I kind of implied it above, but my build maxes out wisdom for spells, constitution for health and strength for heavy armor at 15. There really isn’t room for anything else unless I don’t max out wisdom and constitution at 20 or skip my epic boon (which seems like a bad idea, but I was having a similar debate on a rolled stats character I “messed up” on by taking a feat instead of sticking to ASI. Long story, but I can either get i lnto it here or PM it if interested, or you can just find the post under Barbarians.)
The point is I can either go 15+2 in wisdom for war caster or in constitution for resilient to round it out. The other would just get rounded ASI stats.
…I just realized something!
The epic boon feats give a single point, so I could potentially get both to 20 that way! I’ll have to get back to you all once I’ve tried it for myself. Thanks!
edit: got it! I sacrificed the extra point from the epic boon feats give in a way, but that could be partially what they are there for anyway since it takes two to raise a stat.
Figured I would include the character for those who are curious, but like was just suggested to me i took war caster first and then maximized my wisdom followed by resilient constitution and a +2 in the same category. Finally I used my epic boon feats to get one more point in Con, rounding it up.
This is an interesting debate. I'm about to play a Cleric (Trickery domain) for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but possibly continuing into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage afterwards. I was thinking of being more of a front-line fighter since I have a base 16 CON (and 16 WIS), and the duplicate lets you get advantage on attack rolls. So Warcaster seems like it'll be more immediately useful since I likely won't have a free hand to cast with otherwise.
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression the holy seal on your shield (which I am still not sure how to add/remove it) allowed you to cast spells. If it didn’t, the answer to this forum’s question would be War Caster for sure.
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression the holy seal on your shield (which I am still not sure how to add/remove it) allowed you to cast spells. If it didn’t, the answer to this forum’s question would be War Caster for sure.
…or am I missing something?
What you're talking about is the "Emblem" type of holy symbol, which can be put on a shield, but that's for material components. You still need a hand free for somatic components if the spell doesn't have material components. (This rule is kind of silly, but it's apparently intentional.) War Caster mitigates that.
Oh. Well, i guess that answers this whole forum. Lol.
Still, I am happy with how the build turned out. It is missing another feat I would have liked that ignores enemy fire resistance, but guiding bolt can be cast at different levels. Although, I suppose something could resist fire and light. I don’t know if it’s worth having on the build or not. I mean, I’ve already done what I thought was impossible and fit in more than I thought I could, but I don’t think I can do that anymore in this case.
Regardless, there’s still an advantage of having both, right?
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression the holy seal on your shield (which I am still not sure how to add/remove it) allowed you to cast spells. If it didn’t, the answer to this forum’s question would be War Caster for sure.
…or am I missing something?
What you're talking about is the "Emblem" type of holy symbol, which can be put on a shield, but that's for material components. You still need a hand free for somatic components if the spell doesn't have material components. (This rule is kind of silly, but it's apparently intentional.) War Caster mitigates that.
That's correct, you can use your Holy Symbol for material components, but not somatic - unless you have War Caster. There are quite a few Cleric spells which I have or want to have which have somatic components but no material ones, which means needing to decide between having a free hand or a weapon in hand.
Since for characters with +3 CON, War Caster is favored over Resilient until level 13, which is an extremely long way away even if I take my level 1 PC all the way there - especially with sessions every two weeks or less, I'll stick with War Caster as a default.
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression the holy seal on your shield (which I am still not sure how to add/remove it) allowed you to cast spells. If it didn’t, the answer to this forum’s question would be War Caster for sure.
…or am I missing something?
What you're talking about is the "Emblem" type of holy symbol, which can be put on a shield, but that's for material components. You still need a hand free for somatic components if the spell doesn't have material components. (This rule is kind of silly, but it's apparently intentional.) War Caster mitigates that.
That's correct, you can use your Holy Symbol for material components, but not somatic - unless you have War Caster. There are quite a few Cleric spells which I have or want to have which have somatic components but no material ones, which means needing to decide between having a free hand or a weapon in hand.
Since for characters with +3 CON, War Caster is favored over Resilient until level 13, which is an extremely long way away even if I take my level 1 PC all the way there - especially with sessions every two weeks or less, I'll stick with War Caster as a default.
