D&D 5E How on earth is this balanced?! Twilight cleric, more in-play evidence

[cbwjm]

Look for ways to incapacitate the cleric to remove the buff. Even a hold person will stop it.

 

[Ancalagon]

I don't allow summoner type archetypes in the party.

Best case scenario they choke up combat and slow everything down.

Worst case you get something like your description.

I don't think I would again... or if I did I would put a strict limit on the number of beings summoned. Summon one fat elemental? Sure I'm cool with that. You have 11 skeleton archers? eeeerrrrm no.

 

[Ancalagon]

Look for ways to incapacitate the cleric to remove the buff. Even a hold person will stop it.

Not every encounter has an enemy spellcaster, or anyone good at dealing with the backline really.

 

[Minigiant]

The CD, darkvision, spells, martial weapons, and heavy armor are all the type of things that boost the party without making the cleric itself look actively busted and allow the party to breeze through encounters.

And those are exactly the type of mechanics that will make an inexperienced DM ramp up the difficulty and TPK the party accidentally.

OP defeses nudges DMs into samey tactics in order to provide challenge.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I've heard that from a number of people. I'm very disappointed with the alchemist. I haven't seen any of them in play to be frank. (and yet I've seen shepherd druid, bladesigner, rune knight, hexblades... strange how that goes).

The Alchemist sucks, but the other subclasses are perfectly fine, IME and IMO. I currently have an Eberron campaign with a Warforged Battlesmith that is a great support character and good damage dealer, and have also had experiences with Artillerists and Armorers being effective in one-shots and short campaigns.

 

[cbwjm]

Not every encounter has an enemy spellcaster, or anyone good at dealing with the backline really.

That's fine though, not every encounter should. But in other encounters this ability may not be as powerful as it otherwise seems as the cleric can be otherwise dealt with. I'm not saying it isn't, damage mitigation can be incredible, but it is also something that can be dealt with in some encounters whereas in others it's the cleric's chance to shine.

 

[Don Durito]

It sounds overpowered.

How much though is because a lot of equivalent type abilities are also underpowered.

I've found damage mitigation and healing abilities in 5e to be generally not that worrthwhile.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've heard that from a number of people. I'm very disappointed with the alchemist. I haven't seen any of them in play to be frank. (and yet I've seen shepherd druid, bladesigner, rune knight, hexblades... strange how that goes).

The battlesmith is the best of them and I thought it was totally underwhelming.

Alchemist is an outright failure of a class.

The artificer might get good later on around level 10 but that's toate and doesn't look that great.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think I would again... or if I did I would put a strict limit on the number of beings summoned. Summon one fat elemental? Sure I'm cool with that. You have 11 skeleton archers? eeeerrrrm no.

Summoners only good in a small group. That's purely on pacing irl.

Larger groups you get things like side effects interns of interactions with class abilities.

 

[Zardnaar]

It sounds overpowered.

How much though is because a lot of equivalent type abilities are also underpowered.

I've found damage mitigation and healing abilities in 5e to be generally not that worrthwhile.

It's damage mitigation at alow cost in top of other great abilities eg bonus action flying not requiring a spell or Concentration.

Decent domain spells and still a cleric as well.

 

[TheSword]

I care about balance but predominantly when it’s an issue where abilities make one PC dominant over others. This ability makes the entire party good. So it’s a different kind of balance issue… foes v party. I don’t think that’s such a big deal.

 

[Mort]

Look for ways to incapacitate the cleric to remove the buff. Even a hold person will stop it.

Sure, but if the DM is applying tactics specificity to counter one character/ability and doing it in a consistent basis? Pretty good indication that ability /character is OP.

 

[Mort]

I care about balance but predominantly when it’s an issue where abilities make one PC dominant over others. This ability makes the entire party good. So it’s a different kind of balance issue… foes v party. I don’t think that’s such a big deal.

On this I tend to agree. To me balance is important within the party. Abilities that make the entire party better - not usually a problem. That's one reason paladins don't trigger OP for me. Their abilities are amazing, but very party friendly.

BUT, this one seems to strain even that - the twilight cleric gets a huge amount packed into the class, it's a bit ridiculous.

 

[Zardnaar]

I care about balance but predominantly when it’s an issue where abilities make one PC dominant over others. This ability makes the entire party good. So it’s a different kind of balance issue… foes v party. I don’t think that’s such a big deal.

My group is hitting level 10. The twilight cleric is keeping up in damage with the paladin and rogue.

In addition to the usual cleric tricks (upcast spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon, better utility at range) she also gets to fly as a bonus action.

