, level 3 spells at level 3. Fighters got a cleave ability as well which they lost in 2E.

In combat healing was semi done in AD&D mostly because healing 3d8+3 or whatever was not so awful vs your 1d6+1 mace attack to the face. Mostly it was out of combat though. AD&D monsters dealt less damage though and had less hit points than 3E so a great wrym dragon might have 100 hit points instead of 500.

D&D 5E Why ever play a cleric?

n00b f00

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