D&D 5E Protection Domain Reworked

[DaviMMS]

Recently, WotC launched Protection Domain for Clerics, and IMHO, they did a terrible job at it.
So, I decided to make some tweaks out of it.

Domain Spells
The spells are mostly fine.
At first level, I would keep Compelled Duel and change Protection From Evil and Good to Shield of Faith. Why? Both spells fit the theme and are on Cleric’s Spell List so no change power wise, but Shield of Faith is always useful, while Protection from Evil and Good is situational.
At 3rd, change Protection From Poison to Warding Bond. Again, both on the Cleric’s list, but is just ridiculous that Warding Bond is not on Protection Domain Spells and Protection From Poison is an extremely situational spell that may be useful only once or twice during the whole campaign, but, as everything situational, YMMV. It is just not a spell I think I would want to have always prepared.
At 5th, we have Protection From Energy and Slow. IMO, Protection From Energy is a terrible spell, but is also terribly appropriate and no Domain lack bad spells, so leave it. Slow is an ok spell. Kind of weird for the theme of the archetype, but looking through the spell list I did not find anything more appropriate, so leave it.
At 7th you get Guardian of Faith and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. Both fit very well to the theme.
Lastly, we have Antilife Shell and Wall of Force at 9th. These are also fine.

Bonus proficiency
Heavy armor, nothing to change here

Shield of the Faithful
At first, I felt this to be underwhelming. Protection Fighting Style? Really? I though this to be terrible, but then, I went to the book and looked at the other domain’s 1st level abilities and saw this is fine power wise. It is even above the average. I would just prefer this to be described in a more magical way, instead of a physical one. So instead of:
“You interpose an arm, a shield, or some other part of yourself to try to throw the attack off target.”
I would describe it as:
“You create a thin magical barrier between the attacker and the target, delaying the attack long enough for the target to better prepare his defenses”
It is just a fluff change and I don’t think any DM would be against it so it doesn’t really make much difference. But creating magical wards is just something that, IMO, fits much better to the theme of the Protection Cleric than physically protecting.

Channel Divinity: Radiant Defense
This is simply terrible. It does not fit thematically and is terrible mechanically.
“Waste your action to cast Hellish Rebuke for a Friend”
Unless your DM metagames, the monsters won’t really know what the “Radiant Armor” does, and when they discover, the armor is gone. Even the damage is nothing impressive. The Light Cleric can do the same damage to EVERY ENEMY in a 30 feet area around him with the same resource expended and the same action requirement.
A much better version both power wise and thematically would be:
“Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to cloak your allies in radiant armor. As an BONUS action, you channel blessed energy into an ally that you can see within 30 feet of you.
The target gains 2d10 + your cleric level temporary hit points for the next minute.”
It is more powerful than Life’s Domain Channel Divinity at first, but scales much slower. Maybe changing it to twice cleric’s level would be better.


Blessed Healer
Copy paste from Life Cleric.
I will say how it reads to me in both cases.
For the Life Cleric
“Your Domain over Healing Magic is so powerful, that you can use part of the energy to heal yourself as well as your ally”
For the Protection Cleric
“If you fail to protect, you can heal YOURSELF while you heal your ally”
For me, it does not fit thematically and is actually weaker for Protection Cleric, cause his healing spells are worse than Life Cleric ones, so you are less rewarded for using one.
I would change it to:
“At 6th level, you learn Blade Ward cantrip if you don’t already know it. You can cast the as a bonus action instead of an action and the spell has a range of touch when you cast it”
I’m not sure if this is balanced. It looks a little better than Nature Cleric’s one in my opinion, but not overpowered.
Another option I thought is something to improve Shield of the Faithful, like making it last till the end of the turn to cover against multiattack.

Indomitable Defense is fine. Nothing flashy but is balanced.
So, what are your opinions about my rework? Balanced? Underpowered? Overpowered? What would you change?
For those that didn’t see the original archetype, here is the link:
http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Cleric.pdf

 

[Redthistle]

Recently, WotC launched Protection Domain for Clerics, and IMHO, they did a terrible job at it.
So, I decided to make some tweaks out of it.

Domain Spells
The spells are mostly fine.

