D&D 5E Clerics Without Cantrips

[Krachek]

I find it strange that a cleric dedicated to the TRUE PATRON OF DARKNESS ABOVE can produce light and a cleric who worships the UNBRIDLED LORD OF THE CORONA VIRUS can curse disease.

It’s a design problem. 9 alignments and a dozen of domains share the same core class and spell list.
The solution is not easy, do we want a dozen of different classes to implement the cleric. Note that paladin, sorcerer, and even warlock share some parts of this problem.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find it strange that a cleric dedicated to the TRUE PATRON OF DARKNESS ABOVE can produce light and a cleric who worships the UNBRIDLED LORD OF THE CORONA VIRUS can curse disease.

No more strange than the fact that a cleric of vecna has turn undead.

if there is an incongruity, just go back to cantrips.

 

[prabe]

No more strange than the fact that a cleric of vecna has turn undead.

Unsurprisingly, I don't find this all that strange, either. ;-)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Unsurprisingly, I don't find this all that strange, either. ;-)

Right, same. A cleric is a cleric.

 

[Blue]

My beef is that guidance breaks my immersion in the game.

Tension is high. The orcs are closing in and the rogue nervously looks at the locked temple portal, knowing one wrong move triggers the arcane rune and spells doom. He pulls out his lucky pick, gives it a kiss....and then the cleric interrupts..."wait, wait, before you do that...you need some sweet, loving, guidance." The cleric then gives the rogue an encouraging pat on the ass, says "go team," and steps back into the shadows, lurking until their chance to charge in and give someone some good ole fashioned guidance comes up.

Tension is high. The orcs are closing in and the rogue nervously looks at the locked temple portal, knowing one wrong move triggers the arcane rune and spells doom. He pulls out his lucky pick, gives it a kiss as the priest mummers a prayer to his god to let this work, kissing his holy symbol in a mirroring gesture.

This all seems perfectly in narrative. Before you have a half-narrative, half players interacting with mechanics. So you have the above for narrative, or the below for players/mechanics.

Rogue's player: I'm going to have Brandar try to pick the lock.
Cleric's player: Hrothgar will cast Guidance on Brandar to help.

Either context is fine. Mixing them to make it intentionally jarring and using that as proof it's jarring doesn't swing it. The top example seems fine for immersion.

 

[Ambush]

We've gotten pretty far off topic here though. As far as a discussion of the original point of this post:

To me, they're simply new cantrips, given that I feel a cantrip is a simple magical ability that can be done at will. Ultimately, if scalable, damaging cantrips are removed from your game, I think that you'll find that either a) classes designed around these abilities are underpowered or b) the players will find a way to do the same thing in a way that feels less wizard-y/cleric-y/druid-y/etc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We've gotten pretty far off topic here though. As far as a discussion of the original point of this post:

To me, they're simply new cantrips, given that I feel a cantrip is a simple magical ability that can be done at will. Ultimately, if scalable, damaging cantrips are removed from your game, I think that you'll find that either a) classes designed around these abilities are underpowered or b) the players will find a way to do the same thing in a way that feels less wizard-y/cleric-y/druid-y/etc.

I don’t actually mind if they’re “basically cantrips” for some people. They are unified in theme, they’re a feature that subclasses can hang new abilities on, and they fit with things cleric’s get later on. There are more choices within Divine Beacon because the player doesn’t get to choose from a broad list.

And they “scale” in that I’ll be adding features at 5th, 11th, etc, that increase damage in thematic ways whenever the cleric makes an attack or forces a save without spending a spell slot, and expanding these abilities in ways that are less “samey” than adding damage dice.
This way, a melee cleric can always use Glorify and be effective as a warrior, a Light Cleric can focus on using Illuminate (which gets bigger and adds an ally buff) and Envelope (which gains a party buff), etc, but all clerics deal in Divine Power, which is Radiance.

 

[Iry]

And yet, clerics have no trouble using it every round, for every action, on every occasion, over and over and over again. It drives me crazy.

I have a newer player and while I don't think she acts maliciously, EVERY time the party is going to do something, Guidance comes up.

The social consequences of that tend to be pretty high. Obvious chanting and hand waving can draw the wrong kind of attention, especially in a tense or stealthy situation.

 

[Ambush]

I don’t actually mind if they’re “basically cantrips” for some people. They are unified in theme, they’re a feature that subclasses can hang new abilities on, and they fit with things cleric’s get later on. There are more choices within Divine Beacon because the player doesn’t get to choose from a broad list.

I guess the only reason that I brought it up was the title of the thread But in general, I'd love to see more spells/abilities, so that multiple classes don't all feel so similar.

And they “scale” in that I’ll be adding features at 5th, 11th, etc, that increase damage in thematic ways whenever the cleric makes an attack or forces a save without spending a spell slot, and expanding these abilities in ways that are less “samey” than adding damage dice.
This way, a melee cleric can always use Glorify and be effective as a warrior, a Light Cleric can focus on using Illuminate (which gets bigger and adds an ally buff) and Envelope (which gains a party buff), etc, but all clerics deal in Divine Power, which is Radiance.

As far as usability goes, I'd likely either dip cleric or take Magic Aptitude as a fighter to get Glorify. Because bonus action getting an additional die of dmg on every single attack with a weapon is going to get abused very fast. If you make the spell an action, and grant a single melee attack as a part of it, you can curb that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess the only reason that I brought it up was the title of the thread But in general, I'd love to see more spells/abilities, so that multiple classes don't all feel so similar.


As far as usability goes, I'd likely either dip cleric or take Magic Aptitude as a fighter to get Glorify. Because bonus action getting an additional die of dmg on every single attack with a weapon is going to get abused very fast. If you make the spell an action, and grant a single melee attack as a part of it, you can curb that.

Magical Adept won’t get someone Glorify, because it isn’t a cantrip. Dipping isn’t a bad point, though. I’ll review it.