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

[Savage Wombat]

In other words, the twilight cleric is as good or better at mitigation then most other subclasses (I'd say the peace cleric can be better, if the party is seriously on top of it AND really knows what their doing) .

True. I'm just curious whether the designers made a balance mistake, or whether they felt that a section of the player base was unhappy with the amount of damage mitigation available to clerics. But we never get much in the way of design theory explanations, it seems.

 

[Zardnaar]

Next campaign probably not gonna allow Peace or Twilight clerics. There's no gods as such the clerics just get their powers by existing.

 

[Mort]

Just tried a twilight cleric (first two adventures of the Rime of the Frost Maiden Adventurers League) so going to necro this thread.

Opinion, in actual play, the twilight cleric is amazing.

At first level :

The 300' darkvision is very useful. It is longer than any other ability. Even more useful, being able to share it. Completely solved the issue that 1 person in the party didn't have darkvision (sure sharing is only 1 hour at a time but had it when it counted).

Having (or granting) advantage on initiative checks is nice but wasn't a big factor in our party - could be in others.

The domain spells (sleep and Fairie Fire). Only got to use sleep, but it was extremely useful. Turned two annoying encounters into easy mop ups.

The big one : twilight sanctuary. Once I figured out when to optimally use it (when legendary monsters appeared) this ability was completely OP. EVERYONE in the party benefited from an average of 5 temp HP per round (sure they don't stack but they replenish) and that was just more than the legendary monsters could eat through, even those that were not alone. Made the fights A LOT easier. We entered the fight against THE legendary final big bad with everyone out of all spells (except cantrips) but having been allowed a short rest. Twilight Sanctuary ensured the fight still wasn't that deadly. Overall, it was huge, and this was only second level. Will see how levels 3-4 go over the weekend.

 

[Will Robie]

My DM ruled that the Twilight Cleric is not OP as you guys think. The Temp hit points can't be stacked (as per Temporary Point Rules in the DM's book) and that each round that the temp points are given the character has the choice to either take the new points or keep the old ones. This makes the thing worthless unless your party is getting massacred on the battle field. I think his ruling sucks. I wish Jeremy Crawford would weigh on this issue.

 

[Burnside]

My DM ruled that the Twilight Cleric is not OP as you guys think. The Temp hit points can't be stacked (as per Temporary Point Rules in the DM's book) and that each round that the temp points are given the character has the choice to either take the new points or keep the old ones. This makes the thing worthless unless your party is getting massacred on the battle field. I think his ruling sucks. I wish Jeremy Crawford would weigh on this issue.

Your DM is running it absolutely correctly. Temp hit points don't stack; Crawford doesn't need to weigh in on that.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My DM ruled that the Twilight Cleric is not OP as you guys think. The Temp hit points can't be stacked (as per Temporary Point Rules in the DM's book) and that each round that the temp points are given the character has the choice to either take the new points or keep the old ones. This makes the thing worthless unless your party is getting massacred on the battle field. I think his ruling sucks. I wish Jeremy Crawford would weigh on this issue.

This is how it works. It's still OP though. Your characters presumably take damage, or if they don't, you'd be easily winning anyway.

 

[Redwizard007]

My DM ruled that the Twilight Cleric is not OP as you guys think. The Temp hit points can't be stacked (as per Temporary Point Rules in the DM's book) and that each round that the temp points are given the character has the choice to either take the new points or keep the old ones. This makes the thing worthless unless your party is getting massacred on the battle field. I think his ruling sucks. I wish Jeremy Crawford would weigh on this issue.

That's not a ruling. It's exactly the way the ability is written. RAW and RAI in perfect sync. The only way this can be considered OP is if you have a ton of minionmancy going on or the DM spreads out damage instead of attacking intelligently.

 

[TwoSix]

My DM ruled that the Twilight Cleric is not OP as you guys think. The Temp hit points can't be stacked (as per Temporary Point Rules in the DM's book) and that each round that the temp points are given the character has the choice to either take the new points or keep the old ones. This makes the thing worthless unless your party is getting massacred on the battle field. I think his ruling sucks. I wish Jeremy Crawford would weigh on this issue.

I'm trying to imagine a game where getting 1d6+level temp hit point each round isn't useful. Like, how the heck do your fights go?

 

[Cruentus]

That's not a ruling. It's exactly the way the ability is written. RAW and RAI in perfect sync. The only way this can be considered OP is if you have a ton of minionmancy going on or the DM spreads out damage instead of attacking intelligently.

But you have to be careful, attacking intelligently is a fine line from "punishing a character for using their abilities as written"

My NPCs would need a good reason to focus fire on one PC, unless it was obvious they were the source of an effect. If the whole party has a "glow" or whatever from the TS, and there are several who cast spells, how can the NPC's really know who cast it and when? Its a tough line.

I had a Twilight Cleric in my game, and it was very powerful, but he moved away from using that ability around 4-6th level. No idea why. Maybe he forgot since he had MC'd into Sorcerer...

 

[Redwizard007]

But you have to be careful, attacking intelligently is a fine line from "punishing a character for using their abilities as written"

My NPCs would need a good reason to focus fire on one PC, unless it was obvious they were the source of an effect. If the whole party has a "glow" or whatever from the TS, and there are several who cast spells, how can the NPC's really know who cast it and when? Its a tough line.

I had a Twilight Cleric in my game, and it was very powerful, but he moved away from using that ability around 4-6th level. No idea why. Maybe he forgot since he had MC'd into Sorcerer...

Poor word choice. That's on me.

What I meant was, attacking in a way that made sense for the monster. Beasts will attack a single foe until it is dead. Archers will focus fire. Wizards will debuff instead dropping AOE damage. Dragons will split the party and pick on one PC at a time. Spreading damage around is for suckers.