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D&D 5E I need a cleric that gains a extra attack per round at 5th or 6th or something.....
- Thread starter GameOgre
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Sacrosanct
Legend
For a primary melee cleric? It's a great one to have. But not must have. Especially at higher levels. After I got past level 9, I found myself concentrating on other spells, and I was all the way front line melee. If I were a cleric that stayed in the back more, I probably wouldn't use it at all. Then again, as a tempest cleric, I did a lot of wading in, casting thunderclap or destructive wave and knocking everyone to the four winds. The push back feature of tempest clerics is great when you're fighting on difficult terrain. In fact, that's how we managed to stop Tiamat from being summoned. Earthquaked that place, the enemy closed to melee as we were right on the edge of the radius of the quake, I'd push them back into the radius, which some would get knocked down. We were able to manage the melee types pretty well that way while the barbarian and warlock focused on the casters (both had magic to fly).
*incidentally, we won, but it wasn't easy. I went down once, and the rogue outright died.
Chaosmancer
Legend
Or a lot of the other iconic spells. I don't see clerics not normally having at least healing word, raise dead, restoration, Bless, Guiding Bolt or a lot of others.
Satyrn
First Post
I forgot to actually respond to this.
Good call. I'm a fan of simple fixes.
I would like to suggest giving him Extra Attack at 6 as you intend, moving the 6th level feature to 8, and dropping the 8th level feature. As I said upthread, the 8th level feature serves as a damage boosting equivalent to extra attack.
And it's amusing to me to note that the War Domain's damage boost is the least interesting of all the domains, since it's just an increase in weapon damage instead of being thunder, lightning, necrotic, radiant etc. And thus is the one most readily dropped in favor of an extra attack.
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CapnZapp
Legend
No, I said "it's real difficult justifying playing a Cleric that doesn't focus on casting Spirit Guardians".
The difference is that I have no problem with every Cleric having a Raise dead or Restoration ready.
Satyrn
First Post
I find it's more difficult justifying playing a cleric that doesn't prep healing and restoring spells, since everyone expects me to do so.
Besides, I'd say I focus more on casting spiritual weapon, since I've used my 4th level slot on it, and have cast it multiple times (well, twice) in a single encounter.
It sounds like you have your solution, but I have to ask: why is the extra attack so important over divine strike (the cleric combat bonus)?
This actually sounds like the player is hung up on CoDzilla based on the buffing up and combat abilities desired. I'm not clear on how he's going to be a "healer" if he's using up his limited spell slots buffing up before combat like the 3e style mentioned. He might be disappointed if his expectations from those editions on combat clerics don't measure up to the new system.
Going forward with the change the obvious solution is to simply replace divine strike with extra attack at 8th level. That matches up with where the ability fits in to the current structure and was where the play test had it with clerics, druids, and bards when it was a class ability for each in testing. Swapping the 6th and 8th level abilities as also suggested matches up with valor bard and seems reasonable as well. IIRC, the reason extra attack was removed from clerics was because it stepped on paladin toes too much given the power that comes with extra attack, better spell progression, and more channel divinity with clerics. If there is a paladin in the party I would give the house ruling a lot more thought before moving forward.
If you MC, ranger 5 is probably better because ranger and cleric spells both use WIS while paladin spells use CHA. The combat styles are a bit different but the spells known don't overlap so much and the spell ability score matches up better. That also gives the first tier of hunter options, which is pretty sweet to add on to combat. An extra would be an additional perk as well and the thematic undead favored enemy. Monk 5 would also be an option that works better with WIS because of the stunning strike DC that would be gained at the same time as extra attack. That also works better with the number of bonus action attacks: up to 5 ki spent on 2 attacks with the bonus action (these also give a battle master maneuver type benefit if open hand) that renew on short rests, war priest up to 5 weapon attack per day with the bonus action (these do more damage than the monk unarmed bonus action attacks, typically) base on WIS bonus, or always 1 unarmed attack with the bonus action). The DEX req's for either are likely better than the CHA req for paladin for the character as well.
Ranger or Monk fit the MC solution better than Paladin (IMO) because of the WIS synergy and both enhance combat ability without using up slots on smiting like a pally would. Of course, he might like all those slots available for smites. ;-)
If what he's looking for in a character is strong combat ability and decent healing afterward then paladin is probably exactly what he's looking for anyway because of the spell similarity between clerics and paladins.
"Everyone in my group hates playing healers BUT one guy."
That gets relates to the comment on playing a cleric because my next question would be "how are you defining healer?".
Healing is handled in a lot more ways than spells in 5e and "cleric" doesn't equal "healer". The fact the player's play style history indicates he would want to spend his spell slots on combat buffing indicates not wanting to spend spell slots on healing unless he must. In spending those spell slots on healing after combat they become unavailable for buffs in combat. There seems to be a conflict in role vs play style possibly going on here, and this might be exacerbated if the player isn't aware of concentration restrictions on spells that would buff combat.
The healer feat, inspiring leader feat, and short rest recovery of hit points via spending hit dice are amazing resources for hit points. So much so that they easily outstrip low level healing spells. I don't know what level you plan on starting with the group, but a cleric who starts with 2 spell slots and wants to use them on bless is not a healer. One healer kit with 10 uses is 5 times more than that cleric's maximum number of slots used for healing on the feat. 5 hit dice available for healing on a short rest is more than twice what the cleric's maximum number of slots allows.
The developers kept a clear philosophy on limiting the reliance on healers and not needing any class in particular. There is plenty of out of combat healing available via short rest, healing potions on the standard equipment list, and feat. Most of those are what occur outside of combat. It sounds like this works in the player's favor if he likes to buff and fight, but that gets back to a paladin possibly being the way to go. The idea of what's required for healing is different than older editions, including the need for a dedicated healer. Healing is necessary, but not a cleric. If the group doens't like playing "healers" then let them play without out one and see how they cover the healing. One person who makes a variant human with the healer feat would cover them for some time and still play any class they want to play.
Just some extra food for thought.
Captain Panda
Explorer
If he wants to hit things and heal, there are lots of options. Druid, bard, paladin... to name a few. I think the idea of clerics being necessary for a party to work these days is just false. Druids and bards can pull off the healing role perfectly well, and they provide all sorts of other nifty bonuses.
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