D&D 5E How on earth is this balanced?! Twilight cleric, more in-play evidence

[Zardnaar]

No it's not. You might think that the Dex/Wis cleric is the best - but Str/Wis is only viable with heavy armour - and heavy armour breaks pure Wis clerics into two pathways.

It's because of MAD.

Medium armor is only 1AC lower assuming 14 dex and con.

Heavy armor is probably giving up 5' movement which matters.

But the kicker is as you level weapons becomeess and less relevant due to cantrips scaling. If you buff your wisdom your cantrips and spells like spiritual weapon and guardian are better.

AC also scales more than saving throws.

The heavy armor cleric gas to make a choice between being slower, being less accurate if they're using weapons or buffing wisdom.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

(EDIT: Meant to quote you here @Mort, but… iPhone issues)

I guess it’s all about what you feel “overpowered” means. To me, that means something that breaks the game. Sorry, but I don’t accept that a one minute ability breaks the game of D&D 5e.

Then I suppose we define what “breaking the game” entails. I would argue that it means: making most or all encounters trivial and hence eliminating most or all of the fun at the table. Is that really what is happening? I mean, I see powerful feats and spells and abilities (looking at you, paladin auras) all the time. They do not impede the fun at our table. If anything, they encourage me to be more creative (read: not just throw MOAR enemies at them) in how I design encounters - something which I, and the players, find enjoyable.

It’s also fun for us when a PC busts out a new powerful ability and it completely foils my baddies. I feign great disappointment and they get an upper hand in the fight or challenge and perhaps even an easy win. And we laugh and then I come up with more dastardly challenges for them after I cry myself to sleep later that night.

 

[Cadence]

It’s also fun for us when a PC busts out a new powerful ability and it completely foils my baddies. I feign great disappointment and they get an upper hand in the fight or challenge and perhaps even an easy win. And we laugh and then I come up with more dastardly challenges for them after I cry myself to sleep later that night.

Do they have nearly as much fun when it's usually the same PC taking the lead in foiling the baddy?

 

[Undrave]

Heavy armor is probably giving up 5' movement which matters.

Huh???

You only have a penalty to movement (10 feet) if you don't have the STR requirement. You only need 15 STR to wear Plate. Plate and a Shield gives you 20 AC.

Start with 15 STR and just invest all your ASI into WIS so your progression matches the rate that your weapon become less useful.

 

[Mort]

(EDIT: Meant to quote you here @Mort, but… iPhone issues)

I guess it’s all about what you feel “overpowered” means. To me, that means something that breaks the game. Sorry, but I don’t accept that a one minute ability breaks the game of D&D 5e.

Then I suppose we define what “breaking the game” entails. I would argue that it means: making most or all encounters trivial and hence eliminating most or all of the fun at the table. Is that really what is happening? I mean, I see powerful feats and spells and abilities (looking at you, paladin auras) all the time. They do not impede the fun at our table. If anything, they encourage me to be more creative (read: not just throw MOAR enemies at them) in how I design encounters - something which I, and the players, find enjoyable.

It’s also fun for us when a PC busts out a new powerful ability and it completely foils my baddies. I feign great disappointment and they get an upper hand in the fight or challenge and perhaps even an easy win. And we laugh and then I come up with more dastardly challenges for them after I cry myself to sleep later that night.

I see overpowered as being significantly more effective than anything else of the equivalent level. This is especially true if the ability encroaches on another characters turf, I'm much more concerned about balance within the party than balance against the world (As DM I have infinite Dragons).

So would this ability break my game - surely not. But It would likely make me have to adjust encounters so the group is challenged - and that makes me take notice. It's certainly worthy of discussion on a message board! Edit: And if I'm adjusting encounters based on one character/ability? That's noteworthy!

Especially of note is the several DMs who have chimed in with "Yep seen it in play, it's OP"

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Do they have nearly as much fun when it's usually the same PC taking the lead in foiling the baddy?

1. It’s not usually the same PC foiling the baddie since our table is good at spreading around the spotlight (that’s on both players and DM). A player that hogs the spotlight isn’t a good fit for our table.

2. Speaking for myself when I do get to play vs DM: as this is a cooperative game, I’m more than happy when a teammate does something powerful that enhances our chances of coming out victorious. also, see 1.

 

[Zardnaar]

Huh???

You only have a penalty to movement (10 feet) if you don't have the STR requirement. You only need 15 STR to wear Plate. Plate and a Shield gives you 20 AC.

Start with 15 STR and just invest all your ASI into WIS so your progression matches the rate that your weapon become less useful.

Then you have put a high score where it's sub optimal.

What's your con score? How about dex?

It's the opportunity cost. Wisdom and dex gives you better skill, saves, initiative etc. And you have 14 con.

And at level 8 if you're a cleric with divine strike well you suck.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's because of MAD.

Medium armor is only 1AC lower assuming 14 dex and con.

Heavy armor is probably giving up 5' movement which matters.

And you've just hit the first issue. You do not always get 14 dex. Possibly it doesn't fit your character concept, possibly it's not what you rolled. And yes 5' of movement matters - but so do stat points and so does 3ish points of AC.

But the kicker is as you level weapons becomeess and less relevant due to cantrips scaling.

On the other hand they might scale - but for the first four levels almost all cantrips are behind weapons. And roughly half of clerics have an extra d8 to their weapon not their cantrip damage so from level 8-10 their weapon damage is significantly ahead. So for seven of the first ten levels weapons are doing more damage.

And IME relatively few campaigns go past level 10.

The heavy armor cleric gas to make a choice between being slower, being less accurate if they're using weapons or buffing wisdom.

Meanwhile the dex 10 cleric has all those choices plus wandering around and getting beaten down.

Making more choices (like Dex 10 clerics both at high and low STR) play decently isn't a ribbon ability unless you believe the only way to play is that you must always under every possible circumstance make the optimal choice in character creation and you have full control of that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And at level 8 if you're a cleric with divine strike well you suck.

Huh. You're the first person to say that a twilight cleric sucks in this thread.

 

[Cadence]

1. It’s not usually the same PC foiling the baddie since our table is good at spreading around the spotlight (that’s on both players and DM). A player that hogs the spotlight isn’t a good fit for our table.

It sounded like the problem mentioned by several of the above posters is that the character in question was just better at doing a lot of things than the other folks in the party who were supposed to be good at it (like some of the old 3.5/PF options ended up being a lot). Should that character fight less effectively so that the others can do better? Or does the DM go to what all those characters secondary skills are so they can shine with something they didn't really build the character to shine at?

2. Speaking for myself when I do get to play vs DM: as this is a cooperative game, I’m more than happy when a teammate does something powerful that enhances our chances of coming out victorious. also, see 1.

It feels like always being a bit-player would get old after a while if the game was ostensibly set up for everyone to have that equal spotlight share.