After a bit of test play, my DM and I are feeling like the Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary ability of the Twilight Cleric is a bit OP for tier 1 play... 1d8 of temp HP per round for the whole party plus clearing Charm or Fear, every round, with no concentration, is a bit much.
I've seen people suggest tying it to Proficiency Bonus, but that seems underpowered... even Proficiency Bonus plus Wisdom Bonus, although that's almost there. In some ways it's potentially too much at Tier 1 still, since it's a guaranteed amount vs a die roll.
Has anyone come up with other options to correct this? We'd also like to see something that scales so it doesn't become less important in Tier 2/3. We're really looking for a way to keep this viable, as we like the class otherwise.
The best comparison is the spell Healing Spirit, which was originally written to be unlimited and later got errata'd to being useable 1 + spellcasting modifier times before the effect ended.
I would recommend doing the same, and then perhaps allowing the cleric to burn spell slots to increase the temp hitpoints by 1d8 per spell level.
I think the issue is the kind of campaign you’re in. If you have multiple fights per short rest, it’s not too big a deal, if you only have one big fight a day, it could be a lot, but not necessarily. Temp up don’t stack, so you’ll never have more than 8, they don’t actually heal you, so if you take damage to your real hp, that’s still there, and temp hp don’t get you up from 0. And you don’t really run into many charm or fear effects at low levels.
I realize up to 8 hp can be a lot at level 1 and 2, but you’re not there for long.
If you do want to nerf it, you could make it 1/long rest instead of 1/rest. Then shift back whenever you feel it needs a boost.
Better might be to make the duration instantaneous instead of a minute. Every gets a single boost and that’s it. That keeps it more in line with most channel divinity uses from other domains, as well.
The easiest way to correct it is for the DM to have the enemies focus their attacks instead of spreading out their damage. Temporary HP don't stack, so it's not overpowered.
The easiest way to correct it is for the DM to have the enemies focus their attacks instead of spreading out their damage. Temporary HP don't stack, so it's not overpowered.
Being able to pass around 1d8 temporary hitpoints to ~100 creatures every round without an action as a second level ability is pretty darn powerful and definitely abuseable. At low levels, it significantly increases party survivability, and at high levels, it can be abused by necromancers, summoners, etc. Temp HP may not stack, but it does overlap, and every round that a creature isn't hit is an opportunity for it to top off.
One way or another, a DM needs to account for its potential. Either by nerfing it, or by restricting opportunities to use it.
Having enemies focus their attack works when it is appropriate, but doing it every encounter would be problematic.
The easiest way to correct it is for the DM to have the enemies focus their attacks instead of spreading out their damage. Temporary HP don't stack, so it's not overpowered.
Being able to pass around 1d8 temporary hitpoints to ~100 creatures every round without an action as a second level ability is pretty darn powerful and definitely abuseable. At low levels, it significantly increases party survivability, and at high levels, it can be abused by necromancers, summoners, etc. Temp HP may not stack, but it does overlap, and every round that a creature isn't hit is an opportunity for it to top off.
One way or another, a DM needs to account for its potential. Either by nerfing it, or by restricting opportunities to use it.
Having enemies focus their attack works when it is appropriate, but doing it every encounter would be problematic.
If you have ~100 creatures where you're tracking the HP on each one, your DM will hate you. You'll slow down combat to a crawl if you try that. If abusing it means making a single round of combat take an hour, you'll find that it's more than just your DM that hates you.
I can agree that it will be a problem since the feature is just too broken, regardless of tier of play. Some threads I've read say it is equivalent to dropping the CR of most monsters by 2-3 levels. It will make it so much harder for DMs to even take down one PC unless they really focus everything on one character at a time.
There are some suggestions like get monsters that can cause multiple charm or frighten effects, or find a way to incapacitate the Twilight cleric, or use battle field control to separate the members from one another, or even homebrew something that causes massive damage over time so the cleric will be forced to go full healing. Though most will mean more work for the DM, it will to an extent balance out the sheer brokenness of the Twilight cleric.