At first level, I would keep Compelled Duel and change Protection From Evil and Good to Shield of Faith. Why? Both spells fit the theme and are on Cleric’s Spell List so no change power wise, but Shield of Faith is always useful, while Protection from Evil and Good is situational.

At 3rd, change Protection From Poison to Warding Bond. Again, both on the Cleric’s list, but is just ridiculous that Warding Bond is not on Protection Domain Spells and Protection From Poison is an extremely situational spell that may be useful only once or twice during the whole campaign, but, as everything situational, YMMV. It is just not a spell I think I would want to have always prepared.

I agree with you about switching from Protection from Evil and Good to Shield of Faith.

However, I'm on the fence regarding Protection from Poison. I view that spell like D&D's answer to an epi-pen: the need for it may be unlikely, but when it's needed, it's NEEDED.

Shield of the Faithful
At first, I felt this to be underwhelming. Protection Fighting Style? Really? I though this to be terrible, but then, I went to the book and looked at the other domain’s 1st level abilities and saw this is fine power wise. It is even above the average. I would just prefer this to be described in a more magical way, instead of a physical one. So instead of:
“You interpose an arm, a shield, or some other part of yourself to try to throw the attack off target.”
I would describe it as:
“You create a thin magical barrier between the attacker and the target, delaying the attack long enough for the target to better prepare his defenses”
It is just a fluff change and I don’t think any DM would be against it so it doesn’t really make much difference. But creating magical wards is just something that, IMO, fits much better to the theme of the Protection Cleric than physically protecting.

The change may be fluff, but I like it.

Channel Divinity: Radiant Defense
This is simply terrible. It does not fit thematically and is terrible mechanically.
“Waste your action to cast Hellish Rebuke for a Friend”
Unless your DM metagames, the monsters won’t really know what the “Radiant Armor” does, and when they discover, the armor is gone. Even the damage is nothing impressive. The Light Cleric can do the same damage to EVERY ENEMY in a 30 feet area around him with the same resource expended and the same action requirement.
A much better version both power-wise and thematically would be:
“Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to cloak your allies in radiant armor. As an BONUS action, you channel blessed energy into an ally that you can see within 30 feet of you.
The target gains 2d10 + your cleric level temporary hit points for the next minute.”
It is more powerful than Life’s Domain Channel Divinity at first, but scales much slower. Maybe changing it to twice cleric’s level would be better.

Good points. I couldn't find anything about "Radiant Armor", either. (For that matter, as a child of the Cold War era, I keep having to remind myself that "radiant" doesn't mean "radioactive". Uh ... it doesn't, does it? Damn! There goes that paranoia again.)

As armor, what might protective radiance do? Impose disadvantage on attack rolls by creatures with darkvision, perhaps, which could level the playing field temporarily for non-darkvisioned creatures fighting somewhere in the dark? Provide resistance to radiant or shadow damage-type attacks? Both situational, but as a Channeled Divinity, it's going to be limited to immediate local circumstances, anyway.

If imposing disadvantage on creatures with darkvision, I'd grant such a creature a saving throw at the end of each of it's turns vs. Constitution; a successful save would end the disadvantage effect.

I like the idea of granting temporary hit points instead of dealing damage, and also making the number of those hit points be 2d10 + twice the cleric level of the PC. As added prevention from taking damage, it's a counterpoint to the Life Domain cleric's healing power, not a copy of it.

The duration of other Domains' Channel Divinity varies. I'd make this one last for 1 minute. The Protection Domain cleric would be able to grant the temporary hit points to only one ally during that minute. Whichever round those temporary hit points were gained, they would only last until Radiant Armor itself ended, not for a full minute from the round they were gained.

Blessed Healer
Copy paste from Life Cleric.
I will say how it reads to me in both cases.
For the Life Cleric
“Your Domain over Healing Magic is so powerful, that you can use part of the energy to heal yourself as well as your ally”
For the Protection Cleric
“If you fail to protect, you can heal YOURSELF while you heal your ally”
For me, it does not fit thematically and is actually weaker for Protection Cleric, cause his healing spells are worse than Life Cleric ones, so you are less rewarded for using one.
I would change it to:
“At 6th level, you learn Blade Ward cantrip if you don’t already know it. You can cast the cantrip as a bonus action instead of an action and the spell has a range of touch when you cast it”
I’m not sure if this is balanced. It looks a little better than Nature Cleric’s one in my opinion, but not overpowered.
Another option I thought is something to improve Shield of the Faithful, like making it last till the end of the turn to cover against multiattack.

