In this article, we focus on our picks for the best feats for the Cleric class from the 2024 Player’s Handbook. These divinely devoted disciples are one of the most versatile classes in D&D, with archetypes and subclass options ranging from holy warriors with divinity-fueled attacks to supportive spellcasters buffing allies and refueling their Hit Points.

With these different styles of play in mind, we’ve picked out what we think are the twelve best feats for the three types available to Clerics: Origin feats, General feats, and Epic Boons.

• Best Origin Feats for a Cleric
• Best General Feats for a Cleric
• Best Epic Boon Feats for a Cleric

Feats Are Now Standard in the 2024 Player’s Handbook

An optional rule no longer, feats are now integrated into your character in the 2024 Player’s Handbook! The new Player's Handbook introduces some brand new feats, like Musician and Crafter, and even includes some favorites from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, such as Telekinetic.

Feats have also been separated into four groups: Origin feats, which are granted by your background and which can be taken whenever you get a feat; General feats, which you can access starting at level 4; Fighting Style feats, which are granted by specific class features; and Epic Boons, which are awarded at level 19.

Best Origin Feats for a Cleric

Artist: Polar Engine

Magic Initiate (Cleric)

Associated Background: Acolyte

The Acolyte background is a natural flavor fit for a Cleric, representing time spent in service to one’s faith in a sacred place. The Magic Initiate (Cleric) feat reflects the tiny bit of divine power that your character learned to channel before becoming an adventurer and full-fledged Cleric. It allows you to take two cantrips of your choice from the associated spell list and choose a level 1 Cleric spell that is always prepared for you. This spell can also be cast once per Long Rest without expending a spell slot.

While the Magic Initiate feat might seem at first glance like a way to do a quick dip into another class, taking spells from the Cleric spell list has a lot to offer someone playing as a Cleric. Having that extra spell set aside that you can cast once without a spell slot is a huge boost at early levels when you normally only have two or three spell slots to utilize. Choosing a spell like Healing Word or Cure Wounds with Magic Initiate means freeing up space for another level 1 spell without sacrificing the ability to heal.

Another benefit for low-level adventurers is having two more cantrips to choose from. This allows you to give yourself a versatile assortment of combat-oriented cantrips, such as Toll the Dead, Sacred Flame, or Word of Radiance, while also snagging some of the more utility and support cantrips like Guidance, Thaumaturgy, or Spare the Dying. This will give you another boost at levels 7 and 14 if you take the Potent Spellcasting benefit for your Blessed Strikes feature. At level 7, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the damage rolls you make with Cleric cantrips, and at level 14, you can grant yourself or an ally within 60 feet Temporary Hit Points equal to twice your Wisdom modifier when you deal damage with a Cleric cantrip.

Healer

Associated Background: Hermit

Whether you intend your Cleric to be the party’s support character or a Radiant damage-dealing holy warrior of your chosen god, chances are you’re going to have to dole out healing at some point. With this feat’s Battle Medic feature, you can heal an ally within 5 feet of you by expending a use of your Healer’s Kit, which allows them to expend and roll a Hit Point Dice, healing for an amount equal to a roll of the die plus your Proficiency Bonus. This gives you an additional way to heal your party while also allowing you to preserve your spell slots for the things you want to use them on, like Spirit Guardians or Guiding Bolt.

Regardless of how eager or reluctant you are about being the party’s healer, the other feature of this feat will come in handy. When you roll a die to determine the Hit Points that you restore when casting a spell or using a Healer’s Kit, you can reroll a die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new roll. This stacks particularly well with the Life Domain Cleric subclass, which also grants buffs to your healing rolls. Did anyone order the supercharged battlefield triage?

Tough

Associated Background: Farmer

As the only full caster that comes standard with both Shield and Medium armor proficiency, a Cleric has the potential to be the least squishy spellcasting class in D&D. The Tough feat helps you to lean into this by granting you an additional two Hit Points to your maximum every time you level up. This can go a long way toward offsetting the moderate d8 Hit Point Die for the Cleric class and put you closer to the Ranger or Fighter in terms of Hit Points.

If you take the Tough feat in tandem with the Protector benefit for your Divine Order feature at level 1, which grants you training with Heavy armor and proficiency with Martial weapons, you’re on your way toward building an outright tank.