I can agree that it will be a problem since the feature is just too broken, regardless of tier of play. Some threads I've read say it is equivalent to dropping the CR of most monsters by 2-3 levels. It will make it so much harder for DMs to even take down one PC unless they really focus everything on one character at a time.
There are some suggestions like get monsters that can cause multiple charm or frighten effects, or find a way to incapacitate the Twilight cleric, or use battle field control to separate the members from one another, or even homebrew something that causes massive damage over time so the cleric will be forced to go full healing. Though most will mean more work for the DM, it will to an extent balance out the sheer brokenness of the Twilight cleric.
Yeah the counters I have heard so far is just basically kill the cleric ASAP which as the player would be...less than fun.
I think they really wanted the subclass to be cool for BG3 as one of the characters would flavor well as a twilight cleric.
There are some other threads where you can limit the Twilight cleric abilities like use proficiency bonus instead of cleric level for Channel Divinity, make it so that concentration is needed for Channel Divinity, change the darkvision (from Eyes of Night) from 300 ft to 150 ft, etc.
A lot really emphasize that Twilight cleric is just a bit too broken compared to other newer subclasses, which says something since before it is said to have been even stronger. Anyway, you can choose to limit the abilities yourself but it will be trial and error. Let me know as well what you guys did to limit it as I am keen on trying out the Twilight domain cleric in a one-shot. Thanks.
There are some other threads where you can limit the Twilight cleric abilities like use proficiency bonus instead of cleric level for Channel Divinity, make it so that concentration is needed for Channel Divinity, change the darkvision (from Eyes of Night) from 300 ft to 150 ft, etc.
A lot really emphasize that Twilight cleric is just a bit too broken compared to other newer subclasses, which says something since before it is said to have been even stronger. Anyway, you can choose to limit the abilities yourself but it will be trial and error. Let me know as well what you guys did to limit it as I am keen on trying out the Twilight domain cleric in a one-shot. Thanks.
One I thought of was you could use the THP or Charm cancel a number of times per CD use equal to your WIS modifier.
That way you could hit up to 5 allies (or one ally multiple times) before it dropped but not be too crazy.
Or you could just have two fights, they can only do it 1/rest in teir 1. And with the game assumption of about 5 fights/day (I know it’s not how most people play, but it’s the baseline for pretty much all powers) and 1-2 short rests, there’s plenty of times they can’t use it.
The Adventuring day involves 5-8 fights. But not each encounter is deadly. Some are easy so twilight sanctuary isn't needed. To be able to use an ability that is so powerful about 2 to 3 times (at lvl 6 even 4-6 times) per adventuring day is an enormous gamechanger. If any player would present this class as homebrew, no DM would allow it. The Problem is not, that DM's don't want the Players to feel powerful, but the balancing of encounters is a mess and you have to change on the fly. Deadly encounters become very easy if the cleric is able to hold twilight Sanctuary up for the hole time. So you need to bring the Cleric down. But that is not that easy, because Heavy Armor (maybe event with the heavy armor master feat) and good saving throws against incapacitating magic, will make the cleric a hard target, that will overcome deadly Encounters appropriate for their level easily (I have some experience with sturdy cleric). And as a DM you are now in trouble on how you balance the encounters for the party, to feel chalanging and epic without going for the cleric all the time or make the combats extremly swingy (TS: on => Peace of cake/ TS: off => TPK).
Yeah I was discussing this elsewhere and put it in perspective with the CR system:
A 6th level Twilight cleric with 4 friends get into a fight....
The twilight cleric throws up its CD to help and puts out 9.5 HP per person per round....this means that in 1 round they add 38 HP to the table.
that means if the fight lasts 3 rounds they have added 114 HP to the table...granted this is spread out but that is a LOT of THP.