In my experience DMs aren't huge sticklers over spells with somatic but not material spell components. Though the end result if your DM is a stickler is that sometimes you may not have your weapon out for the rare opportunity attack. You also wouldn't be able to cast a spell as an opportunity attack like you would with war caster.
I usually build clerics with access to shield or absorb elements and I'd rather have one of those spells for my reaction than take an opportunity attack. In my mind since they're basically the same for concentration at level 9 for a 14 and 16 con the consideration is between whether or not I want to be taking opportunity attacks or whether I want to have constitution save proficiency to resist counterspell and other con saves. I'd rather have the defensive option especially when you consider con saves are some of the most common saves.
I wasn't thinking at all about taking opportunity attacks. And theorycrafting aside, I'm not building an exceptionally optimized cleric, so no Shield or Absorb Elements spells for me. The MI: Wizard spell I took was very niche because it fit his backstory best, and the DM loved that I chose a backstory-fitting spell.
In any case, level 4 is some time away so I have time to change my mind. My stats in WIS and CON are both 16, so there's no benefit from a +1 ASI from a half-feat no matter which one I pick. However, while I do want to take my WIS to 20, I'm not likely to have the space to take CON to 18, and even if the campaign goes to 20, I only have 4 ASI/Feats, so increasing CON to 17 early would mean delaying getting WIS to 20 until level 16 unless I go all in on +2 WIS ASI's, and give up on other potentially useful Feats.
I wasn't thinking at all about taking opportunity attacks. And theorycrafting aside, I'm not building an exceptionally optimized cleric, so no Shield or Absorb Elements spells for me. The MI: Wizard spell I took was very niche because it fit his backstory best, and the DM loved that I chose a backstory-fitting spell.
In any case, level 4 is some time away so I have time to change my mind. My stats in WIS and CON are both 16, so there's no benefit from a +1 ASI from a half-feat no matter which one I pick. However, while I do want to take my WIS to 20, I'm not likely to have the space to take CON to 18, and even if the campaign goes to 20, I only have 4 ASI/Feats, so increasing CON to 17 early would mean delaying getting WIS to 20 no matter how you slice it.
Are you using rolled stats? If so, Interesting…
In your position, I would be tempted to just go asi feats to get both wisdom and constitution up to 20, but actually playing has taught me things definitely change. What should have been an easy asi build for my Barbarian yo the 20’s is now looking like 4 half feats.You could slip in a half feat and boost your stat to 20 with an Epic Boon Feat, but that just depends on how far your campaign is going. Of course Barbarians don’t have to worry about casting spells of having their components full like a melee caster with both hands available should really consider. That’s why my Fighter1/Warlock19 build has War Caster at level 5. It really would be a hood candidate for the Variant Human or Custom race if its’ still allowed at your table with the new rules just because spell and shield starts as early as level 2.
I wasn't thinking at all about taking opportunity attacks. And theorycrafting aside, I'm not building an exceptionally optimized cleric, so no Shield or Absorb Elements spells for me. The MI: Wizard spell I took was very niche because it fit his backstory best, and the DM loved that I chose a backstory-fitting spell.
In any case, level 4 is some time away so I have time to change my mind. My stats in WIS and CON are both 16, so there's no benefit from a +1 ASI from a half-feat no matter which one I pick. However, while I do want to take my WIS to 20, I'm not likely to have the space to take CON to 18, and even if the campaign goes to 20, I only have 4 ASI/Feats, so increasing CON to 17 early would mean delaying getting WIS to 20 no matter how you slice it.
Are you using rolled stats? If so, Interesting…
In your position, I would be tempted to just go asi feats to get both wisdom and constitution up to 20, but actually playing has taught me things definitely change. What should have been an easy asi build for my Barbarian yo the 20’s is now looking like 4 half feats.You could slip in a half feat and boost your stat to 20 with an Epic Boon Feat, but that just depends on how far your campaign is going. Of course Barbarians don’t have to worry about casting spells of having their components full like a melee caster with both hands available should really consider. That’s why my Fighter1/Warlock19 build has War Caster at level 5. It really would be a hood candidate for the Variant Human or Custom race if its’ still allowed at your table with the new rules just because spell and shield starts as early as level 2.
