Alternatives to heavy armor for clerics?

[Tony Vargas]

So I'm turning to you all for suggestions: what would make good thematically-appropriate substitutes for heavy armor proficiency for the Life, Nature and Tempest domains?

The bottom-line value of heavy armor is that you can maintain a high AC without investing in DEX. If you do boost your DEX, it doesn't stack with that AC.

Any substitute mechanic should have a similar effect.

FREX:

Tempest: Eye of the Storm - You can perform a 10-min ritual that surrounds you with strong winds that deflect attacks away from you, while so protected, you gain a bonus to AC equal to your STR mod that replaces your DEX bonus (or penalty) to AC, but have disadvantage on stealth checks, among other obvious inconveniences. When you dismiss the winds they take 5 min to dissipate.

 

[Wyvern]

If you think the cleric is just fine the way it is, more power to you. Personally, I've never been overly enamored with clerics as "platemail wearing defenders of the faith" (doesn't the paladin already have that covered)? And if heavy armor proficiency is that essential to clerics, shouldn't they *all* get it? Then again, clerics have a reputation for being overpowered as-is (or is that just in 3rd edition?), so I don't see that depowering them a tiny bit is going to break the class.

But I don't really want to debate whether the domains should be changed. What I want to know is, if you *were* going to change them, what would you change them *to*? And I don't mean, what can you come up with that provides the same benefits as heavy armor without actually being heavy armor. I'm looking for substitutes that are good enough to compensate for the lack of heavy armor, but are more thematically related to the domains. For instance, if Life clerics had the ability to cast cure wounds with a 30-foot range, would that be too much?

Wyvern

 

[Ancalagon]

I like the heavy armor for some of the cleric domains. I'd also be hesitant to just replace the AC bonuses offered by heavy armor without some kind of tax. Keep in mind that in order to run around in plate armor at full speed that the cleric needs to be rocking at least a 15 Strength.

You may also note that generally speaking the heavy armor proficiency tends to coincide with a Divine Strike perk at 8th level (the exception here being the Trickery domain, which doesn't get the heavy armor proficiency). Basically, the rules are telling you that those are the "melee" clerics and they should be armored as such.

I was going to post about that divine strike perk corresponding to heavy armor for most cases, and I agree with your analysis. It does influence the "mental image" of the cleric - a life cleric isn't a white robed gentle dispenser of healing magic. He gets in there, putting himself into harm's way to protect others and fight evil. Meanwhile the cleric of a fire god is more inclined to stand back and rain down the fiery wrath of her goddess upon the foes.

Nature cleric in heavy armor does bother me a bit I have to admit.... then again they bother me in general (hello, druid?)

If you think the cleric is just fine the way it is, more power to you. Personally, I've never been overly enamored with clerics as "platemail wearing defenders of the faith" (doesn't the paladin already have that covered)? And if heavy armor proficiency is that essential to clerics, shouldn't they *all* get it?

Some of the clerics are more "blasty" (esp light cleric) and rely more on spell usage for combat, so it makes sense that they have less armor.

Then again, clerics have a reputation for being overpowered as-is (or is that just in 3rd edition?), so I don't see that depowering them a tiny bit is going to break the class.

Ah yes, CODzilla. I think that was a 3rd edition thing though (no idea about 4e). I wouldn't think that the cleric in 5e, while good, could be considered overpowered?

 

[Hjorimir]

I was going to post about that divine strike perk corresponding to heavy armor for most cases, and I agree with your analysis. It does influence the "mental image" of the cleric - a life cleric isn't a white robed gentle dispenser of healing magic. He gets in there, putting himself into harm's way to protect others and fight evil. Meanwhile the cleric of a fire god is more inclined to stand back and rain down the fiery wrath of her goddess upon the foes.

Nature cleric in heavy armor does bother me a bit I have to admit.... then again they bother me in general (hello, druid?)



Some of the clerics are more "blasty" (esp light cleric) and rely more on spell usage for combat, so it makes sense that they have less armor.


Ah yes, CODzilla. I think that was a 3rd edition thing though (no idea about 4e). I wouldn't think that the cleric in 5e, while good, could be considered overpowered?

Agreed on the nature domain. It feels...just wrong somehow.

 

[LapBandit]

Don't have the DMG handy but somewhere in the back it talks about this exact thing. It basically says it's okay to trade armor proficiency for Unarmored Defense from monks.

