I'm quite a new player and I'm planning to play a life domain cleric for my next character.
Because my party is mostly composed of DPRs, I want to play a more support role (there's also no support Druid or Bard in my party), so I was thinking on playing a Life Domain Cleric, however I've been searching guides and builds and haven't found good explanations on these subjects. Usually, I heard people saying that healing is quite bad in 5e, or just inefficient, so the best type of healer in the game is the type that prevents damage instead of healing during combat. So, what are some good spells, feats or tips to 'prevent' damage as a Life Domain Cleric?
Also, can someone explain to me how does a Cleric behave in Combat or some good builds to fill this support role? (btw I'm gonna be playing VHuman).
If there's the possibility of someone sharing me a lvl by lvl guide at least to idk level 10? It would helped me a lot to comprehend better the class!
Hey bud! Clerics are wicked awesome in 5e. Anybody who says otherwise has headlice or something. Okay, so... Life Domain is a great choice. You get heavy armor to boost your AC, and you get a bit of extra healing on each heal, which is nice. Since you may need to heal any party member at any time, you're gonna want to stay in the middle of everything. So when the sh*t hits the fan, you're right there. So you're gonna need a good Constitution, to boost your hit points, because you can't heal when you're dead. You can heal others when they hit zero hp, but you can't heal yourself at zero hp. So stay alive! And make sure your party understands that if you die, they die. So as much as you're there to protect them, they need to return that favor once in a while. Obviously a good Wisdom is important, duh, and you'll need a Strength of at least 13 to wear that sweet sweet heavy armor. You'll want a Dexterity of at least 10, because your armor is your AC, not your Dex, you just don't want a negative modifier to initiative. Intelligence is really not that important to a cleric. It's not that you're "dumb", it's just that you have focused your study on one particular thing, to the exclusion of so much else. The difference between wisdom and intelligence may be hard to grasp at first, but unless you're gonna go paint-deep in the role playing, it's just safe to say that an Int of 8 is just fine. Don't worry about it. So, as a variant human using the point buy system you'd have S 13, D 10, C 16, I 8, W 16, Ch 10. For your feat I'd suggest Heavy Armor Master to boost your Strength up to 14 and to get some damage resistance. You'll be like if Cap'n America was a combat medic, except maybe not as handsome. No offense. I mean, come on, that dude is pretty!
Okay. So that's the stats. For your background either Acolyte or Soldier are your best choices. An Acolyte would be a character who was raised in a temple and who is going out into the world to spread your deity's influence. A Soldier background works good as a former soldier who has seen a lot of battlefield injuries and has picked up come combat medic training, and maybe they had some battlefield epiphany that led them to that deity. I suggest going deep into building the background. I love background. Background makes a good character great! So, Acolyte gives you proficiency in Insight and Religion. Insight is good, it's a Wisdom-based skill, and will help you figure out if people are on the level or not. Religion - meh. And you'll get two bonus languages, which is nice. Maybe you can talk your way out of a fight. The best way to heal is not to get hit in the first place! The Soldier background gives you profs in Athletics and Intimidation. Athletics is great if you need to pick up a party member and carry them to safety. Intimidation, again, might help you avoid a fight... or help you start one. Whatever. Have fun with it. It's a great role playing opportunity.
So, at level one you'll be starting out with chainmail and a shield, which is AC 18 which is just beast! As soon as you scrounge up a few hundred GP get yourself into plate armor. You'll be AC 20, so you'll feel nice and safe in the middle of combat. Your weapon choice is not important, since you'll be using the cantrip Sacred Flame or the spell Spiritual Weapon for most of your attacks. When combat begins start by casting Bless on three party members. Preferably the one with the most attacks (monk, fighter, etc) to boost their attack rolls, and the one weakest member (usually the wizard) to boost their saving throws. That'll also help that squishy wizzy maintain concentration on their spells. For the next round or two you can deal out damage. Either with Spiritual Weapon or cantrips. You're in heavy armor, so you're a tank. Take the hits. Stay in the bad guy's face. It's better to have the monster attack you, with your 18 AC than to attack the wizard with his... 11.
