D&D 5E (2014) Sell my Party on a Cleric

[Ancalagon]

Spiritual guardian and Spiritual Weapon is boring? Start dropping fireballs with your light cleric.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You don't need a Cleric if you have enough healing from other sources.

Them again, it would be easier to run a party down if they have little healing...

 

[Ancalagon]

One more thing - don't heal in combat. It's not a productive use of your action. You can have a much bigger influence by blasting, buffing or control spells.

Aid is great - heals and increased your HP maximum.

 

[LordEntrails]

This is a good point, and I should clarify my position a little better. My group doesn't just see the cleric as "eh not the class I want to play", they see it as "this is a flaw in 5e....its a bad class that is a bad design".

So in some ways showing them the cleric is good is in the same breath saying "this is not a flaw in the game".

To me a strength of 5E is that no class is essential. And though the cleric can (mostly) be replaced with other classes, so can every other class. They are all replaceable.

Now, it sound more like your party expects a cleric to fit a niche that in 5E it doesn't. I'm not good enough at builds, but I suspect if we knew what that niche/build was that your players were wanting a cleric to be, someone here could give you a good build for that.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If no one in your group wants to play a cleric, there's no reason to convince them otherwise. It is unnecessary for every class to get played at some point in every group.

Maybe because the OP asked us to?

... help me make the cleric look interesting and cool to play.

Otherwise, sure--no class is essential. Our online game currently started with 3 monks and nothing else. It worked well for a long time and only added a Cleric and Ranger because those players didn't want to play monks. shrug

 

[bedir than]

Why I like Clerics

I like playing with an attachment to gods, lots of them. Sure, one gives me powers, but in the Realms you worship others, because that's the way of their polytheism.

Thaumaturgy
There may be things more fun than going into a large crowd, shouting powerful words, and having everyone go silent because you are that LOUD. Maybe you like shining lights, but being unbearably loud in crowded spaces is a way to take social power.

Guiding Bolt
Not only do you do damage, but your buddy gets a bit of help doing more? Yep, love it. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Knowledge
Jack-of-all trades don't know nothing. Me? I know everything, and then a little bit more. I like to know things about other people that they didn't even know. That jerk used to call me a know it all - they're right, not rude.

Maces
Beating people with face-smushers is good variety. Sure, there are more powerful weapons, better weapons, and maybe people want mauls more often now days. I don't care. A big stick with some metal flanges on it feels powerful.

Ritual Casting
Still dig it. Dig the cleric spells that have it. Don't need no silly book either. Gods talk to you. You relay their message. The people are then better off. If I wanted to read I wouldn't have a personal relationship with a god. I'd just be a boring soul locked in a library all the time.
Cast ceremony at the villages you visit. They'll love it.

Seriously though, the face smushy

 

[Bacon Bits]

Have someone play a light cleric or a forge cleric. Forge clerics are hilarious if the DM allows you to craft silver, gold, or platinum as trade goods.

Otherwise, your group's complaints are mostly right. Overall the cleric's design is fairly dull and the spell list (along with the druid's) is very lackluster. My biggest complaint remains that War clerics don't get Extra Attack at 8th. I think the level 8 ability for clerics was very lazily designed in particular. That and the destroy undead progression is uninteresting, and easily makes Cleric 14 one of the worst levels in the game.

 

[Dausuul]

I am sure there are many people on the board who would disagree with my group's notions, so tell me where they went wrong, help me make the cleric look interesting and cool to play.

As a rule, trying to convince people to want to play something they don't want to play is... a poor use of time.

For my part, I think there are a few domains that are quite appealing; I just started playing a Light cleric, which supplements your bread-and-butter clerical magic with fireball. (There are some other domain spells too. But "cleric with fireball" is really all you need to know.) I also gave some thought to Trickery and Nature.

 

[Flamestrike]

2) Cleric spellcasting isn't all that interesting. Sure spiritual weapon is decent, guidance is the best cantrip, spirit guardians is amazing (and therefore boring, as every cleric on the planet has it), and bless is the best buff in the game. And that's it.

Revivify and Raise dead. They're game changers when they come online.

 

[Mistwell]

Go light cleric and just burn the crap out of everything in sight. Not boring at all.