I see this subclass as rather unique and would like to play one.
After prioritizing Wisdom and Constitution for spell casting, would Dexterity be a must for AC, and then Intelligence to boost the Arcana skill proficiency you get? I see Strength and Charisma as wild-cards.
As far as Feats are concerned; are the caster concentration staples(War Caster, Resilient Con) musts? Would Medium Armor Master be worth it? I've seen Ritual Caster(Wizard) brought up elsewhere.
Not played one, but here’s some thoughts. Wis is still most important. As I understand it, when a spell becomes a cleric spell, you use wis as the casting stat, so your wizard spells you get to take are wis based instead of int, so wis is really what you want. Con is good for everyone. You already have medium armor, as all clerics do, so not sure why you’d want medium armor master. So while dex is nice, anything over a 14 is wasted. INT is important from an RP standpoint, but boosting it just for a single skill seems not optimal. If you have proficiency in some other int based skills, it gets more useful, but int is really a dump stat for most classes. Feat selection will depend on other factors. First, I’d say max your wis. ASI are always a good choice. Beyond that, Will you go weapon and shield? Will the party be counting on you for bless and other buffs? Then warcaster can be useful. And the cantrip OAs will be really good when you probably won’t have much melee to speak of. To me warcaster and resilient con seems like overkill. I understand that each is better in different situations, but it seems like it’s better to just figure out which is more useful in your campaign and ho for it.
A cleric with a Charisma of 13 I think it's enough. He/she dosen't need to shine brighter with the appearance. The Intellect there I suggest just let it at 11, no more. because you have communication with Gods/Goddesses. You don't need to write books or put spells on scrolls, like in the Wizard's case. You need to focus in the good relationship between you and the rest of your allies/party.
Strenght is not a MUST HAVE part but.......... there's a SHOULD HAVE part in where you should expect if you need enough of this to carry stuff, armor and weapons. I think 15 in Strenght it's enough unless you go for Heavy Armor. Wisdom here is a MUST HAVE, obviously. We need you to talk to your GOD/GODDESS, and if you allow us to talk with him/her, it's OK. Dexterity is a secondary ability you should get too ( or at least take Mobile FEAT. ).
I think Mobile Feat on a cleric is a plus in the way to get easy heals ( if you are too far from the injured one ), and also a plus to avoid being hitted. The rest of the fun is at your hands. So choose well, unless TIAMAT come to eat you. xD
Ahhh, I prefer clerics in Medium armors or Light armors, because if you apply Mastery in those armors ( plus the mobile Feat ), I think you can be in the central area of your party's disposal/setup. Bludgeonig weapons with/without spikes I think it's a MUST HAVE part too. The War caster Feat, I think you should get it at 18th level, or at 20th. Because that Feat is a MUST HAVE in every Wizard player ASAP.
Get Resilient Constitution, War Caster, and Wisdom to 20. By the time that you have both of those feats and 20 Wisdom, you'll be quite high level. If you're actually in the position where you have both those feats and 20 Wisdom and you still need help choosing another feat/ASI, come back here and tell us about your character.
For allocating your stats when creating the character, you're correct that you should prioritize Wisdom, Constitution, and Dexterity, hopefully getting at least a 16 in Wisdom to start and at least a 14 in dexterity and constitution. After that, you're correct that a high intelligence score is good, mostly for thematic reasons. And then you can put your two lowest scores in Strength and Charisma, and how you choose which one of those is higher is all about how you envision your character for roleplaying purposes.
Edit: If you have an odd Wisdom score, and your Constitution and Dexterity are both even and you have already taken Resilient Constitution, the Observant feat is a good choice. If you've got an odd Wisdom score and you've taken Resilient Constitution, and either your Constitution or Dexterity is also odd, I would choose +1 Wisdom and +1 Dexterity/Constitution to boost both scores up to an even number.
Resilient in Constitution, ohh really ?? I thought that Feat should be better for Wizards or for the Druids. I think Clerics should focus in Heals, Buffs and Ress-ing the fallen ones.
The Observant Feat I think if you already have a high wis, you don't need extra benefits. Just let the Explorers/Druids or the Familiars do that part. Noone ever used the Familiar as a Guard ??? Really ???
You want to get the most out of any feats, should you take them. Resilient (Constitution) is a great pick if your Constitution score is already odd. If your Wisdom is odd, Observant is a great choice.
