ok, so I just started playing 2 weeks ago and am trying to learn characters, classes, and races. I’ve found a cool sorcerer and fighter. But for a campaign I’m starting with a friend they want a cleric but I’ve never even started reading that chapter. I’d be starting at level 6 and the war something sounded cool. Any tips on race and builds?
Clerics can be built a number of different ways. You usually want decent WIS and the other stats can vary.
War clerics make good 2-handed weapon builds. So high STR, great weapon master feat, heavy armor. Variant human is good (+1 to STR and WIS and get GWM at level 1). Hill dwarfs make good tanky builds. Half-orcs do good weapon damage. Earth or water genasi can work and bring neat traits.
For a more general sword and shield build, I recommend tempest (for more offense) or forge (for more defense) (or twilight if your DM allows playtest). For spell slingers I recommend arcana or light. For support life, grave, or trickery.
Spiritual weapon and spirit guardians are 2 very powerful cleric combat spells that combo well together. Healing word is more convenient than cure wounds and you should be using them to bring allies up from 0 HP not keeping them at full health (regardless of what they say).
Im really digging Storm. So i started varient human, but took warcaster so i can cast with stuff in my hands and use spells as an opportunity atk. seemed great. Took a warmhammer, and chainmail (med). i think im gonna like it. I follow Thor as my god
Look at races that have a racial bonus to Wisdom. That will be your main spellcasting ability. Then you'll need to decide if you're going to just hang back, or if you're going to get in the mix. Also, look at the domains that give you heavy armor proficiency and decide if any of them sound fun. If they do, you can use strength as your melee/defense stat with constitution as your third highest stat. If you're going to hang back, try to get your dex at 14, get some medium armor and call it good. You will also have the option to go with a dex melee build that way, but have dex higher than 16 starts making light armor more viable. You might still be better served with medium armor for large stretches, but you can at least look into it.
Once you know how you want to deal with melee, you can look at races that match those stats. Without exhausting the options, Hill Dwarf, Lizardfolk, Tortle, and Loxodon give bonuses to constitution and wisdom and wood elf gives bonuses to dex and wisdom. Hill Dwarf and Wood Elf are in the player's handbook, while the other three are in various other books or packages. Lizardfolk, Tortle, and Loxodon also give alternate ways to calculate your AC.
Decide if you're going to be more of a front line cleric (and whether you're going to focus on melee attack or support while there) or whether you're going to hang back and either attack via casting or offer support. Remember that healing during battle isn't as effective in 5e and that a healing word to bring some up from zero is usually better than healing someone who is still standing, though YMMV. Guidance, Spare the Dying, and an attack cantrip. With your leveled spells, you can prepare new spells every morning which will reduce the chances that you have a bunch of stinkers, as will your always prepared spells that you get from your domain.
Try to make sure you have a couple of bonus action options (healing word is a no brainer, some domain features also give an option). A concentration spell like bless can be beneficial, giving your spell slots more oomph. Perhaps a ritual spell, but not completely necessary. There are plenty of forum topics that go into depth on spell selection.
Clerics are a really strong class. I've actually only played it once, and it was just so strong that it made me never want to play a cleric again, and I did no building, and my rolls were just average.
In opinion, as long as you don't intentionally make a bad cleric, you don't need to build it, you'll feel like an absolute unit playing one. You can even heal, deal big damage, or just go plain melee. It's so versatile in combat, even outside of combat.
War caster feat is really useful if you’re going to be up the front line. You don’t have to start juggling if you have a spell with somatic components and advantage to maintain concentration can be necessary depending on how many concentration spells you have.
Just a reminder as I see a lot of people make this mistake. If you cast a bonus action spell such as spiritual weapon or healing word then you can't cast a spell of level 1 or higher using your action. However after you cast spiritual weapon the following round you can use your action to cast a spell and bonus action to use spiritual weapon. An effective start to combat looks similar to this...
Round 1 Cast Spiritual Weapon and attack with weapon
Round 2 Cast spirit guardians and attack with spiritual weapon. Spirit Guardians will damage enemies close to you as long as you maintain concentration.
Round 3 Attack with weapon and use attack with spiritual weapon.
As a Tempest cleric Shatter and eventually Call Lightning will give you great damage. As twice at level 6 you can maximize damage rolled when rolling for Thunder or Lightning damage.
Clerics have lots of action economy. Tempest clerics are great at frontline fighting and they have the privileged of being a full caster as well.
Guidance is a great cantrip to aid the party out of combat.
