D&D 5E Sell my Party on a Cleric

[Stalker0]

My group members come from the "glory" days of 3.5 clerics, where the divine reigned supreme. Having come to 5e, they are soured on the class. I have had one player play a Knowledge cleric for about 4 sessions, and then dropped the character as they felt "worthless" compared to other classes they have played so far. No other member has even considered a cleric, and most I've talked to think its a waste of space.

My group's general complaints are as follows:

1) The divine "buff and slay" class is no longer the cleric, but the paladin. My group universally agrees that the paladin won big in 5e, and is an awesome demonstration of a class that wants to wield divine power and kick butt. So...why play a cleric for that concept?

2) Cleric spellcasting isn't all that interesting. Sure spiritual weapon is decent, guidance is the best cantrip, spirit guardians is amazing (and therefore boring, as every cleric on the planet has it), and bless is the best buff in the game. And that's it...compared to wizards or bards (my group loves the bard class in 5e), cleric spells have very little variety. You have the kingpin spells I mentioned, but everything else feels generic. So the group feels that every cleric plays basically the same exact spells.... or if you do choose other spells you are going to be anemic.

So in summary: Paladins got combat strength, Wizards have the spell power, and Bards have the variety, flexibility, and an array of buffs combined with other very nice mechanics. Meanwhile, the cleric has a few winning spells and nothing else to show for it.


I am sure there are many people on the board who would disagree with my group's notions, so tell me where they went wrong, help me make the cleric look interesting and cool to play.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Nothing your group is thinking is really wrong, it just relies on some assumptions for a particular build. A Sorcerer or Bard can make an excellent healer (losing out only to the Domain of Life cleric IME), a Paladin definitely is a better "smiter of evil", and a Wizard has a lot more utility.

For our groups, the cleric has shined the most with domain of life (for best over all healer) and also for their ability to destroy undead via Channel Divinity. In our game just yesterday the party was attacked by 10 shadows, with 4 ghouls and 2 ghasts just behind them (we've level 5-6). Our cleric (level 5) used his Destroy Undead (only the shadows were in range at the time) and destroyed 7 of the 10 shadows!

Would we have won anyway? Probably, but it certainly helped the odds!

Clerics will never hit as hard as Paladins nor have the versatility of Bards or the utility of Wizards, but they certainly have a lot of used and we often have at least one Cleric in our games. We've have two in our high level game as well. Now, we also MC a lot, so I don't think we've ever had a pure cleric last long before another class was dipped into for one reason or another (or the cleric class was the dip).

I like the Knowledge and Life domains most, but I am sure others have their favourites.

Finally, here are the spells (I think) which are exclusive to the Cleric class. Yes, some other subclasses get some of these and Bard's Magical Secrets can steal any of them, but they are still a strong list IMO and I find many of them useful personally:

• Sacred Flame
• Spare the Dying
• Thaumaturgy
• Word of Radiance
• Guiding Bolt
• Inflict Wounds
• Sanctuary
• Augury
• Prayer of Healing
• Spiritual Weapon
• Warding Bond
• Beacon of Hope
• Mass Healing Word
• Spirit Guardians
• Divination
• Guardian of Faith
• Commune
• Flame Strike
• Hallow
• Blade Barrier
• Forbiddance
• Harm
• Planar Ally
• Word of Recall
• Conjure Celestial
• Divine Word
• Temple of the Gods
• Holy Aura
• Mass Heal

 

[DEFCON 1]

If no one in your group wants to play a cleric, there's no reason to convince them otherwise. It is unnecessary for every class to get played at some point in every group.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

From watching CR, I now have a personal bias towards Grave domain cleric. Between ranged Spare the Dying, the maximized healing when a character is at zero HP, as well as Path to the Grave I think it is (target takes double damage from the next attack that hits it) YMMV

 

[commandercrud]

If I were going to solo, I'd be a cleric. They're all around good and don't need any help.

 

[Shiroiken]

The cleric of 5E is more in line with the cleric from every edition other than 3E, which suffered heavily from CoDzilla. There are many way to build a cleric, but the most common type is as a support character. You provide healing and buffs for your allies, but don't necessarily do awesome things yourself. You can still build a "kickass" cleric using the Light and Tempest domains.

My current cleric is a Dwarf Nature Cleric who runs into melee and casts Spirit Guardians. I have just as high Con as I do Wis, plus I took Resilient to get proficiency in Con saves. I deal good damage, but can make the concentration saves most of the time (I currently only fail on a 1 or 2 unless the damage is 22+). This causes a lot of aggro, leaving some of the squishier PCs alone as more target me instead.

 

[aco175]

My current game has no mage to cast spells, but has a light cleric that can cast fireball. He holds his own, but the PCs as not that optimized.

 

[LordEntrails]

Agree with @DEFCON 1, there is no need to convince anyone to play a cleric. You party doesn't need one. Just like they don't need a rogue, or a fighter, or a wizard, or a warlock or a x. There is no class that a party needs, let the players play what they want, don't worry about it.

That being said, I think the Grave Cleric is my favorite of the clerics.

 

[Stalker0]

Agree with @DEFCON 1, there is no need to convince anyone to play a cleric.

This is a good point, and I should clarify my position a little better. My group doesn't just see the cleric as "eh not the class I want to play", they see it as "this is a flaw in 5e....its a bad class that is a bad design".

So in some ways showing them the cleric is good is in the same breath saying "this is not a flaw in the game".

 

[Quartz]

With no cleric, who is there to cast Revivify or Raise Dead?

But I agree with the others. There's no need to play a cleric; the party just needs to be aware of the consequences.

they see it as "this is a flaw in 5e....its a bad class that is a bad design".

To what extent are you using the social pillar? Clerics have huge built-in hooks here.