D&D 5E How is the Cleric in Actual Play?

[Burnside]

My experience with clerics:

In a campaign I'm DMing, one player has played a human life cleric through LMoP, several AL adventures, and now 2/3rds of Curse of Strahd and is now level 8. Very powerful character once he hit about level 5, always has something to do, certainly has never complained that the class feels weak. Has plate mail which is a difference maker as it's very hard for non-casters to do anything to him, plus has really high wisdom saves. His Achilles heel is a -1 dex modifier.

Another campaign I DMed, my wife played a water genasi storm cleric through all of Sunless Citadel, several one-shots and some homebrew stuff, and some material pulled from Out of the Abyss. By default, she was often the party's primary front-line warrior (rest of party was rogue, bard, wizard, ranger) and was excellent in that role. Class felt very strong, and especially through tier one felt effectively like a fighter who was also a full caster.

Currently, I'm playing a hill dwarf arcana cleric in a friend's homebrew campaign. With magic missle, spiritual weapon, two wizard cantrips and dwarf weapon training, the character has solid offense and is versatile with a lot of utility in and out of combat. Unlike the life and storm cleric, the arcana cleric's channel divinity is very situational (can turn a single fiend, celestial, elemental, fey, or abberration) and relies on the DM to give you the opportunity. Has a good AC and excellent hp so can tank but often doesn't because the party is in trouble if he does go down. This is a hard experience to judge because the DM has house rules that put a lot of pressure on the cleric (there is no healing on short rests, and getting knocked out can cause lingering injuries). I did not know about these house rules before making the character. If I had, I would have made a life cleric as magical healing is very important in this campaign a la 2E, except that in 5E magical healing can't keep pace with damage and isn't really meant to keep everybody on their feet - it's designed to keep them from dying. But certainly the class itself as designed isn't what I'm struggling with in that campaign.

 

[mortwatcher]

I would say clerics are pretty solid. Currently running a nature cleric, only level 4, but I can outshine most of the melee in melee, since with spiritual weapon I get 2 attacks at 3rd level, while those martial chumps have to wait to lvl 5
Their design overall is pretty nice, as you have many "archetypes" to choose from since level 1, you can change your spell selection every day to suit your current needs and are one of the few spell casters that gets to wear medium/heavy armor without having to invest feats into it.

 

[Raunalyn]

It really depends on your party composition as certain domains have fantastic synergy with other classes.

For example, in my ToA campaign, we had a Grave cleric, a Rogue, and a Divination Wizard. The synergy was frikkin' amazing. They had more than one occasion that they used the Divination Wizard's portent with a roll of 20, then had the Grave Cleric use their Channel Divinity to grant an enemy Vulnerability, and then had the Rogue sneak attack that target for some obscene damage. Acerak did NOT like that!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Played a 5th level cleric of light in a party with a diviner wizard, bard, and monk and felt I was clearly the most effective PC, perhaps a bit OP. I had no weaknesses, which ought to be impossible in D&D. I had the best AC, fireball, spiritual weapon (1d8 + caster stat dmg atk as a bonus action for 10 rounds), healing, an AoE which only targets enemies, decent stealth due to medium armour and the most useful skill - perception.

 

[generic]

Clerics work rather well, as long as you accept what they are...

Keep in mind that:

1. Clerics are full casters, not melee or halfcaster classes.

2. Clerics are strong healers, regardless of domain, but Life Clerics become absolute beasts at healing, while others fall behind.

3. Clerics have only a 1d8 hit die, and can't Wildshape into high-hp animals like the Druid. Some Clerics gain armor proficiency to make up for this.

4. Many of the Cleric's abilities, other than spells, are single use per long or short rest only, it's probably best to use things like Channel Divinity at (at low levels, before you gain more uses) only when you absolutely need them.

5. If you're fighting Undead, Clerics are stronger than average in Melee, and if you're not fighting Undead, most Clerics are weaker than average in Melee.