A CR 6 creature per the DMG should put out about 39–44 damage per round. This reduced by just 9.5 every round (assuming only 1 person benefits from this CD) drops the offensive CR of the creature by 2 levels at least (CR4 = 27-32 damage).
Well, first I should point out that the OP and title of the thread ask if the power is too strong for tier 1, so what happens at level 6 isn't really the point.
But sure, let's go with that. Has anyone who's arguing it's too strong seen it in actual play? (I'll admit I haven't) But actual play where most of these white room math examples fall apart. For example, a bunch of zombies show up, and the cleric turns undead instead of using twilight sanctuary. Campaign dependent, and even can change from day to day within a campaign, but it happens. But to continue the dissection of twilight sanctuary, and, looking at Optimus' example of a level 6 cleric. For one, they will never even once in actual play add 9.5 hp, they might add 9 or 10, but never 9.5. Let say they roll well and add 10, because the math is easier for me.
First round, they add 40 hp, sure. And yes, that's a lot. But the amount they might add in the second round has several very big assumptions built into it, and is almost guaranteed to be less than that 40. One assumption is that the entire party remains within 30 feet of the cleric. Possible, maybe even likely, but by no means guaranteed. It's pretty easy to imagine the wizard and fighter more than 30 feet away from each other, and don't forget the monk ran all the way to the back of the enemy lines so she could punch the caster hiding there, and is well more than 30 feet away. So maybe the cleric stands in the middle to split the difference, and can manage to stay within 30 feet of everybody, but if they do, then you've got lots of people standing alone, making it easy for them to get surrounded. So while it can happen that everyone stays in range, and it often will happen, its not guaranteed to happen.
The second is that every single party member takes 10 or more damage in that first round. Since they are temp hp, and don't stack, the power is only going to boost people who took damage. I admit it is possible (though unlikely) that everyone in the party takes 10 or more damage in a round. (Ironically, it becomes less likely for them all to take damage if they spread themselves out so they can't get caught in AoEs, but spread out it makes it harder for them all to stay within 30 feet so they can maximize the power, so they kind of have to choose one or the other.) Anyway, it is also possible, (and also unlikely) that no one in the party takes any damage in that round, meaning the power would do nothing. Most of the time its going to be in between, with 1-2 party members getting some thp. Now, 10-20 thp for no action is still a considerable amount, but not nearly as much as the white room comes up with. Also, along those lines, if one of the other characters drops, they get 0 thp (since you can't gain thp when you are at 0 hp), and the cleric would need to actually heal them to get them back up.
The third is more of a gray area. I read the power as the cleric has to roll each round to see how much temp hp they give out. I can see how others might rule otherwise, and just say you roll once and do that for the entire time, certainly that would be simpler. But if you roll each time, then it really changes the power, since its very possible that you roll a lower number from one round to the next and don't end up giving the person any, unless they took damage. Yes, someone may have 7 thp, and on the next round you roll higher and now they have 9, but that would mean they took no damage, so you added 2, but did it really do anything if they character isn't getting hit. And yes, sooner or later, you'll get a 6, and give out max. This is true, but that just means that anyone who takes no damage will get no further benefit from the power.
And there's another assumption that no one else is giving out any thp, no battlemaster fighters giving any out, no one with the chef feat, no one with any of the bard powers that gives out thp, etc. Because again, since they don't stack, its possible that a character has some from another source and gets no benefit from the power.
And since temp hp last until the end of the next long rest, any that might be still lingering from one fight to the next means the second time the cleric tries to use it in the same day, it might not be as effective if anyone still has some hanging around from the first time.
It is a very strong ability, easily one of the strongest channel divinities. But I don't think its as game crushing as people make it out to be.
Well, first I should point out that the OP and title of the thread ask if the power is too strong for tier 1, so what happens at level 6 isn't really the point.
