Character Down and Is Attacked Again Dnd 5e

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An Respond to Prayers

Devout servants of powerful deities, clerics used to be the game slow party heal bot simply in 5th edition they ascend to greatness every bit one of the most powerful and versatile spellcasters in the game. Clerics tin heal, stab, nail, and pray their manner through D&D and what was one time a boring playstyle is at present a combination of absurd abilities and powerful spells. Catch your holy texts and vestments and make a quick prayer as nosotros get through everything you lot need to know in this complete cleric guide for dnd 5e.

What Are Clerics?

A cleric is a devout follower of a deity and is and then favored by that divine beingness that they gain magical powers. They could be a devotee to that deity, or a common person chosen for greater things. How exactly these magical powers work depends a lot on the deity, which means a cleric can be anything from the cheerful healer of a chivalrous god of prosperity to the battle-crazed berserker of a claret god. Dissimilar warlocks that brand pacts with powerful beings, clerics are gifted their powers by their devotion, their actions, and their willingness to fulfill their destiny in the name of their holy benefactor. This all shakes out into a very powerful grade that mechanically can fit any function you'd care to play. Healing, tanking, DPS of both the melee and ranged flavors, even scouting and playing the political party confront, if yous want to play it there's a way to mold your cleric into it. Each cleric's god usually has a major impact on that graphic symbol's personality, and fifty-fifty more than other classes no two clerics are alike.

Cleric Grade Features

Before we get into the builds and options, we should go through the classes mechanics and class abilities that define the cleric.

Cleric Spellcasting

Clerics are primarily spellcasters, and you'll need to get a hang of your spells even if your principal tactic is going to be swinging a sword around.

Starting off just, as a cleric your spellcasting ability is Wisdom, which ways your spell attack modifiers and spell save DC is based on your Wisdom modifier. The college your Wisdom is, the meliorate your spell attacks volition exist and the more hard it will be to resist your effects.

You're also what's called a prepared spellcaster, which can have some getting used to. Your cleric has a list of spells and knows every spell on the cleric spell listing, yes you read that right. The flim-flam is that you have to option and cull which spells you'll exist using at the beginning of the day. Every time you finish a long rest, you lot'll get to pick out a number of cleric spells to have "prepared" equal to your Wisdom modifier + your Cleric level.

That'due south how you selection out which spells you have available, so how does casting them work?

You besides have a matter called "spell slots", which you lot tin can think of every bit bullets or fuel that you load into your different spells to "burn" them. Your total corporeality of "ammo" is determined by your cleric levels, and you lot get all your ammo dorsum when you end a long rest.

And so, permit'due south say I'm a 3rd level cleric and I ready the 1st level cleric spell guiding commodities. Since guiding commodities is one of my prepared spells, I simply load in 1 of my 1st level spell slots and pull the trigger. Or, If I'm facing something actually nasty, I could load in my spicier 2nd level spell slot and burn down it off to do some more harm.

Yous can gear up different spells every time y'all finish a long rest, and just similar other spellcasting classes you lot likewise have a few cleric cantrips or "level 0 spells" that don't take any spell slots to cast. You also tin can't gear up spells with a level higher than the slots you take, which makes sense.

You'll likewise exist getting (most probable) a gear up of "domain spells". The cleric archetypes are chosen divine domains, and most of them accept lists of spells that are added to your list of prepared spells for costless. Y'all still have to load in your spell slots to use them, just you get to have them prepared in addition to all your other spells (which is specially nice every bit some of them come up from other spell lists).

Clerics also get a special feature chosen ritual casting. Which allows you to bandage certain "ritual spells" without spending a spell slot if y'all take a long time to cast them. Most ritual spells aren't things you'd usually desire to utilise in combat merely casting them equally a ritual makes sure you can't cast them in combat as it takes ten more minutes to cast them that way. What this does is it allows you lot to cast some roleplaying and investigation blazon spells without it affecting your combat effectiveness, which can be a major bonus!

Finally, you'll be doing all of this with something chosen a "holy symbol". Unremarkably, a holy symbol is the icon of your deity, but it can be anything really and so long equally it's associated with your god. Holy symbols role near identically to an arcane focus, and your holy symbol is substantially just the cool thing you hold up as your spells go off.

Channel Divinity

Starting at 2d level, you gain admission to divine energy that you can use to "channel divinity", this outpouring of positive energy (or possibly negative free energy) can exist used in two different ways.

The first fashion to use this special ability is the generic one that every cleric gets to use called plough undead. You basically fire off a ton of divine power and undead creatures within 30 feet of you lot has to make a Wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they gain a special status called "turned" which is similar frightened only worse, and they take to spend their entire next plough getting as far abroad from you equally they can.

The 2nd fashion to use channel divinity is adamant by your cleric classic or "divine domain", and nosotros'll become into that later simply your access to magic is themed effectually your god. Your uses of channel divinity get restored on short rests, and if they need a saving throw, they use your spellcasting DC. For the virtually part, you'll be using the mode from your divine domain unless your DM is throwing a ton of undead your way.