Rogue sneak attack 5d6 upcast spiritual guardian 5d8 15' radius with spiritual weapon or booming blade or a cantrip incoming as well.

She has enough spellslots to not worry about running out even in the 6-8 encounters which we rarely hit (4-6 heavy amount).

Spiritual Guardians lasts 10 minutes. Often get two sometimes three fights out of a single casting.

I'm not countering her specifically but my encounters are AoE/magic heavy being adrow campaign.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

My group is hitting level 10. The twilight cleric is keeping up in damage with the paladin and rogue.

In addition to the usual cleric tricks (upcast spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon, better utility at range) she also gets to fly as a bonus action.

Rogue sneak attack 5d6 upcast spiritual guardian 5d8 15' radius with spiritual weapon or booming blade or a cantrip incoming as well.

She has enough spellslots to not worry about running out even in the 6-8 encounters which we rarely hit (4-6 heavy amount).

Spiritual Guardians lasts 10 minutes. Often get two sometimes three fights out of a single casting.

I'm not countering her specifically but my encounters are AoE/magic heavy being adrow campaign.

My party's Twilight Cleric combos Spirit Shroud, upcast Spiritual Weapon, and a Warhammer Attack Action with Divine Strike to deal a ton of d8s on her turn (at high enough levels, that will be 5d8+3d8+5 damage from 6th level Spiritual Weapon, 1d8+5d8+5 from Warhammer with Divine Strike and a 7th-level Spirit Shroud, which will be highly resource-draining, but that's still 14d8+10 damage every round and repeatable. Paladins get criticized for dealing tons of d8s, but they at least have to expend a ton of resources every round in order to deal anywhere near this crazy amount of d8s). If she wants to be extra tanky, she casts Moonbeam first and then Sanctuary on herself the next turn to ignore the clauses of Sanctuary that forces the spell to end.

It's crazy powerful. I like powerful parties, but at some point it gets ridiculous. Twilight Clerics are at/beyond that point.

 

[Zardnaar]

My party's Twilight Cleric combos Spirit Shroud, upcast Spiritual Weapon, and a Warhammer Attack Action with Divine Strike to deal a ton of d8s on her turn. If she wants to be extra tanky, she casts Moonbeam first and then Sanctuary on herself the next turn to ignore the clauses of Sanctuary that forces the spell to end.

It's crazy powerful. I like powerful parties, but at some point it gets ridiculous. Twilight Clerics are at/beyond that point.

Yup any well played cleric tends to use the same spells. Previously Light cleric and order were probably the best ones.

They're A tier now.

Under point but skip the using weapons part. Tashas have you covered there as well every cleric gets a potent cantrip type replacement.

 

[jayoungr]

But later I was thinking - temp hit points are essentially damage prevention "pre-loaded". It's "fake" HP that will take the hit for you, and you can have them in advance, ready to be used when needed. No reaction needed! And who gives out tons of temp HP?

Oo, yeah, glamour bards drive me up the wall too! Let's talk about them!

The twilight cleric!

... Oh.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh as an added bonus I have a tag team combo of twilight+light clerics. Praise be to Elistraee.

Light clerics started copying the twilight clerics. Fireball doesn't get used as much as he did starting out.

 

[cbwjm]

Sure, but if the DM is applying tactics specificity to counter one character/ability and doing it in a consistent basis? Pretty good indication that ability /character is OP.

It doesn't have to be a consistent counter since that would just be picking on the cleric because the DM doesn't like one of their abilities, it just has to be an option from time to time. Let the twilight cleric shine in some combats but in others, there will be counters. Every ability has some sort of counter which should be brought out from time to time.

 

[TheSword]

My group is hitting level 10. The twilight cleric is keeping up in damage with the paladin and rogue.

In addition to the usual cleric tricks (upcast spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon, better utility at range) she also gets to fly as a bonus action.

Rogue sneak attack 5d6 upcast spiritual guardian 5d8 15' radius with spiritual weapon or booming blade or a cantrip incoming as well.

She has enough spellslots to not worry about running out even in the 6-8 encounters which we rarely hit (4-6 heavy amount).

Spiritual Guardians lasts 10 minutes. Often get two sometimes three fights out of a single casting.

I'm not countering her specifically but my encounters are AoE/magic heavy being adrow campaign.

Ok, but aren’t these applicable to most clerics? Fly in darkness or dim light is good… particularly in a drow campaign. But its hardly outrageous… particularly in a campaign that doesn’t have a lot of dim light.