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What is the Deal with the Twilight Cleric?
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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9621045" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>Let's level-set. This is not 3E Pun-Pun, or Ice Assassins and Demiplanes, or <em>Find City</em> nukes/commoner black holes or other things which, if allowed, end your campaign (or all normality within it). It's not even 3E Hulking Hurler/5E nuclear wizard madness that is easily defeated but still takes one aspect like damage and throws the norms completely out the window. I don't even know if it's a strictly-best character choice. It's more like AD&D 2e's bladesinger kit*, in that it is an almost-strictely-better option. </p><p><span style="font-size: 10px">*the2E bladesinger kit as an elf-only kit for multiclass F/MUs which was a few RP restrictions, plus mechanical benefit. Which seems OP, but doesn't change that in 2E (where they can't cast in armor), F/MU are not some kind of runaway uber-class.</span></p><p></p><p>Clerics are nice in 5e.2014. They are fairly hardy, have some nice tricks -- <em>Bless, Healing Word, Revivify, Lesser/Greater Restoration</em>, and a <em>Spirit Guardians/Spiritual Weapon</em> combo that is good enough that in tiers 2&3 it ends up being a go-to. Most notably, since OOC healing is so ubiquitous, you don't end up having to be mostly a heal-battery for everyone else like in several other versions of D&D. They aren't usually anyone's idea of the most-powerful or most-broken class (or even feature in many most-broken builds, etc.). </p><p></p><p>A Twilight Cleric does not change this. They are still going to go about doing their own thing, choosing to cantrip-attack or mace-swing or just dodge and SG/SW while throwing out the occasional <em>Healing Word</em> to whack-a-mole a party member back up and so on. They are simply going to do it with some perks that seem, almost strictly speaking, completely better than any other cleric subtype. In addition, while none of these abilities are just plain game-breaking*, they really do seem outside the bounds the rest of the game normally sets -- darkvision tends to be given out in 60'-120' increments, and out of the blue this one is 300'. Spells like <em>Aid </em>or <em>Heroism </em>tend to give out 5/SL hp once or spellcasting mod/round (to 1-3 allies), but this one gives out 1d6 + cleric level... to all allies (only) within 30' (which is what a paladin's radius becomes at 18th level)... as well as negates the frightened condition. <em><span style="font-size: 10px">*Outside of a really contrived sniper-with-300'-darkvision scenario, you do not win <u>because</u> of this -- you simply come out of fights you probably would have won anyways with significantly less loss and perhaps significantly fewer resources expended. </span></em></p><p></p><p>Add to that that no one really knows why they chose the domain of 'twilight' (were people clamoring for this? what existing gods were not well-served by the PHB domains but are salvaged by this? etc.), and it just kind of comes off like they were deliberately pumping up the cleric power potential a notch. That's certainly how a lot of people saw the hexblade in the previous book, but at the very least it was pretty obvious that bladelock-pact warlocks were not great out of the box*. Clerics were... not in need of a retro-salvage operation, or whatever might be gleaned from this. <span style="font-size: 10px"><em>*and multiclassing was optional, so I guess the consequences of hexblade dips on bard and paladin builds was a consequence a DM had to sign on for.</em></span></p><p></p><p>So, yeah. Twilight clerics are just this weird outlier boost to a class that didn't seem to need it, using parts that feel custom built (so it doesn't feel accidental), and without a clear reason for why they were deemed desired (beyond that new content was wanted in general). They do not break the game over their knee, but they do throw challenge calculations out of whack. Mostly they just seem like a really bizarre choice -- like, if you simply wanted to <a href="https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/warlock:hexblade" target="_blank">boost a class</a>, or <a href="https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wondrous-items:illusionists-bracers" target="_blank">include a new must-have item</a> to enhance sales of your new book, there are ways to do it that would seem to make sense. So this one remains a head-scratcher.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 9621045, member: 6799660"] Let's level-set. This is not 3E Pun-Pun, or Ice Assassins and Demiplanes, or [I]Find City[/I] nukes/commoner black holes or other things which, if allowed, end your campaign (or all normality within it). It's not even 3E Hulking Hurler/5E nuclear wizard madness that is easily defeated but still takes one aspect like damage and throws the norms completely out the window. I don't even know if it's a strictly-best character choice. It's more like AD&D 2e's bladesinger kit*, in that it is an almost-strictely-better option. [SIZE=2]*the2E bladesinger kit as an elf-only kit for multiclass F/MUs which was a few RP restrictions, plus mechanical benefit. Which seems OP, but doesn't change that in 2E (where they can't cast in armor), F/MU are not some kind of runaway uber-class.[/SIZE] Clerics are nice in 5e.2014. They are fairly hardy, have some nice tricks -- [I]Bless, Healing Word, Revivify, Lesser/Greater Restoration[/I], and a [I]Spirit Guardians/Spiritual Weapon[/I] combo that is good enough that in tiers 2&3 it ends up being a go-to. Most notably, since OOC healing is so ubiquitous, you don't end up having to be mostly a heal-battery for everyone else like in several other versions of D&D. They aren't usually anyone's idea of the most-powerful or most-broken class (or even feature in many most-broken builds, etc.). A Twilight Cleric does not change this. They are still going to go about doing their own thing, choosing to cantrip-attack or mace-swing or just dodge and SG/SW while throwing out the occasional [I]Healing Word[/I] to whack-a-mole a party member back up and so on. They are simply going to do it with some perks that seem, almost strictly speaking, completely better than any other cleric subtype. In addition, while none of these abilities are just plain game-breaking*, they really do seem outside the bounds the rest of the game normally sets -- darkvision tends to be given out in 60'-120' increments, and out of the blue this one is 300'. Spells like [I]Aid [/I]or [I]Heroism [/I]tend to give out 5/SL hp once or spellcasting mod/round (to 1-3 allies), but this one gives out 1d6 + cleric level... to all allies (only) within 30' (which is what a paladin's radius becomes at 18th level)... as well as negates the frightened condition. [I][SIZE=2]*Outside of a really contrived sniper-with-300'-darkvision scenario, you do not win [U]because[/U] of this -- you simply come out of fights you probably would have won anyways with significantly less loss and perhaps significantly fewer resources expended. [/SIZE][/I] Add to that that no one really knows why they chose the domain of 'twilight' (were people clamoring for this? what existing gods were not well-served by the PHB domains but are salvaged by this? etc.), and it just kind of comes off like they were deliberately pumping up the cleric power potential a notch. That's certainly how a lot of people saw the hexblade in the previous book, but at the very least it was pretty obvious that bladelock-pact warlocks were not great out of the box*. Clerics were... not in need of a retro-salvage operation, or whatever might be gleaned from this. [SIZE=2][I]*and multiclassing was optional, so I guess the consequences of hexblade dips on bard and paladin builds was a consequence a DM had to sign on for.[/I][/SIZE] So, yeah. Twilight clerics are just this weird outlier boost to a class that didn't seem to need it, using parts that feel custom built (so it doesn't feel accidental), and without a clear reason for why they were deemed desired (beyond that new content was wanted in general). They do not break the game over their knee, but they do throw challenge calculations out of whack. Mostly they just seem like a really bizarre choice -- like, if you simply wanted to [URL='https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/warlock:hexblade']boost a class[/URL], or [URL='https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wondrous-items:illusionists-bracers']include a new must-have item[/URL] to enhance sales of your new book, there are ways to do it that would seem to make sense. So this one remains a head-scratcher. [/QUOTE]
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