Don't feel the need to heal every injury. You won't keep up. Your job is not to keep your party at full health. Your job is just to keep them above ZERO as best you can, and to bring them back from zero before they actually truly really die die. If someone drops to zero, Healing Word is your best bet. Sixty foot range and it's a bonus action. It doesn't heal much but it's enough to get them back in the fight for the next round. Get Mass Healing Word (a 3rd lvl spell) as soon as you hit 5th level. That'll prevent a TPK more than once, I promise you. At 7th level you'll learn the 4th level spell Death Ward. That's another great one! It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card! The 2nd level spell Silence is great for stifling an enemy spell caster, and it's got a range of 120 feet! Aid (2nd level spell) is also good for giving your party a little extra buffer of health for eight straight hours. Spirit Guardians (3rd level spell) is an easy way to do free damage while you're also doing other stuff. The 5th level spell Holy Weapon can turn your monk's staff into John F*cking Wick! It'll do an extra 2d8 radiant on every hit, and monks hit stuff like eight or ten times a G.D. round. Not really, but still. Wicked good choice. For 6th level spells there are two you need - Heal and Word of Recall. Heal is a 70 HP heal. BOOM! And since you're a life cleric, it heals the target for 78 HP, and heals YOU for 8 HP. SWEET! Word of Recall is a last ditch GTFO spell. If a TPK is immanent, tell everybody to get next to you and you can just bamf the whole party back to your temple. It's like Teleport, except that there is only one place you can bamf to and that's your temple, or whatever holy spot you have prepared. You might only use it once or twice, but it is totally clutch.
Another great thing about clerics is that we get to select which spells we want for each day every single day. Every morning we get to choose a whole new set of spells from among the entire cleric spell lists, so we can always customize our prepared spells for whatever we think we might be going up against on that particular day. That is a huge benefit!
So let's look at some class abilities. At level 1 you have the life cleric ability Disciple of Life. It makes all your heals a little healier. Every time you cast a healing spell it heals for a few extra points (2 plus the spell level). Every little bit helps keep death away. At 2nd level you get Channel Divinity. You can use this once per short rest. When you reach 6th level you can use it twice per short rest. You can use Channel Divinity to either Turn Undead, which is nice, or to use the life cleric option Preserve Life. Multiply your cleric level by 5 and you can hand out that many hit points of healing in total to people within 30 feet. But! You can only heal them up to 50% of their max. So this is good to use late in the fight when most party members are under half health. At 6th level you get Blessed Healer. So whenever you heal somebody else, not only do they get that extra 2 + the spell level, but now YOU get that little bit extra too! So every time you heal anybody you're also healing yourself. At level 10 you'll get Divine Intervention. It's like a Hail Mary pass. You ask your deity for some big favor then you roll percentile dice, and if you roll equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity picks up the phone and helps you out. This is within DM discretion, of course, but when it works (which is vey rare) it makes a big difference.
At level 4 and again at level 8 you'll get the chance to either raise an ability score by 2 or to choose a feat. Raising your Constitution is nice because the more HP you have the longer you can survive tanking in battle. Raising Wisdom is nice too because... well... cleric. Do at least one of them. If you pick a feat, there are plenty of nice ones. Tough is an easy way to boost your HP. Shield Master is great for avoiding some spell damage if you can actually manage to pass a Dexterity saving throw. But WAR CASTER is your best bet, since it gives you advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration on spells, and it lets you cast spells even when your hands are full with a shield and a weapon.
So that should get you up to level 10. And again - get into the backstory. Why did you become a cleric? Why this domain? Why this deity? Did you choose them or did they choose you? What are your daily and annual rituals and obligations? Clerics are such a flexible and diverse class that you don't just have to be the optimistic, helpful, encouraging, party support guy. You can be a gruff, dirty, grizzled combat veteran mumbling profanities past the cigar clenched in your teeth. When you heal someone back from zero hit points you don't need to be all like "Arise, and tarry on, my courageous ally!" You can totally be like, "Git off yer ass and git back to work ya bum!" Whatever you do have fun with it. After all, it's a game. That's what it's all about!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
When you have to heal, you'll be more efficient at it than normal. This will be good when that's needed. Some good beginner tips would be to take Toll the Dead if you can get it and Sacred Flame if you can't. These will be your default action for the most part. Guidance is a great second cantrip. Your third can be whatever you like, Light or [spell]Thaumatergy[spell] are great options.
If you can, take human variant instead of human and take Warcaster feat. If that's not an option, Grappler will be your only option if you have a strength of 13 or higher. At that point, regular human is better than human variant without any feat and might be better than Grappler if that doesn't fit your character.
