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

[Ancalagon]

It’s clearly broken. There’s no argument there. And it’s so bizarrely broken. D&D5E fights are already super easy mode. Most fights are a cakewalk unless the DM goes out of her way to unbalance things. It takes some wild dog-piling to get things to the point where the PCs are even challenged, to say nothing of in proper jeopardy.

But I honestly wonder: so what? Most groups have to bribe someone to play the cleric. Having such an obviously broken subclass (well, two with the Peace cleric) will hopefully draw some munchkins to the role and help ease the shortage of cleric players. If it’s such a pain in play, just talk to the players and ban the class. You don’t have to allow it at your table. Saying no to your players about busted stuff doesn’t make you a bad DM.

A more balanced approach, like in 4E, that allows the healer to both heal and do damage regularly might help. Players don’t want to be a heal-bot. It’s boring.

I both really agree and disagree with you.

It is broken and in such an obvious way. If it had been a single "burst" of temp HP it would have been pretty good! But with it lasting so long... so yeah, I don't understand why they did this.

However, I don't agree with your notion that "in 4e you could heal and damage" because you totally can in 5e, and especially with this subclass. A twilight cleric can use their temp HP aura to "heal" the party while unleashing a barrage of offensive clerical magic - spirit guardian, spiritual weapon etc etc.

 

[Ancalagon]

Maybe in your experience, but not mine. I’ve been running 5E since the playtest and counting up every group I’ve run there’s been exactly zero volunteers to play the cleric or primary healer. The players panic and start negotiating whose turn it is to play the cleric or bribe someone to do it. Every time. Every game.

So, that game with the twilight cleric I DMed (before the psi warrior game where I am a PC) we had

A twilight cleric
A bladesigner
A shepherd druid
A land druid (a part time player).

Lots of healing there.

The Yoon Suin campaign had:
1 paladin
1 cleric
1 warlock with the healer feat
2 monks

Again, lots of healing.

Our current campaign has

Psi warrior (damage preventer, can self heal and also has a minor heal ability)
Ranger (goodberry and asimar healing)
Wizard
Monk
Paladin (lay on hands and a few spells, the part time player)

Less healing... but 3/5 PCs can heal, 4 if you count the monk's somewhat limited self heal.

I'm not going to go over the pbp campaigns I've been in, but overall, while healer is not a very popular role, people do pick in (usually because they want something else the class has!). But I also noted is that people are a lot more willing to play cleric if there is a secondary healer in the party to assist.

So if you are a player who wants a good healer in a party but aren't willing to pick one yourself, pick a secondary healer!

 

[Benjamin Olson]

My objection to the Twilight Cleric would be mostly that the 1d6 of temp hp doesn't do much compared to the cleric level in temp hp but requires a lot of tedious dice rolling and extra math. I'd prefer it was just a set amount (even if it were higher).

As for overpowered, yeah, it seems like this was not playtested for levels where clerics have multiple channel divinities per rest. It feels like UA material where they are experimenting with multiple ways to make it powerful and haven't picked which one they would drop yet.

 

[TheSword]

I have a Twilight cleric in the campaign I’m running, he hadn’t used the ability yet. Then again it’s an undead heavy age of worms campaign so he has other uses for Channel Divinity. The temp hp are nice but won’t stop a Kyuss worm.

 

[TheSword]

They are a good group actually. A dwarf Paladin, a dwarf Transmuter, a human Twilight cleric and a human rogue. Just finished the first chapter.

My main concern is that the rogue will fall behind but she is focusing on ranged which can be quite strong so a good magical bow and a selection of arrows will help. I’m thinking a +1 bow that lets you fire two arrows instead of one at a time.

 

[Zardnaar]

Tonights game.

104 damage the twilight cleric tanked. I managed to get her down to 1hp and didn't trigger her death ward.

Well Sorcerer1/Twilight cleric 9.

Didn't even break her concentration and a Fire Giant rolled 2 hort of max damage.

Her damage included a fireball and an exploding razor last.

Tried interrupting her with other spells but they got counter spelled via the paladin.

So 5d8 every round and a 41 damage hit failed to break her concentration.

Most of the rest barely took any damage.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One issue I also see with this sort of ability where one character massively boosts the resilience of the whole party, is that if the GM ramps up the challenge to deal with this, and then the booster actually goes down, a TPK is likely.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But I honestly wonder: so what? Most groups have to bribe someone to play the cleric.

Using both 2017 and 2019 data from D&D Beyond the cleric isn't in the two most popular classes (fighter, rogue), but is very firmly in the next four (barbarian, cleric, wizard, warlock) which are all neck and neck. I don't know where your evidence that you need these bribes is. I also do know that you would have to pay me to play a champion fighter, but it's marked as the most popular subclass.

Having such an obviously broken subclass (well, two with the Peace cleric) will hopefully draw some munchkins to the role and help ease the shortage of cleric players. If it’s such a pain in play, just talk to the players and ban the class. You don’t have to allow it at your table. Saying no to your players about busted stuff doesn’t make you a bad DM.

On the other hand having to say no about busted stuff isn't something I particularly want to be doing and avoiding this is part of what I pay the game designers for.

And as a DM I haven't faced a twilight cleric - but it (and the glamour bard) looks aggressively unfun for me as the DM. I'd far rather face high damage where things happen than I would high healing where combat gets drawn out. I'd far rather face high healing where things happen than I would an endless collection of hit points where things simply get no-sold.

A more balanced approach, like in 4E, that allows the healer to both heal and do damage regularly might help. Players don’t want to be a heal-bot. It’s boring.

Which is why Healing Word is a minor action in 5e.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One issue I also see with this sort of ability where one character massively boosts the resilience of the whole party, is that if the GM ramps up the challenge to deal with this, and then the booster actually goes down, a TPK is likely.

It certainly paints a big "kill me first" target on the cleric. It's a good idea to try and bolster defences if you want to play one of these.

 

[Zardnaar]

It certainly paints a big "kill me first" target on the cleric. It's a good idea to try and bolster defences if you want to play one of these.

My wife took sorcerer level for proficiency in con saves, absorb elements and shield.