War Caster is fine, but it's also so cookie-cutter that it kind of takes the fun out of it.
Resilient in Constitution, ohh really ?? I thought that Feat should be better for Wizards or for the Druids. I think Clerics should focus in Heals, Buffs and Ress-ing the fallen ones.
The Observant Feat I think if you already have a high wis, you don't need extra benefits. Just let the Explorers/Druids or the Familiars do that part. Noone ever used the Familiar as a Guard ??? Really ???
Clerics should usually concentrate on Bless, Spirit Guardians, or another spell. So Resilient Constitution is fantastic for them. It's fantastic for every full spell caster, but certainly fantastic for Clerics who should definitely be concentrating on a spell almost all of the time during combat.
If you're a Cleric, you have a high wisdom score. You probably have proficiency in Perception. Adding a +5 to your passive perception on top of all that can give you an incredible passive perception score. Having a passive perception score above 20 provides some huge benefits, among them being that you automatically notice a ton of traps without ever having to say to the DM "I want to look for traps."
Resilient in Constitution, ohh really ?? I thought that Feat should be better for Wizards or for the Druids. I think Clerics should focus in Heals, Buffs and Ress-ing the fallen ones.
The Observant Feat I think if you already have a high wis, you don't need extra benefits. Just let the Explorers/Druids or the Familiars do that part. Noone ever used the Familiar as a Guard ??? Really ???
Clerics should usually concentrate on Bless, Spirit Guardians, or another spell. So Resilient Constitution is fantastic for them. It's fantastic for every full spell caster, but certainly fantastic for Clerics who should definitely be concentrating on a spell almost all of the time during combat.
If you're a Cleric, you have a high wisdom score. You probably have proficiency in Perception. Adding a +5 to your passive perception on top of all that can give you an incredible passive perception score. Having a passive perception score above 20 provides some huge benefits, among them being that you automatically notice a ton of traps without ever having to say to the DM "I want to look for traps."
this. You really want to keep your conc spells running. Spirit Guardians is amazing.
I usually start off with 16 wis 14 dex and 14 con. 8 str. Leftovers into int and charisma, with priority to int.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Arcana early has some fun toys to play with. From a support role, Magic Missile is some good guaranteed damage. If you take some wizard cantrips you get some better ranged attacks. Ponder things like booming blade, and green flame blade carefully, if you take them you will find yourself inching to the frontline (which is OK, but you need to work your build that way then). A couple of thoughts. 1. Decide on Warcaster or Resilient. Resilient affects all Con saving throws, and if you have an odd constitution this may be the one. Warcaster is more useful if you are going to be on the front line hitting things. Take one at 4th or 8th. Taking both is really excessive and is a marginal improvement. 2. If you took Warcaster first and booming blade, then consider Polearm Master and fight with a spear and shield. The extra attacks with blunt side are nice, but really its about AoO fishing. A lot of DM's will optimize enemy movement to avoid opportunity attacks. Polearm Master makes it so at least once an encounter you get a free cantrip attack. Booming Blade is really nice on this if its a fleeing enemy. Either the enemy doesn't flee (probably because your DM is being a jerk) or does and goes boom. 3. If you have an odd Wisdom, then strongly consider Fey Touched. Misty step offers a bonus action ability to get out of combat and you will still have your action to either swing your weapon, or use your cleric cantrip. Its a great way to get out of being surrounded. It is a pretty good feat for a 1st level human as well since it means you start with a 2nd level spell, and an extra 1st level spell you can cast a day, and its a +1 to Wisdom. Now spell selection for divination/enchantment: for utility Detect Evil/Good, Identify, Speak with Animals; for combat Hunter's Mark, Charm Person, or Hex (but Hex only if your GM isn't a pain about the petrified newt eye as component). The combat ones are really nice at low levels and would otherwise not be in your repertoire. If you have a Ranger in the party take Hex, if you have a Warlock take Hunter's Mark. Its never nice to step on someone's thing.
Shadow touched is also nice early because invisibility is great, but the choice of necromantic or illusion for the first level spell is hard. There are only 4 necromancy spells, and 5 illusion spells. Free Disguise self or silent illusion are really nice. From a combat standpoint Ray of Sickness is OK, but Inflict Wounds might be scary since its free once a day. Unlike Hunter's Mark or Hex or Charm Person that you can't get, Inflict Wounds is just the kind of thing you probably wouldn't take otherwise but if its free well... damn its fun to do 3d10 nasty necrotic damage once a day. Its like a melee guiding bolt.