But sure, let's go with that. Has anyone who's arguing it's too strong seen it in actual play? (I'll admit I haven't) But actual play where most of these white room math examples fall apart. For example, a bunch of zombies show up, and the cleric turns undead instead of using twilight sanctuary. Campaign dependent, and even can change from day to day within a campaign, but it happens. But to continue the dissection of twilight sanctuary, and, looking at Optimus' example of a level 6 cleric. For one, they will never even once in actual play add 9.5 hp, they might add 9 or 10, but never 9.5. Let say they roll well and add 10, because the math is easier for me.
First round, they add 40 hp, sure. And yes, that's a lot. But the amount they might add in the second round has several very big assumptions built into it, and is almost guaranteed to be less than that 40. One assumption is that the entire party remains within 30 feet of the cleric. Possible, maybe even likely, but by no means guaranteed. It's pretty easy to imagine the wizard and fighter more than 30 feet away from each other, and don't forget the monk ran all the way to the back of the enemy lines so she could punch the caster hiding there, and is well more than 30 feet away. So maybe the cleric stands in the middle to split the difference, and can manage to stay within 30 feet of everybody, but if they do, then you've got lots of people standing alone, making it easy for them to get surrounded. So while it can happen that everyone stays in range, and it often will happen, its not guaranteed to happen.
The second is that every single party member takes 10 or more damage in that first round. Since they are temp hp, and don't stack, the power is only going to boost people who took damage. I admit it is possible (though unlikely) that everyone in the party takes 10 or more damage in a round. (Ironically, it becomes less likely for them all to take damage if they spread themselves out so they can't get caught in AoEs, but spread out it makes it harder for them all to stay within 30 feet so they can maximize the power, so they kind of have to choose one or the other.) Anyway, it is also possible, (and also unlikely) that no one in the party takes any damage in that round, meaning the power would do nothing. Most of the time its going to be in between, with 1-2 party members getting some thp. Now, 10-20 thp for no action is still a considerable amount, but not nearly as much as the white room comes up with. Also, along those lines, if one of the other characters drops, they get 0 thp (since you can't gain thp when you are at 0 hp), and the cleric would need to actually heal them to get them back up.
The third is more of a gray area. I read the power as the cleric has to roll each round to see how much temp hp they give out. I can see how others might rule otherwise, and just say you roll once and do that for the entire time, certainly that would be simpler. But if you roll each time, then it really changes the power, since its very possible that you roll a lower number from one round to the next and don't end up giving the person any, unless they took damage. Yes, someone may have 7 thp, and on the next round you roll higher and now they have 9, but that would mean they took no damage, so you added 2, but did it really do anything if they character isn't getting hit. And yes, sooner or later, you'll get a 6, and give out max. This is true, but that just means that anyone who takes no damage will get no further benefit from the power.
And there's another assumption that no one else is giving out any thp, no battlemaster fighters giving any out, no one with the chef feat, no one with any of the bard powers that gives out thp, etc. Because again, since they don't stack, its possible that a character has some from another source and gets no benefit from the power.
And since temp hp last until the end of the next long rest, any that might be still lingering from one fight to the next means the second time the cleric tries to use it in the same day, it might not be as effective if anyone still has some hanging around from the first time.
It is a very strong ability, easily one of the strongest channel divinities. But I don't think its as game crushing as people make it out to be.
Tier 1 would have a slightly less drop (CR1 to CR 1/4) But would still have a substantial impact on round per round offensive CR ratings.
I also made my assumption with only 1 PC getting the benefit for a reason....to show that even if just one person gets the benefit for the round it offsets the CR rating enough to drop it by 2...and turn a "Hard" encounter into an "Easy" one by the encounter calculators we use.
If more than 1 person gets it is an exponential decline in offensive CR...which will affect the way that combat goes immensely.
Now granted the CR system is....kinda not great but it is literally the only system we have to plan encounters for the game...especially for new DMs.
I agree that its likely not an issue for experienced DMs as they can add/subtract damage during an encounter pretty well. But if a new DM runs things more "by the book" they will find their encounters on the easier side than normal. They may overcompensate the other way in attempt to provide challenge.