You'll automatically prepare Bless and Cure Wounds. For your 2 or 3 other spells, [Tooltip Not Found], but give it a few tries early if needed to see how you like it. Bless is a great spell for your attackers and will help them to hit more frequently. It uses concentration and that will give you more oomph for your spell slots. If you don't have a bunch of attackers but have lots of people forcing saves (like your "attack" cantrips, consider casting Shield of Faith on your tankiest person or on your biggest hitter that you can't afford to go down. Having a ritual like Detect Magic prepared will give you some additional utility at the cost of the prepared slot. I'm sure plenty of people will give you more, but that's a decent start.
Don't feel like you have to keep people topped off. That's where the inefficiency is in 5e. You don't have to wait will they drop to get them a heal, but don't just throw the heals around nilly willy either.
If you want to focus on the best healing and good support options, TaynOfDarkwood's guide is exactly what I did. Variant Human with STR, Soldier background.
For my second cleric, I changed it up, a lot. I still went Variant Human but, I dropped STR and Dex to 8 and did raise INT and WIS(16 each) to boost lore and knowledge skills. CON is still at a respectable 14. I picked Sage background. I picked Grave domain. My strategy is is buff and debuff which are both more efficient than healing, dropping nukes and lastly, emergency heals with spells or with the Healer feat. The Grave domain features are awesome(and more interesting in my opinion than Life). I am still a high HP tank that can wade through battle, I just can't hit anything physically.
I'm sure most of the cleric domains are effective in their own ways
Ok, first I wanna say that was an amazing read with lots of good chunks of information!
I really enjoyed how you explained every single detail about the life of a life cleric, thank you very much for the time and effort you put into writing this post. I will definitely consider everything you've said when I'll play my cleric!
Again, thank you!
P.S: English is not my native language so maybe you all can understand me without any problems!
Since we are starting at level 5 this is what I have in mind:
Race: VHuman with war caster/resilience CON as lvl 1 feat. (Still deciding which one to take!)
Background: Acolyte (She's a girl who grew up as an adopted daughter of a old retired Paladin who is now a Priest of a small church, along with another children's who later became paladins/clerics). Also, love Insight as a skill for my cleric.
Stats (point buy): STR 14, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 18, CH 8 (with the scores improvements and VHuman improvements)
Starting equipment: Starting with Chain mail and Shield for 18 AC. I will have a spear but normally I'm going with cantrips for damage. (I wanted a rapier but it's a martial weapon :c, so I guess my spiritual weapon will be a rapier haha)
Cantrips: Sacred flame, Light, Thaumaturgy (using Baldur's gate 3 version), and guidance. (I think I might change Sacred flame for Toll the Dead but I just love the flavor with Sacred flame :c )
1st level Spells:
Bless, Cure Wounds, Guiding Bolt and Healing Word.
Bless seems incredibly powerful for me, I think it is an amazing support spell at low levels either offensively or defensively.I can't get rid of cured wounds, but I'm taking Healing word because it only costs a BA, and to pick up unconscious allies. Guiding bolt looks like a good damage spell for its level. I will probably swap out something for purify drink and food if I need to.
2nd level Spells:
Aid, Calm Emotions, Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing, Silence and Spiritual Weapons.
Aid seems like a lot of help to prevent a little damage for the day. Lesser restoration is like one of the reasons I'm a paladin, to get rid of conditions, and diseases. Silence looks amazing from what TaynOfDarkwoodsaid earlier in his post. Spiritual Weapon is my main damage dealer spell in this slot and one of the best spells I have seen at this level.
3rd level Spells:
Beacon of Hope, Mass Healing Word, Remove Curse, Revivify and Spirit Guardians.
Ok, I know that's maybe a lot of 3rd level for 5 level, but I just want to be as high utility as I am able to, with Revivify, Remove Curse and Mass Healing Word helping deaths, curses and TPK's. Might swap something out with Dispel Magic if the other spellcasters don't want to waste to learn a spell on that one.
Highly recommend Spirit Guardians, as it will deal damage to enemies within 15 ft. of you regardless if they make their WIS saves or not. However it is a concentration spell, so you'll have to decide whether DPR or helping your allies hit and pass saving throws via Bless is more important.
That looks like a great set up, bud. You'll do just fine. And your English is great!
"I'm here to cure wounds and chew bubblegum... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
One of the best combat abilities of a cleric is the Spirit Guardians. You pop it at the start of combat and then any bad guys within it's range take damage every turn without you having to do anything besides concentrating so you can use your actions and bonus actions to help your party in other ways while still dealing solid damage every turn to multiple targets.