6. War and Tempest Clerics are monsters in terms of damage output for a full caster, other Clerics may disappoint.

7. If you take two or three feats, Nature Clerics are probably the strongest Cleric available.

 

[Mistwell]

6. War and Tempest Clerics are monsters in terms of damage output for a full caster, other Clerics may disappoint.

This is, frankly, sheer nonsense. You just listed two of the weakest domains for actual damage output, and claimed they were the strongest. Have you actually played a Forge or Light domain cleric for example? I am betting you have not.

 

[Mistwell]

Played a 5th level cleric of light in a party with a diviner wizard, bard, and monk and felt I was clearly the most effective PC, perhaps a bit OP. I had no weaknesses, which ought to be impossible in D&D. I had the best AC, fireball, spiritual weapon (1d8 + caster stat dmg atk as a bonus action for 10 rounds), healing, an AoE which only targets enemies, decent stealth due to medium armour and the most useful skill - perception.

This is our experience as well.

 

[generic]

This is, frankly, sheer nonsense. You just listed two of the weakest domains for actual damage output, and claimed they were the strongest. Have you actually played a Forge or Light domain cleric for example? I am betting you have not.

Oh really? Well, I bow to sagacity embodied. Instead of illustrating your points with mathematical proofs or class builds, you can just deride me as a fool.

Also, If any domain is the weakest, it's Trickery or Forge. Forge Clerics don't deal much in terms of raw, by turn, damage, but they can last a long time.

Please use logic, rather than accusations.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My group is pretty meh to the cleric. They think the bard is amazing, the druid is solid, the wizard is awesome.

Odd, in our group clerics and wizards are great, druids are good, and we think bards suck.

Bards really were pretty awful for quite a while. They were darn near inaccessible in 1e and pretty sad in 2e and better than they looked (but still not competitive with other full casters) in 3e. And, all the while, they were saddled with this ridiculous high-CHA-yet-obnoxious minstrel stereotype (cf Elan). 4e, of course, compulsively balanced classes, so even the Bard was solid, and 5e, while restoring the status quo ante in most cases, somehow got the idea that the Bard should be a genuine 9-spell-levels full caster. Maybe it was powering back up casters with such a broad brush that the Bard just got caught up in it.


I think, though, a defining question for Bard preference (4e or 5e) is how your group reacts to the discovery of a cantrip called Vicious Mockery. If they're all like "I can INSULT people to death?!? Woo-hooo sign me up!" the Bard will go over well with them. If they're more like "that's just not realistic, even with magic, hit point damage must represent physical injury..." ..oh well.

But the cleric...on paper it just doesn't seem that strong.

On paper, it's always seemed kinda strong - casting /and/ full armor and d8 HD? And scare undead away? Kinda a big deal back in the day - until you factored out the 'healing burden,' at which point they were d8 HD 1 att/rnd mace-wielding fighters. 3e, of course, eliminated the healing burden thanks to WoCLW, and we got CoDzilla, Tier 1 on paper or off. (4e shifted to healing burden to surges so had the luxury of balancing the cleric). 5e, on paper, shifts healing burden back to the cleric (and several other classes), but also leaves between-combat healing to HD, so the cleric isn't as burdened as all that...


...but, the Cleric and Bard still tend to suffer from just rather limited, not broadly-appealing concepts. The pious healer and the magical minstrel just don't stand out in genre the way the heroic warrior archetypes do.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh really? Well, I bow to sagacity embodied. Instead of illustrating your points with mathematical proofs or class builds, you can just deride me as a fool.

Also, If any domain is the weakest, it's Trickery or Forge. Forge Clerics don't deal much in terms of raw, by turn, damage, but they can last a long time.

Please use logic, rather than accusations.

Sure. Forge Cleric build.
Another good one: Trickery Cleric Build Part 1, and Trickery Cleric Build Part 2.