You lot start with simply 1 utilize of your channel divinity, but you get more times per twenty-four hours equally you lot go on and some grade feature redundancy. You lot'll option upwardly an additional fourth dimension per day of your channel divinity at 6th level, and so strangely some other use all the way up at 18th level for a total of 3 times per day.

Destroy Undead

At 5th level you continue the theme of "clerics beat undead" and your plow undead channel divinity power gets enhanced to just completely destroy undead if they fail the saving throw, bold they're beneath a challenge rating threshold. Yous gain this characteristic at fifth level, at which your plow will destroy undead of CR ½ or lower, which improves to CR 1 at 8th level, CR 2 at 11th level, CR 3 at 14th level, and finally CR 4 at 18th level.

This whole feature is honestly kind of a legacy thing, and yous'll very rarely meet it come up in campaigns. However, if your DM is creating a horror story or throwing a lot of very low level undead at you, think you accept this feature and blast away some chaff zombies, peculiarly at later levels.

Divine Intervention

One time you hitting 10th level, you lot can literally inquire your god for a favor. You ask your deity actually nicely to do something, whorl percentile dice (that's both d10s to get a result between one and 100) and if you gyre equal or lower than your cleric level, your god does y'all a favor.

Of all the course features in 5e, this ane is the most open concluded and dependent on DM discretion, but if your DM is kind, information technology can exist incredibly powerful. I find that nigh DMs volition be particularly lenient if you ask for things that are in your god's flavor and themes. So, request your god of charity and goodness to murder the guards probably won't go over well... Though asking the same thing of a death god might. And the actual level of this interaction can range from events serendipitously happening in your favor, to a Monty Python style god caricature actualization in the sky.

If you lot attempt this and information technology fails (rolled over your level), you tin can try again subsequently a long rest. If you attempt information technology and it works so you've got to expect a full week before getting another favor from on high.

Finally, your big capstone characteristic at 20th level lets you automatically succeed on getting your god's favor with the divine intervention class feature, no curl required.

Optional Cleric Features

In Tasha's Cauldron of Everything every grade got a prepare of optional features that act like a sort of upgrade patch to fix issues and improve things that needed improving. So, while everybody else is stuck in the past yous can harness the futuristic powers of a new book installment. These features are technically optional, but assuming your DM allows them, make sure to include these class features with your new cleric:

Boosted Cleric Spells

In Tasha'due south and some other afterwards books, nosotros've gotten some new cleric spells to the listing and a few that they decided should have been cleric spells all along. Particularly as prepared casters this all just serves to put even more tools in your pockets. The following spells are now on the cleric spell list:

3rd Level

Aura of Vitality

Spirit Shroud

4th Level

Aura of Life

Aura of Purity

5th Level

Summon celestial

6th Level

Sunbeam

8th Level

Sunburst

9th Level

Power Discussion Heal

Harness Divine Power

This one is actually huge. At 2nd level right along with your channel divinity feature you get a new divinity power. As a bonus action you can use your channel divinity to recover a spell slot, at a spell level no college than half your proficiency bonus rounded upwardly. A costless 1st or 2nd level spell may non seem like much but having an essential spell reserve is a major heave to your utility, especially if you picked a domain with a meh divinity power.

Cantrip Versatility

Only like basically every other class with cantrips, Tasha'due south gave yous the power to bandy out a cantrip for another cantrip whenever y'all proceeds an ability score increase. It'south not a huge power heave or anything only it's nice to take the power to retrain something that was previously hard locked in.

Blessed Strikes

Every cleric domain gets one of two feature forms of impairment giving at 8th level, either divine strike or potent spellcasting. Now with Tasha's you have the option to replace either of those with a 3rd option called "blessed strikes". Blessed strikes lets yous deal 1d8 boosted radiant damage whenever you lot hitting a target with a weapon attack or cantrip, and you tin can just do this in one case each turn. This ends up existence a happy middle ground in a lot of situations, as it lets you deal actress damage if you had stiff spellcasting but were focusing on weapon attacks, and it lets you lot deal actress damage with your spells if your domain had divine strike. However, if your domain WAS in line with your play fashion, the original features are a lot better than this. Consider taking blessed strikes only when you're playing a domain confronting its intended play fashion.

Building a Better Cleric

It feels similar everybody hated playing the "heal-bot" cleric in the by and they've just been slowly growing what a cleric is capable of. Now clerics tin be built upward into practically anything, making excellent tanks, impairment dealers, utility casters, political party buffers, and yes, even healers. With only a trivial work, clerics tin can do the work of any of the spellcasting or fighter classes. To start with though, you'll need to address your power scores.

Cleric Ability Scores

As a player character you're not just some boilerplate peasant laborer, you're a hero with power scores that reverberate your different adventuring qualities. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability score for clerics, and you're going to want your Wisdom to be loftier and quite likely your highest ability score.

By that it gets more complicated because of all the routes you tin can take when building your cleric. Nigh if information technology revolves around what armor y'all program on taking, and if yous plan on beingness a "gainsay cleric" or more of a "spellcasting cleric". Forcefulness, Dexterity, and Constitution are all in the running hither for your 2nd highest power score. Choose Constitution for survivability, or for decent amounts of damage choose Strength for larger weapons and Dexterity for smaller ones (or ranged weapons).

