I was just trying to show that divine strike is a good option compared to cantrips, not which one was best option. What is the best option depends on the cleric, the enemies, how close your allies are, if your running away or not, etc.
I always round up the final score, it just looks nicer to compare whole numbers and is .5 damage that huge.
The 0.5 damage is entirely for accuracy. If you average a fireball with rounding up, you would expect 40 damage, when in reality you are more likely to see around 36 damage. It is generally fine when you are calculating a single attack, or if the damage effect doesnt have a large number of damage dice, but the more damage you are calculating the more it skews the result.
For instance, a half orc fighter with a flametongue greatsword and holy weapon hitting a paralyzed target will produce a LOT of damage dice, and calculating it with rounding will probably raise your expected average by a significant amount. 9d6+4d8 damage die per swing, throw in action surge and gwm, and you get 71 damage a swing, totaling 639 damage in the round on average with rounding up. Without rounding up you expect 64.5 damage a swing, for 580.5 in the round. That is a discrepancy of 60 damage in the average.
Obviously this is an extreme example, but it does illustrate why the 0.5 is more accurate.
I think WOTC agrees with you, in the Unearthed Arcana there's a 6th level spell called [Tooltip Not Found] that allows characters to become an extra attacking avatar of their god. That probably incentivizes melee centered builds to not multi-class.
Divine Strike is perfectly valid with Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade.
For example, on a level 20 Life Cleric with 16 STR and 20 WIS: 1d6(Mace)+3(STR)+2d8(Divine Strike)+3d8(BB/GFB)≈29 1d6(Mace)+3(STR)+2d8(Divine Strike)+3d8(BB)+4d8(BB)≈47
The 0.5 damage is entirely for accuracy. If you average a fireball with rounding up, you would expect 40 damage, when in reality you are more likely to see around 36 damage. It is generally fine when you are calculating a single attack, or if the damage effect doesnt have a large number of damage dice, but the more damage you are calculating the more it skews the result.
For instance, a half orc fighter with a flametongue greatsword and holy weapon hitting a paralyzed target will produce a LOT of damage dice, and calculating it with rounding will probably raise your expected average by a significant amount. 9d6+4d8 damage die per swing, throw in action surge and gwm, and you get 71 damage a swing, totaling 639 damage in the round on average with rounding up. Without rounding up you expect 64.5 damage a swing, for 580.5 in the round. That is a discrepancy of 60 damage in the average.
Obviously this is an extreme example, but it does illustrate why the 0.5 is more accurate.
Your example is inaccurate, because that's not how he did his math. He did the rounding at the very end of his calculations, rather than at the beginning. He said that 3D8+3 was 17, not 18. If you're going to criticize someone else's math for being inaccurate, you really should make sure that your mathematics is accurate.
It would be nice if Clerics had a nice damage cantrip with an attack roll. But it was intentional that they weren't given this option. That's why my Tempest Cleric multiclassed as a Sorcerer to get the very thematic attack cantrips of Booming Blade, Shocking Grasp, and Ray of Frost. Dealing Thunder, Lightning, and Cold damage is extremely thematic for a Tempest Cleric, and it lets me overcome the really weak cantrip options that a Cleric is given.
I have a level 1 tempest cleric in a campaign right now, and I'm debating doing this. Wisdom is currently 18. I'm wondering what to do with my level 4 ASI and/or to multiclass (at level 5)
Option 1) Straight cleric, ASI into wisdom boost, don't worry about melee as much Option 2) Magic initiate, wizard for BB, GFB, and shield or find familiar Option 3) ASI to Wisdom (hitting twenty), MC into Sorc (or wizard or warlock) for attack cantrips and class goodies.
I feel that option 3, multiclassing just to make melee a bit more damaging, feels like overkill. Those third level spells are kind of great. OTOH, using a feat for the ASI gimps wisdom (Attacks, saves, prepared spell.)
I just don't know yet.
If you're content to get just one attack cantrip, the Spell Sniper feat is great. It doubles the range on Spiritual Weapon, and it will double the range on whatever attack cantrip you choose. If you choose Booming Blade you can use a reach weapon and get a 10ft range on your attacks. My Tempest Cleric is dexterity based and uses a shield in combination with a whip and has the spell sniper feat (which she used to get Thorn Whip). Thorn Whip uses Wisdom for the attack roll, and it can be used to pull enemies into your Spirit Guardians aura causing them to take the Spirit Guardians damage on your turn. Using Booming Blade with a whip is very thematic, and because of the spell sniper feat I can do it with a 10ft range.
Getting Shocking Grasp gives you an at will way to trigger the Tempest Cleric level 6 ability to knock enemies back 10ft when they deal lightning damage. And Ray of Frost has 120ft range for me because of the spell sniper feat. So all of my attack cantrips have different uses, which makes the game a lot more fun than just "i attack with my weapon" or "i attack with my one attack cantrip" each round during combat.
