Let us assume that you are not multiclassing, and that your domain happens to be giving you potent cantrips rather than divine strike. This means that when you reach your 14th level in this class, you gain no new spell slots, no new class features and the only class feature that improves is destroy undead, where its threshold goes from CR 2 to 3. This means that unless you happen to fight CR 3 undead regularly this late in the game (of whom there are only two in the monster manual and none in any of the other books excluding modules) the only thing this level will have given you is an extra hit dice and the promise that 15th level is one level closer. Like was'int "dead levels" supposed to be an concept the designers wanted to avoid after 3.5 edition?
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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
I had the exact same problem with my cleric. It’s a weird gap where all you really get is some hit points. My campaign was ending at 14, so I nearly multi classed, just so I’d get something, but decided the character didn’t actually know it was ending and would have stayed single class the whole way through.
Over the various modules and stuff. I find more than a dozen undead that can pop up in various kinds of terrain that are CR 3. So I think your selling how many of such creatures actually exist very short. Specially since several of them look like they could still cause some trouble if encountered in groups and even more in mixed groups.
That being said your usefulness of that particular ability is going to vary by DM and Vary by Campaign.
Cleric isn't the only one that's got a level with a niche ability and nothing else going for it. They're farther between than before, but alas, they're still around.
Let us assume that you are not multiclassing, and that your domain happens to be giving you potent cantrips rather than divine strike. This means that when you reach your 14th level in this class, you gain no new spell slots, no new class features and the only class feature that improves is destroy undead, where its threshold goes from CR 2 to 3. This means that unless you happen to fight CR 3 undead regularly this late in the game (of whom there are only two in the monster manual and none in any of the other books excluding modules) the only thing this level will have given you is an extra hit dice and the promise that 15th level is one level closer. Like was'int "dead levels" supposed to be an concept the designers wanted to avoid after 3.5 edition?
You forgot something....
Their chance when rolling for Divine Intervention goes up from 13% to 14%
Getting something you don’t like is definitely different from getting nothing. If getting something you don’t like makes it a dread level for you, that is fine.
But if that is the case, lots of classes have plenty of dead levels. Some might say monks get 20 dead levels.
Getting something you don’t like is definitely different from getting nothing. If getting something you don’t like makes it a dread level for you, that is fine.
This is very true.
But if that is the case, lots of classes have plenty of dead levels. Some might say monks get 20 dead levels.
This is not true. ;)
Besides clerics getting an increased chance of divine intervention they also can also memorize one more spell. So no, it is not a "dead" level.
Getting something you don’t like is definitely different from getting nothing. If getting something you don’t like makes it a dread level for you, that is fine.
But if that is the case, lots of classes have plenty of dead levels. Some might say monks get 20 dead levels.
my point here is not that the feature is underwhelming, my point is that it is too unlikely to ever come up since you need to ether:
roll exactly an 14 on your divine intervention roll
fight either wights or mummies
cast all 19 of your prepared spells, or be certain that having one extra prepared spell lead to you being able to prepare a spell you would not otherwise have that you ended up needing
if none of those things happen, you got nothing out of this level, say what you will about monks but at least each level gives the monk an useful class feature that will likely come up during the campaign (other than possibly timeless body, but at least that is a rather flavorful 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
And my point is that an underwhelming feature is still a feature -- a stinker is different from nothing. And your opinion of what makes a feature bad isn't everyone's. There are 21 CR 3 undead - yes mostly from modules -- but creatures aren't stuck in the modules they were printed in. A 14th level cleric would feel like a pure agent of thier god going up against a foe with a room filled with wight minions.