Now is this the end of the world? No of course not and its likely a good learning experience but I have seen a few bad experiences end campaigns and by some extension that DMs interest in TTRPGs.
So when I say its a bit overtuned Its mostly as a suggestion that first time DMs may want to avoid the issue altogether until they get a feel for the system.
After a bit of test play, my DM and I are feeling like the Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary ability of the Twilight Cleric is a bit OP for tier 1 play... 1d8 of temp HP per round for the whole party plus clearing Charm or Fear, every round, with no concentration, is a bit much.
I've seen people suggest tying it to Proficiency Bonus, but that seems underpowered... even Proficiency Bonus plus Wisdom Bonus, although that's almost there. In some ways it's potentially too much at Tier 1 still, since it's a guaranteed amount vs a die roll.
Has anyone come up with other options to correct this? We'd also like to see something that scales so it doesn't become less important in Tier 2/3. We're really looking for a way to keep this viable, as we like the class otherwise.
The best comparison is the spell Healing Spirit, which was originally written to be unlimited and later got errata'd to being useable 1 + spellcasting modifier times before the effect ended.
I would recommend doing the same, and then perhaps allowing the cleric to burn spell slots to increase the temp hitpoints by 1d8 per spell level.
I think the issue is the kind of campaign you’re in. If you have multiple fights per short rest, it’s not too big a deal, if you only have one big fight a day, it could be a lot, but not necessarily. Temp up don’t stack, so you’ll never have more than 8, they don’t actually heal you, so if you take damage to your real hp, that’s still there, and temp hp don’t get you up from 0. And you don’t really run into many charm or fear effects at low levels.
I realize up to 8 hp can be a lot at level 1 and 2, but you’re not there for long.
If you do want to nerf it, you could make it 1/long rest instead of 1/rest. Then shift back whenever you feel it needs a boost.
Better might be to make the duration instantaneous instead of a minute. Every gets a single boost and that’s it. That keeps it more in line with most channel divinity uses from other domains, as well.
The easiest way to correct it is for the DM to have the enemies focus their attacks instead of spreading out their damage. Temporary HP don't stack, so it's not overpowered.
Being able to pass around 1d8 temporary hitpoints to ~100 creatures every round without an action as a second level ability is pretty darn powerful and definitely abuseable. At low levels, it significantly increases party survivability, and at high levels, it can be abused by necromancers, summoners, etc. Temp HP may not stack, but it does overlap, and every round that a creature isn't hit is an opportunity for it to top off.
One way or another, a DM needs to account for its potential. Either by nerfing it, or by restricting opportunities to use it.
Having enemies focus their attack works when it is appropriate, but doing it every encounter would be problematic.
If you have ~100 creatures where you're tracking the HP on each one, your DM will hate you. You'll slow down combat to a crawl if you try that. If abusing it means making a single round of combat take an hour, you'll find that it's more than just your DM that hates you.
The subclass is op. It's a tanky healer damage dealer. It can functionally do every role.
Darkvision with no range is a bit absurd.
Vigilant Blessing is always useful
Twilight Sanctuary is powerful. (Twilight Sanctuary with Aura of Vitality is a bit absurd.)
Steps of the Brave is conditional flying at level 6.
Divine Strike Psychic damage, with access to martial weapons and heavy armor. Makes no sense to me for a full caster.
We came up with the following solution, which seems to work - we tie it to Proficiency Bonus. We double the proficiency bonus for die type.
This provides a nice, scaling bump to effective HP in combat, without being out of hand.
I'd appreciate any feedback on this you'd care to offer.
To me the simplest fix is to make this a reaction, which limits it to a single target a round, and conflicts with Opportunity attacks.
Duration 1 round
OP for tier 1? Just tier 1? Twilight is busted in all tiers. So so good.
