Hi I've not played a cleric before and looking at rolling a War Domain Cleric for a weekend long oneshot. So looking for some advice on how i could roll this character.
Its pretty straight forwards. War clerics, for the most part, are going to relying on their spells for the most part, and only attacking with a weapon in place of a cantrip. Their main tactic is generally going to either be buffing spells, or relying on something like Spiritual Weapon. Wisdom is primary stat, period. You want it as high as possible.
Since you have heavy armor, you can easily go Dex or Strength for your secondary stat. Some people like going Wood Elf for that longbow proficency here, but its not necessary. Go whichever direction you'd like and fits your character ideal.
Skills involve Perception, Insight, Religion (if no one with better Int is), and either Athletics or Acrobatics (grappling/pushes in melee).
For feats, you're going to want to look at something that boosts your Concentration saves first (either Resilient (Con) or War Caster).
Early spell options include Healing Word, Guiding Bolt and Bless, all very good choices.
You can stand back and cast or use war priest uses to get up in peoples faces have 2 attacks.
As Mephista says access to lvl2 spells you can use spiritual weapon to attack along with Sacred Flame cantrip each round. You also have use of guiding bolt which is 4d6 dmg and give advantage to the next attack for a lvl1 spell which is nice.
For my war cleric, I am lvl 9 now, so max wis (20), then con(17) & str (16) currently I think to have health and hit things harder. grabbing warcaster as a feat so you can use spells for attacks of opp.
Having a variety of damage types for cantrips is really useful actually.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
If the link doesn't work, he's wearing Chainmail armour and sporting a warhammer/Shield plus handaxe. Spells i've currently gone for
Scared Flame (C)
Word of Radiance (C)
Toll the Dead (C)
Command (S)
Cure Wounds (S)
Divine Favor (S)
Guiding Bolt (S)
Inflict Wounds (S)
Shielf of Faith (S)
I notice that you spent all your cantrips on damage cantrips. Having a variety of damage types is nice, but you should probably get some utility. In particular, you're probably going to want Guidance. Cast it any time you're not concentrating on anything else and note that you'll be recasting it any time it runs out of duration. Use it to boost as many ability checks as you can. At level 1 this is a pretty big deal, adding more than proficiency does on average (and stacking with it, to boot). Also don't forget that it works on Initiative and the like!
As for spells, Guiding Bolt and Command are indeed good choices to have a ranged and/or control option to complement your warhammer and divine domain feature. Inflict Wounds you can probably skip on a typical day, since you already are pretty good at dishing out melee damage without the aid of spell slots in a pinch (just use your attack + bonus action attack from your divine domain). It would be a really good idea to have Healing Word at the ready. Sure, it heals a little less than Cure Wounds, but it more than makes up for this with the fact that it's a ranged bonus action. Keep a slot ready with this in case someone is dropped to 0 hit points, so that you can pop them back up easily. Another good bread and butter spell to consider is Bless; you'd be surprised how much the average damage of your party can go up from that extra accuracy, not to mention the benefits of making a few more saves. However, the fact that you already get a couple of Concentration choices from your Domain makes this slightly less of a priority than it would normally be.
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Cantrip Choices: (Guidance), (Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead), (Light, Mending, Thaumaturgy, Sacred Flame, or Toll the Dead). Why not Words of Radiance? Because you do not have nor will you ever get Potent Spellcasting, and because in the odd situations where you might actually want to use it, you might want to use your breath weapon instead (which does more damage, and targets a more vulnerable saving throw). Most of the time when you're in melee you're going to want to smack something with an Attack action instead... sometimes even when there are multiple targets near you. Why ever consider Sacred Flame over Toll the Dead? Mostly because Radiant damage is resisted less often than Necrotic. It's a judgment call.
Spell choices for a typical adventuring day:
Automatically Prepared: (Divine Favor), (Shield of Faith) - Provided by your Divine Domain. Decent uses of your concentration, if not quite as good as Bless. Still, nice to have if you want to use a slot on something other than Bless.
Prepared Slot 1: (Healing Word) - A must-have, this can save your party members in so very many situations, and it's action- and positioning-efficient.
Prepared Slot 2: (A non-melee option, either Command, Guiding Bolt, or Bless) - When cantrips just aren't enough.