On the ability score front, I am with you on Wisdom and Con. I would keep one of them odd and plan from the beginning to take Resilient or Fey Touched. This will save you 2 points at least in point buy. Use those two points to get up to 12 in something that would have been 10. You only get medium armor and a shield so Dex is useful to ponder but don't go above 14 (I would probably go 12, but you could sell me on 13 if you had another half feat that was really great). Strength is probably most important next maybe go as high as 14 as well. Intelligence and Charisma are the natural dump stats (they both have few saves, and only help a little on skills). I would full dump charisma (8) since it is least in line with the skills you have. Your intelligence skills will have to grow with your character.
Point buy I would go Str 14, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 8 for a human with plus ones in Con and Wis to get Con to 14 and Wis to 15. Then take Fey touched to get to 16 on Wisdom. You could sell me on Str 12 and Dex 14 if you want to do more backline work than frontline. Given Arcana Clerics only get simple weapons and dagger at 1d4 is the only finesse weapon I would lean towards strength regardless and go with spear since it has the most uses. For Hill Dwarf I would do similar, but might juggle some stuff since Fey touched at 4th might be not as useful as war caster or resilient. Not to mention explaining to mom and dad how you as a dwarf got fey touched could be awkward, maybe go with shadow they might understand shadowy dark lifestyles over hanging out with elves. Wood Elf could be something fun for a dex build, but be careful don't go above a 14 in Dex because you are probably going to be in Medium Armor and burning a feat on Medium Armor Master is painful. Wood Elf also gets you Long Sword proficiency which makes strength build more tempting. Your stats to increase with ASI's are wisdom and strength. Taking warcaster, or resilient means you don't worry as much about Con (Warcaster is basically a +5 to concentration saves, and resilient is basically a +2 to saves at level 1 and increases every 4 levels (also if you took it with an odd Con you already got a +1 from it. From a point buy standpoint buying to 14 instead of 15 and then using human +1 to 15 and resilient to get you to 16 saves you 2 points to put elsewhere).
It really depends on if you want to build into melee with Shillelagh and Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade; or stay back with ranged spells. If you want to go melee, then getting the Shillelagh cantrip is paramount, usually via feat or multiclass. Then, bump your constitution up after maxing out your wisdom. If you want to stay ranged, then maxing out wisdom is more important. I'm a huge fan of giving this class the Ritual Caster (Wizard) feat. They already get cantrips and wizard spells up to level 9. Adding a spell book and wizard rituals completes the Mystic Theurge build from earlier editions. Plus, having cleric and ritual casting greatly expands your utility beyond buffing. That, along with getting access to the Wish spell at level 17 makes you the ultimate 5E caster, even moreso than the wizard and the tome warlock.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I see this subclass as rather unique and would like to play one.
After prioritizing Wisdom and Constitution for spell casting, would Dexterity be a must for AC, and then Intelligence to boost the Arcana skill proficiency you get? I see Strength and Charisma as wild-cards.
As far as Feats are concerned; are the caster concentration staples(War Caster, Resilient Con) musts? Would Medium Armor Master be worth it? I've seen Ritual Caster(Wizard) brought up elsewhere.
Not played one, but here’s some thoughts.
Wis is still most important. As I understand it, when a spell becomes a cleric spell, you use wis as the casting stat, so your wizard spells you get to take are wis based instead of int, so wis is really what you want. Con is good for everyone. You already have medium armor, as all clerics do, so not sure why you’d want medium armor master.
So while dex is nice, anything over a 14 is wasted.
INT is important from an RP standpoint, but boosting it just for a single skill seems not optimal. If you have proficiency in some other int based skills, it gets more useful, but int is really a dump stat for most classes.
Feat selection will depend on other factors. First, I’d say max your wis. ASI are always a good choice.
Beyond that, Will you go weapon and shield? Will the party be counting on you for bless and other buffs? Then warcaster can be useful. And the cantrip OAs will be really good when you probably won’t have much melee to speak of. To me warcaster and resilient con seems like overkill. I understand that each is better in different situations, but it seems like it’s better to just figure out which is more useful in your campaign and ho for it.