Alert

Associated Background: Guard, Criminal

Rolling for Initiative is often one of the most tense D20 Tests in the game. Your position in the turn order in relation to your allies’ and the monsters' can make a huge difference in the battle to come. If you’re low in the order, the landscape of the battle can go in some pretty dramatic directions before you even get a chance to act, often leaving you on the back foot when you finally get to take your first turn. With the Alert feat, you’ll be able to add your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative roll, boosting the odds that you'll place higher in the Initiative order.

The other benefit to the Alert feat, Initiative Swap, also offers you some flexibility in your combat strategy as a party. With this benefit, immediately after you roll Initiative, you can opt to swap your place in the order with another willing member of your party, as long as neither of you has the Incapacitated condition. Since a Cleric has the potential to be a backline support character or a frontline magic-wielding tank, you can use this benefit to confer with your party to determine if it’s better for you or for another player to go earlier in the order.

Best General Feats for a Cleric

Artist: Michael Broussard

War Caster

Prerequisites: Level 4+, Spellcaster or Pact Magic feature

It’s hard to imagine a General feat that’s more in the Cleric’s wheelhouse than War Caster. Since Clerics tend to have a lot of Concentration spells, being granted Advantage on the Constitution saving throws to maintain said Concentration would be enough to make this feat worth it.

But you get more! Being able to cast spells that require Somatic components while wielding both a weapon and a Shield, and being able to use your Reaction to cast a spell targeting a creature that provokes an Opportunity Attack are more than just icing on the cake, they’re like getting two more cakes for the price of one!

General feats in the 2024 Player’s Handbook also come with a pretty significant boost: Now, all General feats include an increase to your ability scores. That means you no longer have to choose between selecting a feat or potentially boosting the modifier for your go-to actions for your class. So, the 2024 version of War Caster allows you to choose to add +1 to your Wisdom, Intelligence, or Charisma score. For a Cleric, we, of course, recommend Wisdom.

Fey-Touched

Prerequisites: Level 4+

As a spellcaster, having access to more spells is generally a pretty good thing. With the Fey-Touched feat, you get exactly that. Two more spells, as a point of fact. You get Misty Step and either a level 1 Divination or Enchantment spell of your choice. You can cast each of these spells once without expending a spell slot. The Ability Score Increase benefit of this feat is either Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom, so once again, we recommend Wisdom because the ability you choose to increase also becomes your modifier.

One need look no further than Baldur’s Gate 3 to understand the power of having a free use of Misty Step or having the spell be always prepared in a Cleric’s arsenal. Many a reference has been made on the internet to Shadowheart’s work as a Radiant damage lawnmower in the game’s second act, as she moves through a crowd of baddies with her active Spirit Guardians. Now imagine being able to use a Bonus Action to literally teleport right into the middle of a crowd of foes when your Spirit Guardians are active. Sorry, I meant, imagine teleporting into where there used to be a crowd of foes.

Speedy

Prerequisites: Level 4+, Dexterity or Constitution 13+

Keeping in mind the same focus on preventing your Cleric from dropping their Concentration, the Agile Movement benefit of the Speedy feat causes Opportunity Attacks against you to have Disadvantage. The Speedy feat also increases your Speed by 10 feet and doesn’t cost you extra movement to cross Difficult Terrain when you Dash.

Although Speedy doesn’t give you a boost to your Spellcasting modifier, you do get to choose to increase your Constitution or Dexterity by one, which means the potential to increase your Armor Class or Hit Point maximum.

Ritual Caster

Prerequisites: Level 4+, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma 13+

Who doesn’t want access to more spells? With the Ritual Caster feat, you can select a number of level 1 spells with the Ritual tag equal to your Proficiency Bonus. You also get to add more level 1 Ritual spells every time your Proficiency Bonus increases. These spells are always prepared, and you can cast them as a Ritual or by using a spell slot. Plus, with the Quick Ritual benefit, once per Long Rest, you can cast a Ritual spell using its regular casting time without expending a spell slot.

The benefit we immediately see with this feat is that it means a Cleric can gain access to the Find Familiar spell. Since your familiar can be used to deliver spells with a touch range, this means potentially being able to use support and healing spells on allies who are up to 100 feet away from you.