Prepared Slot 3: (a useful utility, probably a ritual, like Detect Magic) - Utility is important! Moreover, you've only got two spell slots at level 1... but rituals don't expend spell slots. You're basically just leaving magical power on the table if you don't have any rituals. Detect Magic is an example of a generally handy one.
Prepared Slot 4: (Another one of the kind of options you'd pick for 2 or 3, or Cure Wounds).
Strategy:
Throughout the day you'll want to be resource-efficient. In a given day, you've got 2 spell slots, 2 bonus action attacks, 1 breath attack per short rest, and unlimited use of cantrips and whatever rituals you've prepared. You should plan to make that last for as many encounters as possible, so use things when you really need them. Don't blow Healing Word just because someone got a papercut, use it when someone gets dropped to zero in the middle of a combat. Use your buffs to prepare before entering what you think will be one of the day's more challenging rooms (like a boss chamber). Use your rituals, cantrips, and normal attacks as often as possible. Use your bonus action attack when there's a dangerous foe you want to burst down. And use your breath weapon whenever you've got a good opportunity (e.g. multiple foes lined up).
Some good advice in here from the others, which will help me in future as well!
I found the last time I played a War Cleric (Half-Orc), that the utility of the class is extremely nice. Our group was not "balanced" at all (everyone else were damage dealers), so I actually had to do the "tanking" as well as the healing. Being a War Cleric gave me the freedom required to fill both rolls quite well, just follow the advice the others have given above regarding the spells you prepare and you are good to go!
What's also nice to remember is that the War Cleric's Channel Divinity feature pairs well with the Great Weapon Master Feat. The ability to add +10 to a couple of attack rolls make the -5 from the feat easier to overcome. This makes players more likely to use this feature of the feat increasing party damage.
For War Clerics, I recommend a variant Human focusing on Wisdom and Strength with Dexterity as a dump stat. Spiritual Weapon is actually not that helpful as my War Cleric ends up using all his bonus actions to make an extra weapon attack (per the first level War Domain ability) or to use his starting FEAT for Great Weapon Master (that gives you an extra attack as a bonus action if you make a critical or down an enemy opponent). With Channel Divinity you will very likely hit even if using the Great Weapon Master to reduce your to hit by -5 and add +10 to your damage). My GM rules your Spiritual Weapon doesn't attack unless you dedicate your bonus action to do it. My spell mixes depend on what we are doing (we run a campaign where all PCs are cops):
TIME SENSITIVE/FAST INVESTIGATION 1st Lev (4): Detect Magic (DM), Healing Word (HW), Cure Wounds (CW), Detect Evil & Good 2nd Lev (3): Spiritual Weapon, Locate Object, Zone of Truth 3rd Lev (2): Speak with Dead, Dispel Magic
DOWNTIME/INFO GATHER 1st Lev (4): DM, Detect Evil & Good, CW, HW 2nd Lev (3): Augury, Locate Object, Zone of Truth 3rd Lev (2): Clairvoyance, Speak with Dead
BULLS ON PARADE/Walking Around Town 1st Lev (4): DM, CW, HW, Create Water 2nd Lev (3): Enhance Ability, Silence, Aid 3rd Lev (2): Dispel Magic, Spirit Guardians
FOOD SCARCITY/SURVIVAL/WILDERNESS SURVIVAL 1st Lev (4): CW, Create or Destroy Water, DM, Purify Food & Drink 2nd Lev (3): Protection from Poison, Locate Object, Enhance Ability 3rd Lev (2): Create Food & Water, Sending
PREPARE FORTRESS/STING AREA 1st Lev (4): DM, CW, Bless, Detect Evil & Good 2nd Lev (3): Continual Flame, Zone of Truth, Spiritual Weapon 3rd Lev (2): Glyph of Warding, Clairvoyance/Magic Circle
I have a level 9 Hill Dwarf War Cleric, I was wondering what this means "You can channel divine energy to fuel magical effects a number of times per short rest"I can do this Channel Divinity twice. It is on my D&D beyond sheet under Channel Divinity. Is this a sheet typo? It says that it would be based on the domain of the cleric, is this an effect that the DM & I discuss based off the diety? or does that mean I can only use Channel divinity 2 times between rests for either guided strike, turn undead, war god's blessing?