If you lot end up with heavy armor (more on that later), you lot'll most probable want to make Constitution your next highest ability score. If you're relying on light or medium armor, Dexterity should be your side by side highest. And finally, while non all builds will want it, some of the more combat oriented cleric builds will want Force as their next highest score.

In any case, none of these "physical scores" should exist your dump stats and should at least be neutral "x'southward". Y'all don't demand large amounts of CHA or INT every bit both Charisma and Intelligence are largely useless for you other than power checks, and you should put as few points as possible into them unless you lot're doing some very specific and odd builds of cleric.

Finally, while there are a few feats to consider for your power score increases, I recommend merely loading up on Wisdom unless you lot've absolutely got your middle set on a specific build.

Cleric Races

Y'all can choose any race but as a cleric you'll desire specially high Wisdom and a buff to one of the 3 concrete ability scores, depending on the type of cleric yous're trying to build. The following races gain either a +2 bonus to Wisdom, or accept a +ane bonus to Wisdom and a +two bonus to a physical score, making them optimal choices for a cleric graphic symbol:

Aarakocra

+2 Dex and +i Wis is appealing, only permit's be honest, the big reason to have this race has always been the flight. This is by far the most often banned race in 5e and so make admittedly sure your DM is absurd with the bird folk before building your character. If you do manage it, they're fantastic options and I recommend taking total advantage of your flight by focusing on ranged spell attacks and other abilities you can utilize from a distance.

Centaur

Centaurs gain +2 Str and +ane Wis. Extremely mobile (unless you're in a climbing situation) and tin potentially hitting very hard and fast with the Accuse ability. Centaurs are a powerful pick for Strength focused melee cleric builds.

Dwarf (Hill)

Hill dwarves get +two Con and +1 Wis. This is one of the strongest options for "tanky" clerics, as the boost to your Con combined with the free hitting points from Dwarven Toughness will make you particularly chunky and survivable. That and a dwarven cleric is downright iconic. Resistance to poison damage and reward on saves against poisons tin be a nice boost equally well.

Elf (Pallid)

Elves become +2 Dex and selecting the Drow subrace snags a +ane Wis bonus. Technically simply available in Critical Function'due south unique setting, but if your DM allows it this is an incredible option. Pallid elves gain permanent advantage on Investigation and Insight checks, which combined with their racial spell sets makes this one of the best options for utility clerics.

Elf (Wood)

Base elves get +2 Dex and forest elves gain a +one bonus to Wis. Wood elves are probably what y'all'll need to default to if your DM disallows pallid elves, though they're not a bad option in their ain right. Their extended 35-foot movement speed makes them a more maneuverable option if you lot desire to play a pure spellcasting cleric that keeps their distance.

Firbolg

Firbolgs are one of the few races with a +2 bonus to Wis, and also snag a +1 bonus to Str. I really love these guys for combat clerics strangely plenty, their Hidden Step power tin get them out of trouble if the fight gets the meliorate of them.

Genasi (Water)

Genasi go +two Con and water genasi pick up +1 Wis. Besides the typical "aquatic stuff" you also strangely go resistance to acid damage. This isn't a bad choice if you expect to be in and around water oftentimes in your entrada and would like an easier time with the whole breathing underwater affair.

Halfling (Ghostwise)

Base halflings go +2 Dex and Ghostwise pick upwardly +1 Wis. The halfling Lucky ability is strong enough to justify the race pick on its own, but the silent telepathy option makes them a tempting option for utility clerics. Bonus points for pairing the creepy ghostwise halfling with the grave or death domain (insert evil monologue here).

Human being

With the full +ane spread in every ability score, humans are genuinely hot shit and are flexible plenty to fit whatsoever class, and the variant human's feat fits especially well if y'all desire to option upwardly the war caster feat early. It may seem bland, only humans are always a good selection if you're stuck.

Kalashtar

These spirit-bound folk gain +two Wis and +1 Cha. The Charisma bonus is a bit wasted but kalashtar are one of the only races with a +2 Wisdom bonus. Yous also pick up some very strong resistances, merely be wary, this race is technically locked to the Eberron setting and so you'll demand to double bank check with your DM before using them elsewhere.

Kenku

Kenku gains +2 Dex and +1 Wis. And while they're abilities overall are a bit lacking; they do selection upward some potent utility options and tin brand for a versatile utility/sneaky cleric. Their mimicry feature will vary in power depending on how your DM rules information technology. With good rulings the kenku is a strong contender particularly for trickery clerics, but with bad rulings they're just ok.

Lizardfolk

Lizardfolk gain +ii Con and +1 Wis. Lizardfolk have a ton of good minor abilities, but it's their natural armor that makes them appealing for otherwise lightly armored builds. Yous also proceeds a hold breath and natural swim speed which is nothing to sneeze at.