Best Epic Boon Feats for a Cleric

Artist: Irina Nordsol

Boon of Fate

Prerequisites: Level 19+

Boon of Fate is the recommended Epic Boon feat for the Cleric, and it makes sense as a gift granted to someone serving as an emissary of a god. With Boon of Fate, when you or another creature within 60 feet of you makes a D20 Test, you can roll 2d4 and add the total rolled as either a bonus or penalty to the d20 roll. Think of it as your divine power altering someone’s fate.

This ability can be used again after a Short or Long Rest, or after you roll Initiative. This means you can use your Boon of Fate during a skill challenge outside of combat and then still have a use of it when you enter into a combat scenario later. It also means that you can use it across multiple battles if you don’t get a chance to rest in between them.

The Epic Boon feats all allow you to increase one ability score by 1, to a maximum of 30. While some of the other Epic Boons limit which abilities you can increase, Boon of Fate allows you to pick any one ability score.

Boon of Fortitude

Prerequisites: Level 19+

For the tank-style Cleric, the Boon of Fortitude can put you in league with the designated martial classes when it comes to taking a hit. This Epic Boon increases your Hit Point maximum by 40. If you combine that with the Tough Origin feat, by level 20, you’d have an additional 80 Hit Points added to your Hit Point maximum.

Whenever you regain Hit Points, you can regain additional Hit Points equal to your Constitution modifier. There’s no limit to the number of times you can regain these additional Hit Points, except that you can only do it once per turn. This means if you or an ally has a spell like Aura of Vitality active that restores Hit Points at the start of each of the caster’s turns, you could get the additional Hit Points from your Constitution modifier on each of those turns.

Boon of Spell Recall

Prerequisites: Level 19+

With the Boon of Spell Recall, you get a 25% chance to not expend a spell slot every time you cast a level 1-4 spell. Whenever you cast a spell at one of those levels, you can roll 1d4, and if the number matches the spell slot of the spell you cast, the slot isn’t expended.

If you’re playing as the support or healer role with your Cleric, most likely, even at higher levels, you’ll still be relying on those level 1-4 spell slots to keep supplying your allies with fresh Hit Points as various combats rage on. The potential here with the Boon of Spell Recall is that you could have a much larger supply of healing spells to use on your party to keep people up and out of Death Saving Throws.

Boon of Combat Prowess

Prerequisites: Level 19+

First, let me tell you what Boon of Combat Prowess does, and then, if you’re not already convinced by what it says on the tin, I’ll explain why I’m recommending it. With the Boon of Combat Prowess, when you miss an attack roll, you can choose to have it hit instead. Once you’ve used this benefit, you can’t use it again… until your next turn. That’s right, it’s a guaranteed hit with an attack roll every turn.

If you’re not already onboard, the Boon of Combat Prowess is specifically being recommended here for players who choose the Divine Strike option when you get your Blessed Strikes feature at level 7. After gaining the Improved Blessed Strikes feature at level 14, Divine Strike allows you to deal an additional 2d8 Radiant or Necrotic damage to a target when you hit them with an attack roll using a weapon.

But that's not all, Boon of Combat Prowess also works on spell attacks. Want to use your level 9 spell slot to send a supercharged Guiding Bolt ? Guess what, it hits!

Are you with me now? Every single turn you can deal an automatic 2d8 of Radiant or Necrotic damage in addition to the damage that your weapon deals. Or you can upcast your attack roll spells using your highest available spell slots and have them automatically hit. Now imagine combining this Epic Boon with the War Caster feat, strolling into a battle wielding your Shield, with your Spirit Guardians activated. You’ll be dolling out punishing damage on your turns and on the turns of any targets that enter your Spirit Guardians radius. Bring me Thanos, indeed.

Feats Fit For the Gods

The 2024 Player’s Handbook is now available on the D&D Beyond marketplace, which means it's time to set out on new adventures with fresh or familiar characters!

Whether you’re a Radiant damage-fueled tank, a potently empowered spellcaster, or a fountain of Hit Point restoration for your allies, there are feats primed to pump you up. Stacking a few of them together, such as Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster, can help bolster a specific build. Combining a few from across the board could give you a smorgasbord of strengths from across the Cleric’s skillsets. Regardless of the choices you make, the new feat rules in the 2024 Player’s Handbook will help you as you channel your divinity.

We’re delighted to share with you the changes to fifth edition D&D that appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Make sure to keep an eye out on D&D Beyond for more useful guides on using the wealth of new options, rules, and mechanics found in the 2024 Player's Handbook!

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.