Have you thought about how to roleplay the character and what god you might serve?
I love clerics. The cleric in our party is a bit of a tank, while also being the healer and the most dedicated to role-playing. I'd agree that Guidance is very useful, and a good balance of ranged and other attacks.
Just a reminder as I see a lot of people make this mistake. If you cast a bonus action spell such as spiritual weapon or healing word then you can't cast a spell of level 1 or higher using your action. However after you cast spiritual weapon the following round you can use your action to cast a spell and bonus action to use spiritual weapon. An effective start to combat looks similar to this...
Round 1 Cast Spiritual Weapon and attack with weapon
Round 2 Cast spirit guardians and attack with spiritual weapon. Spirit Guardians will damage enemies close to you as long as you maintain concentration.
Round 3 Attack with weapon and use attack with spiritual weapon.
As a Tempest cleric Shatter and eventually Call Lightning will give you great damage. As twice at level 6 you can maximize damage rolled when rolling for Thunder or Lightning damage.
Clerics have lots of action economy. Tempest clerics are great at frontline fighting and they have the privileged of being a full caster as well.
Guidance is a great cantrip to aid the party out of combat.
Have you thought about how to roleplay the character and what god you might serve?
I am doing tempest cleric. I worship the god Thor. My back story is I was found as a child with my village destroyed. I took the name Ullr (the adopted son of Thor, fitting, being adopted by the church of Thor).
That sounds like an awesome backstory. Just a friendly tip you want to dish damage out. Don't worry about healing as it is more useful to heal outside of combat or when people drop to zero. In general you can't heal at a rate equal to or greater than the damage that the enemy will do. You want to throw out damage so less healing is needed later. I hope you have fun and remember just because the players are whining about being hurt doesn't mean you need to be a heal bot and waste every spell on the dumb party member that keeps charging in without any strategy.
That sounds like an awesome backstory. Just a friendly tip you want to dish damage out. Don't worry about healing as it is more useful to heal outside of combat or when people drop to zero. In general you can't heal at a rate equal to or greater than the damage that the enemy will do. You want to throw out damage so less healing is needed later. I hope you have fun and remember just because the players are whining about being hurt doesn't mean you need to be a heal bot and waste every spell on the dumb party member that keeps charging in without any strategy.
Even if you want to go Life Domain, this is a good idea. This is part of the reason that I suggest getting Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, or one of the more cantrips available from a domain to give you some ranged oomph and possibly some emphasis in dex or str for some melee damage. There are some options for multiclassing that could get you more cantrips or better melee damage while maintaining most of the cleric feel, but I'd recommend staying single class for your first time to get a good feel for what the class is. If you go Death cleric (from the DMG), you get an extra necromancy cantrip, which would allow you to grab Toll the Dead from that while grabbing utility cantrips from your 3 base cleric cantrips or potentially adding something like Word of Radiance for some AOE.
ok, so I just started playing 2 weeks ago and am trying to learn characters, classes, and races. I’ve found a cool sorcerer and fighter. But for a campaign I’m starting with a friend they want a cleric but I’ve never even started reading that chapter. I’d be starting at level 6 and the war something sounded cool. Any tips on race and builds?
Clerics can be built a number of different ways. You usually want decent WIS and the other stats can vary.
War clerics make good 2-handed weapon builds. So high STR, great weapon master feat, heavy armor. Variant human is good (+1 to STR and WIS and get GWM at level 1). Hill dwarfs make good tanky builds. Half-orcs do good weapon damage. Earth or water genasi can work and bring neat traits.
For a more general sword and shield build, I recommend tempest (for more offense) or forge (for more defense) (or twilight if your DM allows playtest). For spell slingers I recommend arcana or light. For support life, grave, or trickery.
Spiritual weapon and spirit guardians are 2 very powerful cleric combat spells that combo well together. Healing word is more convenient than cure wounds and you should be using them to bring allies up from 0 HP not keeping them at full health (regardless of what they say).
And that is my cleric advice. Any questions?
Im really digging Storm. So i started varient human, but took warcaster so i can cast with stuff in my hands and use spells as an opportunity atk. seemed great. Took a warmhammer, and chainmail (med). i think im gonna like it. I follow Thor as my god
Look at races that have a racial bonus to Wisdom. That will be your main spellcasting ability. Then you'll need to decide if you're going to just hang back, or if you're going to get in the mix. Also, look at the domains that give you heavy armor proficiency and decide if any of them sound fun. If they do, you can use strength as your melee/defense stat with constitution as your third highest stat. If you're going to hang back, try to get your dex at 14, get some medium armor and call it good. You will also have the option to go with a dex melee build that way, but have dex higher than 16 starts making light armor more viable. You might still be better served with medium armor for large stretches, but you can at least look into it.