Loxodon

Loxodon proceeds +2 Con and +1 Wis. The loxodon natural armor is unique in that it uses Constitution, which means you tin can focus entirely on Constitution and Wisdom and dump everything else. I discover loxodon to be the best tanky cleric option, combined with the Unity Domain you can become a giant walking bag of hit points that keeps your allies live.

Simic Hybrid

Simic Hybrids gain +2 Con and +1 to any other ability which can be Wis. Simic are innately flexible, but consider taking the +one bonus to AC. It may not be the most exciting option, merely apartment AC bonuses are difficult to come by and it tin can make a large difference for a tank build.

Tortle

Tortles proceeds +ii Str and +1 Wis. Due to their extremely tough and stat independent natural armor, yous can fully ignore Dexterity as an ability score and focus on Wis, Str, and Con. One of the better "combat cleric" options if y'all're trying for a Str focus.

Warforged

Warforged gain +2 Con and +one to any other ability score which y'all can make Wis. Their inbuilt bonus to Air-conditioning makes warforged particularly appealing for tanky clerics. Strongly consider choosing warforged if your DM allows them, and y'all're running a highly armored domain similar the forge domain.

Divine Domains: Choose your Gods.

Clerics choose which domain they will specialize in at level 1, which can have a lot of roleplaying depth across the subclass features, making clerics an interesting grade for RP purposes. Where an bad-mannered warlock gets a absurd patreon that grants their powers, clerics get a generous sponsor that's divine rather than merely edgy. These domains typically fall to a god in each Pantheon and each domain description is fairly wide with endless deities that tin fall into those categories. For instance, the gods of knowledge in a Faerun entrada could be Thoth, Oghma, or Aureon. These domain descriptions are largely thematic rather than specific to detail gods, then yous should be able to play any cleric subclass in any campaign setting from basic fantasy settings to strange settings of whatsoever culture shift. Each domain is given access to a list of cleric domain spells from many spell lists (including some wizard spells), which are always considered "prepared". You lot gain 2 of these spells at 1st level, 3rd level, 5th level, seventh level, and 9th level.

Almost every domain too gets one of two features at 8th level, divine strike which adds 1d8 impairment (which later increases to 2d8 damage) to your weapon attacks, or potent spellcasting which adds a harm bonus to your cantrips equal to your Wisdom modifier. These 8th level features go a long way towards specializing you towards melee or blaster spellcasting, and you lot should choose appropriately. Putting it all together these domains act as your subclass, merely a subclass that dominates more than half of the class features your character will gain. Pick your bracket wisely, as it will have even more than bear on on your character's playstyle than most subclasses, granting features at 1st, second, 6th, 8th, and i final capstone feature equally a 17th level cleric.

Arcana Domain

This is the domain to have if you desire your cleric to dip their toe into wizardry. Mechanically it gets boosted wizard cantrips and a lot of the iconic wizard spells like magic missile get added to your list of cleric spells. Gaining wizard cantrips gives you access to the melee set on cantrips similar Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade, making information technology sneakily one of the stronger melee cleric options. It's also 1 of the absolute best "anti-magic" class archetypes. You go to dispel any nasty effects your enemies have cast on y'all or your allies with the healing spells you were already using. If you were looking for an arcane shotgun of DPS you'll exist disappointed, merely information technology's a great fashion to get your cleric involved in those counterspell fights.

Death Domain

A expiry domain cleric aligns with the forces of death to get a chilling damage dealer with a focus on melee strikes and upping the power of necromancy damage cantrips like arctic affect and toll the dead. One of the amend options for a DPS melee cleric with strong damage spells all throughout its domain spell listing. It's also a fair healing or utility pulley since your regular damage can come from cantrips and you tin can save your spell slots for healing or other utility options.

Forge Domain

This is best of the defensive options for tanky clerics with some proper arcane armor and magic weapons. Between the Blessing of the Forge and Soul of the Forge abilities, a forge domain cleric tin can proceeds +2 Air conditioning on meridian of heavy armor. Outset with one of the races that has a congenital in +1 AC like warforged or Simic hybrid, put on some total plate and add together on a shield and your full casting cleric tin can have 23 AC as early as level 6! And so just cast shield of faith to walk around the dungeon with a cool 25 AC. And why not, have some free fire damage resistance as a cherry on summit! Other than the tanky aspect you basically get to plow your weapon into basic magic weapons with a damage and attack bonus. And you lot go some utility out of the channel divinity option, which lets y'all craft a nonmagical object. Combined with your arcane armor and magical weapon, the forge grants a touch of artificer feel in there likewise.

Grave Domain

The domain description of the grave domain sounds a lot like the spooky necromancer cleric option, but it'due south really the opposite. Y'all gain a bunch of abilities that are groovy for keeping your allies alive and a couple bits of anti-undead tech and even a sneaky DPS boost to your cantrips. Putting it all together, the grave cleric is an ideal pick if your priority every bit a cleric is to keep your friends alive.

Knowledge Domain

The cognition domain dips your cleric's toes into the bard class and grants yous some skill expertise, bonus proficiencies, and a bunch of utility spells. The knowledge of the ages feature gives you skill or tool proficiencies at a moment's notice, wrapping upwards a lot of situational options into 1. Consider the cognition domain if y'all desire to build a cleric focused on utility, divination magic, skill proficiency, and the roleplaying pillar of adventuring.

