Cleric Sorcerer Build "They sicken of the calm who know the storm." - Dorothy Parker

[numerek]

Note: this build relies on Unearthed Arcana, it also takes advantage of other optional rules but only the Storm sorcerer origin and the Tempest Cleric domain are really required.

Tempest Cleric 8 / Storm Sorcerer 12

Race
Aarakocra


Adds another dimension to the game.
speed 25 fly 50
also has relevant stat bonus +2 dexterity +1 wisdom
But even if the 50 speed was on the ground that would be good enough to use this race. The builds damage largely depend on how many enemies it can come within 15' of on its turn.



if your dm doesn't allow Aarakocra or you are afraid of heights
Other Races

wood elf increases base speed to 35 gives same stats plus the standard elf goodness
Hill dwarf +2 constitution +1 wisdom if you want heavy armor but low strength
Half elf if you want to do better with your sorcerer spell casting
human variant for a free feat
Really as I'll say latter the difference a few stat points will make is less in this build than in some others. So you can freely choose any race


Alignment

Because of spirtual guardians alignment actually matters. no buddy but bearbarians are resistant to radiant and only 4 creatures are immune which is better than necrotic so we need to be any non-evil alignment.

Starting stats

Strength 9
Dexterity 15
Constitution 13
Intelligence 8
wisdom 16
Charisma 14

I wanted decent stats in dexterity, constitution, wisdom, and charisma which is MAD I know. I have been smitten by the spiritual guardians spell and so a lot of what this build does is to mitigate damage and improve chances of succeeding concentration checks when you have to make them.

Alternate stats
actually a lot of the damage of the build well over half doesn't depend on wisdom or charisma so you could put 13's in them and forget about it.

Strength 8
Dexterity 17
Constitution 15
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 13
Charisma 13

These stats give:
higher initiative, ac, acrobatics, saves, hitpoints, and Dexterity/Constitution saves
lower carrying capacity, Wisdom/Charisma save, to hit with cleric and sorcerer attack spells, save dcs for cleric and sorcerer spells.

Equipment
studded leather armor + shield
talons good enough on rare times I get attacks of opportunity
when flying isn't an option put on best medium armor I can afford.

Skills
religion, insight, acrobatics, perception

Concept

Combining Thunderbolt Strike, Heart of the Storm, and Aarakocra fly speed
Beyond that maintaining spiritual guardian
Having enough spells to be casting every turn.


You fly around the battlefield while spirits beat your enemies and whenever you want you cast whatever spell you want from your arsenal and taze everybody in 10' feet of you pushing them 10', if you are positioned directly above them you are exerting enough force to move them 10' but they are being opposed by the ground, now that is some oppression.

Progression

A lot of this will follow the progression of the example build in The Guarded Cleric build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?411612-The-Guarded-Cleric-build) But instead of getting the conjuration wizard abilities you get the sorcerer abilities that the other build picked up later -draconic origin +storm origin.


sacred flame and bless(as long as there are enough people in the party that it will benefit to be worth while) as much as possible, throw around healing word as needed.Nice reaction ability to bad it doesn't scale(with alternate stats you only get this once per long rest)
Channel divinity for max damage when you roll lightning or thunder damage once per short rest, or turn undead
add spiritual weapon bonus action ranged damage no concentration
resilient constitution evens out the constitution +save proficiency
you get to spend every fight(as long as you have spell slots) flying all over the place hitting each creature for 3d8+1d8 per spell slot level > 3 (half on save) and then on the ones you really want to go down you hit them with your sacred flame and/or spiritual weapon.mass healing word as necessary,Other cleric spells to pray for revivify, dispel magic, remove curse, aid, lesser restoration
multi into sorcerer pick up shield (taze via reaction and damage mitigation), mage armor is better than mundane leather armor (if you like your armor or want to spend slots on other things disguise self can be useful, maybe you can disguise yourself as a spiritual guardian) also you can now use some other damage cantrip instead of sacred flame, shocking grasp has some synergy but is a melee attack.
you can start moving spell slots around, feather fall is good to have on a flying creature
pick up extend spell for long duration spiritual guardians, and subtle spell so you can cast stuff while bound and gagged. pick up mirror image
ASI war caster, if you didn't pick up disguise self earlier you can now, magic missile if a good one for stuff that is hard to damage any other way.
pick up counter spell or fireball
Heart of the Storm, which ever one you didn't pick at 10th
Back to Cleric for Thunderbolt Strike. Additional channel divinity.
Freedom of movement
ASI resilience dexterity, divine strike



