Cleric 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Playing the Divine
A priest stood before a towering heap of kindling, a young woman bound to a stake amidst the tinder. The beads of sweat on the priest’s pallid skin reflected the light of hundreds of torches carried by the throng that surrounded him. He held aloft a wooden holy symbol, bearing the sign of Lathander the Morninglord. He bellowed over the noise of the crowd.
“People of Womford, I stand before you with the path to redemption! For weeks you have been deceived by a witch pretending to be one of your own. For weeks she has corrupted your youth, tempted your innocent, defiled your most holy! You shall stand for it no longer. Tonight, with the grace of Lathander the Morninglord, I cast her into the fires of the Nine Hells!”
The priest snatched a burning torch from one of the throng and turned to the woman as the crowd roared in mindless approval.
Then came a footfall. A heavy squelch of an armored boot into mud. Then another, and another, drowning out the noise of the crowd like the thunderous steps of a giant. The crowd parted down the middle and turned in awe to look at the stocky halfling woman that strode through their midst. Her silver armor gleamed in the torchlight, and the golden icon of Lathander around her neck seemed radiant like the sun.
She locked eyes with the priest that stood before her and steeled her focus, gripping tightly to the spell of thaumaturgy that magnified her every sound. Then she spoke. She spoke with the force of a hurricane.
“False priest! I stand before you, a true servant of the Morninglord whose name you profane. I see how you have ensnared the minds of these innocent people. I see how you would use innocent women as your scapegoats. I see your evil, and I rebuke it.” She held aloft her holy symbol and roared. “Vampire! In the name of Lathander, I turn thee!”
You are playing a cleric, an emissary of the gods. Your divine connection grants you great power, but the many spells and options available to you can be daunting. While the most important part of Dungeons & Dragons is playing your character in a way that’s fun for you and your fellow players, there are certain basics of how to play a cleric that every player should know so that you can help your party in combat.
This guide will cover the basics of clericdom, walking you through the first 5 levels of playing a cleric and focusing on how to choose spells and other class features. There are an overwhelming amount of options to choose from, and the core rulebooks don’t explain what is a good option or why, or what options are good in what situations. This guide will clear up some confusion.
Quick Build Expanded: Building Your Cleric
The Quick Start guidelines in the Player’s Handbook are a good place to start building your character, but don’t go far enough for most new players. This Expanded Quick Start guide assumes you’re using the D&D Beyond Character Builder, which also includes helper text for new players.
- Under “Character Preferences,” turn off “Playtest Content” and “Show Unarmed Strike”
- Choose your Race. Any race can be a useful cleric, but races that increase your Wisdom score, such as hill dwarves, wood elves, humans, and half-elves, are good mechanical choices.
- Choose Cleric as your class.
- Choose skills that fit who you want your character to be.
- Decide what role you want to fill in the party. This step involves a lot of thought, so let's break it down.
What Kind of Cleric Are You?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by options, you’re not alone. Cleric is one of the most multifaceted classes in the game, boasting an impressive seven subclasses (“Divine Domains”) in the Player’s Handbook alone. Consider what role you want to fill in your adventuring party before choosing your Divine Domain and which god you want to follow. Do you want to be an offensive character, using spell and steel to destroy your enemies? A tank, protecting allies from harm on the front lines? Or a support character, healing your allies and improving their combat abilities? (Also, note that while this guide uses the terms Offense, Tank, and Support as shorthand, no part of D&D actually refers to characters in this way. This is just a simple way to classify roles in the average party.)
Offense
Cleric might seem an odd choice of class if you want to deal serious damage, but clerics can stand toe-to-toe with fighters and paladins on the battlefield, if played properly. If you want to play an offensive cleric, consider choosing the Light domain, which grants you the power to smite your enemies with fire from afar, or the Tempest domain, which empowers your weapons with the storm’s fury.
With your DM’s approval, you can also choose the Death domain, allowing your very touch to befoul life. If you want to play the cleric of a god of death, like the Raven Queen, it’s recommended you play Support and choose the Grave domain instead, which isn’t as explicitly evil as the Death domain.