But of my four attack cantrips, two use Charisma (Shocking Grasp and Ray of Frost), one uses Wisdom (Thorn Whip), and one uses Dexterity (Booming Blade). So it's a very MAD strategy. I prefer to use Booming Blade because I can add my Dexterity modifier to the damage when I use this cantrip, whereas my other attack cantrips only use the sum of the dice rolls. That very high floor of damage on weapon attacks is a great thing about weapon attacks, especially in tier 1, but it's still useful in tier 2 as well. When I attack with Shocking Grasp, Ray of Frost, or Thorn Whip, there's a chance I could roll two 1s for my damage and deal just 2 points of damage. With Booming Blade, I'm guaranteed at least 5 damage if I roll two 1s for my damage, and an additional 2 points of damage minimum if the target moves. I really appreciate the higher damage floor, and that's why Booming Blade is my primary attack to cause damage, and the other cantrips are used situationally.
The situational use of using Thorn Whip to pull someone into the Spirit Guardians aura is a pretty awesome use. The Spirit Guardians aura is a Wisdom save, and enemies have a higher chance of succeeding a Wisdom Saving throw than I do of rolling too low on my attack roll. At least with Spirit Guardians, they still take half damage on a successful save. On cantrips, they would take no damage on a successful save (and they would take no damage on a missed attack, but missed attacks just don't happen as often as successful Wisdom saves).
The extra effect of triggering Spirit Guardians makes Thorn Whip an excellent choice for a Cleric that is taking an attack cantrip from another class. Even better, it uses your Wisdom for the attack roll, and not Intelligence or Charisma like some other cantrips. Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade will use your strength or dexterity for the attack roll, so they're also probably better options than Shocking Grasp, Ray of Frost, or other cantrips found on the Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard spell lists. Thorn Whip (when used to pull somebody into your Spirit Guardians aura), Booming Blade, and Green Flame Blade all have a very high damage floor because Thorn Whip would add half of 3D8 on top of your XD6 damage, and Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade allow you to add your Dexterity or Strength to the damage roll, as well as allowing you to add Divine Strike damage to the attack. Green Flame Blade also allows you to add your Charisma or Intelligence modifier as fire damage to an enemy adjacent to your primary target, so it's got that situational additional high floor of damage dealt.
I know I'm not alone in placing a high value on having a high floor for damage, as well as placing a high value on using an attack roll instead of forcing the enemy to do a saving throw. These two things are very important to me. One of my characters from a previous campaign was a Trickery Cleric that used Toll the Dead as his attack, and it was pretty frustrating to have only one attack option, and for that option to be forcing the enemy to do a Wisdom Saving throw, and for rolling low on the damage to happen a reasonable amount of the time, with no modifiers to add to the damage.
It should be mentioned that Artificers have access to Thorn Whip now as well. Therefore it is possible for someone to have it trigger off of intelligence if that is their source. But from multiclass (Druid) or Magic Initiate/Spell Sniper/etc. (Druid), having it key off of Wisdom is nice for a Cleric. That's an interesting option for a Cleric and a trick that Nature Clerics and Arcana Clerics (via Lightning Lure) could duplicate without feat or multiclass. Thorn Whip has superior range and the attack roll and deals damage then pulls. Lightning Lure has half the range and forces a strength save. It only deals damage if the target is pulled within 5 ft of the caster but it is a superior damage die. Due to the limited range and being able to pull the creature up to 10 ft towards you, it's likely that the damage will be achievable off of Lightning Lure if you want it, but the creature is also likely to already be in the Spirit Guardians Aura and becomes more of a means to try to keep the creature there. It is also only a V component whereas Thorn Whip is VSM, for the instances where that might matter (likely few for a Cleric).
Lightning Lure is an interesting one for a Tempest Cleric because once you reach level 6, you can pull them towards you and then push them away again. But I don't like Lightning Lure because my previous experience as a Cleric whose only damaging cantrip was Toll the Dead wasn't much fun. I would rather do an attack roll than have enemies do a saving throw. Unfortunately, as a Cleric, that means multi-classing, taking a feat, or just using a physical weapon. Or choosing all three options like my Tempest Cleric did. If you're not as averse as I am to making enemies do saving throws, Lightning Lure is a solid choice.
I do really like how Lightning Lure is thematic for a Tempest Cleric. I really try to make sure that my spell selection and abilities make sense thematically. A Forge Cleric with Green Flame Blade would also be a very thematic choice. I think it's a lot more fun to play a character when the abilities aren't just mechanically powerful, but also fit in thematically.
Lightning Lure is an interesting one for a Tempest Cleric because once you reach level 6, you can pull them towards you and then push them away again. But I don't like Lightning Lure because my previous experience as a Cleric whose only damaging cantrip was Toll the Dead wasn't much fun. I would rather do an attack roll than have enemies do a saving throw. Unfortunately, as a Cleric, that means multi-classing, taking a feat, or just using a physical weapon. Or choosing all three options like my Tempest Cleric did. If you're not as averse as I am to making enemies do saving throws, Lightning Lure is a solid choice.
