D&D 5E Why ever play a cleric?

[Ganymede81]

I think the big disconnect is that you seem to be viewing classes, and the level of appeal to play them, based solely on a mechanical reason.

I'm not even sure that's the issue. After all, Clerics are not known for being a weak or lower-tier class.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I want to play a cleric because its fun to play a religious fanatic who is always trying to convince others to join the flock.

 

[procproc]

I'm really surprised by how belligerent some of the responses here are. It seems like OP is asking a fairly straightforward question, and is largely getting heckled in response.

To answer the question: clerics really aren't meant to be primary melee combatants. At low levels, a war cleric can "out-fighter" the fighter with its domain ability, but really, you're playing a support caster. You get decent armor for survivability and access to the most healing and party support spells, as well as a decent amount of utility magic.

The class is mechanically solid, and is ideal if you like the idea of being granted magical power by worshipping a god or other divine being. My impression is that the class doesn't particularly shine as the "must-have" class for any other particular role. (If you want to play a priest of nature, you could play a druid instead. An inspiring leader of a warband could just as easily be a valor bard as a War cleric.)

All that said, the different domains of clerics play out pretty differently, but they're all "casters with perk X." If you're asking "why not play a paladin instead", you're not really approaching the class with the right expectations.

 

[mellored]

But for the tempest/war domain clerics, why try to improve your melee capabilities with a class that only gets one attack anyway? Like, if you wanted to have heavy armor, martial weapons, and divine magic, paladin does it better.

Because you run out of spells and need something else to do. Cleric weapon attacks are basically a different flavor of cantrip.

War does tend to be bad bad for just that reason. It buffs your weapon damage, but no multi-attack to make good use of it. Good for dipping, and the level 17 is great if you start at high levels. Can't see much reason to be a war cleric.

Though the new cantrips (booming blade / green flame blade) help, and shillelagh let's you use Wis to hit stuff with, so you can get a moderately good melee attack by jumping though a few hoops. Still probably better off with tempest, trickery, death, or life over war.

If you want to have heavy armor, martial weapons, and use lightning, eldritch knight can get 4 attacks and cast lightning bolt, storm sphere, ice storm, etc. so I'm just wondering why anyone would choose any of those domains and build a melee cleric? Just to be able to heal on top of lukewarm melee capabilities?

EK can't cast lighting bolts until level 13, or ice storm until level 19.

Tempest get's a max damage call lighting at level 5. Can regrow limbs at level 13, and can bring someone who fell into a volcano 150 years ago back to life at 17.

It's a lukewarm attack on top of healing, not the other way around. If your not intrested in that, don't be a cleric.

 

[Lidgar]

One of my favorite characters (and my avatar's namesake) was a cleric. Why play a cleric?

1. They can be extremely fun to role play, especially for expressing an eccentric/esoteric personality (similar to what ExploderWizard just posted).
2. They have interesting, and some powerful spells. Bless being a big one at 1st level, but there are many other buffs that are unique to their class.
3. They often fill a niche that few other classes can fill totally. Battling undead? Bring a cleric. Investigating an ancient temple? Nice to have a cleric. Need to negotiate a good price to raise another PC at the temple? Lead on cleric!

So yeah, clerics are fun.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm really surprised by how belligerent some of the responses here are. It seems like OP is asking a fairly straightforward question, and is largely getting heckled in response..

I guess I'm seeing it completely different. I'm seeing the OP ask, "Why on earth would you want to play a cleric. They're worse than X, Y, and Z". People responed with, "Here's why, A, B, and C." And the OP replying with "But that doesn't do as much DPR in melee, so you're not being logical or making sense." I.e., the "you're not doing it right".

 

[krakistophales]

I guess I'm seeing it completely different. I'm seeing the OP ask, "Why on earth would you want to play a cleric. They're worse than X, Y, and Z". People responed with, "Here's why, A, B, and C." And the OP replying with "But that doesn't do as much DPR in melee, so you're not being logical or making sense." I.e., the "you're not doing it right".

This is you simply being butthurt because I didn't ask the question so gently, precisely, and politely as to not disrupt your delicate sensibilities.

Based on this thread, I'm starting to see the wisdom in playing a tempest cleric as a much better alternative to an eldritch knight if I wanted to go with a thunder/lightning themed gish.

How about a light domain cleric? Is this comparable to an arcane caster in terms of blasting while having the utility/healing of a cleric?

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Sometimes a character concept just calls for some Cleric levels. When putting together my FF Red Mage homage, I knew that Cleric had to be part of the mix to represent the healing and support capabilities of a RM. Originally, it was just going to be a Cleric/Wizard multiclass, but everything changed with the SCAG including the Arcana domain. With the added spell flexibility of that domain, I was able to refine the build to a Fighter 1/Cleric X that more represents the RM from the Final Fantasy franchise.

 

[Celtavian]

Clerics are surprisingly strong. You wouldn't think it to look at them, but they can do some nice offense with all the other things.

When I played my cleric, I used spiritual guardians while dodging along with spiritual weapon to take out an entire group of enemies after they took down the party. Spiritual weapon with spiritual guardians does a lot of damage to a group attacking you. If you get to use spiritual guardians, blast with a cantrip or direct damage spell or strike with weapon, and use spiritual weapon, you're doing quite a bit of offense. You get to do this offense while healing yourself and having other nifty abilities from your cleric domain which can be surprisingly effective like disadvantage on an attack for blinding someone or boosting their attack with the war domain.

The cleric as a main character gets 9 levels of spellcasting, medium to heavy armor proficiency, d8 hit points, and domain abilities that usually allow you to use all three types of action (action, bonus action, and reaction).

I even sent my shadow (trickery domain) ahead on a road to disrupt an ambush. It was walking in their midst attacking them, while I hammered away from range with the spells emanating from the shadow.

Some people avoid the cleric because they don't like the deity aspect of the character. As far as power goes, the cleric is quite powerful, though very focused. I'm hoping in the future they release some D&D religion books to expand on the cleric.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why ever play a cleric?

Every class in 5e is extraneous. Classes are only ever opt-in, never mechanically required. Mechanically, every character is capable of tanking, healing, damaging and providing status effects (both detrimental and enhancing), at least for a time, at least as much as is necessary.

So the only reason ever to play any class is because you like its story or you like its unique tricks (like domain powers in the case of a cleric), for personal, idiosyncratic reasons that have more to do with you and y our personal preferences than anything that the game requires mechanically.

If you don't ever want to play a cleric, that's really quite fine. Others might choose to play one because they have a particular character idea that works well there - a warrior devoted to a god, a crusader against the undead, a support character, etc.