Tank
Some clerics wish to mitigate damage from the front lines, rather than healing their allies later. As a Tank, you don heavy armor and conjure magical wards to shield your enemies. As a cleric of the Forge domain (from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything), you can bless weapons and armor in order to protect yourself and others, while clerics of the Nature domain can call upon the elements to protect their allies from harm and beseech the natural world for aid.
Finally, clerics of the War domain straddle the line between offensive fighter and defensive protector, but they lean more towards the role of Tank; their heavy armor and accurate blows make them a high-value target, causing them to absorb blows that would otherwise go to more vulnerable allies.
Support
Most clerics fall easily into the Support category, and you have many options to choose from if you want to help keep your party members alive, both by warding away enemies and healing allies. The Arcana domain (from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide) helps you break enchantments on your allies and ward away supernatural threats. The Grave domain (from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) helps you stave death away from your allies as a sentinel at death’s door. The Knowledge domain grants you worldly knowledge and allows you glimpses of wisdom beyond your ken. The Life domain is a straightforward subclass that empowers your healing spells. Finally, the Trickery domain allows you to beguile foes and move about unseen.
- After selecting your subclass, place your highest ability score in Wisdom and your second highest ability score in either Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution. Choose Strength if you're playing Offense, Dexterity as a Support, or Constitution as a Tank. As a Tank, you'll also want a Strength score of 15 in order to wear heavy armor without penalty.
- Choose a background that fits your character concept. This is a chance for you to be creative and break free of cleric stereotypes!
- Finally, determine your equipment. For an easy selection, click on “EQUIPMENT” when promoted to “Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD”. Pick whatever equipment suits your vision of your character. While a warhammer is generally better than a mace and chainmail is generally better than your other armor options, it’s hard to go wrong here.
A Cleric in Combat
As a cleric, your most powerful tool is your ability to cast spells. While your weapons and armor may be impressive (especially in a Tank or Offense role), your spellcasting is still number one. Clerics know all of the spells on their spell list, plus any spells granted to you by your domain, but can only prepare a certain number of them per day. You can change your prepared spells (not including cantrips) whenever you complete a long rest! These sample spell progressions will help you get started, and are a great template to start swapping spells out from if you need more situational abilities.
Finally, remember that you can only prepare a number of spells equal to your Wisdom modifier plus your level in this class. (See the “Spellcasting” section of the cleric class in the Player’s Handbook if you need more information.) This spell selection sheet assumes you have a Wisdom modifier of +2 at 1st level. If it’s +3 instead, you can prepare an extra spell of your choice in addition to what's suggested here! Finally, be aware of the Domain Spells granted to you by your Divine Domain. These spells are always prepared, and can help round out your arsenal. If this list suggests a spell that you have as a Domain Spell, just pick another spell to prepare instead.
Offense
Clerics have relatively few offensive options, but those you do have are quite potent. Your most powerful spells only target single creatures, so you should spend encounters with many weak enemies in the front lines, conserving spell slots by using your weapon instead.
At 1st level, learn three cantrips of your choice, including sacred flame. Sacred flame will let you deal damage from range when you can't or don't want to use spell slots.
Also at 1st level, prepare the bless, command, and guiding bolt spells. Bless will help your attacks and your allies' attacks hit more often. Guiding bolt deals incredible damage and makes it easier for your allies to deal with enemies that survive the attack. Command will allow you to set up easy attacks or help you escape risky situations if you’re overwhelmed.
At 2nd level, prepare the inflict wounds spell. This spell is weaker than guiding bolt, but it lets you cast spells in melee range without incurring disadvantage on the attack roll.
At 3rd level, you gain access to 2nd-level spells! Remember that you can cast spells like guiding bolt in higher level spell slots to increase their power. Prepare the spiritual weapon spell. You can cast this spell as a bonus action, allowing you to also make an attack with your melee weapon or cast a cantrip like sacred flame with your action. (Remember that you can’t cast two leveled spells in the same turn; if you cast a leveled spell as a bonus action, you can only use your action that turn to cast a cantrip, not another leveled spell.)
At 4th level, use your Ability Score Increase to improve your Wisdom modifier to +3 (or possibly +4, depending on your starting ability scores). Also, learn another cantrip of your choice.