I do really like how Lightning Lure is thematic for a Tempest Cleric. I really try to make sure that my spell selection and abilities make sense thematically. A Forge Cleric with Green Flame Blade would also be a very thematic choice. I think it's a lot more fun to play a character when the abilities aren't just mechanically powerful, but also fit in thematically.
There are certainly benefits to each of Thorn Whip and Lightning Lure. Thorn Whip gives up damage to make an attack roll and at a greater range, which synergizes better with Spirit Guardians since it can pull creatures in as well as help keep them in. I do think that it's interesting that Thorn Whip explicitly limits creatures that can get pulled to Large creatures while Lightning Lure relies on the strength save to keep that limit "in place". For the most part, each spell will work fully on the same subset of creatures, but there are some higher strength creatures with lower AC and some high AC creatures with low strength that will resist one of the attacks more frequently than the other.
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I was just trying to show that divine strike is a good option compared to cantrips, not which one was best option. What is the best option depends on the cleric, the enemies, how close your allies are, if your running away or not, etc.
I always round up the final score, it just looks nicer to compare whole numbers and is .5 damage that huge.
Fair.
The 0.5 damage is entirely for accuracy. If you average a fireball with rounding up, you would expect 40 damage, when in reality you are more likely to see around 36 damage. It is generally fine when you are calculating a single attack, or if the damage effect doesnt have a large number of damage dice, but the more damage you are calculating the more it skews the result.
For instance, a half orc fighter with a flametongue greatsword and holy weapon hitting a paralyzed target will produce a LOT of damage dice, and calculating it with rounding will probably raise your expected average by a significant amount. 9d6+4d8 damage die per swing, throw in action surge and gwm, and you get 71 damage a swing, totaling 639 damage in the round on average with rounding up. Without rounding up you expect 64.5 damage a swing, for 580.5 in the round. That is a discrepancy of 60 damage in the average.
Obviously this is an extreme example, but it does illustrate why the 0.5 is more accurate.
I think WOTC agrees with you, in the Unearthed Arcana there's a 6th level spell called [Tooltip Not Found] that allows characters to become an extra attacking avatar of their god. That probably incentivizes melee centered builds to not multi-class.
Divine Strike is perfectly valid with Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade.
For example, on a level 20 Life Cleric with 16 STR and 20 WIS:
1d6(Mace)+3(STR)+2d8(Divine Strike)+3d8(BB/GFB)≈29
1d6(Mace)+3(STR)+2d8(Divine Strike)+3d8(BB)+4d8(BB)≈47
Your example is inaccurate, because that's not how he did his math. He did the rounding at the very end of his calculations, rather than at the beginning. He said that 3D8+3 was 17, not 18. If you're going to criticize someone else's math for being inaccurate, you really should make sure that your mathematics is accurate.
It should be mentioned that Artificers have access to Thorn Whip now as well. Therefore it is possible for someone to have it trigger off of intelligence if that is their source. But from multiclass (Druid) or Magic Initiate/Spell Sniper/etc. (Druid), having it key off of Wisdom is nice for a Cleric. That's an interesting option for a Cleric and a trick that Nature Clerics and Arcana Clerics (via Lightning Lure) could duplicate without feat or multiclass. Thorn Whip has superior range and the attack roll and deals damage then pulls. Lightning Lure has half the range and forces a strength save. It only deals damage if the target is pulled within 5 ft of the caster but it is a superior damage die. Due to the limited range and being able to pull the creature up to 10 ft towards you, it's likely that the damage will be achievable off of Lightning Lure if you want it, but the creature is also likely to already be in the Spirit Guardians Aura and becomes more of a means to try to keep the creature there. It is also only a V component whereas Thorn Whip is VSM, for the instances where that might matter (likely few for a Cleric).
Fascinating strategy, Gabriel!
Lightning Lure is an interesting one for a Tempest Cleric because once you reach level 6, you can pull them towards you and then push them away again. But I don't like Lightning Lure because my previous experience as a Cleric whose only damaging cantrip was Toll the Dead wasn't much fun. I would rather do an attack roll than have enemies do a saving throw. Unfortunately, as a Cleric, that means multi-classing, taking a feat, or just using a physical weapon. Or choosing all three options like my Tempest Cleric did. If you're not as averse as I am to making enemies do saving throws, Lightning Lure is a solid choice.
I do really like how Lightning Lure is thematic for a Tempest Cleric. I really try to make sure that my spell selection and abilities make sense thematically. A Forge Cleric with Green Flame Blade would also be a very thematic choice. I think it's a lot more fun to play a character when the abilities aren't just mechanically powerful, but also fit in thematically.
There are certainly benefits to each of Thorn Whip and Lightning Lure. Thorn Whip gives up damage to make an attack roll and at a greater range, which synergizes better with Spirit Guardians since it can pull creatures in as well as help keep them in. I do think that it's interesting that Thorn Whip explicitly limits creatures that can get pulled to Large creatures while Lightning Lure relies on the strength save to keep that limit "in place". For the most part, each spell will work fully on the same subset of creatures, but there are some higher strength creatures with lower AC and some high AC creatures with low strength that will resist one of the attacks more frequently than the other.