Life Domain

Healing, healing, and more healing. Nearly every feature you gain from the life domain gives you lot more than opportunities to heal or makes your healing effects improve. Channel divinity: preserve life alone is like the equivalent of multiple decent healing spells from other casters and tin regularly pop a whole party support from near decease to half their hit indicate maximum. Run life clerics if you're looking for a traditional heal bot style cleric.

Light Domain

A decent choice for a DPS cleric that can be far more survivable fifty-fifty without the heavy armor due to its Warding Flare power that can impose disadvantage on attack rolls. The domain spells also oddly include some of the best burn down damage spells from the arcane spell lists, making this strangely i of the best offensive options for the more than pyromaniac minded cleric. The damage potential falls off quite a bit in afterward levels though, every bit the Radiance of Dawn ability doesn't scale upwards terribly well.

Nature Domain

This domain lets yous make friends with animals like a druid but doesn't actually gain much.Channel divinity: amuse animals and plants is cute, just very situational. I don't recommend this domain unless you've got a very specific wonky exploit that requires charming beasts or plants. It's too strangely punchy for the druid mode theme with heavy armor proficiency and divine strike, but if yous're going for directly melee at that place's ameliorate options.

Society Domain

Social club lets you "grant" reaction attacks to your allies when you buff or heal them and combined with the charming effect from the Order's Demand feature yous can hands accept command over the battlefield. Your counter argument to whatever situation is "no", and you'll be able to shut down the worst of the chaos effectually you. All-time built with a lot of ally vitrify spells, this domain is 1 of the best options for a control cleric.

Peace Domain

Annoyances between friends happen and if settling character argument is your bag the peace domain may be for you. It sort of builds in a lot of the buffing and healing spells every bit features rather than making you use up spells. The channel divinity: lotion of peace selection is a respectable heal, and when y'all hit sixth level you gain an power to swap places with one of your allies and essentially take their hits for them. Valuable for the healing aqueduct divinity ability lonely, and a very strong option if you want to try and play your cleric primarily as a healer / tank or as a diplomat trying to solve disharmonize without hostile action.

Storm Domain

Yous call upon the natural energy of a storm deity to rain down thunder damage and lightning impairment. The cadre of the storm cleric is its Wrath of the Storm feature that lets y'all deal a good chunk of damage to anything that attacks you, and both thunder impairment and lightning harm are adequately reliable harm types. The channel divinity: destructive wrath feature lets yous spend your channels to maximize lightning or thunder impairment, which happens after hits so you tin fifty-fifty use it to maximize critical hits. The domain spells also grant access to sleet tempest and call lightning (though frustratingly not lightning bolt), making this domain ane of the very few ways to proceeds this powerhouse spell outside of druid levels. And at the top of the tempest domain spell list, you pick updestructive wave, a powerful fifth level spell normally but found on the paladin spell list. Combined with the heavy armor proficiency, this domain works wonders for tank/dps builds looking to shrug the hits and dish out some lightning harm.

Trickery Domain

This domain lets you dip your cleric into a bit of rogue with an illusory duplicate. You gain clone illusions that can be used for all sorts of devious tricks, aslope a ton of illusion and escape abilities like the ability to turn invisible. It gets incredibly insane with your 17th level capstone where you get iv illusory clones. This is one of the best options for utility/sneaky clerics.

Twilight Domain

Y'all wouldn't remember it at first, but this "unearthed arcana" domain is 1 of the meliorate healing cleric options. Your Twilight Sanctuary power sets upward a mobile area of healing for you and your allies while your other features make it easier for you to sneak around in the dark. Consider this domain if you lot want your cleric to both sneak and heal.

Unity Domain

This domain provides an insane amount of buffing power to your cleric, and the sharing damage potential of the Protective Bond power can all but ensure you and your political party stay up and fighting doing your best impression of the Monty Python black knight. Consider taking this with a high Constitution race, prioritizing hit points and turning yourself into a walking bag of health to spread among your allies when they need information technology.

War Domain

The war cleric is very simple and solid choice, it wants to hitting the enemy and hit information technology difficult for maximum damage by blasting spells alongside weapon attacks. The War Priest ability is especially powerful at early on levels, and yous tin can dish out a ton of harm with the extra attacks and eventually even more with divine strike. Channel divinity: guided strike lets you lot spend your channels to add a whopping +10 bonus to attack rolls. Consider multiclassing with a few paladin levels or fighter classes to push your damage further with some smites.

Cleric Builds and Tactics

The cleric class has access to a little bit of everything, and between all the options at their disposal every cleric is going to be unique. There's no "right" way to build your cleric, but at that place are a few key tactics, favorite spells, and powerful options y'all may want to endeavour, and in turn a few build options that really help support those tactics and make the all-time use of your divine energy.

Cleric Healing

While clerics don't have to spend the entire game healing anymore, they're still one of the classes best built for dedicated healing bachelor in 5e dnd. To empathize how to apply that healing energy and keep your allies alive, yous'll need to understand the key healing spells available to yous more than just the 1st-level spell cure wounds.