The only big problem I see is you need a 15 str to use that chainmail. probably take the points out of wis, you don’t absolutely need an 18 at level 1. And I vote war caster for the feat.
I don't know how to improve what has been said, but here is my 2 and a half cents: try to get some good buff/debuff spells, such as hold person, command, anything to keep them from attacking your buddies. Make sure to have plenty of diamonds for revivify (I think it takes and consumes 200 gp worth of diamonds). Definite war caster for an early feat. Maybe at level 8 or after your wisdom is about 18, then get resilient-constitution or maybe resilient-dexterity (those two are really common saves, so it might be a tough decision). I would go for a handaxe or mace for melee weapon (both are simple weapons; you could also pick a dozen or so javelins for cheap weapon damage; they're only 5 sp per each). Eventually spare the dying when you can pick up another cantrip, then death ward at around 7th level. level 9 either something along the lines of mass cure wounds for healing or flame strike for damage.
Personally I like the war cleric, so...
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Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
I recommend Guidance (Cantrip) for any Cleric build. It is one of the very best support "spells" in the book and will get more use than any other spell you pick if you have a crew that enjoys RP.
I realize this isn't very targeted to a Life Cleric Build, but I believe it will give you and your friends a better experience.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The only big problem I see is you need a 15 str to use that chainmail. probably take the points out of wis, you don’t absolutely need an 18 at level 1. And I vote war caster for the feat.
You only need 13 strength for Chain mail, but will need 15 if you want anything better in heavy armor or your speed will be 20 instead of 30.
One of the best combat abilities of a cleric is the Spirit Guardians. You pop it at the start of combat and then any bad guys within it's range take damage every turn without you having to do anything besides concentrating so you can use your actions and bonus actions to help your party in other ways while still dealing solid damage every turn to multiple targets.
Just in case anyone thinks the damage only applies to creatures within range when you cast it, the spell forces a save on any creature that starts within or enters the aura for the first time on their turn. The spell does nothing on your turn.
This isn't to say that it's not a great spell, just making sure that the right expectations are in place for it. It is absolutely a great spell for life clerics that will likely be within 15 ft of the main melee scrum or even within 15 ft of the ranged attackers. However, if you actively attempt to stay away from enemies, it does lose some it's utility compared to Bless or other concentration spells, since the damage may not be triggered, the slow applied, or the positioning of that 15 ft aura won't be to dissuade enemies from coming close to your allies and your armor might be enough to dissuade then from coming after you.
Yeah, Spirit Guardians with Warcaster is sick. My Cleric and Warrior walked through an NPC's "army" of minions. We took all kinds of melee and range hits, walked through a Stinking Cloud and Hailstorm without dropping the spell. Must have melted at least 20 enemies. Of course the spell dropped on Hypnotic Pattern when I failed my save, lol. It was a good run.
I already mentioned the Healer feat but, really take a look. I have been out of spellslots and having this for a back up to put some healing on multiple PCs has been invaluable.
The Healer feat is excellent provided you're in an area where there are Healer's Kits readily available to purchase. The in-combat ability to not only stabilize someone but bring them to consciousness is certainly useful, but the amount of out-of-combat healing you can get from them without burning spell slots can be a BIG help. We had a Life Cleric with that feat when I played Princes Of The Apocalypse, and they were able to conserve quite a few spell slots over the course of an adventuring day. Each one of those low-level spell slots saved is an extra use of something like Bane(one of my FAVORITE DM-wrecking spells), Bless, Shield Of Faith, etc. or even just MOAR HEALING.
You don'r need to worry too much about which spells to have because as a cleric you can change them at the end of a long rest. If you find you are not using a spell you can easily swap it out for something else. Also if you know what you are likely to encounter you can prepare your spells appropraitely for example if you have been asked to apprenhend an evil mage and bring him back alive to the authorities you might want to prepare hold person and silence, but these would be of little use if you were going to kill some crocodiles that had been killing the fishermen in the village.
I would also think about things other than combat, for example in combat a cleric does not need intelligence and it is fine to plat the unlearned cleric who was blessed by their god of with magical powers. However out of combat an educated cleric with a decent intelligence (say 12) and proficiency in Religion and Arcana can be very useful.
You can choose which you want to take for role-play reasons if you are looking to maximise the effectivenss of the party I would say you want someone to cover religion arcana and investigation checks (all of which are very common) if this is covered by the wizard or artificer then you might be better off playing the low intelligence cleric (though having two characters able to role can help of the wizard rolls poorly), if everyone there is no wizard or artificer in the party you might be the best person to make such checks.
