My Tempest Cleric just reached level 8, which because she started off with 1 level in Sorcerer, means that she's just now able to prepare 4th level spells. In looking at the spell options for what she could prepare among 4th level spells, I don't really see any that I want to choose.
In particular, I did notice Death Ward being a somewhat appealing spell, but I find it hard to justify using a 4th level spell slot to cast it instead of upcasting Aid. I'm guessing that as I get to higher levels and enemies hit harder, Death Ward will be better than giving three people 15 extra HP, but at least at the current level, I think I would prefer to use a 4th level spell slot to upcast Aid.
Can you let me know whether or not I'm correct for thinking that Aid is better than Death Ward? Which 4th level Cleric spells are worth using? I think Banishment is probably the most interesting one, but in general, they're not too appealing to me. In general, I'd rather use my 4th level spell slots to upcast Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Aid, Thunderwave, or Shatter - the last two when using my channel divinity.
Banishment is crazy good. Send the boss away for a minute while you kill off the minions then deal with the boss solo when he returns. Or the potential to just one-shot any extra planar enemies.
I got tons of use from stone shape. It’s one of my favorite level 4 spells. Can’t get through a locked door? Just make your own. You can come at enemies from any direction. Need to sneak into a place, just make your own back door, and you know it won’t be trapped. You can build yourself a low wall for cover, take down an enemy’s cover, make an escape hatch if you’re up against a wall, burrow through a castle wall, just generally reshape the battlefield on the fly. Unless you’re in a wooden building, of course, then not so much.
And just because you can prepare 4th level spells doesn’t mean you have to. You can always just have an extra lower level spell prepped and upcast, as you note. But seriously, stone shape.
I'm a big fan of Banishment personally, I played a Forge domain cleric to about level 11, and it's one of those spells that gives you a huge advantage in combat, especially if you're facing one imposing enemy and a bunch of minor gribblies, it gives you the option to remove the big guy for a few rounds while you mop up the chaff.
As for other 4th Level spells I think that Divination is a really fun spell if you're in a plot heavy adventure and plays in well to the holy man theme of the cleric (And it's a ritual so you can save those precious spell slots to up cast things like Spirit Guardians!).
If you're not sure just pick one at random, if you don't like it then you're a Cleric so you can swap it out and try something after your next long rest.
Our party was in an apocalyptic scenario where eldritch horrors were slowly spilling into the world...so we had gone to a dwarven city to recruit an army.
We found the surface portion of the city abandoned, and the main entrance sealed...implying that the dwarves had gone underground for safety. Our party decided to spend the night in the basement of a half-ruined building.
During the night...a massive, gargantuan THING was FLOATING over us in the night sky...bloated, misshapen, tentacled, with no obvious way it could be flying...and it was QUIET, and bigger than any building.
My Hexblade Warlock took one look at it, suppressed a scream, and casted Banishment at the aberration.
...boop...!
It vanished.
Our party stared at the empty night sky (now quite pretty), wondering if they had even seen the nightmarish thing. Some smaller aberrations started crawling out of the alleys, and our party bolted towards where a rumored secret entrance to the dwarven city rested. My companions covered me (if I lost concentration, the THING would come BACK), but this served to unify the party as we successfully escaped, and permanently removed an extraplanar threat from terrorizing the dwarf city further.
Banishment RULES, like any spell, in the right situation.
Death Ward has high marks for usefulness...it's your "Oh, sh*T" spell...no concentration, and in that moment when you might receive a deathblow, you WILL survive.
If you are fighting an enemy, well...they might hit you again, they might not...but the extra time might help.
...but if you are, say, falling off a cliffside or building...you are guaranteed to survive the fall with Death Ward ...so it has its creative uses.
NO CONCENTRATION counts for a lot more than I originally thought, especially once you hit 5th level and you start having so many spell slots available.
Upcasting spells is great, but they rarely compare to spells that are not upcast. If you can't decide between an upcast and a spell of the right level, chances are you are overestimating what the upcasting is worth.
Death ward is worth more than lowly 2nd level spell with an extra 10 hp. Most of the time when you use it, it will save more than 10 hp. If you are not using it, you did not need more hp.
NO CONCENTRATION counts for a lot more than I originally thought, especially once you hit 5th level and you start having so many spell slots available.
Upcasting spells is great, but they rarely compare to spells that are not upcast. If you can't decide between an upcast and a spell of the right level, chances are you are overestimating what the upcasting is worth.
Death ward is worth more than lowly 2nd level spell with an extra 10 hp. Most of the time when you use it, it will save more than 10 hp. If you are not using it, you did not need more hp.
A 4th level Aid is 15 HP for three people. That's very different than 10 HP for one person. I'm not sure how often Death Ward will save more than 45 HP right now. Neither spell requires concentration, so that's also not relevant when comparing the two for which one is a better use of a 4th level spell slot.
Banishment is the only Cleric 4th level spell that I plan to choose to prepare normally. But I do plan to prepare it normally because there's a Rune Knight in the party and he can use his reaction to give an enemy disadvantage on a saving throw, so it's useful with a save or suck spell like Banishment. So it seems like an obvious choice, which is why I mentioned it being the most interesting spell of the Cleric 4th level spells.