Cure Wounds. This is your bread and butter healing spell that you'll be using from level 1 all the way up into level 20. Every bit an action, you touch somebody and heal them for 1d8 + your Wisdom modifier and add in another 1d8 for each slot level higher up 1st. For the most part, if you lot're in the middle of a fight, and somebody needs healing, this is the spell you'll be firing off.

Healing Discussion. This is your emergency button, the healing spell you utilize just when things are BAD. It heals half as much as cure wounds with 1d4 + your Wisdom modifier, calculation another 1d4 for each slot level above 1st. The big difference is rather than an action at touch range, it'due south a bonus action at a target inside threescore-foot range. This is a huge deal as it means yous tin can do an important action like brand an attack or nuance away and heal your ally on the other side of the battlefield. Most often you'll be using this is panic situations, where a few hit points right this second will save a character'southward life.

Prayer of Healing. This is your out of combat heal, the spell you'll want to employ when y'all're safe, but withal gearing upward for the next threat around the corner. It heals upward to 6 creatures (normally the whole party) for 2d8 + your Wisdom modifier, which even for a 2nd level spell is a massive upgrade from the other options. The kicker is the 10-infinitesimal casting time. With such a long casting time, this infinitely stronger healing spell is impossible to apply effectively in the middle of combat but is ideal when things have calmed downwards.

Aid. The assist spell is an ofttimes overlooked gem. It'south a 2nd level spell that can increase the hit indicate maximum for multiple creatures. It lasts 8 hours, and doesn't require concentration, making it an splendid party heal/buff option for clerics, especially at subsequently levels when your 2nd level spell slots aren't as scarce.

Finally, if you're really committed to beingness the political party heal bot, consider the life domain. Information technology is congenital completely around healing and while information technology's a bit tiresome it definitely gets the chore washed.

Cleric Tanking

Paladins accept the traditional role of divine tank, only when you lot're getting munched by bloodthirsty cannibals the clerics can do the job just fine. Step ane is acquiring heavy armor proficiency which is happily provided by quite a few of the divine domains including the forge, nature, order, tempest, twilight, and war domains. Any of these will push your cleric onto the tanky side, only the forge domain especially is the most tanky you can get.

By level vi a forge cleric with plate armor and a shield can go to 22 Air-conditioning!

Tanking can be about more than only AC though. Information technology'due south virtually taking the hits and making certain your political party is protected, and clerics have a whole swathe of spells that do just that.

Protection from Evil and Good. I detect this spell gets overlooked a lot but if you're trying to tank the big bad guy at that place's a good take a chance this volition exist amazing. Y'all'd think information technology works off alignment somehow, but what information technology really does is impose disadvantage on attacks coming at y'all from specific creature types. If your DM has thrown an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead at you lot, this spell can impose disadvantage on all their attacks and deal with charm, fear, and possession effects for basically the whole fight.

Shield of Faith. Recollect how I said you could get to 22 AC? How about 24 AC instead? Information technology costs you a 1st level spell slot and your concentration, but this spell but flatly gives y'all a +2 Air conditioning bonus for the duration of 10 minutes. +2 Ac when you're already pushing the border can make you lot downright unhittable in some combats. I find myself using it less at later levels, just in the early game it tin be a tanky godsend.

Protection from Free energy. About to fight a fire-breathing dragon? Information technology doesn't take a lot of enquiry to learn there may exist some fire damage breath attacks coming your way. Elemental damage includes some of the near common damage types and many enemies are completely themed effectually a single free energy damage type. This 3rd level spell takes advantage of themed enemies past granting you lot resistance to a chosen harm type for a whole hour (so most of a dungeon and the boss fight).

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Cleric DPS

The arcane casters may get the spotlight when it comes to magical impairment, but you've got a ton of options for dishing information technology out using divine magic in your spells and some adept one-time mode face up bashing. Every cleric starts out with simple weapon proficiency and medium armor proficiency, but you've got plenty of options to improve that and you tin swing a berserker axe just as well equally you can lob spells.

If your plan is to do some melee DPS as a cleric taking the war domain is an fantabulous kickoff. The war priest ability lets you make an additional weapon attack as a bonus action whenever you use the attack action fifty-fifty if it's with some huge weapon like a maul or battleaxe. Load upwardly on high Strength and become to town with a flurry of weapon strikes empowered past divine magic. War is probably the strongest and virtually straightforward pick for melee clerics, but whatever of the domains that pick up martial weapons and divine strike (death, forge, life, nature, order, tempest, trickery, twilight, and war) are fine choices for those extra impairment increases with your melee attacks.

If your plan is blaster casting the cleric spell list still has you covered. You have a fine retinue of touch spells if you're willing to get your easily dirty from time to fourth dimension, and great ranged options if y'all desire to snipe from afar.

Guiding Bolt. More than or less unique to the cleric spell list, this is an splendid 1st level directly impairment spell with a long 120-foot range and a whopping 4d6 radiant impairment. Information technology besides grants reward on the next attack made confronting your target, then you'll help focus downwardly a tough foe even faster.