Hi everyone!
I'm quite a new player and I'm planning to play a life domain cleric for my next character.
Because my party is mostly composed of DPRs, I want to play a more support role (there's also no support Druid or Bard in my party), so I was thinking on playing a Life Domain Cleric, however I've been searching guides and builds and haven't found good explanations on these subjects. Usually, I heard people saying that healing is quite bad in 5e, or just inefficient, so the best type of healer in the game is the type that prevents damage instead of healing during combat. So, what are some good spells, feats or tips to 'prevent' damage as a Life Domain Cleric?
Also, can someone explain to me how does a Cleric behave in Combat or some good builds to fill this support role? (btw I'm gonna be playing VHuman).
If there's the possibility of someone sharing me a lvl by lvl guide at least to idk level 10? It would helped me a lot to comprehend better the class!
Thank you everyone!
Hey bud! Clerics are wicked awesome in 5e. Anybody who says otherwise has headlice or something. Okay, so... Life Domain is a great choice. You get heavy armor to boost your AC, and you get a bit of extra healing on each heal, which is nice. Since you may need to heal any party member at any time, you're gonna want to stay in the middle of everything. So when the sh*t hits the fan, you're right there. So you're gonna need a good Constitution, to boost your hit points, because you can't heal when you're dead. You can heal others when they hit zero hp, but you can't heal yourself at zero hp. So stay alive! And make sure your party understands that if you die, they die. So as much as you're there to protect them, they need to return that favor once in a while. Obviously a good Wisdom is important, duh, and you'll need a Strength of at least 13 to wear that sweet sweet heavy armor. You'll want a Dexterity of at least 10, because your armor is your AC, not your Dex, you just don't want a negative modifier to initiative. Intelligence is really not that important to a cleric. It's not that you're "dumb", it's just that you have focused your study on one particular thing, to the exclusion of so much else. The difference between wisdom and intelligence may be hard to grasp at first, but unless you're gonna go paint-deep in the role playing, it's just safe to say that an Int of 8 is just fine. Don't worry about it. So, as a variant human using the point buy system you'd have S 13, D 10, C 16, I 8, W 16, Ch 10. For your feat I'd suggest Heavy Armor Master to boost your Strength up to 14 and to get some damage resistance. You'll be like if Cap'n America was a combat medic, except maybe not as handsome. No offense. I mean, come on, that dude is pretty!
Okay. So that's the stats. For your background either Acolyte or Soldier are your best choices. An Acolyte would be a character who was raised in a temple and who is going out into the world to spread your deity's influence. A Soldier background works good as a former soldier who has seen a lot of battlefield injuries and has picked up come combat medic training, and maybe they had some battlefield epiphany that led them to that deity. I suggest going deep into building the background. I love background. Background makes a good character great! So, Acolyte gives you proficiency in Insight and Religion. Insight is good, it's a Wisdom-based skill, and will help you figure out if people are on the level or not. Religion - meh. And you'll get two bonus languages, which is nice. Maybe you can talk your way out of a fight. The best way to heal is not to get hit in the first place! The Soldier background gives you profs in Athletics and Intimidation. Athletics is great if you need to pick up a party member and carry them to safety. Intimidation, again, might help you avoid a fight... or help you start one. Whatever. Have fun with it. It's a great role playing opportunity.
So, at level one you'll be starting out with chainmail and a shield, which is AC 18 which is just beast! As soon as you scrounge up a few hundred GP get yourself into plate armor. You'll be AC 20, so you'll feel nice and safe in the middle of combat. Your weapon choice is not important, since you'll be using the cantrip Sacred Flame or the spell Spiritual Weapon for most of your attacks. When combat begins start by casting Bless on three party members. Preferably the one with the most attacks (monk, fighter, etc) to boost their attack rolls, and the one weakest member (usually the wizard) to boost their saving throws. That'll also help that squishy wizzy maintain concentration on their spells. For the next round or two you can deal out damage. Either with Spiritual Weapon or cantrips. You're in heavy armor, so you're a tank. Take the hits. Stay in the bad guy's face. It's better to have the monster attack you, with your 18 AC than to attack the wizard with his... 11.
