Hi, I’m starting a new campaign soon where I’m interested in playing a cleric for the first time. I was looking at the domains and settled on knowledge since our party of 5 already has two good front liners (moon Druid and a barbarian) and I wanted to take more of a support role. I rolled for stats getting an array of 18, 12, 10, 14, 15, 8.
I’d love some advise on races, feats and how to get the most bang for my buck out of the knowledge domain. I would also love to hear the experiences others had with playing knowledge domain clerics.
I haven't played one but I feel like githzerai fit the aesthetic really well plus you get a +2 wisdom and some good racial spells. I think taking magic initiate for shillelagh and maybe thorn whip could be pretty good and I think the knowledge domain lends itself well to being an investigator type background.
I find race is mostly flavouring and there are a lot of good choices, you might also want to match your pick with a specific background. As for a build I would recommend using Int as a secondary stat and pursuing skills like nature arcana medicine history and religion. your feats could synergize with those skills perhaps [feat]observant[/feat], [feat]dungeon delver[/feat],[feat]skilled[/feat], [feat]healer[/feat] etc.
the idea being your character uses skill checks to augment and support the party's adventures, hopefully giving your peeps an advantage before they even get into a combat... maybe even avoiding a fight altogether.
I am currently playing a Knowledge cleric with a few levels of wizard. My original concept was to be a 'skill monkey' but in hindsight the bard does that much better. If I were to redo things I would have taken a few levels of bard instead of wizard.
I don't know that I would recommend the knowledge domain. It's ok but I have only used the Knowledge of the Ages ability a handful of times. The duration is not long enough to be very useful and even using it for stealth can be problematic if you wear armor and I get so many skills that I am already skilled in most of what I need. The 6th level ability is a little better but again very situational. My DM is kind of a dick about what opponents are thinking in their surface thoughts and the suggestion part basically takes two actions on top of a channel divinity. I have never used the Potent Spellcasting. Once you get to 8th level cleric you usually have better things to do than to cast a cantrip. The domain spells can be useful and I have been glad to have them on occasion but they are more spells that happen outside of combat. In summary, the knowledge domain is very situational and often more useful out of combat and I would recommend a splash of Lore Bard (possibly up to 6 levels) with it.
As for race...any race works for a cleric. Best if they have a WIS bonus. Human worked fine for me. I took skilled but prodigy has quite a bit of appeal. Half Elf might be good too since they get a few extra skills.
Hi, I’m starting a new campaign soon where I’m interested in playing a cleric for the first time. I was looking at the domains and settled on knowledge since our party of 5 already has two good front liners (moon Druid and a barbarian) and I wanted to take more of a support role. I rolled for stats getting an array of 18, 12, 10, 14, 15, 8.
I’d love some advise on races, feats and how to get the most bang for my buck out of the knowledge domain. I would also love to hear the experiences others had with playing knowledge domain clerics.
I haven't played one but I feel like githzerai fit the aesthetic really well plus you get a +2 wisdom and some good racial spells. I think taking magic initiate for shillelagh and maybe thorn whip could be pretty good and I think the knowledge domain lends itself well to being an investigator type background.
I find race is mostly flavouring and there are a lot of good choices, you might also want to match your pick with a specific background. As for a build I would recommend using Int as a secondary stat and pursuing skills like nature arcana medicine history and religion. your feats could synergize with those skills perhaps [feat]observant[/feat], [feat]dungeon delver[/feat],[feat]skilled[/feat], [feat]healer[/feat] etc.
the idea being your character uses skill checks to augment and support the party's adventures, hopefully giving your peeps an advantage before they even get into a combat... maybe even avoiding a fight altogether.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
I am currently playing a Knowledge cleric with a few levels of wizard. My original concept was to be a 'skill monkey' but in hindsight the bard does that much better. If I were to redo things I would have taken a few levels of bard instead of wizard.
I don't know that I would recommend the knowledge domain. It's ok but I have only used the Knowledge of the Ages ability a handful of times. The duration is not long enough to be very useful and even using it for stealth can be problematic if you wear armor and I get so many skills that I am already skilled in most of what I need. The 6th level ability is a little better but again very situational. My DM is kind of a dick about what opponents are thinking in their surface thoughts and the suggestion part basically takes two actions on top of a channel divinity. I have never used the Potent Spellcasting. Once you get to 8th level cleric you usually have better things to do than to cast a cantrip. The domain spells can be useful and I have been glad to have them on occasion but they are more spells that happen outside of combat. In summary, the knowledge domain is very situational and often more useful out of combat and I would recommend a splash of Lore Bard (possibly up to 6 levels) with it.
As for race...any race works for a cleric. Best if they have a WIS bonus. Human worked fine for me. I took skilled but prodigy has quite a bit of appeal. Half Elf might be good too since they get a few extra skills.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
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