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

[Zardnaar]

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.

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.

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.

It's not 3 points of AC it's 1. In the twilight's cleric case at low levels you use a rapier same to hit and as the strengh cleric unless they use a two handed weapon (then their AC is one lower).

 

[Zardnaar]

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

I'm talking about optimal build.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

You just made a huge blanket statement.

If there's an ability that says "each enemy that starts their turn within 200 miles of you instantly dies during the next minute", that would be game breaking.

If you instead didn't mean that huge and provably wrong blanket statement, and instead meant "I don't think an ability that grants THP/this amount of THP every round for one minute is game-breaking", that's your own opinion, and I have said that from my experience, it has broken parts of the game (very specifically, it has broken certain encounters in the official adventure I am running with the Twilight Cleric in it; Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden).

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.

Paladins are powerful, as are their auras, but their auras all come at a much later level than this feature, and Paladins are balanced more on being support-type martial characters, while Clerics are (typically) supposed to be support-type divine spellcasters. And, the auras are all much smaller ranges than this Channel Divinity until 18th level, and have smaller benefits than refreshing THP (yes, bonus to saves is good, as is immunity to frightened, but the bonus to the saves is dependent on the MADness of the paladin, and frightened is a very situational condition).

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.

But that's the thing, powerful abilities are typically balanced by one of the following things:

1. The ability being granted at higher levels (or only "coming online" at higher levels, like Creation Bards losing most of their restrictions on what they can magically summon at level 14).
2. The ability being situational enough that the feature isn't broken (like letting Monks run on water and up walls).
3. The cost of recharging the ability is expensive enough to balance out the feature (like Limited Wish recharging after 1d4 long rests).
4. The ability requires a long enough activation that the feature isn't OP (literally the whole reason why Ritual spells exist).

Twilight Sanctuary is really good as soon as you get it (level 2), and only gets better as you get higher levels, so Balancing Factor #1 is thrown out the window. It also isn't situational at all, as THP is an extremely useful feature and also fairly rare (yes, the ending of the charmed/frightened condition is rare, but that's just some situational icing on the OP cake), so Balancing Factor #2 is also not applicable to Twilight Sanctuary. Next, it recharges on a Short Rest, which are very easy to take, and Clerics get even more CDs each short rest at level 6 and level 18, which gets rid of the last possible main balancing factor. Finally, Twilight Sanctuary only takes 1 action to cast, and it doesn't count as a spell, which means that it's not only very powerful, very rechargeable, and a very early-coming feature, but that it also is very easy to use.

By all means available to us (including comparing it to similar features, like Eldritch Cannon), Twilight Sanctuary is OP. The subclass would be powerful without this feature, but this just helps bump it into the OP tier.

It's OP. It really is.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm talking about optimal build.

Then call the ability sub-optimal.

What heavy armour does is makes what would otherwise be poor builds more viable. That's not a ribbon ability - it's something that opens up archetypes.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

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).

Oh, for sure. Also, see my comment after yours about sharing the spotlight...

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!

Adjust encounters? Maybe. Adjust tactics sometimes? Surely.

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

Agreed - I hope to experience one and am happy to change my tune if it is the disaster this thread purports.

 

[Neonchameleon]

(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.

To me flattening the amount of fun people have in the game is breaking it. And pouring on the temp hit points like that turns tense combats into dreary slogs.

It’s also fun for us when a PC busts out a new powerful ability and it completely foils my baddies.

While it's a new ability, definitely. The tenth time they do the same thing without having put any work in to set it up it's not so fun.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

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?

Thankfully this is not PF.

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.

Oh, agreed. But I don't see any options (other than possibly huge discrepancies in rolled stats and/or magic item distribution) that would make a particular PC a perma-bit-player in 5e.

 

[Zardnaar]

Then call the ability sub-optimal.

What heavy armour does is makes what would otherwise be poor builds more viable. That's not a ribbon ability - it's something that opens up archetypes.

I'm assuming default array here.

With rolled stats strength can be fine assuming you roll well. Default is always available only point but is ask the DM.

Look at it this way be a better spellcaster vs a bad fighter.

By level 8 the wisdom cleric can just wade into combat with Spiritual guardians and using cantrips.

With Tasha's every cleric should be dumping divine strike.

One exception is via Tasha's if your playing a high elf or arcane cleric and picked up booming blade or gfb.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

To me flattening the amount of fun people have in the game is breaking it. And pouring on the temp hit points like that turns tense combats into dreary slogs.

It's once per rest for a minute. Let's not give it more credit than it is due.

While it's a new ability, definitely. The tenth time they do the same thing without having put any work in to set it up it's not so fun.

See my comment above about spamming abilities and fun at the table.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm assuming default array here.

With rolled stats strength can be fine assuming you roll well. Default is always available only point but is ask the DM.

You're assuming default array and a min-maxing player who is completely happy to ditch their character character concept in the name of optimisation.

An actual ribbon ability is one that is basically almost never useful rather than an ability that simply isn't useful to hardcore min-maxers. If someone wants to play a cleric without cat-like reflexes then heavy armour enables that.

Look at it this way be a better spellcaster vs a bad fighter.

By level 8 the wisdom cleric can just wade into combat with Spiritual guardians and using cantrips.

Spirit Guardians is a spell the white-room analysts misunderstand. If the cleric is allowed to do their thing then spirit guardians does excessive damage. But in practice it's a tanking spell that draws aggro until the cleric fails a concentration check - which is why it's nowhere near as OP as people just looking at the damage expect.

And because it's a concentration spell every single point of AC is important to prevent you from getting hit. If you've gone in with a cookie-cutter DEX 14 then medium armour is probably sensible. If you want your cleric to have less than catlike reflexes (cats are AC 15) because you want to play a portly friar for example then to wade in like that you probably want heavy armour.

With Tasha's every cleric should be dumping divine strike.

Assuming that Blessed Strikes is in play. This is my big criticism of Tasha's - all the optional class features that may or may not be in play.