Also at 4th level, prepare the cure wounds and hold person spells. Cure wounds is a good spell to have in a desperate situation, but you can’t make use of it as effectively as a Life cleric. Hold person is an excellent spell even used offensively, as attacks against an adjacent paralyzed creature are automatic critical hits. Consider casting spiritual weapon, then on your next turn using your action to cast hold person on a creature, then using your bonus action to attack it with your spiritual weapon!
5th level marks a major increase in power for you, since you gain access to 3rd-level spells. Unfortunately, most 3rd-level cleric spells are defensive or support-focused. You’ll have to rely on your domain spells for offensive power here. (The Light domain grants you fireball!) Prepare the bestow curse spell. This flexible spell allows you to improve your damage against one creature or make it harder for the creature to hit you.
Tank
You want to protect your allies by taking hits instead of them. As such, you want to be on the front lines in the heaviest armor and shield imaginable, making it hard for enemies to ignore you and just as hard for them to hit you. Your spells are focused on proactively protecting your allies, rather than healing them after they take damage.
At 1st level, learn three cantrips of your choice, including resistance. Resistance will help you bolster an ally’s next saving throw if cast right before a fight begins.
Also at 1st level, prepare the bane, command, and inflict wounds, spells. Bane makes it hard for enemies to hit with their attacks. Command allows you to halt an enemy attacking your weaker allies. Finally, inflict wounds lets you deal serious damage in melee combat, since you always want to be on the front lines.
At 2nd level, prepare healing word. Since you can cast this spell as a bonus action, you can heal an ally from range and still make an attack on the same turn.
At 3rd level, you gain access to 2nd-level spells! Remember that you can cast spells like healing word in higher level spell slots to increase their power. Prepare warding bond, which allows you take half of the damage that a chosen ally takes, allowing you to help keep a weaker damage dealer in the fight for longer.
At 4th level, use your Ability Score Increase to improve your Wisdom modifier to +3. If your Wisdom modifier is already +3, take the Sentinel feat to make yourself a better melee defender. Also, learn another cantrip of your choice.
Also at 4th level, prepare blindness/deafness (and aid if you increased your Wisdom score this level). Aid allows you to efficiently increase your allies’ durability by granting them temporary hit points. Blindness/deafness can severely incapacitate an enemy by blinding it. One serious downside of being blinded is that it can no longer target creatures with effects that require it to see the creature, such as most spells. Enemy spellcasters hate being blinded!
5th level marks a major increase in power for you, since you gain access to 3rd-level spells. Prepare spirit guardians, allowing you to make it difficult and painful for enemies to move past you.
Support
This is the role most people think of when considering playing a cleric. One thing you need to know before playing Support, however, is that your healing spells will almost never outpace enemy damage. In combat, you’re most effective while debuffing enemies or doing damage from range. While it may seem like you’re treading on Offense’s toes, understand that when it comes to D&D, the best defense is a good offense. As your team’s Support, only use your healing in combat when absolutely necessary to keep allies alive; otherwise, save it for after a fight is over.
At 1st level, learn three cantrips of your choice, including spare the dying. Spare the dying will help you save allies (or NPCs) when you are out of spells.
Also at 1st level, prepare the cure wounds, guiding bolt, and shield of faith spells. Cure wounds is your bread and butter, allowing you to efficiently heal allies. If you’re a Life cleric, take healing word instead, since your Disciple of Life feature shores up the low number of hit points this spell usually restores. Guiding bolt will help you deal some damage from the back ranks in a pinch. Shield of faith lets you improve your squishy allies’ Armor Class, making them less likely to take damage.
At 2nd level, prepare protection from evil and good if your campaign looks like it will include supernatural foes like undead and aberrations. Otherwise, prepare the more generally useful buff spell bless.
At 3rd level, you gain access to 2nd-level spells! Remember that you can cast spells like cure wounds in higher level spell slots to increase their potency. Prepare lesser restoration, which ends one hazardous condition such as poison or paralysis affecting a creature.
At 4th level, use your Ability Score Increase to improve your Wisdom modifier to +3 (or possibly +4, depending on your starting ability scores). Also, learn another cantrip of your choice.
