D&D 5E Order Vs Twilight Cleric. Neo Warlord Abuse?

Zardnaar

Legend
Generally the Twilight cleric is regarded as somewhere between overpowered and broken all by itself.

I've been playing an order cleric. Usually our cleric builds focus on wisdom, spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon and maybe gish cantrips and/or shilleagh. And warcaster or proficiency in constitution saves.

My order cleric has been built around as many spells as possible via fae and shadow touched feats. Spells such as bless, silvery bards, invisibility all trigger Voice of authority.


My favorite weapon is the rogue. Pacing my spells basically once per encounter I can bonus action cast an enchantment spell (generally bless or hold person), cast one more spell maybe two. Probably doing 4-6 encounters per long rest (Curse of Strahd).

I've used spiritual guardians once. Mist of the time I'm using bless. Some of you may be aware long time ago I called this spell out as OP. It's even worse for order cleric (bonus action 5/long rest, plus trigger AoO plus cast a cantrip).

I've cast spirit guardians once. If I'm not blessing myself the peace cleric 1/Divine soul is. Often we have two bless effects overlapping we have had the Rune Knight and rogue hit in combat by rolling a 2 on the d20.

So my damage is often around 40 via Rogue+ cantrip. Or 30 without bonus action enchantment spell. Rune Knight has a sunblade now. Level 8 casting a bless is potentially 3d8 radiant plus 5d6+6 damage. 37 average damage. And the bless effect.

Rogues damage via the cleric lvl 8 is 5d6+6, 5d6+6, 1d6+6 (fighter1/rogue 7). Divine souk can also haste rge rogue for sonething similar if I'm busy/low on spell slots.

So that's basically it we're not using our spell slots much for direct damage or even control. Twinned haste or dragons breath. The fighters laughing at mind control on the rogue but he's also been getting occasional extra attacks thrown his way as well depending on the situation and initiative order.

My wife's ysually the cleric expert (she's playing the Divine soul). And she's looking at the Order Cleric 1/Divine soul xyz build now.
 

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ECMO3

Legend
Generally the Twilight cleric is regarded as somewhere between overpowered and broken all by itself.

I've been playing an order cleric. Usually our cleric builds focus on wisdom, spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon and maybe gish cantrips and/or shilleagh. And warcaster or proficiency in constitution saves.

My order cleric has been built around as many spells as possible via fae and shadow touched feats. Spells such as bless, silvery bards, invisibility all trigger Voice of authority.
Twilight is not broken IMO and at high levels Order is more powerful generally IME.

Twilight Sanctuary is really good, but it is an action to activate and at high level that action is competing for high level spells. As a result after about 7th level Twilight Sanctuary falls off rapidly as powerful spells become available.

When you put TS up against Spirit Guardians, Greater Invisibility, Banishment or Aura of Life it does not hold up well as an action. Still very useful, but more situational.

Voice of Authority is awesome and so is Embodyment of Law. I personally like Fey Touched with Dissonant Whispers on an order Cleric. A favorite tactic is upcasting Command as a bonus action on people caught in spirit guardians to make them waste an action and then making it so they can't escape and either attacking them or dodging as an action. Also Hold Person as a bonus action.

RAW I do not think Bless stacks. So if the RK and Rogue are blessed twice it is still only 1d4.

If you play to high levels the multiclass that shines is Order Cleric 6/Enchantment Wizard X. It is very Mad and takes a while to come online, but Enchantment Wizard gives you a bunch of awesome enchantments as well as an awesome at will action in Hypnotic Gaze that you can use while you throw out spells as a bonus action. When I play this multiclass I play either a Dwarf or a Race with a 35 move so I can dump both strength and dex and wear heavy armor and still move 25. You start Cleric, then 4 Wizard, then 6 Cleric, then the rest Wizard.
 
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jgsugden

Legend
One of my now retired PCs is a Gloom Stalker 5, Cleric of Order 1, Divine Soul 5, Assassin 4, Battlemaster 3, Divine Soul+2. A holy archer assassin.

When she hit 4th level and gained Sharpshooter her power levels took a huge bump. She bumped against at 5th with Multiattack. Then at 6th they took another huge bump by allowing her to turn her bonus action into a big attack by an ally while she healed or buffed it - and she was selecting between a paladin and a rogue for that extra attack. The sorcerer levels added a lot of options for her to change up the spells being cast on allies - allowing her to take from the cleric and sorcerer list - especially after getting quicken spell.

She was one of my favorite PCs fort so many reasons.
 

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
Twilight is not broken IMO and at high levels Order is more powerful generally IME.

Twilight Sanctuary is really good, but it is an action to activate and at high level that action is competing for high level spells. As a result after about 7th level Twilight Sanctuary falls off rapidly as powerful spells become available.

When you put TS up against Spirit Guardians, Greater Invisibility, Banishment or Aura of Life it does not hold up well as an action. Still very useful, but more situational.
I don't have experience with a Twilight Cleric over level 9, but up til that point it was pretty busted. I had to wholly alter the way I built and ran encounters because of that one subclass in order to continue to actually challenge them.
And the bulk of most campaigns and/or adventures are going to be in those levels.

I don't know how Twilight made it to print.
 
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FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
I don't have experience with a Twilight Cleric over level 9, but up til that point it was pretty busted. I had to wholly alter the way I built and ran encounters because of that one subclass in order to continue to actually challenge them.
And the bulk of most campaigns and/or adventures are going to be in those levels.

I don't know how Twilight made it to print.
I don’t think twilight clerics are that bad if you just focus fire more.
 

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
@Zardnaar
You have a tendency to think any character you or your group is using is really strong. I think you keep a bit of rose colored glasses on when it comes to things like that.
 

Distracted DM

Distracted DM
Supporter
I don’t think twilight clerics are that bad if you just focus fire more.
Heavy armor + a shield, temp hp, and even flight- the aura isn't concentration, and a 30ft radius is huge (at least a paladin's aura means characters need to clump up) :')
It's not like it makes them invulnerable, but it outshines almost any other cleric subclass- the aura can even end fear/charm for some reason! And channel divinity uses come back on short rests.

Oof.

I know it's a discourse that's occured many times :D
 

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
Heavy armor + a shield, temp hp, and even flight- the aura isn't concentration, and a 30ft radius is huge (at least a paladin's aura means characters need to clump up) :')
It's not like it makes them invulnerable, but it outshines almost any other cleric subclass- the aura can even end fear/charm for some reason! And channel divinity uses come back on short rests.

Oof.

I know it's a discourse that's occured many times :D
So you’ve made 2 different claims pertaining to them.

1. They are better than other clerics - a claim I whole heartedly agree with - and the claim you are talking about in this post.

2. That the DM has to wholly alter building and running encounters - a claim I mostly disagree with. Which is why I talked about what to do to still challenge them - and this was the claim made in your previous post.
 


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