Then finish out with Sorcerer levels which ups the damage of the Heart of the Storm ability which has no save, gives more sorcerer points . you also get one more meta magic probably twinned spell.
You get 2 more ASI shield mastery, elemental adept lightning or lucky.

Alternatives
you could do 12 cleric / 8 sorcerer or 14 cleric / 6 sorcerer. it would mainly be that you prefer the cleric spell list over the sorcerer.
You can actually still multi into wizard though you have to throw 5 points into intelligence, and considering you will only be able to go up to 7th level I'm not sure it would be worth it
Spells you can pick up find familiar, longstrider +10 speed, phantom steed (speed 100), fire shield
Abjuration if you cast their spells to do your tazing you get a hit point ward, which at 6th level can be used to protect others.
Divination if you cast their spells to do your tazing you get lower level slots back.
Transmutation stone +10 movement speed

Note: obviously choices made for this build are largely specific to the goals of the build and may not be the best choices for being able to do anything else.

DM Fiat
You could work it out with your dm that you give up some other cleric domain feature for the Heart of the storm origin feature, being able to stay one class has its advantages and that might mean being able to enable the main point of the build sooner, like giving up divine strike would get it at 8th level. of course then I would still want to multi into wizard or sorcerer for some of their low level spells and meta magic. Also the tempest domain spells and storm sorcerer bonus spells largely overlap, there are some other lightning\wind\ice\thunder spells that could be substituted.

Any ways to improve the build would be greatly appreciated.

[numerek]

added more to the build. Let me know what you think.

[eastmabl]

Formatting. All I see with this is a wall of text and it's the second time that I've wanted to comment but couldn't read through it.

[Slipperychicken]

Formatting. All I see with this is a wall of text and it's the second time that I've wanted to comment but couldn't read through it.

Seconded. I really want to read this build, but my eyes just don't want to do it.

[Easy_Lee]

My trouble with this kind of build is that you really aren't leaving your DM too many options. He's going to deal with your character, and the obvious methods of doing so are going to be really painful for you:

He hits you with a net; your speed becomes 0, and you arguably fall to the ground. You must spend your action to break free of the net, or deal 5 slashing to it.
He knocks you prone while in the air, perhaps via a ranged trip from a BM-inspired mob, and you fall to the ground prone (as per the flying rules).
He grapples you, and holds you in place with a grappler mob.
He focus-fires you with archers, so you can't fly around and be a mobile weapons platform.
You suddenly find yourself in lots of cramped spaces.

There really aren't too many other options if he wants to deal with the character. This is a big part of the reason why I don't prefer to ride a pteranodon as a halfling beast master, even though it's a build that I helped flesh out and refine. It doesn't leave your DM many options to have an always-flying, hard to catch player who does so from very early levels, so he has to resort to targeted tactics.

As far as the way the character works, moving in and out of range with the spirit guardians thing is a well-known tactic. A lot of DMs will either ban it or limit it to once/round. Otherwise, a paladin / cleric or bard can take both find steed and guardians, producing two identical auras (since target = self) and doubling the damage, without the drawback of being screwed over by nets, grapples, and cramped spaces. It's a bit of a busted tactic, and a lot of DMs just aren't going to let it work the way it does by RAW. Worse, some DMs will be clever and find even more broken ways to use it against you. Then your whole party will be mad at you for abusing the trick.