Don't feel the need to heal every injury. You won't keep up. Your job is not to keep your party at full health. Your job is just to keep them above ZERO as best you can, and to bring them back from zero before they actually truly really die die. If someone drops to zero, Healing Word is your best bet. Sixty foot range and it's a bonus action. It doesn't heal much but it's enough to get them back in the fight for the next round. Get Mass Healing Word (a 3rd lvl spell) as soon as you hit 5th level. That'll prevent a TPK more than once, I promise you. At 7th level you'll learn the 4th level spell Death Ward. That's another great one! It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card! The 2nd level spell Silence is great for stifling an enemy spell caster, and it's got a range of 120 feet! Aid (2nd level spell) is also good for giving your party a little extra buffer of health for eight straight hours. Spirit Guardians (3rd level spell) is an easy way to do free damage while you're also doing other stuff. The 5th level spell Holy Weapon can turn your monk's staff into John F*cking Wick! It'll do an extra 2d8 radiant on every hit, and monks hit stuff like eight or ten times a G.D. round. Not really, but still. Wicked good choice. For 6th level spells there are two you need - Heal and Word of Recall. Heal is a 70 HP heal. BOOM! And since you're a life cleric, it heals the target for 78 HP, and heals YOU for 8 HP. SWEET! Word of Recall is a last ditch GTFO spell. If a TPK is immanent, tell everybody to get next to you and you can just bamf the whole party back to your temple. It's like Teleport, except that there is only one place you can bamf to and that's your temple, or whatever holy spot you have prepared. You might only use it once or twice, but it is totally clutch.
Another great thing about clerics is that we get to select which spells we want for each day every single day. Every morning we get to choose a whole new set of spells from among the entire cleric spell lists, so we can always customize our prepared spells for whatever we think we might be going up against on that particular day. That is a huge benefit!
So let's look at some class abilities. At level 1 you have the life cleric ability Disciple of Life. It makes all your heals a little healier. Every time you cast a healing spell it heals for a few extra points (2 plus the spell level). Every little bit helps keep death away. At 2nd level you get Channel Divinity. You can use this once per short rest. When you reach 6th level you can use it twice per short rest. You can use Channel Divinity to either Turn Undead, which is nice, or to use the life cleric option Preserve Life. Multiply your cleric level by 5 and you can hand out that many hit points of healing in total to people within 30 feet. But! You can only heal them up to 50% of their max. So this is good to use late in the fight when most party members are under half health. At 6th level you get Blessed Healer. So whenever you heal somebody else, not only do they get that extra 2 + the spell level, but now YOU get that little bit extra too! So every time you heal anybody you're also healing yourself. At level 10 you'll get Divine Intervention. It's like a Hail Mary pass. You ask your deity for some big favor then you roll percentile dice, and if you roll equal to or lower than your cleric level, your deity picks up the phone and helps you out. This is within DM discretion, of course, but when it works (which is vey rare) it makes a big difference.
At level 4 and again at level 8 you'll get the chance to either raise an ability score by 2 or to choose a feat. Raising your Constitution is nice because the more HP you have the longer you can survive tanking in battle. Raising Wisdom is nice too because... well... cleric. Do at least one of them. If you pick a feat, there are plenty of nice ones. Tough is an easy way to boost your HP. Shield Master is great for avoiding some spell damage if you can actually manage to pass a Dexterity saving throw. But WAR CASTER is your best bet, since it gives you advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration on spells, and it lets you cast spells even when your hands are full with a shield and a weapon.
So that should get you up to level 10. And again - get into the backstory. Why did you become a cleric? Why this domain? Why this deity? Did you choose them or did they choose you? What are your daily and annual rituals and obligations? Clerics are such a flexible and diverse class that you don't just have to be the optimistic, helpful, encouraging, party support guy. You can be a gruff, dirty, grizzled combat veteran mumbling profanities past the cigar clenched in your teeth. When you heal someone back from zero hit points you don't need to be all like "Arise, and tarry on, my courageous ally!" You can totally be like, "Git off yer ass and git back to work ya bum!" Whatever you do have fun with it. After all, it's a game. That's what it's all about!
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
When you have to heal, you'll be more efficient at it than normal. This will be good when that's needed. Some good beginner tips would be to take Toll the Dead if you can get it and Sacred Flame if you can't. These will be your default action for the most part. Guidance is a great second cantrip. Your third can be whatever you like, Light or [spell]Thaumatergy[spell] are great options.
If you can, take human variant instead of human and take Warcaster feat. If that's not an option, Grappler will be your only option if you have a strength of 13 or higher. At that point, regular human is better than human variant without any feat and might be better than Grappler if that doesn't fit your character.