Once you know how you want to deal with melee, you can look at races that match those stats. Without exhausting the options, Hill Dwarf, Lizardfolk, Tortle, and Loxodon give bonuses to constitution and wisdom and wood elf gives bonuses to dex and wisdom. Hill Dwarf and Wood Elf are in the player's handbook, while the other three are in various other books or packages. Lizardfolk, Tortle, and Loxodon also give alternate ways to calculate your AC.
Decide if you're going to be more of a front line cleric (and whether you're going to focus on melee attack or support while there) or whether you're going to hang back and either attack via casting or offer support. Remember that healing during battle isn't as effective in 5e and that a healing word to bring some up from zero is usually better than healing someone who is still standing, though YMMV. Guidance, Spare the Dying, and an attack cantrip. With your leveled spells, you can prepare new spells every morning which will reduce the chances that you have a bunch of stinkers, as will your always prepared spells that you get from your domain.
Try to make sure you have a couple of bonus action options (healing word is a no brainer, some domain features also give an option). A concentration spell like bless can be beneficial, giving your spell slots more oomph. Perhaps a ritual spell, but not completely necessary. There are plenty of forum topics that go into depth on spell selection.
Clerics are a really strong class. I've actually only played it once, and it was just so strong that it made me never want to play a cleric again, and I did no building, and my rolls were just average.
In opinion, as long as you don't intentionally make a bad cleric, you don't need to build it, you'll feel like an absolute unit playing one. You can even heal, deal big damage, or just go plain melee. It's so versatile in combat, even outside of combat.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
War caster feat is really useful if you’re going to be up the front line. You don’t have to start juggling if you have a spell with somatic components and advantage to maintain concentration can be necessary depending on how many concentration spells you have.
Just a reminder as I see a lot of people make this mistake. If you cast a bonus action spell such as spiritual weapon or healing word then you can't cast a spell of level 1 or higher using your action. However after you cast spiritual weapon the following round you can use your action to cast a spell and bonus action to use spiritual weapon. An effective start to combat looks similar to this...
Round 1 Cast Spiritual Weapon and attack with weapon
Round 2 Cast spirit guardians and attack with spiritual weapon. Spirit Guardians will damage enemies close to you as long as you maintain concentration.
Round 3 Attack with weapon and use attack with spiritual weapon.
As a Tempest cleric Shatter and eventually Call Lightning will give you great damage. As twice at level 6 you can maximize damage rolled when rolling for Thunder or Lightning damage.
Clerics have lots of action economy. Tempest clerics are great at frontline fighting and they have the privileged of being a full caster as well.
Guidance is a great cantrip to aid the party out of combat.
Have you thought about how to roleplay the character and what god you might serve?
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
I love clerics. The cleric in our party is a bit of a tank, while also being the healer and the most dedicated to role-playing. I'd agree that Guidance is very useful, and a good balance of ranged and other attacks.
I am doing tempest cleric. I worship the god Thor. My back story is I was found as a child with my village destroyed. I took the name Ullr (the adopted son of Thor, fitting, being adopted by the church of Thor).
That sounds like an awesome backstory. Just a friendly tip you want to dish damage out. Don't worry about healing as it is more useful to heal outside of combat or when people drop to zero. In general you can't heal at a rate equal to or greater than the damage that the enemy will do. You want to throw out damage so less healing is needed later. I hope you have fun and remember just because the players are whining about being hurt doesn't mean you need to be a heal bot and waste every spell on the dumb party member that keeps charging in without any strategy.
Your secret is safe with my indifference - Percy
Thanks for the advice :)
Even if you want to go Life Domain, this is a good idea. This is part of the reason that I suggest getting Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead, or one of the more cantrips available from a domain to give you some ranged oomph and possibly some emphasis in dex or str for some melee damage. There are some options for multiclassing that could get you more cantrips or better melee damage while maintaining most of the cleric feel, but I'd recommend staying single class for your first time to get a good feel for what the class is. If you go Death cleric (from the DMG), you get an extra necromancy cantrip, which would allow you to grab Toll the Dead from that while grabbing utility cantrips from your 3 base cleric cantrips or potentially adding something like Word of Radiance for some AOE.