Yes, our DM is using rolled stats - Two sets, reroll if both each total under 72.
I got (9, 13, 12, 15, 15, 16) as my best set, which became (9, 14, 12, 16, 16, 16). Given my PC's backstory and background (con artist (forger), Trickery Domain cleric) I took Charlatan for Skilled and Forgery Kit proficiency, and chose +1 to DEX, CON, and CHA, which I could do because of rolling a 16 for WIS. I'm trying to avoid doing the boring thing of going for +2 ASI's, which I've done before, because Feats are fun.
In any case, there's no benefit at all to spending 2 ASI's to boost CON to 20, because the big bonus from Resilient is adding your proficiency modifier. Just taking CON to 20 only adds +2 to the save at level 16, whereas taking Resilient: CON could do the same as early as level 4, and it would scale up, and I could still take at least two WIS-based feats.
I agree with Stabbey. Resilient CON is helping you much more than raising your CON would, because the proficiency bonus to your saves is much greater than a simple +1. Maxing CON is nice, but only if you have that spare room.
Not knowing your stat spread, I factoring in War Caster & Resilient CON are both solid and could be used to round out odd stats (WIS 17, CON 15), as was suggested. That would allow you to get both feats and your main casting stat (WIS) to 20 by lvl. 12. If you wanted to pump CON to 18, you could do that at 16 and round out a random odd stat at 19 with a Boon or get CON to 20 at 19.
Alternatively, if you wanted to see about feats that look fun/helpful, you could make a little room for their stat boost to fill out your numbers. CON probably max out at 18, but I'm pretty sure many folks would take that tradeoff for feats that boost their gameplay.
What are your stats anyhow - and the method is point buy, yes?
You’re basically thinking how I started to with my Barbarian with rolled stats (16+2, 14, 13+1, 12, 14, 12). I’m starting to wish I did a Paladin like I originally did just because of the good roles, but I wanted something simpler If I had swapped my wisdom and Charisma I could have done that wild Barbarian/Fiend Warlock, but I digress…
As I said, I wanted to keep things simple and honestly thought bigger numbers were the better dead at first, but then I felt like I was missing out. I will say I’m still up in the air about Sentinel vs Con +2 to increase my unarmored defense with a shield I got, but that’s for a different forum.
The point is, I’m starting to see how certain feats on certain builds can be much better than just the raw stat boosts.my friend in the Barbarian campaign is going War caster at 4, resilient con at 8, Elemental adapt fire at 12 Spell Sniper at 16 with Elemental divert at 19 possibly.
My Cleric stats are point based (15, 8, 15+1, 8, 15+2, 8)
It’s current feats are War Caster (Wis), +2 Wis, Resilient (Con), Con +2, and Boon of Dimensional Travel (Con).
You’re basically thinking how I started to with my Barbarian with rolled stats (16+2, 14, 13+1, 12, 14, 12). I’m starting to wish I did a Paladin like I originally did just because of the good roles, but I wanted something simpler If I had swapped my wisdom and Charisma I could have done that wild Barbarian/Fiend Warlock, but I digress…
As I said, I wanted to keep things simple and honestly thought bigger numbers were the better dead at first, but then I felt like I was missing out. I will say I’m still up in the air about Sentinel vs Con +2 to increase my unarmored defense with a shield I got, but that’s for a different forum.
The point is, I’m starting to see how certain feats on certain builds can be much better than just the raw stat boosts.my friend in the Barbarian campaign is going War caster at 4, resilient con at 8, Elemental adapt fire at 12 Spell Sniper at 16 with Elemental divert at 19 possibly.
My Cleric stats are point based (15, 8, 15+1, 8, 15+2, 8)
It’s current feats are War Caster (Wis), +2 Wis, Resilient (Con), Con +2, and Boon of Dimensional Travel (Con).
I mean yeah that looks solid to me. Some classes need lots of feats to shine, others just need to continue doing what they do well. For Cleric, a lot of potency comes from concentration spells, so protecting that is the main priority. And you've done that, while advancing your top 2 stats.
Others may take Spell Sniper for better range & accuracy for attack spells, or Telekentic to use your bonus action to move stuff, or Elemental Adept for more damage, etc. But sounds like you've made a sturdy Cleric, and that is something I would think feels good to play. 👍
Thank you friend(s), that means a lot to read. The game has definitely brought a lot of friends into my life, so I try to learn and do what I can with it.