Beyond that, the build feels a bit busy. It doesn't seem like you're especially good at any one role, you just committed to a particular battlefield tactic and take lots of options that improve that one tactic. If that tactic doesn't work (such as when you get netted or grappled or whatever your DM comes up with), it doesn't seem like you have much to work with. Subtle spell is a good choice, but it also feels like one more way to thwart a DM's attempts to keep you under control, thus making him have to try harder.

I don't mean to be rude or anything. I just think that you've taken a lot of overpowered things with this build (such as aarakocra and spiritual guardians). I can't comment on storm sorcerer since I haven't read it yet, but I've heard from many sources that it's more powerful than other sorcerous origins, so that's one more point against the build. With the reliance on non-core sources, it feels very much like a 3.5e optimized build, the kind that many here are familiar with and dread.

[numerek]

My trouble with this kind of build is that you really aren't leaving your DM too many options. He's going to deal with your character, and the obvious methods of doing so are going to be really painful for you:

He hits you with a net; your speed becomes 0, and you arguably fall to the ground. You must spend your action to break free of the net, or deal 5 slashing to it.
He knocks you prone while in the air, perhaps via a ranged trip from a BM-inspired mob, and you fall to the ground prone (as per the flying rules).
He grapples you, and holds you in place with a grappler mob.
He focus-fires you with archers, so you can't fly around and be a mobile weapons platform.
You suddenly find yourself in lots of cramped spaces.

There really aren't too many other options if he wants to deal with the character. This is a big part of the reason why I don't prefer to ride a pteranodon as a halfling beast master, even though it's a build that I helped flesh out and refine. It doesn't leave your DM many options to have an always-flying, hard to catch player who does so from very early levels, so he has to resort to targeted tactics.

As far as the way the character works, moving in and out of range with the spirit guardians thing is a well-known tactic. A lot of DMs will either ban it or limit it to once/round. Otherwise, a paladin / cleric or bard can take both find steed and guardians, producing two identical auras (since target = self) and doubling the damage, without the drawback of being screwed over by nets, grapples, and cramped spaces. It's a bit of a busted tactic, and a lot of DMs just aren't going to let it work the way it does by RAW. Worse, some DMs will be clever and find even more broken ways to use it against you. Then your whole party will be mad at you for abusing the trick.

Beyond that, the build feels a bit busy. It doesn't seem like you're especially good at any one role, you just committed to a particular battlefield tactic and take lots of options that improve that one tactic. If that tactic doesn't work (such as when you get netted or grappled or whatever your DM comes up with), it doesn't seem like you have much to work with. Subtle spell is a good choice, but it also feels like one more way to thwart a DM's attempts to keep you under control, thus making him have to try harder.

I don't mean to be rude or anything. I just think that you've taken a lot of overpowered things with this build (such as aarakocra and spiritual guardians). I can't comment on storm sorcerer since I haven't read it yet, but I've heard from many sources that it's more powerful than other sorcerous origins, so that's one more point against the build. With the reliance on non-core sources, it feels very much like a 3.5e optimized build, the kind that many here are familiar with and dread.

Good points and thanks for the comment, I have enjoyed reading many of your builds.

You mention you haven't seen the storm sorcerer origin, so when I mention the taze effect I'm refering to its 6th ability which does sorcerer level / 2 lightning or thunder damage to each creature you want within 10' of you, this synergies with Tempest domains Thunderbolt strike ability that pushes stuff away whenever you deal lightning damage to them.

I know a dedicated grappler will easily beat my acrobatics proficiency but they also need to catch me and getting beat up by guardians while they do(which I have in both of my recent builds stayed away from combining spiritual guardians with find steed), as far as the DM setting up an encounter to do this it happens in superhero stories all the time, the bad guys team up and capture one guy exploiting his weakness, then the rest of the party needs to rescue him. Its also arguable that the taze effect would push away a grappler.