Spiritual Weapon. Yous conjure a floating beat stick and for the next minute you'll be able to bop enemies with information technology equally a bonus activeness. In a lot of situations this adds a huge boost to your damage potential and uses bonus actions which would in many cases go unused. It'due south a bonus activity spell that doesn't fifty-fifty require concentration, so y'all tin can be diggings away with spells, concentrating on some other powerful damage spell, and take this dishing out actress hits all at the same time!

Spirit Guardians. This third level spell is one of the almost obnoxious impairment dealers in the game and tin can completely ruin a combat for your enemies. You basically surround yourself with a fifteen-foot aura of pain that ignores you lot and your allies while punishing anybody who gets nigh y'all. It lasts for 10 minutes, fifteen feet is a Broad AoE damage aura, and whatever enemies volition have to save or have 3d8 radiant damage or necrotic impairment every unmarried round. This is an astonishing crowd control selection and if y'all have a lot of enemies this harm actually stacks upward equally i of the best and about efficient damage spells in the game.

Magic Initiate. The magic initiate feat grants you lot two cantrips from another spellcasting class, and it's absolutely a weird choice considering clerics are already a full spellcasting class. But it can grant y'all easy admission to some key wizard cantrips, green-flame bract, and booming blade. Both of these cantrips let yous substantially cast them every bit part of a melee set on, and cantrip damage increases every bit you advance in level. This stacks that damage up ontop of whatever else yous've got going on. Consider this if y'all're trying to maximize damage as a melee cleric.

War Caster. Finally, equally a tip for any cleric who'south planning on getting into the thick of combat, consider using one of your ability score improvements to take the feat War Caster. It gives yous advantage on concentration checks to maintain your spells, lets yous cast all your stuff with weapons in paw, and even lets you tag creatures with your spells as attacks of opportunity! Some of your most powerful spells require concentration and keeping them going in gainsay tin can be essential. And casting spells as opportunity attacks can make you a beast in gainsay and can allow yous to nail downward enemies away from the rest of your party.

Cleric Party Buff

When yous're not healing or blasting, clerics have admission to some of the best force multiplying spells that tin can brand your party doubly effective. Or y'all tin can horde those buff spells for yourself and channel your magic into being a doubly buffed frontline fighter.

Resistance. This cantrip gets overlooked a lot, but when exploring a quick cast of resistance can greatly improve your ally's chance of surviving the side by side trap or hazard. You touch a friend and if they have to make a saving throw in the side by side infinitesimal, you lot grant them an extra d4 on their save. Costs you lot nothing other than the cantrip slot, only basically every fourth dimension your rogue tries to disarm the trap, or the fighter boldly opens the suspicious door, they'll have a heave against whatever comes their way.

Bless. Call up of this as the upgraded version of resistance. Instead of a cantrip information technology's a 1st level spell, and instead of ane ally it's upwardly to iii. Oh, and that d4 doesn't get used up after the start roll AND it can be used on attack rolls. In a lot of cases this will finish upwards doing so much more harm than a 1st level spell, even if yous only partially become to share in the glory of bringing the bad guys down.

Buoy of Hope. Another spell that'southward often overlooked, this third level spell creates a shining beacon that gives y'all and all your allies reward on Wisdom saving throws and death throws within 30 anxiety and maximizes (instead of rolling it'southward the maximum) whatsoever healing yous or your allies get. The key here is that it's whatever healing, not just healing you do. And so, you can plop this downward and go about your gainsay, while everybody else's healing abilities inside 30 feet go overcharged. It'south a balanced spell and not a broken mess similar flag for power creep that is healing spirit, but information technology has broader applicability and I think it'south only a thing of time until it's a spell of cleric notoriety.

Cleric Form Features

Before we become into the builds and options, we should go through the fundamental features that define the cleric.

Cleric Spellcasting

Clerics are primarily spellcasters, and y'all'll need to get a hang of your spells even if your main tactic is going to be swinging a sword effectually.

Starting off just, clerics are Wisdom based, which means your spell attack modifiers and spell salve DC is based on your Wisdom modifier. The higher your Wisdom is, the improve your spell attacks will be and the more than difficult information technology volition be to resist your effects.

You're also what's called a prepared spellcaster, which can take some getting used to. Your cleric has a list of spells and knows every spell on the cleric spell list, yeah yous read that right. The trick is that you have to choice and cull which spells y'all'll be using at the outset of the mean solar day. Every time you terminate a long rest, y'all'll get to pick out a number of cleric spells to accept "prepared" equal to your Wisdom modifier + your Cleric level.

That'south how you pick out which spells you have available, then how does casting them work?

You besides have a thing called "spell slots", which yous tin can recollect of as bullets or fuel that you load into your different spells to "fire" them. Your full amount of "ammo" is determined by your cleric levels, and yous get all your ammo back when yous finish a long rest.

So, let'south say I'chiliad a 3rd level cleric and I prepare the 1st level cleric spell guiding commodities. Since guiding bolt is 1 of my prepared spells, I just load in one of my 1st level spell slots and pull the trigger. Or, If I'yard facing something really nasty, I could load in my spicier 2nd level spell slot and burn it off to do some more damage.

