I am struggling to make a choice and would appreciate some opinions here.
I want to play as a front line healer for our party. Wizard, fighter who plays as a striker, face bard (no healing) and swashbuckler rogue.
Forge has some pretty slick domain spells and front line tricks but my concern is that I will get into gameplay and end up guarding those spell slots and save them for any upcoming heals that may be needed and then end up missing the heal benefits from just choosing life to begin with.
Forge is slightly tankier than life, plus some fun utility abilities. Likes armor... A lot. Half its features stop working if you arent wearing heavy armor.
Life cleric is the cleric-est cleric. It can't do anything a different cleric can't do, but it can do them more. It has all the go-to cleric spells as domain spells, so you can add a lot of variance in your spell list over other clerics. Unfortunately the cleric spell list is kind of sparse, and you already have the best spells as domain spells, so tough choices.
A life Cleric definitely the best healer the forge class sacrifices some of the healing ability for other things. dx said part of that is tankiness, but there are other options as well. While it is the normal for a forge cleric to use blessing of the forge on their own armor you can bless the fighters armor or weapon instead. Artisan's blessing can come in very handy to make things if you are running low on ammunition you can make more, if you DM like to weigh you down by saying you find 60 silver pieces and 400 copper pieces you can really annoy him by turning it to 1 platinum piece.
Assuming that this is purely about strategy and doesn't involve RP considerations, I would first ask the Wizard player which sub-class s/he is choosing. Also, is anybody picking up a Healer's Kit? Finally, a question for your DM: How rare are magic weapons likely to be?
I would encourage you not to let the stat blocks guide your decision, but rather to let your character's background guide you.
Why did your player become a cleric? HOW did they become a cleric? Did their deity assign them any specific mission, or give them any specific instructions?
Both Forge and Life are great front line soldier-type clerics. The deciding factor is not in the stat blocks, it's in the style of how you want to play the character.
Just my two cents. I'm big into backstory development.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Great feedback from all thank you. I avoided putting backstory choices in here because I am a huge backstory person myself and when you consider my backstory it makes my entire question silly...
I am a dwarf who was raised as a small child by a dwarven Smith who does work for the order of the gilded eye. My life was all about smithing until something from my past that I didn't know about appeared and I left the order to follow that past.
I am struggling to make a choice and would appreciate some opinions here.
I want to play as a front line healer for our party. Wizard, fighter who plays as a striker, face bard (no healing) and swashbuckler rogue.
Forge has some pretty slick domain spells and front line tricks but my concern is that I will get into gameplay and end up guarding those spell slots and save them for any upcoming heals that may be needed and then end up missing the heal benefits from just choosing life to begin with.
This is actually one of the main reasons that I recommend the Life domain. The domain spell list covers all the core spells that you'd want to prepare anyway, so that frees you up to prepare the spells you want with a broader range of possibilities. The healing bonuses also help you with managing your actual spell slots in gameplay. You can basically get the output of casting a healing spell at one spell slot level higher than normal, so those moments when you do want/need to heal are done at maximum efficiency.
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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.
You can absolutely be a tanky bastard as a Forge Cleric. Shield and heavy armor makes you pretty hard to hit. If your fighter is more of a striker, then you might be well suited to be up in melee doing the do.
Also keep in mind that dealing damage to something is often more efficient than healing. For example, if you hit the enemy and kill it, it won't attack your party anymore and you have no need to heal. Also, level one spell slots deal several dice worth of damage, while your heal spell only does one di worth of damage.
I really think 5e has done a really good job making clerics and healing in general fun. No longer are you just a healbot. You have a ton of useful spells and abilities that are pretty great! You can prevent damage, tank, deal good damage, and heal when the situation calls for that too.
Forge domain can be extremely tanky. At level 8, my table's dwarf forge cleric walks around with 22AC in nonmagical full plate and a shield. The party found a cursed shield of missile attraction and he turned it to his advantage, wearing it and drawing ranged attacks to him where they rarely hit and even when they do, he has the full range of cleric healing powers at his disposal. I'm not saying he's a perfect tank or even that he is game-breaking, but he found an unconventional role for himself in a party that has several hard hitters but no true tanks. I would say he qualifies as a true tank.
is that 22 AC with one level of fighter for the defense fighting style followed by seven levels of cleric or is that 22 AC with eight levels of cleric and you using blessing of the forge on your armor, because in that case you are technically using +1 magic armor that is granted to you by a feature
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
The 8th level cleric in my example is full cleric. We can split hairs over whether a feature makes the armor become magical, but since Blessing of the Forge can only be performed on non-magical armor to begin with, I stand by my point.
18AC from plate mail
+2 AC for the shield
+1 AC for Soul of the Forge
+1 AC for Blessing of the Forge
I'm not saying a life cleric is an inferior choice--just that a forge cleric can be very tanky when one plays to the strengths of the build.
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.
So I'm really late to this discussion but I do have some insight. I have played Forge and let me tell you, for my play style, it was a blast. I've also played with a Life and he no doubt kept my character alive. It really depends on how you ENJOY playing. Both are good tanks, my friend's Life went toe to toe with strahd and my Forge survived like a dozen kobolds at lv3. If you prefer fighting and healing is just for when someone goes unconscious, go with Forge. If you like to make sure everyone sees every fight at +50% hp, Life. One last tidbit, I found Forge to be quite good for RPing; being a smith as a class means lots of opportunities for interaction.
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I am struggling to make a choice and would appreciate some opinions here.