You'll automatically prepare Bless and Cure Wounds. For your 2 or 3 other spells, [Tooltip Not Found], but give it a few tries early if needed to see how you like it. Bless is a great spell for your attackers and will help them to hit more frequently. It uses concentration and that will give you more oomph for your spell slots. If you don't have a bunch of attackers but have lots of people forcing saves (like your "attack" cantrips, consider casting Shield of Faith on your tankiest person or on your biggest hitter that you can't afford to go down. Having a ritual like Detect Magic prepared will give you some additional utility at the cost of the prepared slot. I'm sure plenty of people will give you more, but that's a decent start.
Don't feel like you have to keep people topped off. That's where the inefficiency is in 5e. You don't have to wait will they drop to get them a heal, but don't just throw the heals around nilly willy either.
If you want to focus on the best healing and good support options, TaynOfDarkwood's guide is exactly what I did. Variant Human with STR, Soldier background.
For my second cleric, I changed it up, a lot. I still went Variant Human but, I dropped STR and Dex to 8 and did raise INT and WIS(16 each) to boost lore and knowledge skills. CON is still at a respectable 14. I picked Sage background. I picked Grave domain. My strategy is is buff and debuff which are both more efficient than healing, dropping nukes and lastly, emergency heals with spells or with the Healer feat. The Grave domain features are awesome(and more interesting in my opinion than Life). I am still a high HP tank that can wade through battle, I just can't hit anything physically.
I'm sure most of the cleric domains are effective in their own ways
Ok, first I wanna say that was an amazing read with lots of good chunks of information!
I really enjoyed how you explained every single detail about the life of a life cleric, thank you very much for the time and effort you put into writing this post. I will definitely consider everything you've said when I'll play my cleric!
Again, thank you!
P.S: English is not my native language so maybe you all can understand me without any problems!
Since we are starting at level 5 this is what I have in mind:
Race: VHuman with war caster/resilience CON as lvl 1 feat. (Still deciding which one to take!)
Background: Acolyte (She's a girl who grew up as an adopted daughter of a old retired Paladin who is now a Priest of a small church, along with another children's who later became paladins/clerics). Also, love Insight as a skill for my cleric.
Stats (point buy): STR 14, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 18, CH 8 (with the scores improvements and VHuman improvements)
Starting equipment: Starting with Chain mail and Shield for 18 AC. I will have a spear but normally I'm going with cantrips for damage. (I wanted a rapier but it's a martial weapon :c, so I guess my spiritual weapon will be a rapier haha)
Cantrips: Sacred flame, Light, Thaumaturgy (using Baldur's gate 3 version), and guidance. (I think I might change Sacred flame for Toll the Dead but I just love the flavor with Sacred flame :c )
1st level Spells:
Bless, Cure Wounds, Guiding Bolt and Healing Word.
Bless seems incredibly powerful for me, I think it is an amazing support spell at low levels either offensively or defensively.I can't get rid of cured wounds, but I'm taking Healing word because it only costs a BA, and to pick up unconscious allies. Guiding bolt looks like a good damage spell for its level. I will probably swap out something for purify drink and food if I need to.
2nd level Spells:
Aid, Calm Emotions, Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing, Silence and Spiritual Weapons.
Aid seems like a lot of help to prevent a little damage for the day. Lesser restoration is like one of the reasons I'm a paladin, to get rid of conditions, and diseases. Silence looks amazing from what TaynOfDarkwood said earlier in his post. Spiritual Weapon is my main damage dealer spell in this slot and one of the best spells I have seen at this level.
3rd level Spells:
Beacon of Hope, Mass Healing Word, Remove Curse, Revivify and Spirit Guardians.
Ok, I know that's maybe a lot of 3rd level for 5 level, but I just want to be as high utility as I am able to, with Revivify, Remove Curse and Mass Healing Word helping deaths, curses and TPK's. Might swap something out with Dispel Magic if the other spellcasters don't want to waste to learn a spell on that one.
Any more suggestions are welcomed!
Highly recommend Spirit Guardians, as it will deal damage to enemies within 15 ft. of you regardless if they make their WIS saves or not. However it is a concentration spell, so you'll have to decide whether DPR or helping your allies hit and pass saving throws via Bless is more important.
That looks like a great set up, bud. You'll do just fine. And your English is great!
"I'm here to cure wounds and chew bubblegum... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
One of the best combat abilities of a cleric is the Spirit Guardians. You pop it at the start of combat and then any bad guys within it's range take damage every turn without you having to do anything besides concentrating so you can use your actions and bonus actions to help your party in other ways while still dealing solid damage every turn to multiple targets.