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I kind of implied it above, but my build maxes out wisdom for spells, constitution for health and strength for heavy armor at 15. There really isn’t room for anything else unless I don’t max out wisdom and constitution at 20 or skip my epic boon (which seems like a bad idea, but I was having a similar debate on a rolled stats character I “messed up” on by taking a feat instead of sticking to ASI. Long story, but I can either get i lnto it here or PM it if interested, or you can just find the post under Barbarians.)
The point is I can either go 15+2 in wisdom for war caster or in constitution for resilient to round it out. The other would just get rounded ASI stats.
…I just realized something!
The epic boon feats give a single point, so I could potentially get both to 20 that way! I’ll have to get back to you all once I’ve tried it for myself. Thanks!
edit: got it! I sacrificed the extra point from the epic boon feats give in a way, but that could be partially what they are there for anyway since it takes two to raise a stat.
www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/Actionsparda_149413553.pdf
Figured I would include the character for those who are curious, but like was just suggested to me i took war caster first and then maximized my wisdom followed by resilient constitution and a +2 in the same category. Finally I used my epic boon feats to get one more point in Con, rounding it up.
This is an interesting debate. I'm about to play a Cleric (Trickery domain) for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, but possibly continuing into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage afterwards. I was thinking of being more of a front-line fighter since I have a base 16 CON (and 16 WIS), and the duplicate lets you get advantage on attack rolls. So Warcaster seems like it'll be more immediately useful since I likely won't have a free hand to cast with otherwise.
I could be wrong, but I was under the impression the holy seal on your shield (which I am still not sure how to add/remove it) allowed you to cast spells. If it didn’t, the answer to this forum’s question would be War Caster for sure.
…or am I missing something?
What you're talking about is the "Emblem" type of holy symbol, which can be put on a shield, but that's for material components. You still need a hand free for somatic components if the spell doesn't have material components. (This rule is kind of silly, but it's apparently intentional.) War Caster mitigates that.
pronouns: he/she/they
Oh. Well, i guess that answers this whole forum. Lol.
Still, I am happy with how the build turned out. It is missing another feat I would have liked that ignores enemy fire resistance, but guiding bolt can be cast at different levels. Although, I suppose something could resist fire and light. I don’t know if it’s worth having on the build or not. I mean, I’ve already done what I thought was impossible and fit in more than I thought I could, but I don’t think I can do that anymore in this case.
Regardless, there’s still an advantage of having both, right?
That's correct, you can use your Holy Symbol for material components, but not somatic - unless you have War Caster. There are quite a few Cleric spells which I have or want to have which have somatic components but no material ones, which means needing to decide between having a free hand or a weapon in hand.
Since for characters with +3 CON, War Caster is favored over Resilient until level 13, which is an extremely long way away even if I take my level 1 PC all the way there - especially with sessions every two weeks or less, I'll stick with War Caster as a default.
In my experience DMs aren't huge sticklers over spells with somatic but not material spell components. Though the end result if your DM is a stickler is that sometimes you may not have your weapon out for the rare opportunity attack. You also wouldn't be able to cast a spell as an opportunity attack like you would with war caster.
I usually build clerics with access to shield or absorb elements and I'd rather have one of those spells for my reaction than take an opportunity attack. In my mind since they're basically the same for concentration at level 9 for a 14 and 16 con the consideration is between whether or not I want to be taking opportunity attacks or whether I want to have constitution save proficiency to resist counterspell and other con saves. I'd rather have the defensive option especially when you consider con saves are some of the most common saves.
I wasn't thinking at all about taking opportunity attacks. And theorycrafting aside, I'm not building an exceptionally optimized cleric, so no Shield or Absorb Elements spells for me. The MI: Wizard spell I took was very niche because it fit his backstory best, and the DM loved that I chose a backstory-fitting spell.
In any case, level 4 is some time away so I have time to change my mind. My stats in WIS and CON are both 16, so there's no benefit from a +1 ASI from a half-feat no matter which one I pick. However, while I do want to take my WIS to 20, I'm not likely to have the space to take CON to 18, and even if the campaign goes to 20, I only have 4 ASI/Feats, so increasing CON to 17 early would mean delaying getting WIS to 20 until level 16 unless I go all in on +2 WIS ASI's, and give up on other potentially useful Feats.