As a fan of Blade Ward, I was immediately all for that, but then you mentioned allowing Shield of the Faithful to last to the end of the turn. Given the fluff you proposed above, this notion makes good sense.

The original Shield of the Faithful [Protection Fighting Style, as you pointed out] is strictly a combat action. Making it last until the end of the turn would require the Protection Domain cleric to go all Jackie Chan for that turn.

Your version, making it more of an extension of divine magic, is much better, in both making the feature more distinctive for the domain and making it a "feels-right" out-growth of the 6th level feature.

 

[DaviMMS]

However, I'm on the fence regarding Protection from Poison. I view that spell like D&D's answer to an epi-pen: the need for it may be unlikely, but when it's needed, it's NEEDED.

Protection from Poison is a good spell when needed. The point is, how often do you need it?
I am a relatively new player and started playing in the end of the 2014. I been playing almost weekly most of the time in two campaigns and the spell would not have been useful even once. If you know you will be fighting something like a Green Dragon, or someone that specifically uses poison, the spell is gold. But most of the time it’s just a waste of space. And Warding Bond fit’s so perfectly to the theme that is just dumb for it not to be there.

Good points. I couldn't find anything about "Radiant Armor", either. (For that matter, as a child of the Cold War era, I keep having to remind myself that "radiant" doesn't mean "radioactive". Uh ... it doesn't, does it? Damn! There goes that paranoia again.)

As armor, what might protective radiance do? Impose disadvantage on attack rolls by creatures with darkvision, perhaps, which could level the playing field temporarily for non-darkvisioned creatures fighting somewhere in the dark? Provide resistance to radiant or shadow damage-type attacks? Both situational, but as a Channeled Divinity, it's going to be limited to immediate local circumstances, anyway.

If imposing disadvantage on creatures with darkvision, I'd grant such a creature a saving throw at the end of each of it's turns vs. Constitution; a successful save would end the disadvantage effect.

The image that was coming to my mind was different than yours. I was thinking something like:

“Bright energy emanates from my cleric’s holy symbol and starts to condense around my friend’s body, forming pieces of plate armor in the air that mounts itself over my ally, forming a bright light radiant, shining armor over him”
Something like this, but with a bright yellow glow instead of blue.

https://www.google.com.br/imgres?im...JLRAhUBHpAKHX0lA0UQMwglKAowCg&iact=mrc&uact=8

But I can see why you though that way. One of the major reasons I didn’t changed the name was because I didn’t want to come up with a new one. So, your suggestions may be a better fit for the actual name of the ability, but I would prefer to stick with the temporary HP mechanic. Maybe adding that, while you have the TempHP , you generate 10 feet of bright light and 10 of dim light would do the trick.

Besides that, I do not like situational Channel Divinities. I consider the Channel Divinity one of the main points of playing a Cleric, so I like for it to be always useful, and most of them are. One of the main points that keeps me away from playing Nature and Arcana clerics are the extremely situational channels they have.

I like the idea of granting temporary hit points instead of dealing damage, and also making the number of those hit points be 2d10 + twice the cleric level of the PC. As added prevention from taking damage, it's a counterpoint to the Life Domain cleric's healing power, not a copy of it.

The duration of other Domains' Channel Divinity varies. I'd make this one last for 1 minute. The Protection Domain cleric would be able to grant the temporary hit points to only one ally during that minute. Whichever round those temporary hit points were gained, they would only last until Radiant Armor itself ended, not for a full minute from the round they were gained.

I did not write it clearly and I can see how you got to that interpretation. My original intent is:

The target gain 2d10+cleric level TempHP

Or

The target gains twice your cleric level TempHP

The first scales badly and the second may be a little weak. I think 2d10+2x Cleric level is too much. Remember, this is a bonus action instead of an action like life cleric Preserve Life, and Life Clerics ability suffer much from overhealing because it can only go to half the targets hit points, while this one can go even above targets maximum hitpoints. The only disadvantage here is that tempHP vanishes if not used.

