D&D 5E Primary Casting Stat per tier

[Stoutstien]

This is a really useful analysis.

I often am tempted to boost things other than primary casting stat and or like to take feats.

It just interests me more BUT I did not want to pay lot of love into a character only to find I am not reasonably successful.

I am playing a cleric with (gasp!) high strength and was looking at fun options. I will have a 16 wisdom at 8th.

What you said really resonated; picking your targets matters. I was looking at targeting CHR saves vs. AC for example…totally different ballgame with some monsters! Or wisdom vs. dex…

Clerics are user friendly like that. While there are some opportunity costs for not boosting Wis you could start with a 14/16 in it and never raise it and still be effective. You lose out on some spells prepared, a little bit of healings, and will probably avoid save or suck/die spells but you could also be a competent weapon user and have the AC and HP to back it up and have a ton of spells that don't care if your Wis is high or not.

I had a death cleric floating around that only had a 14 wisdom but could smite like a pally going ham once a SR. Optimized no but it was fun.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I had a death cleric floating around that only had a 14 wisdom but could smite like a pally going ham once a SR. Optimized no but it was fun.

in theory if you avoid SoD/SoD spells you can play any caster with a 10 or even 8 stat...

my wizard in one of the games that TPKed early didn't have a low INT but since I was almost all buff/divination magic, and my offensive spell was magic missile (I didn't even have a damage causeing cantrip) I could have put an 8 in there and taken a higher Con and Dex, and at 7thish level maybe notice the diffrence 1 or 2 times from Save DC but maybe would not have been the go to for Arcana know checks...

on the other hand my Warlock that was 20+ epic boons had a moment (I think at 18th level) where I used Power Word Stun on a guard that had over 200hp normally but just got double critted from the barbarian... bringing him to usable range. My DC was so high that if he rolled a 20 on his con save he missed it.

for months stories of me putting a guy in 'worse then death' perma stun went around. when we were almost done (so levels and Epic boons later) I was told that guard was in a bed at a church being force fed water and juice hoping he will wake but the clerics didn't hold out much hope...

For the record I thought PW stun was going to be BETTER than killing the poor guard, but hey I got a huge circumstance bonus to my intimidates after that story got spread...

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Clerics are user friendly like that. While there are some opportunity costs for not boosting Wis you could start with a 14/16 in it and never raise it and still be effective. You lose out on some spells prepared, a little bit of healings, and will probably avoid save or suck/die spells but you could also be a competent weapon user and have the AC and HP to back it up and have a ton of spells that don't care if your Wis is high or not.

I had a death cleric floating around that only had a 14 wisdom but could smite like a pally going ham once a SR. Optimized no but it was fun.

So funny you say that! I am playing a death cleric of wee Jas!

Started with 15 wisdom and am on the fence about fey touched at 4th or taking a fun feat that will not boost wisdom at that level

 

[Stoutstien]

So funny you say that! I am playing a death cleric of wee Jas!

Started with 15 wisdom and am on the fence about fey touched at 4th or taking a fun feat that will not boost wisdom at that level

Unless you are playing a full combat as war style game just take the feat you want. Regardless of how mathematically stronger fey touched is you will always have better play value getting the feat you want.

 

[Blue]

Unless you are playing a full combat as war style game just take the feat you want. Regardless of how mathematically stronger fey touched is you will always have better play value getting the feat you want.

I'd like to put a caveat to this. I've played oddball characters where I didn't feel I was pulling my weight compared to a generic replacement character. It's not fun to let the party down.

 

[Dausuul]

Going off monsters in the Basic Rules only (it's the dataset I've got handy), this is the average chance of landing a spell if you have a 16 in your casting stat:

Spell Targets:	CR 0-4	CR 5-10	CR 11-16	CR 17+
Str	56%	38%	29%	18%
Dex	54%	50%	41%	29%
Con	54%	35%	20%	3%
Int	72%	61%	49%	34%
Wis	58%	49%	31%	14%
Cha	67%	53%	29%	13%
AC (spell attack)	67%	52%	42%	28%

Add 5% across the board if your casting stat is 18-19. Add 10% if your casting stat is 20-21. Et cetera. (Note that this does not factor in any special traits such as magic resistance; it's save modifier versus DC, straight-up.)

Of course, these are merely averages--there's a huge amount of variation, and this works to a savvy caster's advantage, since you can often guess what a monster's weak save will be and pick a spell to target that save. Or you can just pick a spell that targets Intelligence and call it a day.

 

[Stoutstien]

I'd like to put a caveat to this. I've played oddball characters where I didn't feel I was pulling my weight compared to a generic replacement character. It's not fun to let the party down.

It's fairly difficult to do that as a cleric. You have a stack of information gathering rituals that you can cast when needed. You have access to practically all of the healing and recovery spells. Spirit guardian is brought up a lot but it is that good even if your DC isn't that all thst good.
You also got to consider all the benefits you have from having a decent strength. I assume that means you're wearing heavy armor which means your AC is going to be decent with or without a shield. It opens up shove and grapple tactics. If you pick up booming blade you practically are going to be one of the stickiest things floating around the battlefield.

If you want you could post your character and what you are reasonably needing to accomplish based on what you've seen so far in this campaign. 5e is flexible enough that it's almost 100% likely that you can play what you want and make it functional.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

@Dausuul This is really great! This a value added post!

I am not a major min max guy—don’t want to dominate other players…just want the fun of reasonable success. I don’t think 10% will trump my fun.

Heck I am a fat cleric with an 8 dex…but 16 str. I often go against the grain. No rapiers for me either—-hammer or maul!

That said I DID take heavily armored at 1st…

So far to third I have hit hard with a hammer and have missed with several spells…at this level per the chart higher wisdom would not have made a huge difference!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As a general rule, you definitely want to always start with a 16. Starting with anything less will be...painful. As you can see from the above charts, if you start with less than a 16, you may actually have your enemies pass saves more often than they fail. It might not seem like much, but the difference between (say) 55% of the time, enemies fail their saves, and 65% of the time, enemies fail their saves, is the difference between "it's pretty much a 50/50 gamble" and "you'll hit them twice as often as you miss them."

This is also why things like magic weapons are so important, despite WotC claiming otherwise. Even with a 20 in your main attack stat, you have only a 52% chance to hit a CR11-16 creature on average via spell attacks (and there's no reason physical attacks should be radically better). Going from 52% to 67% (the equivalent of going from a +0 weapon to a +3 weapon) is literally the difference between "every attack is a 50/50 shot" to "you hit more than twice as often as you miss." Sure, it's "only" 15%, but in terms of how it feels, you absolutely will notice going from "I could flip a coin and it would accurately tell how often I hit" and "I hit twice as often as I miss."

In general, you don't NEED need those increased stats until higher levels (e.g. you should probably use your level 8 ASI to increase your casting stat). But you'll start to notice if you get to (say) level 9-10 or so and you haven't improved your stats at all.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

As a general rule, you definitely want to always start with a 16. Starting with anything less will be...painful.

I will add, that this is great starting 101 D&D lessons. HOWEVER once you have learned to synergize and pick things here and there you can find other ways to power up. starting with the 16 and going for the 20 asap is just the easiest/