I want to play as a front line healer for our party. Wizard, fighter who plays as a striker, face bard (no healing) and swashbuckler rogue.
Forge has some pretty slick domain spells and front line tricks but my concern is that I will get into gameplay and end up guarding those spell slots and save them for any upcoming heals that may be needed and then end up missing the heal benefits from just choosing life to begin with.
Forge is slightly tankier than life, plus some fun utility abilities. Likes armor... A lot. Half its features stop working if you arent wearing heavy armor.
Life cleric is the cleric-est cleric. It can't do anything a different cleric can't do, but it can do them more. It has all the go-to cleric spells as domain spells, so you can add a lot of variance in your spell list over other clerics. Unfortunately the cleric spell list is kind of sparse, and you already have the best spells as domain spells, so tough choices.
Anyway, slightly tankier or slightly healier.
A life Cleric definitely the best healer the forge class sacrifices some of the healing ability for other things. dx said part of that is tankiness, but there are other options as well. While it is the normal for a forge cleric to use blessing of the forge on their own armor you can bless the fighters armor or weapon instead. Artisan's blessing can come in very handy to make things if you are running low on ammunition you can make more, if you DM like to weigh you down by saying you find 60 silver pieces and 400 copper pieces you can really annoy him by turning it to 1 platinum piece.
Assuming that this is purely about strategy and doesn't involve RP considerations, I would first ask the Wizard player which sub-class s/he is choosing. Also, is anybody picking up a Healer's Kit? Finally, a question for your DM: How rare are magic weapons likely to be?
I would encourage you not to let the stat blocks guide your decision, but rather to let your character's background guide you.
Why did your player become a cleric? HOW did they become a cleric? Did their deity assign them any specific mission, or give them any specific instructions?
Both Forge and Life are great front line soldier-type clerics. The deciding factor is not in the stat blocks, it's in the style of how you want to play the character.
Just my two cents. I'm big into backstory development.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
Great feedback from all thank you. I avoided putting backstory choices in here because I am a huge backstory person myself and when you consider my backstory it makes my entire question silly...
I am a dwarf who was raised as a small child by a dwarven Smith who does work for the order of the gilded eye. My life was all about smithing until something from my past that I didn't know about appeared and I left the order to follow that past.
So yeah... Slam dunk forge cleric really.
This is actually one of the main reasons that I recommend the Life domain. The domain spell list covers all the core spells that you'd want to prepare anyway, so that frees you up to prepare the spells you want with a broader range of possibilities. The healing bonuses also help you with managing your actual spell slots in gameplay. You can basically get the output of casting a healing spell at one spell slot level higher than normal, so those moments when you do want/need to heal are done at maximum efficiency.
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.
You can absolutely be a tanky bastard as a Forge Cleric. Shield and heavy armor makes you pretty hard to hit. If your fighter is more of a striker, then you might be well suited to be up in melee doing the do.
Also keep in mind that dealing damage to something is often more efficient than healing. For example, if you hit the enemy and kill it, it won't attack your party anymore and you have no need to heal. Also, level one spell slots deal several dice worth of damage, while your heal spell only does one di worth of damage.
I really think 5e has done a really good job making clerics and healing in general fun. No longer are you just a healbot. You have a ton of useful spells and abilities that are pretty great! You can prevent damage, tank, deal good damage, and heal when the situation calls for that too.
Don't forget grave domain as a healing domain.. where life is a great healing spec, grave is good at preventing death
Forge domain can be extremely tanky. At level 8, my table's dwarf forge cleric walks around with 22AC in nonmagical full plate and a shield. The party found a cursed shield of missile attraction and he turned it to his advantage, wearing it and drawing ranged attacks to him where they rarely hit and even when they do, he has the full range of cleric healing powers at his disposal. I'm not saying he's a perfect tank or even that he is game-breaking, but he found an unconventional role for himself in a party that has several hard hitters but no true tanks. I would say he qualifies as a true tank.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
you still gain heavy armor proficiency and shield proficiency as an life cleric, just sayin
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
is that 22 AC with one level of fighter for the defense fighting style followed by seven levels of cleric or is that 22 AC with eight levels of cleric and you using blessing of the forge on your armor, because in that case you are technically using +1 magic armor that is granted to you by a feature
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
The 8th level cleric in my example is full cleric. We can split hairs over whether a feature makes the armor become magical, but since Blessing of the Forge can only be performed on non-magical armor to begin with, I stand by my point.
I'm not saying a life cleric is an inferior choice--just that a forge cleric can be very tanky when one plays to the strengths of the build.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I think the only domain that definitively sucks is Trickery, and the UA Twilight Domain is OP (by Cleric standards) AF.
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.
Add Shield of Faith and get Magic Initiate for the Shield and you have a whopping 29 AC
oh nice go for shield with magic initiatie so you can gain an mighty +5 to AC for one round... once per long rest... that sounds extremely suboptimal
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
So I'm really late to this discussion but I do have some insight. I have played Forge and let me tell you, for my play style, it was a blast. I've also played with a Life and he no doubt kept my character alive. It really depends on how you ENJOY playing. Both are good tanks, my friend's Life went toe to toe with strahd and my Forge survived like a dozen kobolds at lv3. If you prefer fighting and healing is just for when someone goes unconscious, go with Forge. If you like to make sure everyone sees every fight at +50% hp, Life. One last tidbit, I found Forge to be quite good for RPing; being a smith as a class means lots of opportunities for interaction.