Maybe the better choice would be 1d10+twice cleric level. It starts just a little bellow Preserve life (1d10+4(9,5) vs 10) and the gap widens a little bit every level. Radiant defense will still be on par on higher levels because of only using your bonus action.

How do you think about this:

“Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to cloak your allies in radiant armor. As an bonus action, you channel blessed energy into an ally that you can see within 30 feet of you.

The target gains 1d10 + twice your cleric level temporary hit points. While the target has at least 1 temporary hit point gained through this ability, it sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for additional 10 feet. If the temporary hit points end or after one minute, the armor fades. ”

 

[Redthistle]

How do you think about this:

“Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to cloak your allies in radiant armor. As an bonus action, you channel blessed energy into an ally that you can see within 30 feet of you.

The target gains 1d10 + twice your cleric level temporary hit points. While the target has at least 1 temporary hit point gained through this ability, it sheds bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for additional 10 feet. If the temporary hit points end or after one minute, the armor fades. ”

This is good.

One problem I have is with the UA article's wording, " ... cloak your allies ... " which implies that the feature should apply to more than one ally at the same time. Going on in the second paragraph to say it only applies to one ally per usage of Channel Divinity irks my sense of proportion.

Grazie, DaviMMS!

 

[AslanC]

Sorry to necro this thread (well not really sorry, just being the Canadian that I am), I would love to see a finalized version of this, as one of my players wants to do a Protection Domain cleric and I think you guys are on the right path here.

Any luck getting a finalized version?

Cheers!

 

[CM]

Not the original, but along the same theme, here's a Guardian domain I created shortly before this UA was published, in case you don't get a response. Feel free to ignore otherwise.

Guardian Domain
Gods like Helm and Torm are sworn protectors. Some are guardians of another being, place, or artifact, while others champion protectorship in general as an aspect of their divinity.

Guardian Domain Spells
Cleric Level Spells
1st Alarm, Protection from Evil and Good
3rd Arcane Lock, See Invisibility, Warding Bond
5th Glyph of Warding, Spirit Guardians
7th Death Ward, Guardian of Faith
9th Circle of Power, Dispel Evil and Good

Vigilant Sentinel
At 1st level, you become proficient in heavy armor, one martial weapon of your choice, and the Perception skill.

Channel Divinity: Guardian’s Shield
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to shield your allies from harm. When a creature within 30 feet takes damage you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by half.

Sacred Protector
Whenever a creature adjacent to you attacks a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on its attack roll.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage of the same type dealt by the weapon to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Eternal Guardian
Beginning at 17th level, if you drop to 0 hit points or fewer you remain conscious and able to act until you fail a death saving throw.

 

[Fellentos]

Not the original, but along the same theme, here's a Guardian domain I created shortly before this UA was published, in case you don't get a response. Feel free to ignore otherwise.

Guardian Domain
Gods like Helm and Torm are sworn protectors. Some are guardians of another being, place, or artifact, while others champion protectorship in general as an aspect of their divinity.

Guardian Domain Spells
Cleric Level Spells
1st Alarm, Protection from Evil and Good
3rd Arcane Lock, See Invisibility, Warding Bond
5th Glyph of Warding, Spirit Guardians
7th Death Ward, Guardian of Faith
9th Circle of Power, Dispel Evil and Good

Vigilant Sentinel
At 1st level, you become proficient in heavy armor, one martial weapon of your choice, and the Perception skill.

Channel Divinity: Guardian’s Shield
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to shield your allies from harm. When a creature within 30 feet takes damage you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by half.

Sacred Protector
Whenever a creature adjacent to you attacks a creature other than you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on its attack roll.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage of the same type dealt by the weapon to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Eternal Guardian
Beginning at 17th level, if you drop to 0 hit points or fewer you remain conscious and able to act until you fail a death saving throw.

Sorry to necro but I'm missing the 6th level ability here. Other than that I'm loving this version of the Protection Domain and currently it's being used by one of my players.