Also at 4th level, prepare enhance ability and hold person. Enhance ability is a flexible spell that can help allies in combat, exploration, and interaction scenarios. Hold person is a generally powerful spell, made even more powerful when you cast it while far away from the enemies as a Support character should be, since breaking your concentration is difficult if enemies can’t reach you.
5th level marks a major increase in power for you, since you gain access to 3rd-level spells. Prepare beacon of hope, allowing you to maximize the healing done to your allies. You can also change out one of your prepared spells for mass healing word, which will help you restore hit points to many allies at once.
Making your Cleric your Own
Playing a character in D&D isn’t like playing a character in League of Legends or building a deck in Hearthstone. There’s no one right build or one right way to play—especially because the way you play your character depends so much on your character’s personality!
If you followed these guidelines to a T and created an effective-but-generic cleric, I challenge you to go back and change one thing, one spell, one ability score and make them stand out from the crowd. Use the mechanics of the game to make a unique and interesting character, otherwise I swear you will hear my voice chanting generic cleric in your mind every time you cast a spell.
Happy Healing!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, and writes as a freelancer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington and plays as the dutiful Nature cleric to his two conjured beasts, Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
With luck I'm a week away from the next session and experiencing this myself!
Still deciding on appropriate uses of Spiritual Weapon.
Can I use Thaumaturgy to increase its size?
The idea is for it to assume the form of a surfboard, use Thaumaturgy to increase it in size and use it for travel purposes...
Technically you should be able to stand on it if its a physical object or should I treat it as a lightsaber instead?
Now I'm wondering if I should start humming duel of the fates every time I use it!
Of course given my character's deity serves Sehanine Moonbow could I get away with Oscar Isaac as Moon Knight pops up and attacks?!
Just how far would you allow THAT spell to go before saying no that's insane!
lol
Why does he talk about preparing 3 level 1 spells at level 1 when we only get 2? Is he used to a diff. rule-set than 5e?
You prepare Cleric Level + Wisdom Modifier worth of spells, so a Level 1 Cleric with WIS 14-15 (+2 WIS modifier) would be able to prepare 3 spells, and WIS 16-17 (+3 WIS modifier) could prepare 4 spells.
My character's Wisdom started at 16 and went up to 18 at 4th level seriously wondered if that's was the best option for a wood elf cleric given Wood Elf Magic from Xanathar's Guide!
I had no idea about preparing spells before I ran my first 5e game so when I say I'm still learning about 5e I'm being serious about that!
My first game as a player I glitched the heck out of the Dodge action as I had no idea that pack of wolves were pulling the aid action to boost their chances of hitting something I never experienced in other editions of d&d!
I've been reading up on other editions regarding Clerics which doesn't really help with 5e but I'm still trying to learn.
Not sure how I will react if I get to run my back up character a Barbarian conversion of the original character I ran in the same campaign when it was using 2e before converting over to Gurps...
He tried to convert her into a Cleric there too as I recall, I said no she was a fighter and went Barbarian as it felt a better fit for a Sailor (In 5e)!
Anyway back to the thread.
How frequently does your dm emphasize the importance of a Cleric to the party if at all?
Spirtual Weapon isn't physical, so no riding (sadly!) Even though it does force damage, it's still "magical" force damage. Like thwacking someone over the head with a glowing textbook. Or a thwacking them with a lightsaber. ;)
Talk to your DM and see what kind of flavor they're comfortable with - for something like Oscar Isaac (love him), generally as long as the actual mechanics don't change you can "flavor" your spiritual weapon to some degree. Maybe that's something as extensive as a glowing Oscar Isaac that punches enemies for your bonus action, or maybe they'd be more comfortable with a statue of Oscar Isaac that thwacks enemies over the head for your bonus action. The main thing to remember is that he wouldn't be able to do things that the spell can't (eg, restrain an enemy, help another player for advantage... or do anything but move 20-ft and thwack.)
Spirtual Weapon is Best Cleric Spell! <3
Where's the like button for god's sake!
Ok, I thought James was no longer an author for D&D Beyond? Did his "Fondest Farewell" mean nothing? Can someone plz explain?
Yeah ummmm its just a bunch of reposts.
Good intro to Clerics article.
That said, this article isn't all that useful if you're playing my favorite cleric build: The Trickery Domain.