I do get a decent spell with Ice Storm from being a Tempest Cleric. It would be 2D8+4D6 damage (23 average) with a 20ft radius sphere and 300ft range, compared to 5D8 damage (22.5 average) on 15ft adjacent Cube or 5D8 damage (22.5 average) on a 10ft radius sphere with a 60ft range, so it's basically the same damage as upcasting the lower level spells, just with a much larger area of effect, much longer range, and the difficult terrain for one round added effect.
That's interesting seeing some of the uses for Stone Shape, but I'm still not sure if I'll ever prepare it. I'll definitely give it some thought, but as of right now, I'm still not convinced. It is the type of spell that rewards creativity, so I'll keep thinking about it, and possibly even ask my party members to think about it as well.
It's also helpful seeing the uses for Divination, and I'll probably buy the materials for that spell and let my party know that I can prepare that spell at the end of a long rest, and I can see being asked by the party to prepare that spell to ask some important questions. The campaign for this character is Out of the Abyss, so I could see that spell being useful, and I'm sure that my party will have some times when they'll ask us to cast it. Thus, the next time we're in a city, I'll look into getting the materials to cast the spell a few times.
I'm convinced that Death Ward is somewhat useful, but what I'm not convinced of is that it's better than 15 HP each for three people. I know I could use both my 4th level spell slots and cast both spells, but then I'm left with no other 4th level spell slots for that day - no chance to cast Banishment on an enemy, or to upcast something else in a 4th level slot. We haven't done much flying or falling in our campaign - for most of the campaign I've been the only full spell caster, although a few sessions ago one guy retired his Artificer and made a Sorcerer, so I'm finally not the only full spell caster in the party. So that protection from lethal falling damage isn't a big deal.
There's also the question about who to cast Death Ward on - my play style is more cautious than the other people in our group, and with my high AC, and my character's backstory that makes her avoid being next to enemies and to have a well honed survival instinct, I'm less likely to get knocked down to 0 HP than the other people in the group. Especially because we were five melee characters until the Artificer retired and made a Sorcerer, and my character's main melee attack is Booming Blade with a 10ft range thanks to her whip and the Spell Sniper feat, and Shocking Grasp has a knockback effect added to it now. It's easier to decide who to cast Aid on because there's a Sorcerer with low HP (just from being a Sorcerer), my character with low HP because I needed to put my 4th highest score in Constitution to multiclass properly as a melee Sorcerer-Cleric, and then I can choose between the Fighter with 16 constitution, the Fighter 5 Rogue 3 multiclass with 16 constitution, or the Rogue with 14 constitution as the last person to gain the extra HP. In which case I would choose the Rogue because her health is so much lower than the two Fighters. But for Death Ward, I'm not sure who I would give it to. If I play according to my character's personality, she would be selfish and give it to herself, but she's the least likely to go down during combat.
My Tempest Cleric just reached level 8, which because she started off with 1 level in Sorcerer, means that she's just now able to prepare 4th level spells. In looking at the spell options for what she could prepare among 4th level spells, I don't really see any that I want to choose.
In particular, I did notice Death Ward being a somewhat appealing spell, but I find it hard to justify using a 4th level spell slot to cast it instead of upcasting Aid. I'm guessing that as I get to higher levels and enemies hit harder, Death Ward will be better than giving three people 15 extra HP, but at least at the current level, I think I would prefer to use a 4th level spell slot to upcast Aid.
Can you let me know whether or not I'm correct for thinking that Aid is better than Death Ward? Which 4th level Cleric spells are worth using? I think Banishment is probably the most interesting one, but in general, they're not too appealing to me. In general, I'd rather use my 4th level spell slots to upcast Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Aid, Thunderwave, or Shatter - the last two when using my channel divinity.
Banishment is crazy good. Send the boss away for a minute while you kill off the minions then deal with the boss solo when he returns. Or the potential to just one-shot any extra planar enemies.
I got tons of use from stone shape. It’s one of my favorite level 4 spells. Can’t get through a locked door? Just make your own. You can come at enemies from any direction. Need to sneak into a place, just make your own back door, and you know it won’t be trapped. You can build yourself a low wall for cover, take down an enemy’s cover, make an escape hatch if you’re up against a wall, burrow through a castle wall, just generally reshape the battlefield on the fly. Unless you’re in a wooden building, of course, then not so much.
And just because you can prepare 4th level spells doesn’t mean you have to. You can always just have an extra lower level spell prepped and upcast, as you note.
But seriously, stone shape.
I'm a big fan of Banishment personally, I played a Forge domain cleric to about level 11, and it's one of those spells that gives you a huge advantage in combat, especially if you're facing one imposing enemy and a bunch of minor gribblies, it gives you the option to remove the big guy for a few rounds while you mop up the chaff.
As for other 4th Level spells I think that Divination is a really fun spell if you're in a plot heavy adventure and plays in well to the holy man theme of the cleric (And it's a ritual so you can save those precious spell slots to up cast things like Spirit Guardians!).