The only big problem I see is you need a 15 str to use that chainmail. probably take the points out of wis, you don’t absolutely need an 18 at level 1. And I vote war caster for the feat.
I don't know how to improve what has been said, but here is my 2 and a half cents: try to get some good buff/debuff spells, such as hold person, command, anything to keep them from attacking your buddies. Make sure to have plenty of diamonds for revivify (I think it takes and consumes 200 gp worth of diamonds). Definite war caster for an early feat. Maybe at level 8 or after your wisdom is about 18, then get resilient-constitution or maybe resilient-dexterity (those two are really common saves, so it might be a tough decision). I would go for a handaxe or mace for melee weapon (both are simple weapons; you could also pick a dozen or so javelins for cheap weapon damage; they're only 5 sp per each). Eventually spare the dying when you can pick up another cantrip, then death ward at around 7th level. level 9 either something along the lines of mass cure wounds for healing or flame strike for damage.
Personally I like the war cleric, so...
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
I recommend Guidance (Cantrip) for any Cleric build. It is one of the very best support "spells" in the book and will get more use than any other spell you pick if you have a crew that enjoys RP.
I realize this isn't very targeted to a Life Cleric Build, but I believe it will give you and your friends a better experience.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Agreed, guidance is fantastic and gives you a chance to be really creative with what guidance you give.
Resistance cantrip as well along those lines
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
You only need 13 strength for Chain mail, but will need 15 if you want anything better in heavy armor or your speed will be 20 instead of 30.
Just in case anyone thinks the damage only applies to creatures within range when you cast it, the spell forces a save on any creature that starts within or enters the aura for the first time on their turn. The spell does nothing on your turn.
This isn't to say that it's not a great spell, just making sure that the right expectations are in place for it. It is absolutely a great spell for life clerics that will likely be within 15 ft of the main melee scrum or even within 15 ft of the ranged attackers. However, if you actively attempt to stay away from enemies, it does lose some it's utility compared to Bless or other concentration spells, since the damage may not be triggered, the slow applied, or the positioning of that 15 ft aura won't be to dissuade enemies from coming close to your allies and your armor might be enough to dissuade then from coming after you.
Yeah, Spirit Guardians with Warcaster is sick. My Cleric and Warrior walked through an NPC's "army" of minions. We took all kinds of melee and range hits, walked through a Stinking Cloud and Hailstorm without dropping the spell. Must have melted at least 20 enemies. Of course the spell dropped on Hypnotic Pattern when I failed my save, lol. It was a good run.
I already mentioned the Healer feat but, really take a look. I have been out of spellslots and having this for a back up to put some healing on multiple PCs has been invaluable.
The Healer feat is excellent provided you're in an area where there are Healer's Kits readily available to purchase. The in-combat ability to not only stabilize someone but bring them to consciousness is certainly useful, but the amount of out-of-combat healing you can get from them without burning spell slots can be a BIG help. We had a Life Cleric with that feat when I played Princes Of The Apocalypse, and they were able to conserve quite a few spell slots over the course of an adventuring day. Each one of those low-level spell slots saved is an extra use of something like Bane(one of my FAVORITE DM-wrecking spells), Bless, Shield Of Faith, etc. or even just MOAR HEALING.
Thank you for all the replies!
This was my first post and received tons of useful information!
You don'r need to worry too much about which spells to have because as a cleric you can change them at the end of a long rest. If you find you are not using a spell you can easily swap it out for something else. Also if you know what you are likely to encounter you can prepare your spells appropraitely for example if you have been asked to apprenhend an evil mage and bring him back alive to the authorities you might want to prepare hold person and silence, but these would be of little use if you were going to kill some crocodiles that had been killing the fishermen in the village.
I would also think about things other than combat, for example in combat a cleric does not need intelligence and it is fine to plat the unlearned cleric who was blessed by their god of with magical powers. However out of combat an educated cleric with a decent intelligence (say 12) and proficiency in Religion and Arcana can be very useful.
You can choose which you want to take for role-play reasons if you are looking to maximise the effectivenss of the party I would say you want someone to cover religion arcana and investigation checks (all of which are very common) if this is covered by the wizard or artificer then you might be better off playing the low intelligence cleric (though having two characters able to role can help of the wizard rolls poorly), if everyone there is no wizard or artificer in the party you might be the best person to make such checks.