I can agree that it will be a problem since the feature is just too broken, regardless of tier of play. Some threads I've read say it is equivalent to dropping the CR of most monsters by 2-3 levels. It will make it so much harder for DMs to even take down one PC unless they really focus everything on one character at a time.
There are some suggestions like get monsters that can cause multiple charm or frighten effects, or find a way to incapacitate the Twilight cleric, or use battle field control to separate the members from one another, or even homebrew something that causes massive damage over time so the cleric will be forced to go full healing. Though most will mean more work for the DM, it will to an extent balance out the sheer brokenness of the Twilight cleric.
Yeah the counters I have heard so far is just basically kill the cleric ASAP which as the player would be...less than fun.
I think they really wanted the subclass to be cool for BG3 as one of the characters would flavor well as a twilight cleric.
There are some other threads where you can limit the Twilight cleric abilities like use proficiency bonus instead of cleric level for Channel Divinity, make it so that concentration is needed for Channel Divinity, change the darkvision (from Eyes of Night) from 300 ft to 150 ft, etc.
A lot really emphasize that Twilight cleric is just a bit too broken compared to other newer subclasses, which says something since before it is said to have been even stronger. Anyway, you can choose to limit the abilities yourself but it will be trial and error. Let me know as well what you guys did to limit it as I am keen on trying out the Twilight domain cleric in a one-shot. Thanks.
One I thought of was you could use the THP or Charm cancel a number of times per CD use equal to your WIS modifier.
That way you could hit up to 5 allies (or one ally multiple times) before it dropped but not be too crazy.
Or you could just have two fights, they can only do it 1/rest in teir 1. And with the game assumption of about 5 fights/day (I know it’s not how most people play, but it’s the baseline for pretty much all powers) and 1-2 short rests, there’s plenty of times they can’t use it.
The Adventuring day involves 5-8 fights. But not each encounter is deadly. Some are easy so twilight sanctuary isn't needed. To be able to use an ability that is so powerful about 2 to 3 times (at lvl 6 even 4-6 times) per adventuring day is an enormous gamechanger.
If any player would present this class as homebrew, no DM would allow it. The Problem is not, that DM's don't want the Players to feel powerful, but the balancing of encounters is a mess and you have to change on the fly. Deadly encounters become very easy if the cleric is able to hold twilight Sanctuary up for the hole time. So you need to bring the Cleric down. But that is not that easy, because Heavy Armor (maybe event with the heavy armor master feat) and good saving throws against incapacitating magic, will make the cleric a hard target, that will overcome deadly Encounters appropriate for their level easily (I have some experience with sturdy cleric). And as a DM you are now in trouble on how you balance the encounters for the party, to feel chalanging and epic without going for the cleric all the time or make the combats extremly swingy (TS: on => Peace of cake/ TS: off => TPK).
Yeah I was discussing this elsewhere and put it in perspective with the CR system:
A 6th level Twilight cleric with 4 friends get into a fight....
The twilight cleric throws up its CD to help and puts out 9.5 HP per person per round....this means that in 1 round they add 38 HP to the table.
that means if the fight lasts 3 rounds they have added 114 HP to the table...granted this is spread out but that is a LOT of THP.
A CR 6 creature per the DMG should put out about 39–44 damage per round. This reduced by just 9.5 every round (assuming only 1 person benefits from this CD) drops the offensive CR of the creature by 2 levels at least (CR4 = 27-32 damage).
Well, first I should point out that the OP and title of the thread ask if the power is too strong for tier 1, so what happens at level 6 isn't really the point.
But sure, let's go with that. Has anyone who's arguing it's too strong seen it in actual play? (I'll admit I haven't) But actual play where most of these white room math examples fall apart. For example, a bunch of zombies show up, and the cleric turns undead instead of using twilight sanctuary. Campaign dependent, and even can change from day to day within a campaign, but it happens. But to continue the dissection of twilight sanctuary, and, looking at Optimus' example of a level 6 cleric. For one, they will never even once in actual play add 9.5 hp, they might add 9 or 10, but never 9.5. Let say they roll well and add 10, because the math is easier for me.