That would be correct my dude, you get those two charges of channel divinity, and they can be expended to do one of those three options each time to utilize it. The Channel Divinity recharges on a short rest, they're like cleric Ki points (if you know monks)
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Spiritual Weapon is actually not that helpful as my War Cleric ends up using all his bonus actions to make an extra weapon attack (per the first level War Domain ability)
That is not an unlimited use ability. You can only make that bonus action attack up to a maximum of your Wisdom modifier (normal max of 5 times if you have a 20 Wisdom score) per long rest.
My GM rules your Spiritual Weapon doesn't attack unless you dedicate your bonus action to do it.
That's already how it works by RAW anyway.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Without that information people can suggest how they would play it but that might not necessarily be your style. One of the beauty of Clerics in 5e is there really is more than one way to play them. Two Clerics even of the Same Domain can be done very differently.
One War Cleric may decide to stand back and be primarily a support/aid character.
Another might instead turn as many things as they can towards joining the front line and being able to reach over and heal the guy next to him without having to leave the area of threat.
And the same goes for most of the domains. With only a couple of the domains being arguably a bit "pigeonholed" but you can still play against type even with them.
For some styles of playing a War Cleric. Spiritual Weapon may not be your preferred choice. If your looking to boost your con and do things to shore up your concentration roll and play up close then when you get to that level of spell casting Spiritual Guardians may be better. It's a short range AOE that will automatically attack enemies within it or enter it as long as you keep your concentration on it. It gets rid of the pesky issue that Spiritual Weapon is easily outran and the need for attack rolls.
If your taking the more long range approach. Take the three damage Cantrips. As I recall they each go after a different save stat or style of attack. Leaving you a likely chance to hit on many turns open to you just by figuring out which one to use on an enemy. Nothing saying you can't and you don't have to be the Utility character of the party just because your a Cleric.
Guidance also doesn't mean as much if you have one or particularly two strong skill monkey's in the party. They usually have everything covered and your help with guidance is rarely a deciding factor in getting those skill checks done. you'll probably more often forget to use it or be using it for group checks on the lowest skilled person there praying that it offsets them enough that they might succeed. Possibly feeling like it's not really all that useful while doing it because they may have really low chances of succeeding those roles with just guidance to help.
imo, the war domain cleric is about melee rather than 3 cantrip damage options. divine strike is, in fact, a means to have weapon attacks scale with other frontline class/subclasses. I.e. instead of using a cantrip that scales with level you use "weapon attacks" that divine strike augments, guided strike can secure and war priest can stack with.
keep in mind the war domain gives heavy armour and martial weapons, so dexterity becomes moot in heavy armour and martial weapons like great axe and maul etc become great reasons to use strength as your first priority after wisdom,
heavy armour master is a great pick for a war domain cleric looking to even his strength score.
I disagree with Dex being a dump stat... just made a variant human war cleric with Dex as my highest stat. With chainmail, a shield, and a finesse weapon (i.e. rapier if your DM allows) you're looking at 20AC every time something tries to hit you (while you're holding your sword). Add in +3 to hit and damage and at level 1 you're pretty tanky right off the bat and can still toss around a couple healing words. Throw in heavy armor master later and bring your Dex up for a +4 and you'll lead the charge every time. Later on throw a shield of faith on yourself and you're at 22AC... completely negative squish.
You get no bonus to AC from your dex while using Heavy Armor (ie Chain Mail) so all that dexterity is thrown away.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
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Hi I've not played a cleric before and looking at rolling a War Domain Cleric for a weekend long oneshot. So looking for some advice on how i could roll this character.
Its pretty straight forwards. War clerics, for the most part, are going to relying on their spells for the most part, and only attacking with a weapon in place of a cantrip. Their main tactic is generally going to either be buffing spells, or relying on something like Spiritual Weapon. Wisdom is primary stat, period. You want it as high as possible.
Since you have heavy armor, you can easily go Dex or Strength for your secondary stat. Some people like going Wood Elf for that longbow proficency here, but its not necessary. Go whichever direction you'd like and fits your character ideal.
Skills involve Perception, Insight, Religion (if no one with better Int is), and either Athletics or Acrobatics (grappling/pushes in melee).
For feats, you're going to want to look at something that boosts your Concentration saves first (either Resilient (Con) or War Caster).
