D&D 5E Fighter Dip Cleric - An examination

[FrogReaver]

Character Origins:
The God's are always on the lookout for champions that can help further their cause. The gods sometimes look to proven fighters to take up their cause. They grant these Fighters some divine power but not with the notion that it will continue to grow and be nurtured in them as it would in their true clerics. Instead the power is given to signify them as divine agents to the world.

General Benefits:
A level 1 dip into cleric adds a ton of versatility to a fighter.
1. Utility cantrips
2. Ritual Spells that can always be prepared overnight if needed
3. Combat Buffs
4. Healing Word for a little whack-a-mole healing

Keep in mind that one of the Fighter's biggest weaknesses comes in out of combat situations. Many threads have been started to find ways to "fix" that issue. The cleric dip goes a long way toward mitigating that issue.

Outstanding Optimization Questions:
So why is this thread in the optimization section? I want to examine the notion of such a fighter using Action Surge: Bless. A few upfront pros to him doing so.
1. The fighter has good con saves and good defense.
2. He doesn't have anything particularly better to concentrate on - contrast this with clerics who are often better off using spirit guardians than bless.

However, is this actually better offensively than having the fighter just action surging for attacks? Does it depend on the exact fighter build? What about the Warcleric that can take divine favor for a +1d4 damage bonus to attacks? Those are the kinds of questions I hope to shed light on.

 

[TwoSix]

Hmm. My gut feeling is a Round 1 bless with Action Surge pays itself off pretty quickly, assuming the fighter/cleric 1 is blessing themselves and 2 other multiattackers. Bless converts 1 in 8 attacks into hits, and that conversion is independent of accuracy outside of degenerately high or low AC situations. (Only hit on a 20/only miss on a 1 situations.) Assuming that the attack actions of the buff targets are approximately equal in value to to fighter's attack action, it should pay itself in pure DPR by round 3. And that's ignoring its contribution to saves, which isn't trivial.

It becomes less valuable in situations of high accuracy (low enemy AC), because it takes more overall attacks to match up to the damage contribution of action surge being used to give the fighter extra attacks. It would also be less useful in situations where there are priority targets, such that the fighter's damage would be more useful frontloaded into an early turn with an early Action Surge. That's a non-negligible number of situations, but not so many it renders the build ineffective.

The MC stat cost is mostly negligible, as Wisdom is generally a strong tertiary stat for Fighters anyway. 2 free bonus action attacks per long rest (from War Cleric 1) is roughly as valuable as 1 action surge for builds that don't have a easily leveraged BA attack and aren't yet in Tier 3.

Yea, I'd say it's a pretty solid dip for Fighters overall.

 

[the Jester]

I'm actually playing a cleric/fighter right now, but I just got my 2nd level and my first fighter level, so I haven't yet had a chance to try this out. But in my judgment, I think it depends more on the encounter and your party than anything. In a small encounter, with only a few enemies who aren't a huge threat- I'd action surge for attacks. Or if you don't have other pcs to benefit from the bless, like if your party mostly relies on spells with saves vs. attack rolls, I'd AS for attacks.

But if your group is heavy on attack rollers, and especially if you have one or more pcs who do lots of damage on a hit other than yourself- like a rogue with that sweet sweet sneak attack, or a two weapon fighter with a flame tongue, or whatever- or if you have pcs who love the -5/+10 feat options- then I think bless is a great move. Also, the harder your enemies are to hit, the better the trade off becomes. (It doesn't matter if you AS to get 4 attacks on your turn if you only hit once.)