You tin can set different spells every time you finish a long remainder, and but similar other spellcasting classes you likewise have a few cleric cantrips or "level 0 spells" that don't take any spell slots to cast. Y'all besides can't set spells with a level higher than the slots you take, which makes sense.

You lot'll as well be getting (well-nigh likely) a set of "domain spells". The cleric archetypes are chosen divine domains, and near of them take lists of spells that you lot get to essentially "fix for free". You still accept to load in your spell slots to utilize them, only you get to take them prepared in addition to all your other spells (which is peculiarly prissy as some of them come from other spell lists).

Clerics also get a special characteristic called ritual casting. Which allows you to cast certain "ritual spells" without spending a spell slot if you lot take a long time to bandage them. Virtually ritual spells aren't things y'all'd usually want to use in combat but casting them as a ritual makes certain you can't bandage them in combat as it takes 10 more minutes to cast them that manner. What this does is it allows you to cast some roleplaying and investigation type spells without it affecting your gainsay effectiveness, which can be a major bonus!

Aqueduct Divinity

Starting at 2nd level, y'all become 1 use of your "aqueduct divinity", this outpouring of positive energy (or peradventure negative free energy) can be used in two different ways.

The first mode is the generic 1 that every cleric gets to utilise is called turn undead. You basically burn down off a ton of divine power and undead creatures within 30 feet of you lot has to make a Wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they proceeds a special condition called "turned" which is similar frightened simply worse, and they have to spend their unabridged next turn getting as far away from you as they tin can.

The second way to utilize channel divinity is determined by your cleric archetype or "divine domain", and we'll get into that later. Your uses of aqueduct divinity become restored on short rests, and if they need a saving throw, they use your spellcasting DC. For the most part, you'll exist using the mode from your divine domain unless your DM is throwing a ton of undead your way.

Yous outset with only one apply of your channel divinity, but yous get more times per day as yous go on. Y'all'll pick up an boosted time per twenty-four hour period of your aqueduct divinity at 6th level, and then strangely another use all the way upwards at 18th level for a total of 3 times per twenty-four hours.

Destroy Undead

At fifth level you go on the theme of "clerics beat undead" and your turn undead channel divinity ability gets enhanced to just completely destroy undead if they neglect the saving throw, assuming they're below a challenge rating threshold. You gain this characteristic at fifth level, at which your plough will destroy undead of CR ½ or lower, which improves to CR 1 at 8th level, CR 2 at 11th level, CR three at 14th level, and finally CR 4 at 18th level.

This whole feature is honestly kind of a legacy affair, and you'll very rarely see it come up in campaigns. Nonetheless, if your DM is throwing a lot of very depression level undead at you, remember y'all take this feature and blast away some crust zombies, peculiarly at later levels.

Divine Intervention

Once you hit 10th level, you can literally ask your god for a favor. You enquire your deity actually nicely to do something, curl percentile die (that'due south both d10s to get a event between ane and 100) and if you curlicue equal or lower than your cleric level, your god does you a favor.

Of all the course features in 5e, this one is the most open ended and dependent on DM discretion, but if your DM is kind information technology tin can be incredibly powerful. I find that most DMs will be specially lenient if you inquire for things that are in your god'south flavor and themes. And so, request your god of charity and goodness to murder the guards probably won't go over well... Though request the same matter of a death god might.

If y'all attempt this and it fails (rolled over your level), you tin try once more after a long rest. If y'all attempt it and it works then you've got to await a full calendar week before getting some other favor from on high.

Finally, your big capstone feature at 20th level lets you automatically succeed on getting your god's favor, no roll required.

Building a Better Cleric

It feels similar everybody hated playing the "heal-bot" cleric in the past and they've but been slowly growing what a cleric is capable of. Now clerics tin can be built up into practically annihilation, making excellent tanks, damage dealers, utility casters, party buffers, and yes, even healers. To get-go with though, you lot'll need to accost your ability scores.

Cleric Power Scores

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability score for clerics, and you lot're going to want your Wisdom to be loftier and quite probable your highest ability score.

Past that it gets more complicated because of all the routes you tin can take when edifice your cleric. Most if it revolves effectually what armor you plan on taking, and if yous plan on being a "combat cleric" or more than of a "spellcasting cleric". Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are all in the running hither for your 2nd highest ability score.

If you cease up with heavy armor (more on that later), you'll almost likely want to make Constitution your next highest ability score. If you're relying on light or medium armor, Dexterity should be your next highest. And finally, while non all builds will want it, some of the more combat oriented cleric builds volition want Strength equally their side by side highest score.

In whatsoever case, none of these "physical scores" should be your dump stats and should at least be neutral "ten's". Charisma and Intelligence nevertheless are largely useless for you, and y'all should put as few points equally possible into them unless you're doing some very specific and odd builds of cleric.

Finally, while there are a few feats to consider for your ability score increases, I recommend merely loading up on Wisdom unless you've absolutely got your heart fix on a specific build.

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Final updated: January 27, 2019

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