Early spell options include Healing Word, Guiding Bolt and Bless, all very good choices.
What level are you starting at?
You can stand back and cast or use war priest uses to get up in peoples faces have 2 attacks.
As Mephista says access to lvl2 spells you can use spiritual weapon to attack along with Sacred Flame cantrip each round. You also have use of guiding bolt which is 4d6 dmg and give advantage to the next attack for a lvl1 spell which is nice.
For my war cleric, I am lvl 9 now, so max wis (20), then con(17) & str (16) currently I think to have health and hit things harder. grabbing warcaster as a feat so you can use spells for attacks of opp.
Starting at level 1, going for a Dragonborn (blue) war priest. This is what i've got so far https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Minos_Murdoc/characters/3121239
If the link doesn't work, he's wearing Chainmail armour and sporting a warhammer/Shield plus handaxe. Spells i've currently gone for
oh another question, would i have to be the same alignment as the god i worship? Or if its neutral would i get away with LN or CN?
Also, you probably don't need three different damage cantrips. I would say swap out Sacred Flame for Guidance or maybe Light.
Having a variety of damage types for cantrips is really useful actually.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
As for spells, Guiding Bolt and Command are indeed good choices to have a ranged and/or control option to complement your warhammer and divine domain feature. Inflict Wounds you can probably skip on a typical day, since you already are pretty good at dishing out melee damage without the aid of spell slots in a pinch (just use your attack + bonus action attack from your divine domain). It would be a really good idea to have Healing Word at the ready. Sure, it heals a little less than Cure Wounds, but it more than makes up for this with the fact that it's a ranged bonus action. Keep a slot ready with this in case someone is dropped to 0 hit points, so that you can pop them back up easily. Another good bread and butter spell to consider is Bless; you'd be surprised how much the average damage of your party can go up from that extra accuracy, not to mention the benefits of making a few more saves. However, the fact that you already get a couple of Concentration choices from your Domain makes this slightly less of a priority than it would normally be.
Ludic: adjective (formal). showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness.
Thank you LudicSavant that was very helpful.
Some good advice in here from the others, which will help me in future as well!
I found the last time I played a War Cleric (Half-Orc), that the utility of the class is extremely nice. Our group was not "balanced" at all (everyone else were damage dealers), so I actually had to do the "tanking" as well as the healing. Being a War Cleric gave me the freedom required to fill both rolls quite well, just follow the advice the others have given above regarding the spells you prepare and you are good to go!
What's also nice to remember is that the War Cleric's Channel Divinity feature pairs well with the Great Weapon Master Feat. The ability to add +10 to a couple of attack rolls make the -5 from the feat easier to overcome. This makes players more likely to use this feature of the feat increasing party damage.
For War Clerics, I recommend a variant Human focusing on Wisdom and Strength with Dexterity as a dump stat. Spiritual Weapon is actually not that helpful as my War Cleric ends up using all his bonus actions to make an extra weapon attack (per the first level War Domain ability) or to use his starting FEAT for Great Weapon Master (that gives you an extra attack as a bonus action if you make a critical or down an enemy opponent). With Channel Divinity you will very likely hit even if using the Great Weapon Master to reduce your to hit by -5 and add +10 to your damage). My GM rules your Spiritual Weapon doesn't attack unless you dedicate your bonus action to do it. My spell mixes depend on what we are doing (we run a campaign where all PCs are cops):
TIME SENSITIVE/FAST INVESTIGATION
1st Lev (4): Detect Magic (DM), Healing Word (HW), Cure Wounds (CW), Detect Evil & Good
2nd Lev (3): Spiritual Weapon, Locate Object, Zone of Truth
3rd Lev (2): Speak with Dead, Dispel Magic
DOWNTIME/INFO GATHER
1st Lev (4): DM, Detect Evil & Good, CW, HW
2nd Lev (3): Augury, Locate Object, Zone of Truth
3rd Lev (2): Clairvoyance, Speak with Dead
BULLS ON PARADE/Walking Around Town
1st Lev (4): DM, CW, HW, Create Water
2nd Lev (3): Enhance Ability, Silence, Aid
3rd Lev (2): Dispel Magic, Spirit Guardians
FOOD SCARCITY/SURVIVAL/WILDERNESS SURVIVAL
1st Lev (4): CW, Create or Destroy Water, DM, Purify Food & Drink
2nd Lev (3): Protection from Poison, Locate Object, Enhance Ability
3rd Lev (2): Create Food & Water, Sending
PREPARE FORTRESS/STING AREA
1st Lev (4): DM, CW, Bless, Detect Evil & Good
2nd Lev (3): Continual Flame, Zone of Truth, Spiritual Weapon
3rd Lev (2): Glyph of Warding, Clairvoyance/Magic Circle
I have a level 9 Hill Dwarf War Cleric, I was wondering what this means "You can channel divine energy to fuel magical effects a number of times per short rest"I can do this Channel Divinity twice. It is on my D&D beyond sheet under Channel Divinity. Is this a sheet typo? It says that it would be based on the domain of the cleric, is this an effect that the DM & I discuss based off the diety? or does that mean I can only use Channel divinity 2 times between rests for either guided strike, turn undead, war god's blessing?