 

[cbwjm]

If I were to get rid of heavy armour for life, nature, and tempest clerics I would also change divine strike to potent cantrips and make the change from a cleric that is competent in melee to a cleric that is competent with ranged spell attacks. The life domain cleric would gain spare the dying as a bonus cantrip and the tempest cleric would gain thunderbolt as a bonus cantrip (firebolt but lightning damage). The nature cleric already gains a bonus druid cantrip and a skill so I'm not sure if they really need anything extra but perhaps I'd allow two of the skills to be chosen instead of one.

 

[ccs]

You could give them a blessing from their deity that grants them AC as if they were wearing heavy armor. It's a slight boost, since it can't be removed (such as if the PCs are stripped of their gear and imprisoned) and presumably wouldn't have a stealth penalty.

Wow, No. What a really bad idea. You need to go ponder the meaning of "slight boost".....

Unless you WANT everyone to MC dip into a cleric domain that grants this & thus making the min. AC in your game = AC.14, all the time? And have healing spells to boot?

 

[guachi]

Heavy armor is part of the cleric's past. The cleric gets his domain at level 1. So I think of heavy armor proficiency as an addition but rather light/medium only as a subtraction.

 

[ccs]

If you think the cleric is just fine the way it is, more power to you. Personally, I've never been overly enamored with clerics as "platemail wearing defenders of the faith" (doesn't the paladin already have that covered)? And if heavy armor proficiency is that essential to clerics, shouldn't they *all* get it? Then again, clerics have a reputation for being overpowered as-is (or is that just in 3rd edition?), so I don't see that depowering them a tiny bit is going to break the class.

But I don't really want to debate whether the domains should be changed. What I want to know is, if you *were* going to change them, what would you change them *to*? And I don't mean, what can you come up with that provides the same benefits as heavy armor without actually being heavy armor. I'm looking for substitutes that are good enough to compensate for the lack of heavy armor, but are more thematically related to the domains. For instance, if Life clerics had the ability to cast cure wounds with a 30-foot range, would that be too much?

Wyvern

I wouldn't change it on any overall scale. Because this would prevent some-ones idea of what their Life cleric etc should look/play like. So you tell me: What mechanic would I give you that would compensate for that?

If I were swap heavy armor prof. for something else it'd be on a case by case basis. The player & I would discuss options - wich would be character/story based. As I don't have a working crystal ball atm I can't tell you exactly what would get swapped in.....

 

[Wyvern]

Don't have the DMG handy but somewhere in the back it talks about this exact thing. It basically says it's okay to trade armor proficiency for Unarmored Defense from monks.

Hmm... still not exactly thematic to the particular domains, but if a cleric absolutely *must* have some sort of defensive ability in that slot, I like it better than heavy armor proficiency.

If I were to get rid of heavy armour for life, nature, and tempest clerics I would also change divine strike to potent cantrips and make the change from a cleric that is competent in melee to a cleric that is competent with ranged spell attacks.

I'm not sure that's really necessary since divine strike can be used on any weapon attack (not just melee). Also, the parallelism of the different domains giving different types of bonus damage is an aspect of their design that I liked.

The life domain cleric would gain spare the dying as a bonus cantrip and the tempest cleric would gain thunderbolt as a bonus cantrip (firebolt but lightning damage).

Spare the dying as a bonus cantrip could work. It's touch-range, though, so it would still require the cleric to get right in the mix instead of providing support from the sidelines. That's why I suggested letting them cure wounds at range. I'd still like to know what people think of that idea. (If it's too powerful, maybe a compromise solution could work -- give them spare the dying as a bonus cantrip, but with a 30-foot range.)

Thunderbolt is a nice concept, but the name implies thunder damage. (Plus it sounds too similar to their 6th-level Thunderbolt Strike ability -- which also does lightning damage. Go figure.) You can't call it lightning bolt for obvious reasons. How about calling it shocking bolt and giving it the effect of shocking grasp with the range of firebolt?

The only idea I've come up for Nature clerics is to give them either animal friendship or speak with animals at will (or maybe once per short rest) and sub in entangle as a bonus domain spell. That might step on the druid's toes too much, though, and I'd rather give them something that's unique to them.

Thoughts?

Wyvern