Are you using rolled stats? If so, Interesting…
In your position, I would be tempted to just go asi feats to get both wisdom and constitution up to 20, but actually playing has taught me things definitely change. What should have been an easy asi build for my Barbarian yo the 20’s is now looking like 4 half feats.You could slip in a half feat and boost your stat to 20 with an Epic Boon Feat, but that just depends on how far your campaign is going. Of course Barbarians don’t have to worry about casting spells of having their components full like a melee caster with both hands available should really consider. That’s why my Fighter1/Warlock19 build has War Caster at level 5. It really would be a hood candidate for the Variant Human or Custom race if its’ still allowed at your table with the new rules just because spell and shield starts as early as level 2.
Yes, our DM is using rolled stats - Two sets, reroll if both each total under 72.
I got (9, 13, 12, 15, 15, 16) as my best set, which became (9, 14, 12, 16, 16, 16). Given my PC's backstory and background (con artist (forger), Trickery Domain cleric) I took Charlatan for Skilled and Forgery Kit proficiency, and chose +1 to DEX, CON, and CHA, which I could do because of rolling a 16 for WIS. I'm trying to avoid doing the boring thing of going for +2 ASI's, which I've done before, because Feats are fun.
In any case, there's no benefit at all to spending 2 ASI's to boost CON to 20, because the big bonus from Resilient is adding your proficiency modifier. Just taking CON to 20 only adds +2 to the save at level 16, whereas taking Resilient: CON could do the same as early as level 4, and it would scale up, and I could still take at least two WIS-based feats.
I agree with Stabbey. Resilient CON is helping you much more than raising your CON would, because the proficiency bonus to your saves is much greater than a simple +1. Maxing CON is nice, but only if you have that spare room.
Not knowing your stat spread, I factoring in War Caster & Resilient CON are both solid and could be used to round out odd stats (WIS 17, CON 15), as was suggested. That would allow you to get both feats and your main casting stat (WIS) to 20 by lvl. 12. If you wanted to pump CON to 18, you could do that at 16 and round out a random odd stat at 19 with a Boon or get CON to 20 at 19.
Alternatively, if you wanted to see about feats that look fun/helpful, you could make a little room for their stat boost to fill out your numbers. CON probably max out at 18, but I'm pretty sure many folks would take that tradeoff for feats that boost their gameplay.
What are your stats anyhow - and the method is point buy, yes?
You’re basically thinking how I started to with my Barbarian with rolled stats (16+2, 14, 13+1, 12, 14, 12). I’m starting to wish I did a Paladin like I originally did just because of the good roles, but I wanted something simpler If I had swapped my wisdom and Charisma I could have done that wild Barbarian/Fiend Warlock, but I digress…
As I said, I wanted to keep things simple and honestly thought bigger numbers were the better dead at first, but then I felt like I was missing out. I will say I’m still up in the air about Sentinel vs Con +2 to increase my unarmored defense with a shield I got, but that’s for a different forum.
The point is, I’m starting to see how certain feats on certain builds can be much better than just the raw stat boosts.my friend in the Barbarian campaign is going War caster at 4, resilient con at 8, Elemental adapt fire at 12 Spell Sniper at 16 with Elemental divert at 19 possibly.
My Cleric stats are point based (15, 8, 15+1, 8, 15+2, 8)
It’s current feats are War Caster (Wis), +2 Wis, Resilient (Con), Con +2, and Boon of Dimensional Travel (Con).
I mean yeah that looks solid to me. Some classes need lots of feats to shine, others just need to continue doing what they do well. For Cleric, a lot of potency comes from concentration spells, so protecting that is the main priority. And you've done that, while advancing your top 2 stats.
Others may take Spell Sniper for better range & accuracy for attack spells, or Telekentic to use your bonus action to move stuff, or Elemental Adept for more damage, etc. But sounds like you've made a sturdy Cleric, and that is something I would think feels good to play. 👍
Thank you friend(s), that means a lot to read. The game has definitely brought a lot of friends into my life, so I try to learn and do what I can with it.