https://ddb.ac/characters/14406201/XywtNZ
This is the link to my sheet if you want to see it.
That would be correct my dude, you get those two charges of channel divinity, and they can be expended to do one of those three options each time to utilize it. The Channel Divinity recharges on a short rest, they're like cleric Ki points (if you know monks)
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
That is not an unlimited use ability. You can only make that bonus action attack up to a maximum of your Wisdom modifier (normal max of 5 times if you have a 20 Wisdom score) per long rest.
That's already how it works by RAW anyway.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The question is more how you want to play it.
Without that information people can suggest how they would play it but that might not necessarily be your style. One of the beauty of Clerics in 5e is there really is more than one way to play them. Two Clerics even of the Same Domain can be done very differently.
One War Cleric may decide to stand back and be primarily a support/aid character.
Another might instead turn as many things as they can towards joining the front line and being able to reach over and heal the guy next to him without having to leave the area of threat.
And the same goes for most of the domains. With only a couple of the domains being arguably a bit "pigeonholed" but you can still play against type even with them.
For some styles of playing a War Cleric. Spiritual Weapon may not be your preferred choice. If your looking to boost your con and do things to shore up your concentration roll and play up close then when you get to that level of spell casting Spiritual Guardians may be better. It's a short range AOE that will automatically attack enemies within it or enter it as long as you keep your concentration on it. It gets rid of the pesky issue that Spiritual Weapon is easily outran and the need for attack rolls.
If your taking the more long range approach. Take the three damage Cantrips. As I recall they each go after a different save stat or style of attack. Leaving you a likely chance to hit on many turns open to you just by figuring out which one to use on an enemy. Nothing saying you can't and you don't have to be the Utility character of the party just because your a Cleric.
Guidance also doesn't mean as much if you have one or particularly two strong skill monkey's in the party. They usually have everything covered and your help with guidance is rarely a deciding factor in getting those skill checks done. you'll probably more often forget to use it or be using it for group checks on the lowest skilled person there praying that it offsets them enough that they might succeed. Possibly feeling like it's not really all that useful while doing it because they may have really low chances of succeeding those roles with just guidance to help.
imo, the war domain cleric is about melee rather than 3 cantrip damage options. divine strike is, in fact, a means to have weapon attacks scale with other frontline class/subclasses. I.e. instead of using a cantrip that scales with level you use "weapon attacks" that divine strike augments, guided strike can secure and war priest can stack with.
keep in mind the war domain gives heavy armour and martial weapons, so dexterity becomes moot in heavy armour and martial weapons like great axe and maul etc become great reasons to use strength as your first priority after wisdom,
heavy armour master is a great pick for a war domain cleric looking to even his strength score.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
I disagree with Dex being a dump stat... just made a variant human war cleric with Dex as my highest stat. With chainmail, a shield, and a finesse weapon (i.e. rapier if your DM allows) you're looking at 20AC every time something tries to hit you (while you're holding your sword). Add in +3 to hit and damage and at level 1 you're pretty tanky right off the bat and can still toss around a couple healing words. Throw in heavy armor master later and bring your Dex up for a +4 and you'll lead the charge every time. Later on throw a shield of faith on yourself and you're at 22AC... completely negative squish.
You get no bonus to AC from your dex while using Heavy Armor (ie Chain Mail) so all that dexterity is thrown away.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."