First round, they add 40 hp, sure. And yes, that's a lot. But the amount they might add in the second round has several very big assumptions built into it, and is almost guaranteed to be less than that 40. One assumption is that the entire party remains within 30 feet of the cleric. Possible, maybe even likely, but by no means guaranteed. It's pretty easy to imagine the wizard and fighter more than 30 feet away from each other, and don't forget the monk ran all the way to the back of the enemy lines so she could punch the caster hiding there, and is well more than 30 feet away. So maybe the cleric stands in the middle to split the difference, and can manage to stay within 30 feet of everybody, but if they do, then you've got lots of people standing alone, making it easy for them to get surrounded. So while it can happen that everyone stays in range, and it often will happen, its not guaranteed to happen.
The second is that every single party member takes 10 or more damage in that first round. Since they are temp hp, and don't stack, the power is only going to boost people who took damage. I admit it is possible (though unlikely) that everyone in the party takes 10 or more damage in a round. (Ironically, it becomes less likely for them all to take damage if they spread themselves out so they can't get caught in AoEs, but spread out it makes it harder for them all to stay within 30 feet so they can maximize the power, so they kind of have to choose one or the other.) Anyway, it is also possible, (and also unlikely) that no one in the party takes any damage in that round, meaning the power would do nothing. Most of the time its going to be in between, with 1-2 party members getting some thp. Now, 10-20 thp for no action is still a considerable amount, but not nearly as much as the white room comes up with. Also, along those lines, if one of the other characters drops, they get 0 thp (since you can't gain thp when you are at 0 hp), and the cleric would need to actually heal them to get them back up.
The third is more of a gray area. I read the power as the cleric has to roll each round to see how much temp hp they give out. I can see how others might rule otherwise, and just say you roll once and do that for the entire time, certainly that would be simpler. But if you roll each time, then it really changes the power, since its very possible that you roll a lower number from one round to the next and don't end up giving the person any, unless they took damage. Yes, someone may have 7 thp, and on the next round you roll higher and now they have 9, but that would mean they took no damage, so you added 2, but did it really do anything if they character isn't getting hit. And yes, sooner or later, you'll get a 6, and give out max. This is true, but that just means that anyone who takes no damage will get no further benefit from the power.
And there's another assumption that no one else is giving out any thp, no battlemaster fighters giving any out, no one with the chef feat, no one with any of the bard powers that gives out thp, etc. Because again, since they don't stack, its possible that a character has some from another source and gets no benefit from the power.
And since temp hp last until the end of the next long rest, any that might be still lingering from one fight to the next means the second time the cleric tries to use it in the same day, it might not be as effective if anyone still has some hanging around from the first time.
It is a very strong ability, easily one of the strongest channel divinities. But I don't think its as game crushing as people make it out to be.
Tier 1 would have a slightly less drop (CR1 to CR 1/4) But would still have a substantial impact on round per round offensive CR ratings.
I also made my assumption with only 1 PC getting the benefit for a reason....to show that even if just one person gets the benefit for the round it offsets the CR rating enough to drop it by 2...and turn a "Hard" encounter into an "Easy" one by the encounter calculators we use.
If more than 1 person gets it is an exponential decline in offensive CR...which will affect the way that combat goes immensely.
Now granted the CR system is....kinda not great but it is literally the only system we have to plan encounters for the game...especially for new DMs.
I agree that its likely not an issue for experienced DMs as they can add/subtract damage during an encounter pretty well. But if a new DM runs things more "by the book" they will find their encounters on the easier side than normal. They may overcompensate the other way in attempt to provide challenge.
Now is this the end of the world? No of course not and its likely a good learning experience but I have seen a few bad experiences end campaigns and by some extension that DMs interest in TTRPGs.
So when I say its a bit overtuned Its mostly as a suggestion that first time DMs may want to avoid the issue altogether until they get a feel for the system.