Land Druids get an arguably worse level 14 feature. Shepherds do too, as long as you don't die (for that matter, so do wildfire druids). Scrying is pretty good, but the rest of the dreams druid "walker in dreams" is circumstantial. GOO warlocks get a completely circumstantial ability (charmed isn't a powerful condition). Enchantment wizards get altered memories. Necromancers get command undead. The monk class is (fairly) ineffective, so even an ability that comes up a lot or is flavorful can be underwhelming. Non-Tasha's rangers get things like vanish, hide in plain sight, and improvements to favored enemy and favored terrain -- all very weak abilities (an "improvement" to any ability where the improvement is to 'take the second or third best option too' feels very bad to gain). Again, all of this is opinion of actual features that classes really get. You could probably write a treatise on why I'm wrong on any of these features, but I don't really care -- that isn't the point. I'm countering your opinion with ones I've seen throughout the discussion of 5e.
Let us assume that you are not multiclassing, and that your domain happens to be giving you potent cantrips rather than divine strike. This means that when you reach your 14th level in this class, you gain no new spell slots, no new class features and the only class feature that improves is destroy undead, where its threshold goes from CR 2 to 3. This means that unless you happen to fight CR 3 undead regularly this late in the game (of whom there are only two in the monster manual and none in any of the other books excluding modules) the only thing this level will have given you is an extra hit dice and the promise that 15th level is one level closer. Like was'int "dead levels" supposed to be an concept the designers wanted to avoid after 3.5 edition?
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
I had the exact same problem with my cleric. It’s a weird gap where all you really get is some hit points. My campaign was ending at 14, so I nearly multi classed, just so I’d get something, but decided the character didn’t actually know it was ending and would have stayed single class the whole way through.
Over the various modules and stuff. I find more than a dozen undead that can pop up in various kinds of terrain that are CR 3. So I think your selling how many of such creatures actually exist very short. Specially since several of them look like they could still cause some trouble if encountered in groups and even more in mixed groups.
That being said your usefulness of that particular ability is going to vary by DM and Vary by Campaign.
Insert Vampire joke here.
Cleric isn't the only one that's got a level with a niche ability and nothing else going for it. They're farther between than before, but alas, they're still around.
You forgot something....
Their chance when rolling for Divine Intervention goes up from 13% to 14%
I don't have much to say here except "Yes."
Getting something you don’t like is definitely different from getting nothing. If getting something you don’t like makes it a dread level for you, that is fine.
But if that is the case, lots of classes have plenty of dead levels. Some might say monks get 20 dead levels.
This is very true.
This is not true. ;)
Besides clerics getting an increased chance of divine intervention they also can also memorize one more spell. So no, it is not a "dead" level.
my point here is not that the feature is underwhelming, my point is that it is too unlikely to ever come up since you need to ether:
if none of those things happen, you got nothing out of this level, say what you will about monks but at least each level gives the monk an useful class feature that will likely come up during the campaign (other than possibly timeless body, but at least that is a rather flavorful 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
And my point is that an underwhelming feature is still a feature -- a stinker is different from nothing. And your opinion of what makes a feature bad isn't everyone's. There are 21 CR 3 undead - yes mostly from modules -- but creatures aren't stuck in the modules they were printed in. A 14th level cleric would feel like a pure agent of thier god going up against a foe with a room filled with wight minions.
Land Druids get an arguably worse level 14 feature. Shepherds do too, as long as you don't die (for that matter, so do wildfire druids). Scrying is pretty good, but the rest of the dreams druid "walker in dreams" is circumstantial. GOO warlocks get a completely circumstantial ability (charmed isn't a powerful condition). Enchantment wizards get altered memories. Necromancers get command undead. The monk class is (fairly) ineffective, so even an ability that comes up a lot or is flavorful can be underwhelming. Non-Tasha's rangers get things like vanish, hide in plain sight, and improvements to favored enemy and favored terrain -- all very weak abilities (an "improvement" to any ability where the improvement is to 'take the second or third best option too' feels very bad to gain). Again, all of this is opinion of actual features that classes really get. You could probably write a treatise on why I'm wrong on any of these features, but I don't really care -- that isn't the point. I'm countering your opinion with ones I've seen throughout the discussion of 5e.
By that logic, every level is a dead level for a Fighter in any session that doesn't include combat...
*if no combat happens throughout several levels, something that is at least somewhat unlikely i'd say
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
Except you weren't talking about things not happening for entire levels, though.