A cleric with a Charisma of 13 I think it's enough. He/she dosen't need to shine brighter with the appearance. The Intellect there I suggest just let it at 11, no more. because you have communication with Gods/Goddesses. You don't need to write books or put spells on scrolls, like in the Wizard's case. You need to focus in the good relationship between you and the rest of your allies/party.
Strenght is not a MUST HAVE part but.......... there's a SHOULD HAVE part in where you should expect if you need enough of this to carry stuff, armor and weapons. I think 15 in Strenght it's enough unless you go for Heavy Armor. Wisdom here is a MUST HAVE, obviously. We need you to talk to your GOD/GODDESS, and if you allow us to talk with him/her, it's OK. Dexterity is a secondary ability you should get too ( or at least take Mobile FEAT. ).
I think Mobile Feat on a cleric is a plus in the way to get easy heals ( if you are too far from the injured one ), and also a plus to avoid being hitted. The rest of the fun is at your hands. So choose well, unless TIAMAT come to eat you. xD
Ahhh, I prefer clerics in Medium armors or Light armors, because if you apply Mastery in those armors ( plus the mobile Feat ), I think you can be in the central area of your party's disposal/setup. Bludgeonig weapons with/without spikes I think it's a MUST HAVE part too. The War caster Feat, I think you should get it at 18th level, or at 20th. Because that Feat is a MUST HAVE in every Wizard player ASAP.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
Get Resilient Constitution, War Caster, and Wisdom to 20. By the time that you have both of those feats and 20 Wisdom, you'll be quite high level. If you're actually in the position where you have both those feats and 20 Wisdom and you still need help choosing another feat/ASI, come back here and tell us about your character.
For allocating your stats when creating the character, you're correct that you should prioritize Wisdom, Constitution, and Dexterity, hopefully getting at least a 16 in Wisdom to start and at least a 14 in dexterity and constitution. After that, you're correct that a high intelligence score is good, mostly for thematic reasons. And then you can put your two lowest scores in Strength and Charisma, and how you choose which one of those is higher is all about how you envision your character for roleplaying purposes.
Edit: If you have an odd Wisdom score, and your Constitution and Dexterity are both even and you have already taken Resilient Constitution, the Observant feat is a good choice. If you've got an odd Wisdom score and you've taken Resilient Constitution, and either your Constitution or Dexterity is also odd, I would choose +1 Wisdom and +1 Dexterity/Constitution to boost both scores up to an even number.
Resilient in Constitution, ohh really ?? I thought that Feat should be better for Wizards or for the Druids. I think Clerics should focus in Heals, Buffs and Ress-ing the fallen ones.
The Observant Feat I think if you already have a high wis, you don't need extra benefits. Just let the Explorers/Druids or the Familiars do that part. Noone ever used the Familiar as a Guard ??? Really ???
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
You want to get the most out of any feats, should you take them. Resilient (Constitution) is a great pick if your Constitution score is already odd. If your Wisdom is odd, Observant is a great choice.
War Caster is fine, but it's also so cookie-cutter that it kind of takes the fun out of it.
Clerics should usually concentrate on Bless, Spirit Guardians, or another spell. So Resilient Constitution is fantastic for them. It's fantastic for every full spell caster, but certainly fantastic for Clerics who should definitely be concentrating on a spell almost all of the time during combat.
If you're a Cleric, you have a high wisdom score. You probably have proficiency in Perception. Adding a +5 to your passive perception on top of all that can give you an incredible passive perception score. Having a passive perception score above 20 provides some huge benefits, among them being that you automatically notice a ton of traps without ever having to say to the DM "I want to look for traps."
this. You really want to keep your conc spells running. Spirit Guardians is amazing.
I usually start off with 16 wis 14 dex and 14 con. 8 str. Leftovers into int and charisma, with priority to int.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Arcana early has some fun toys to play with. From a support role, Magic Missile is some good guaranteed damage. If you take some wizard cantrips you get some better ranged attacks. Ponder things like booming blade, and green flame blade carefully, if you take them you will find yourself inching to the frontline (which is OK, but you need to work your build that way then). A couple of thoughts.
1. Decide on Warcaster or Resilient. Resilient affects all Con saving throws, and if you have an odd constitution this may be the one. Warcaster is more useful if you are going to be on the front line hitting things. Take one at 4th or 8th. Taking both is really excessive and is a marginal improvement.