If you're not sure just pick one at random, if you don't like it then you're a Cleric so you can swap it out and try something after your next long rest.
Banishment has served me well in the past...
Our party was in an apocalyptic scenario where eldritch horrors were slowly spilling into the world...so we had gone to a dwarven city to recruit an army.
We found the surface portion of the city abandoned, and the main entrance sealed...implying that the dwarves had gone underground for safety. Our party decided to spend the night in the basement of a half-ruined building.
During the night...a massive, gargantuan THING was FLOATING over us in the night sky...bloated, misshapen, tentacled, with no obvious way it could be flying...and it was QUIET, and bigger than any building.
My Hexblade Warlock took one look at it, suppressed a scream, and casted Banishment at the aberration.
...boop...!
It vanished.
Our party stared at the empty night sky (now quite pretty), wondering if they had even seen the nightmarish thing. Some smaller aberrations started crawling out of the alleys, and our party bolted towards where a rumored secret entrance to the dwarven city rested. My companions covered me (if I lost concentration, the THING would come BACK), but this served to unify the party as we successfully escaped, and permanently removed an extraplanar threat from terrorizing the dwarf city further.
Banishment RULES, like any spell, in the right situation.
Death Ward has high marks for usefulness...it's your "Oh, sh*T" spell...no concentration, and in that moment when you might receive a deathblow, you WILL survive.
If you are fighting an enemy, well...they might hit you again, they might not...but the extra time might help.
...but if you are, say, falling off a cliffside or building...you are guaranteed to survive the fall with Death Ward ...so it has its creative uses.
2 general principles:
Death ward is worth more than lowly 2nd level spell with an extra 10 hp. Most of the time when you use it, it will save more than 10 hp. If you are not using it, you did not need more hp.
A 4th level Aid is 15 HP for three people. That's very different than 10 HP for one person. I'm not sure how often Death Ward will save more than 45 HP right now. Neither spell requires concentration, so that's also not relevant when comparing the two for which one is a better use of a 4th level spell slot.
Banishment is the only Cleric 4th level spell that I plan to choose to prepare normally. But I do plan to prepare it normally because there's a Rune Knight in the party and he can use his reaction to give an enemy disadvantage on a saving throw, so it's useful with a save or suck spell like Banishment. So it seems like an obvious choice, which is why I mentioned it being the most interesting spell of the Cleric 4th level spells.
I do get a decent spell with Ice Storm from being a Tempest Cleric. It would be 2D8+4D6 damage (23 average) with a 20ft radius sphere and 300ft range, compared to 5D8 damage (22.5 average) on 15ft adjacent Cube or 5D8 damage (22.5 average) on a 10ft radius sphere with a 60ft range, so it's basically the same damage as upcasting the lower level spells, just with a much larger area of effect, much longer range, and the difficult terrain for one round added effect.
That's interesting seeing some of the uses for Stone Shape, but I'm still not sure if I'll ever prepare it. I'll definitely give it some thought, but as of right now, I'm still not convinced. It is the type of spell that rewards creativity, so I'll keep thinking about it, and possibly even ask my party members to think about it as well.
It's also helpful seeing the uses for Divination, and I'll probably buy the materials for that spell and let my party know that I can prepare that spell at the end of a long rest, and I can see being asked by the party to prepare that spell to ask some important questions. The campaign for this character is Out of the Abyss, so I could see that spell being useful, and I'm sure that my party will have some times when they'll ask us to cast it. Thus, the next time we're in a city, I'll look into getting the materials to cast the spell a few times.
I'm convinced that Death Ward is somewhat useful, but what I'm not convinced of is that it's better than 15 HP each for three people. I know I could use both my 4th level spell slots and cast both spells, but then I'm left with no other 4th level spell slots for that day - no chance to cast Banishment on an enemy, or to upcast something else in a 4th level slot. We haven't done much flying or falling in our campaign - for most of the campaign I've been the only full spell caster, although a few sessions ago one guy retired his Artificer and made a Sorcerer, so I'm finally not the only full spell caster in the party. So that protection from lethal falling damage isn't a big deal.
There's also the question about who to cast Death Ward on - my play style is more cautious than the other people in our group, and with my high AC, and my character's backstory that makes her avoid being next to enemies and to have a well honed survival instinct, I'm less likely to get knocked down to 0 HP than the other people in the group. Especially because we were five melee characters until the Artificer retired and made a Sorcerer, and my character's main melee attack is Booming Blade with a 10ft range thanks to her whip and the Spell Sniper feat, and Shocking Grasp has a knockback effect added to it now. It's easier to decide who to cast Aid on because there's a Sorcerer with low HP (just from being a Sorcerer), my character with low HP because I needed to put my 4th highest score in Constitution to multiclass properly as a melee Sorcerer-Cleric, and then I can choose between the Fighter with 16 constitution, the Fighter 5 Rogue 3 multiclass with 16 constitution, or the Rogue with 14 constitution as the last person to gain the extra HP. In which case I would choose the Rogue because her health is so much lower than the two Fighters. But for Death Ward, I'm not sure who I would give it to. If I play according to my character's personality, she would be selfish and give it to herself, but she's the least likely to go down during combat.