I did briefly mention that I could put on medium armor if I'm going into an environment where it looks like flight is unlikely. Flight is mainly for the coolness factor I think the build would work fine with a wood elf or even a heavy armor hill dwarf (though I would probably be taking the mobile feat in this case, probably by having cleric go to 8th level) by the way these races would get to fly 10 feet when I cast a spell when I pick up the first sorcerer level.

As far as falling I was hoping acrobatics could help with that too, until I get feather fall, it might even be worth picking up sorcerer 1 earlier and grabbing it at 2nd level.

It is possible I could argue that I could taze the net even if it meant I dealt the heart of the storm damage to myself.

I believe one of the reasons people feel that the storm origin is overpowered is something I touched on in the dm fiat section where this origin is given 9 extra spells known which increases the total spells known by 60%, but in that section I also mention that a lot of those origin spell slots are domain spells of tempest cleric so without dm fiat that part that makes the origin OP in this build has little effect. The ability I'm going for again is mainly for coolness, I will be 12th level by the time it fully comes online and it only does 3 lightning damage pushes them away 10 feet.

As for other options I do have the tempest domain spells and a few of the storm origin spells are different so that adds some more possibilities and clerics can long rest change out their spells.

I have also updated the formatting and added more content I'm not claiming to be any good at formatting but I do think that it does look somewhat better.

Reading your reply made me think of something I need freedom of movement which is available at cleric level 7, I think I am going to update the build and pick this up and another ASI.

[Person_Man]

I concur with Easy_Lee's metagame concern over flight. I personally think its a mid-level thing you should use situationally, not a racial ability you should use often. (Though obviously the designers disagree, or they wouldn't have made it an option).

Separately, I'm not seeing the synergy between Cleric/Sorcerer. I could see taking 1 level for armor/shield and a domain. But 6? Why? The options you get from being a Cleric are good, but not worth delaying/trading away mid-high level options from another full caster class.

[numerek]

I concur with Easy_Lee's metagame concern over flight. I personally think its a mid-level thing you should use situationally, not a racial ability you should use often. (Though obviously the designers disagree, or they wouldn't have made it an option).

Separately, I'm not seeing the synergy between Cleric/Sorcerer. I could see taking 1 level for armor/shield and a domain. But 6? Why? The options you get from being a Cleric are good, but not worth delaying/trading away mid-high level options from another full caster class.

I believe that "But 6? Why?" is what the thread is about.

I don't put as much stock in mono classing as you do. To me this is a 12th level build and any levels after that are just gravy. And as for the worth, this build isn't about that. If you read the concept of the build, I want to combine Tempest cleric domain feature Thunderbolt Strike with Storm sorcerer origin feature Heart of the Storm because it is cool because it is an ability I would enjoy my character having, not because it is overly powerful or worth more than other things. I like the freedom of it and the spiritual guardians spells, I can do whatever else I want with my turn assured that I was still doing those two sources of damage (well for the taze effect that whatever else I want has to include casting a non cantrip spell which since I'll be a 12' level full caster by the time I get the ability I should have plenty of good spells to cast and slots to cast them with and spiritual guardians I have to have cast previously and maintain concentration on). I like the image of electricity radiating from me pushing my enemies away that are getting beaten by spirits even if all I'm casting is detect poison and disease.

Adding the Aarakocra fly speed makes it even cooler. If I fly just above their head and cast a spell I am exerting enough force to push them 10' but they have no where to go. but if I couldn't use that race its not that big of a deal, maybe someone in the party can make us all fly or I can quest for a flying magical item, I could ride the party druid, if all else fails there is the Storm sorcerer origin's 1st level feature which lets me fly 10' when I cast a spell.

Spiritual guardian has advantages over many spells as I outlined in The Guarded Cleric build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?411612-The-Guarded-Cleric-build). And I actually changed the build above to be 8th cleric / 12th sorcerer so as to get freedom of movement. And I still have enough prayer slots to cover most clerical duties.