2. If you took Warcaster first and booming blade, then consider Polearm Master and fight with a spear and shield. The extra attacks with blunt side are nice, but really its about AoO fishing. A lot of DM's will optimize enemy movement to avoid opportunity attacks. Polearm Master makes it so at least once an encounter you get a free cantrip attack. Booming Blade is really nice on this if its a fleeing enemy. Either the enemy doesn't flee (probably because your DM is being a jerk) or does and goes boom.
3. If you have an odd Wisdom, then strongly consider Fey Touched. Misty step offers a bonus action ability to get out of combat and you will still have your action to either swing your weapon, or use your cleric cantrip. Its a great way to get out of being surrounded. It is a pretty good feat for a 1st level human as well since it means you start with a 2nd level spell, and an extra 1st level spell you can cast a day, and its a +1 to Wisdom. Now spell selection for divination/enchantment: for utility Detect Evil/Good, Identify, Speak with Animals; for combat Hunter's Mark, Charm Person, or Hex (but Hex only if your GM isn't a pain about the petrified newt eye as component). The combat ones are really nice at low levels and would otherwise not be in your repertoire. If you have a Ranger in the party take Hex, if you have a Warlock take Hunter's Mark. Its never nice to step on someone's thing.
Shadow touched is also nice early because invisibility is great, but the choice of necromantic or illusion for the first level spell is hard. There are only 4 necromancy spells, and 5 illusion spells. Free Disguise self or silent illusion are really nice. From a combat standpoint Ray of Sickness is OK, but Inflict Wounds might be scary since its free once a day. Unlike Hunter's Mark or Hex or Charm Person that you can't get, Inflict Wounds is just the kind of thing you probably wouldn't take otherwise but if its free well... damn its fun to do 3d10 nasty necrotic damage once a day. Its like a melee guiding bolt.
On the ability score front, I am with you on Wisdom and Con. I would keep one of them odd and plan from the beginning to take Resilient or Fey Touched. This will save you 2 points at least in point buy. Use those two points to get up to 12 in something that would have been 10.
You only get medium armor and a shield so Dex is useful to ponder but don't go above 14 (I would probably go 12, but you could sell me on 13 if you had another half feat that was really great).
Strength is probably most important next maybe go as high as 14 as well.
Intelligence and Charisma are the natural dump stats (they both have few saves, and only help a little on skills). I would full dump charisma (8) since it is least in line with the skills you have. Your intelligence skills will have to grow with your character.
Point buy I would go Str 14, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 8 for a human with plus ones in Con and Wis to get Con to 14 and Wis to 15. Then take Fey touched to get to 16 on Wisdom. You could sell me on Str 12 and Dex 14 if you want to do more backline work than frontline. Given Arcana Clerics only get simple weapons and dagger at 1d4 is the only finesse weapon I would lean towards strength regardless and go with spear since it has the most uses.
For Hill Dwarf I would do similar, but might juggle some stuff since Fey touched at 4th might be not as useful as war caster or resilient. Not to mention explaining to mom and dad how you as a dwarf got fey touched could be awkward, maybe go with shadow they might understand shadowy dark lifestyles over hanging out with elves.
Wood Elf could be something fun for a dex build, but be careful don't go above a 14 in Dex because you are probably going to be in Medium Armor and burning a feat on Medium Armor Master is painful. Wood Elf also gets you Long Sword proficiency which makes strength build more tempting.
Your stats to increase with ASI's are wisdom and strength. Taking warcaster, or resilient means you don't worry as much about Con (Warcaster is basically a +5 to concentration saves, and resilient is basically a +2 to saves at level 1 and increases every 4 levels (also if you took it with an odd Con you already got a +1 from it. From a point buy standpoint buying to 14 instead of 15 and then using human +1 to 15 and resilient to get you to 16 saves you 2 points to put elsewhere).
It really depends on if you want to build into melee with Shillelagh and Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade; or stay back with ranged spells. If you want to go melee, then getting the Shillelagh cantrip is paramount, usually via feat or multiclass. Then, bump your constitution up after maxing out your wisdom. If you want to stay ranged, then maxing out wisdom is more important. I'm a huge fan of giving this class the Ritual Caster (Wizard) feat. They already get cantrips and wizard spells up to level 9. Adding a spell book and wizard rituals completes the Mystic Theurge build from earlier editions. Plus, having cleric and ritual casting greatly expands your utility beyond buffing. That, along with getting access to the Wish spell at level 17 makes you the ultimate 5E caster, even moreso than the wizard and the tome warlock.