About the War Cleric......

[Geeknamese]

A couple of things of note. The War Priest is kicking butt with other abilities at Higher Level - Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon for example, as well as taking melee attacks. They don't need other melee, just the ability to survive and contribute in the front ranks. Adding an attack puts them in the OP category, IMHO.

Which is what any other cleric could do except do better because they’re ability doesn’t compete with their spell. Spiritual Weapon doesn’t do anything for a War Cleric.

 

[CapnZapp]

the tweak CapnZapp is advocating

PS. I'm advocating it for sure*, but I didn't come up with it.

*) or rather the conceptual idea. I remain open to arguments regarding play strength tweaking.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I believe he meant it is not useful after level 3 because clerics get the level 2 spell Spiritual Weapon. If you cast Spiritual Weapon in battle, that eats up your bonus action attack with an attack that is in most cases stronger than the War Priest’s Blessing bonus action attack.

Pretty sure that that can't be it. A level 3 cleric has what? 6 spell slots in total? If they cast nothing but Spiritual weapon, they're still likely to run dry. And if they are keeping spiritual weapon up all the time in combat, they're probably going to be making weapon attacks for their action anyway, since it will be a while until cantrips can match their damage.

 

[CapnZapp]

Pretty sure that that can't be it. A level 3 cleric has what? 6 spell slots in total? If they cast nothing but Spiritual weapon, they're still likely to run dry. And if they are keeping spiritual weapon up all the time in combat, they're probably going to be making weapon attacks for their action anyway, since it will be a while until cantrips can match their damage.

I'm not sure going after CTurbo's possibly rash statement is actually useful.

The point isn't that the War Priest feature suddenly at level 3 loses all value, literally.

The point isnt even how stingy it is.

The point is, it's completely misconstrued. A Cleric domain that boosts the Attack action doesn't understand the class, and will never feel right.

I would like to invite you to instead discuss this than going after CTurbo, if at all possible.

Thank you.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm not sure going after CTurbo's possibly rash statement is actually useful.

If they actually did mean it, and there is something that we've missed about the cleric that they have spotted, then it is useful.
If they didn't mean it then questioning it will hopefully reduce the level of misleading hyperbole on the forums in the future. Also useful.

The point isn't that the War Priest feature suddenly at level 3 loses all value, literally.

Fair enough. That was the part I was questioning. Clerics of the more martial bent seem to get good use out of weapon attacks well into double-figure levels, so dropping off at level 3 seemed rather weird.

The point is, it's completely misconstrued. A Cleric domain that boosts the Attack action doesn't understand the class, and will never feel right.

Not entirely sure about this either. I would generally assume that the team who designed the class are going to understand it pretty well.
While I'm aware that there are differing views on how a cleric 'should' be played, a claim that someone outright "doesn't understand the class" is going to have to be backed up.

If a player of mine was having a major issue with perceived capability of their War cleric, and I decided that it needed a buff, then the aforementioned martial Weapon proficiency or allowing War Priest to activate on a spell cast action would seem to cover the major bases.

 

[CapnZapp]

If a player of mine was having a major issue with perceived capability of their War cleric, and I decided that it needed a buff, then the aforementioned martial Weapon proficiency or allowing War Priest to activate on a spell cast action would seem to cover the major bases.

I think that's the crux of the issue.

At least I am approaching this discussion from a theoretical design angle. Not from the "need immediate CPR on one of my player's build choices".

I want to highlight the underlying fundamenta of the dissatisfaction of the War Priest feature. Not suggest practical fixes to anyone's individual campaign.

With that in mind, I'm sceptical of granting martial weapon proficiency. If we could go back in time and make the War Cleric the sole user of martial weapons and heavy armor, then maybe.

But as something to fix the design of War Priest (as opposed to fixing "a player of mine having an issue") it doesn't do the trick, in my opinion. All it does, after all, is add +1 DPR on your Attack action (+2 DPR while using War Priest). If the War Priest foregoes his shield, this can increase to as much as +6. Still insignificant, and still not solving the underlying issue - the focus on the Attack action.

