D&D 5E Strength Clerics

[cbwjm]

For a bit more staying power, though a maximum 15 strength if using point buy, hill dwarf could be pretty good. +1 hit point/level and a bonus to Con/Wis means that you have plenty of toughness and can start with a 16 in constitution and wisdom (or maybe a 14 in constitution to use 2 points elsewhere). Then at level 4 you pick up heavily armoured boosting strength to 16. You will have to put up with a 15 or 16 AC (scale mail & shield with an 8/10 dex) until level 4 though and might need to use shield of faith to boost AC in the early game.

 

[Iry]

Played a bog-standard Life Cleric with 17 STR and 8 WIS. Sword and Board with the Sentinel feat. Actually did pretty solid job, since my intention was being somewhat sticky and dropping Prayers of Healing after combat.

Grapple is interesting if you can combine it with high movement speed. I did have a Grapple Orc that could move 120/2=60 on a move+bonus action dash by holding the grappled person in front of him while he charged forward. DM allowed it as long as I was moving the target towards something harmful, like a bonfire, cliff, or smashing him into someone else.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

For a bit more staying power, though a maximum 15 strength if using point buy, hill dwarf could be pretty good. +1 hit point/level and a bonus to Con/Wis means that you have plenty of toughness and can start with a 16 in constitution and wisdom (or maybe a 14 in constitution to use 2 points elsewhere). Then at level 4 you pick up heavily armoured boosting strength to 16. You will have to put up with a 15 or 16 AC (scale mail & shield with an 8/10 dex) until level 4 though and might need to use shield of faith to boost AC in the early game.

I like dwarves for sure. But leaning toward variant human. Lots of trade offs. Hill dwarves make darn good clerics!

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I like dwarves for sure. But leaning toward variant human. Lots of trade offs. Hill dwarves make darn good clerics!

I dunno. That and extra hp sounds nice...

 

[cbwjm]

I dunno. That and extra hp sounds nice...

It's a tough choice, variant human has the benefit of being able to start with heavy armour making them tougher in the beginning as well as gaining an extra skill. Hill dwarf ends up being tougher in the long term and they have a couple of extra weapons, a tool, darkvision, and poison resistance, and the stonecunning ribbon which might come in handy from time to time.

 

[Zardnaar]

There is no benefit, the good melee clerics are keyed off wisdom with 14 dex and medium armor. Death and nature clerics are good at that along with arcana clerics if feats are allowed.

To make the strength cleric be kinda ok you need higher rolled stats or things like Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

They're kinda ok level 1-4 but fall behind level 5+ and the higher level you go the worse they get.

Can can build a strength based cleric but they will lose a duel with a wisdom based cleric whose better at beating stuff up than they are.

They get wisdom to hit and damage and use some combination of spiritual weapon, guardians, green flame blade to smack you down.

Death clerics use toll the dead and inflict wounds/vampiric touch plus their channel divinity and the same spells sans gfb.

 

[Flamestrike]

There is no benefit, the good melee clerics are keyed off wisdom with 14 dex and medium armor. Death and nature clerics are good at that along with arcana clerics if feats are allowed.

Yeah, nah.

Strength Clerics are just fine with any domain with access to heavy armor. Thanks to heavy armour you can dump Dex to 8 and it doesn't affect your AC one iota.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, nah.

Strength Clerics are just fine with any domain with access to heavy armor. Thanks to heavy armour you can dump Dex to 8 and it doesn't affect your AC one iota.

Dex sill better for saves and skills, initiative etc.

Something has to be a dump stat.

It's more trying to fuel a decent con/str/wisdom. Something has to give.

Wisdom cleric 14 dex/con, 16 wisdom buff wisdom as you can. Anything higher than that is a bonus.

With only one attack a round you need other ways to ramp up damage and those spells I listed are all keyed off wisdom.

So if you can key physical attacks off wisdom or just use save based spells in melee do that.

 

[Flamestrike]

Dex sill better for saves and skills, initiative etc.

Skills? Like Stealth and Acrobatics? I dont see many Clerics outside of Trickery clerics bothering with either, and Athletics covers pretty much everything Acrobatics can do and then some.

Failed Dex saves are just more damage and rarely any sort of nasty status effect, and a difference of 3 points in initiative (between an 8 and a 14) is no big deal either.

A Vuman can safely dump Dex and Intelligence and have enough points for a 16 Strength and Wisdom and more than enough for a decent Con score, and can pick up a Feat like GWM, Magic Initiate (for Booming blade), Alert, Lucky or whatever.

More than happy to compare the pair (Str Cleric v Dex Cleric) at level 5.

 

[Zardnaar]

Skills? Like Stealth and Acrobatics? I dont see many Clerics outside of Trickery clerics bothering with either, and Athletics covers pretty much everything Acrobatics can do and then some.

Failed Dex saves are just more damage and rarely any sort of nasty status effect, and a difference of 3 points in initiative (between an 8 and a 14) is no big deal either.

A Vuman can safely dump Dex and Intelligence and have enough points for a 16 Strength and Wisdom and more than enough for a decent Con score, and can pick up a Feat like GWM, Magic Initiate (for Booming blade), Alert, Lucky or whatever.

More than happy to compare the pair (Str Cleric v Dex Cleric) at level 5.

It's been done before. The wisdom cleric works with more races, the str human is way to reliant on V.uman and gets worse.

Basically you didn't buff str or wisdom at level 4, the wisdom cleric has taken war caster at lvl 1 if vuman.

At 8 the wisdom cleric is rocking 20 wisdom.

You also end up with lower over stats if you start with 16 str and wisdom. You either have a lot of dump stats, less than 14 con or took heavy armor master instead of warcaster.

And your AC isn't really any better low levels and at best is one higher for a -3 penalty to initiative.

You spend a lot of resources trying to be a better fighter or just be a better spellcaster and a better damage dealer.
With no real trade off.