Often bemoaned as 'the weakest' cleric build out, I gave it a try, and I personally have found it OP. The thing is, if you try to play it as a cleric, you're doing it wrong.
If a Paladin is the love child of Cleric + Fighter, Trickery Cleric is somehow love child of Thief + Wizard. Doing crazy stunts, snatching baubles, getting the info, relying way more on tactics than brute force (you would not believe how ridiculously useful Thurmatugy as a cantrip is to the rougeish trickery-cleric character.)
The spells you prepare, the loadout you play, the role you have in the party, are completely, completely different; and trying to follow this guide for a trickery cleric will leave you screwed. You aren't playing Tank, you're not playing support, you're not playing offense, you're playing a
god-d@mngod-blessed ninja.Here are some fun quotes I've had so far...
(When introducing myself to the party), "Hello, I"m Rubri, the Bard." (Introduces self with a good perform role with a song & dance number.)
(Next session) "... Okay, okay, you caught me, I'll admit it, I'm a rogue." (Sitting there, holding the forbidden artifact of the dark gods, having outwitted it and snuck it into my backpack after swiping from the trapped pedestal after they saw me run in the opposite direction.)
(Third session) "... seriously? All you had to do capture him. We need intel. Now I have to decide between saving the life of our one lead versus keeping my secret from the rest of you."
The Fighter: "We're all out of healing potions, we have no cleric, what can you do?"
Me: [To the DM]: "I burn a second level spell to heal on his sorry arse."
The party just stares at me wide-eyed.
[Later on quotes]
"Yes, I'm a Cleric, but not that kind of cleric."
DM: "They say they need someone to watch the the food and drink."
Me: "I flash my holy symbol, let them know I"m a Cleric."
DM: "They ask if you can watch the punch bowl for the grand ball."
Me: "I agree. The moment that the fanfare begins for the arriving nobility and nobody's looking at me, I spike the punch."
DM: "..."
Me: "It's much easier to get information out of drunk people, and besides, I'm chaotic neutral. I think it's funny."
(After a particularly 'good' hand in the tavern)
Me: "Yes, I'm a Cleric. That means I can't cheat at cards, or my god would strike me down."
Them: "Prove it."
Me: I cast heal one one of their wounds
(They mumble and go back to playing)
Me: Totally still cheating at cards.
(One starts to suspect)
Me: Casts charm under the table
Me: Rakes in the money.
Me: 30 seconds before spell wears off - scoops up all my winnings and takes off, invisible, while leaving my duplicity duplicate 'falling asleep' from too much to drink.
Me: "I inform the local church that I'm a Cleric, and flash them my holy symbol, without giving them much time to see which it is."
DM: "The priests let you in."
Me (five minutes later) "I swipe their biggest magical item."
DM: "Roll to.."
Me: "I cast Silence, then pass without trace, Invisibility, and walk out while humming the mission impossible theme to myself."
So is your spiritual weapon Laura Bailey?!
Seriously one of these days someone casting that is going to explain her as their deities favorite weapon!
I may steal this idea. It'd be fun, having her summon Laura Bailey. :3
This is sooooooooo helpful!!! I'm completely new to all of D&D and this really helps narrow the list of overwhelming options. Additionally, it's a great tool to help get the newer player like myself actually 'get started.' This has been a super huge struggle for me. Thank you so much James Haeck!! I wish there were more straightforward guides like these for other classes to help new players get comfortable starting certain classes.
God I'd love one for wizards lmao, this was a good read
Why is this so perfect
What I would really want is a multiclass guide.
FOR REAL
I am new to D&D, and I am hopping to create a cleric in the life Domain, under the service of Ilmater. I have seen that he aligns with the Endurance Domain, which I assume is kind of a sub-domain of the Life Domain? I saw some different spells, stats, equipment, and mod adjustments under the Endurance domain, and I am definitely getting a little lost. Where would be the best place to find official details so I can be crystal clear on how to build my cleric?
There currently isn't an Endurance Domain in 5e, and there are no sub-domains. You must have looked at an older edition, or homebrew.
If you wanna play a Life Domain cleric, just look up the Life Domain.
Endurance is listed under the portfolio for Ilmater.
Domain wise it looks like currently Life and Twilight are the domains of a Cleric of Ilmater.