Now you might say "but with greatweapons the path to GWM/PM feats lie open" to which I still return to the fundamental issue: as you level up, you're going to use Cast Spell. You really don't want to encourage a build choice that conflicts with this. As any good minmaxer knows, you need to pick one dimension and then optimize the hell out of that.

But in simpler terms: being good at two things does you no good if you can't do both. Much better to be stratospheric at one thing if all you can do is one thing. (Of course getting access to a second action is obviously better but let's leave that for another discussion)

You really don't want to take a feat unless you plan on using it more and more as you level up. So we're getting back to War Priest.


Regards,
Zapp

PS. Thank you for recognizing the clarity in design of the Cast Spell bonus attack suggestion.

 

[CapnZapp]

We've discussed one particular rules suggestion so much I had to go back in the thread to find the suggestion's originator:

War Priest Blessing:
When you use an action to cast a cleric spell of 1st level or higher, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I want to highlight the underlying fundamenta of the dissatisfaction of the War Priest feature. Not suggest practical fixes to anyone's individual campaign.

I see. And the reason for your dissatisfaction is because you expect War clerics to be spending their action casting spells every round in combat? Thus the feature won't be getting used past the level where the cleric has the spell slots to sustain that playstyle?

With that in mind, I'm sceptical of granting martial weapon proficiency. If we could go back in time and make the War Cleric the sole user of martial weapons and heavy armor, then maybe.

But as something to fix the design of War Priest (as opposed to fixing "a player of mine having an issue") it doesn't do the trick, in my opinion. All it does, after all, is add +1 DPR on your Attack action (+2 DPR while using War Priest). If the War Priest foregoes his shield, this can increase to as much as +6. Still insignificant, and still not solving the underlying issue - the focus on the Attack action.

Its thematic, and while not quite a ribbon ability, doesn't overpower the War cleric compared to other martial-focused clerics. Part of the benefit is also that at the higher levels, it gives the War cleric a better chance of getting use from a magic weapon.

Now you might say "but with greatweapons the path to GWM/PM feats lie open" to which I still return to the fundamental issue: as you level up, you're going to use Cast Spell. You really don't want to encourage a build choice that conflicts with this. As any good minmaxer knows, you need to pick one dimension and then optimize the hell out of that.

The design of the cleric seems to me to be focused around using spell slots less than the wizard and sorcerer. I'd guess that that is because it was assumed that a proportion of those spell slots will be used for healing outside combat. Thus most clerics were given better options for actions not involving spell slots: either boosting their cantrips or weapon/melee attacks.
Certainly the more martial clerics that I've seen have spent a goodly proportion of their actions hitting stuff rather than casting a spell all the time.

I think that part of the image and theme of a "War Cleric" for a lot of people is mixing it up in actual combat, and the design seems to reflect this rather than what the minmaxer niche say about optimal DPR.

 

[Rossbert]

Do I have an incorrect printing of the PHB? My war cleric has martial weapons.

 

[CTurbo]

Yes I would assume, coming from the full weapons and armor proficiency, that the War Cleric was "supposedly" built around being in or near melee most of the time, not hiding in the back with the glass cannons.

I agree that at higher levels, using the Cast Spell action is usually going to be superior, but that doesn't mean that it's always a bad idea to use the Attack action. I also assume that since Divine Strike exists, the class(or at the domains that get the weapon proficiencies) were intended to actually use their weapon sometimes.

War Priest loses a lot of it's value for a typical War Cleric as soon as you get Spiritual Weapon. I am assuming a shield wielding Cleric with a 16 in his attack stat and a 16 is Wis. Their weapon will do 1d8+3 and their spiritual weapon will also do 1d8+3. The difference you can use War Priest only 3 times per short rest whereas you can cast SW once and use it for an entire encounter with one spell slot. Of course the 2 handed weapon War Clerics are an exception as well as the GWM Clerics.

So one of the War domain's key features basically overlaps one of the classes common spells.

Spiritual Weapon is not a mandatory spell, and I suppose War Priest does offer a little more flexibility, but Spiritual Weapon IS a great spell for any Cleric that does want to be on or near the front lines.