D&D 5E Building a better Cleric

[Tony Vargas]

I understand what you are saying.

If you want a cool/exciting fighter, you play a BM or EK or Barbarian or Paladin or even Ranger or Valor Bard or you MC or you talk the DM into a DMsG/3pp option or something, rather than play a Champion.

For my tastes, Its one of the "2 steps back" from 4e , that 5e has taken.

Really? What was the other one? (And, what's the implied "1 step forward?" Adv/Dis, I'd guess...)

 

[JeffB]

If you want a cool/exciting fighter, you play a BM or EK or Barbarian or Paladin or even Ranger or Valor Bard or you MC or you talk the DM into a DMsG/3pp option or something, rather than play a Champion.

Really? What was the other one? (And, what's the implied "1 step forward?" Adv/Dis, I'd guess...)

That player likes simple, so that is what they chose. The 4e Slayer was more fun I think.

As for the second part- I can come up with many things I like better for each edition, but a great step forward with 5e was making the game less intimidating (than the previous 2 editions) for casual players.

 

[Ganymede81]

Tempest gets access to enhanced melee damage and access to better weapons and armor, but their special powers are much more blasty then fighty. I'd like the abilities (max thunder/lightning damage, push with lightning damage) to be more melee oriented, because otherwise tempest clerics feel more like a call lightning artillery battery.

 

[Dualazi]

I think the cleric is one of the classes way too hampered by adherence to its legacy within the D&D history, although I have some degree of optimism that the changes since its inception will continue. That said, they're not here yet...

I'm of the opinion that the cleric needs to be scaled back sharply from its free front line capabilities, heavy armor proficiency in particular. Paladins already have the 'martial holy man' aspect covered in spades, and I feel like the possibility of armor proficiency is eating up design space and power budget that would be better served elsewhere. In 4e the base cleric was more focused on ranged spellcasting and had only chain armor, and IIRC even the melee oriented version wasn't upgraded to plate. A lot of the domains that get heavy armor are nonsense to boot, like tempest clerics, who are strongly suited to ranged blasting, get it presumably for legacy reasons.

I likewise think they need to either get rid of channel divinity or make it a more core aspect of the class. Also, Turn Undead is only present for legacy reasons and should be dropped from domains that don't focus on it, as it doesn't make much sense to me for a cleric of the arcane or storms to also have specialized anti-undead capabilities.

 

[DonT]

The fact that some clerics have front line capabilities is what I most like about them. Not every cleric domain needs to offer them, but the ones that do are my favorite characters to play, capable in melee, but not having it as their sole primary focus. Paladins are fine, but they are farther toward the melee side and away from spellcasting than I want to be.