Cleric: Overanalyzing illness

[Anchestor]

Hello there, I have a huge problem. I have to many ideas as how to play my Cleric for a new game I´m playing in. First off all the details:

Race: VHuman
Stats:
buy in
Str - 16
Dex - 10
Con - 14
Int - 8
Wis - 16
Char - 8
(not set yet)

The game setting is build around a guild and lots of players who rotate every week, so I will play in different parties over the time. We start at lvl 1 and my first party will contain a Dragonborn Paladin (who goes tanky), a normal Human Monk and a Gnome Wizard.

After a longt thought on what domain I want to play I decided on tempest. I just don´t know what feat to take and if I really wanna go for Str 16 with heavy armor and melee or Dex 16 with medium armor and range. Here are my ideas so far:

tanky tempest with sentinel - you either hit me and eat 2d8 or you hit my friend next to me and you eat my warhammer

warcaster - being in melee a good option to hold my concentration on bless and other things

resilent - same reason, could go 16,8,16,16,8,8 with that though

healer - to save spellslots for other things I could keep the group alive that way and most people have the image of a cleric being the healbot anyway

magic initiate - getting booming blade, green-flame blade and find familiar for additional dmg per round and a "help-bot" at my side

heavy armored master - even that took my attention for being unkillable on the first few lvls

crossbow expert - should I go dex to have 2 attacks per turn with light crossbow and handcrossbow

I really need some advice here.

[Joe the Rat]

A couple of thoughts:

Arcane Cleric (SCAG) lets you snag some wizard cantrips as cleric cantrips. That lets you take the Warcaster to BB people as an OA... or get a ranged WIS-based attack cantrip besides sacred flame. That would serve you better than a crossbow.

If you are seriously thinking about tank-n-buff, Warcaster should take priority over Resilient for starting out. HAM looks good early, but three points of damage mitigation matters less and less as you move on.

I do like the Sentinel Storm idea. Work with the Paladin player on this: If he picks up sentinel, then you can only save the monk and wizard this way.

[Finieous]

Standard disclaimer: I played a tempest cleric from 1st to 18th level. It's the one subclass I have significant direct experience with as a player.

The most important question is, what level do expect to achieve? If it's going to be a short, low-level campaign, melee feats are fine (Sentinel, HAM, whatever). If the campaign is going to go long, you're a spellcaster and you should build a spellcaster.

In the latter scenario, my advice would be Resilient (Con) then Wisdom to 20. I prefer Resilient over Warcaster because there are a lot of nasty Con saves apart from concentration checks. At 12, you'll start running into things that hit like trucks, and you might want to add Warcaster to your proficient Con saves. If not, a good option might be Lucky. Beyond, I'd probably just recommend maxing out Con.

[Anchestor]

Thanks for the reply, I guess I take a look on the Arcane Domain and I think about resilent. What do you guys think about the healer feat?

[Finieous]

As for Healer, I think it depends on your preferred playstyle for the character. My approach at low level was, it's 5e and you've got Hit Dice. I'd throw a heal to get an unconscious character up, and I'd use Prayer of Healing out of combat until the DM switched to a "cinematic" 5-minute short rest. Otherwise, I couldn't heal enough to make it worth my action. I wouldn't expect to need so much healing that I'd burn a feat on it as a cleric, but maybe that's just me.

At higher levels, with Mass Healing Word/Cure Wounds, Heal, and Mass Heal, I did a lot more combat healing because my healing output exceeded my damage output. Plus I could still output damage over time with Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians up.

[Anchestor]

So if I go resilent, would you suggust 16,8,16,8,16,8? or 14 in con and two tens either in dex,int,cha or one twelve in one of them?

[Finieous]

16 8 16 8 16 8 is probably optimized, but you could go 16 10 14 8 16 10, for example, if you don't like three dump stats. Con 14 with proficiency isn't bad at all, and you can still max it at 12, 16 and 19.

[Anchestor]

Yea 3 16´s would be better probably, but i decided to go for a 12 in cha and the prof in persuasion for role play aspects. I always hated with my other characters that I can´t persuade anyone because I always have that -1 there and story wise clerics should be able to convince someone :)

Thank you very much for the advise

[Finieous]

Sure thing. Have fun - I found it a blast to play.

[Pex]

If you're going to be a warrior-type cleric then War Caster is better than Resilient because the DM might be a stickler for having a hand free available to cast spells. Always prepare Bless and cast it if you're worried about saving throws for an encounter. Higher level spells help in that cause as well to deal with death effects for example for which you would need to make a Con save.

[Finieous]

If you're going to be a warrior-type cleric then War Caster is better than Resilient because the DM might be a stickler for having a hand free available to cast spells.

I disagree, even with a stickler DM, but it does depend on expected length of campaign.

[BigONotation]

Are you not worried that your dump stats will make your character dumb and uncharismatic? Or is that not something your DM enforces or tests against?

[Pex]

Are you not worried that your dump stats will make your character dumb and uncharismatic? Or is that not something your DM enforces or tests against?

That's an inherent math problem of 5E Point Buy. Not that dice rolling would guarantee a "better" array either, but a player wanting 16s in his primes, and there's nothing wrong with wanting that, is going to have at least one 8 somewhere. For most classes Intelligence is the goto score for that 8. The second 8 goes to what's left the class needs the least. Unlike previous additions, clerics don't use Charisma at all. Since in this case the cleric is a warrior type and thus wants Strength, Charisma gets the second 8 because it's death if it's Constitution or Dexterity. Spellcasting focused clerics can put the 8 in Strength since they don't need it and have a nice Charisma for social skills.

[Gtdead]

Other than warcaster, resilient CON and magic initiate, every other feat conflicts with your class features.

Sentinel isn't that special because you already have a sanctuary to throw to the wizard, monk has a stunning strike and paladin will probably get the feat himself. I don't think that wizard needs any more help than that. Also Sentinel doesn't help against ranged enemies.

Healer just outright conflicts with your abilities. You are already good at it with healing word and prayer of healing. Becoming better at something that isn't very valuable in combat isn't really a good trade for your precious ASIs.

Crossbow expert.. well if you really want to be an archer I guess. The way I see it, spiritual weapon offers you a bonus action attack that allows you to use your action to dodge. There aren't many classes that can do this because most bonus action attacks require a normal action attack. Same thing can be said about PAM. You have the superior bonus action option, don't trade it for the inferior and pay an ASI to do so.

HAM, again, if your campaign lasts till lvl 5, get it. Then you can just use spirit guardians and kill tons of swarming mooks by just existing. Plus there is a chance that your wizard will want to show something for all these levels of doing nothing at all, so he will start throwing fireballs left and right.

On the domain choice.

Tempest is good, but it's not a gish* by any stretch of the imagination. Treating him like one is a bad way to play him imo. If you are going to be on bless duty, then take something else. You need your shatters, destructive wraths, call lightnings and channel divinities to be effective. In fact he is so good at that that my favorite build is getting elemental adept and a few sorcerer levels, using call lightning to deal absurd amounts of nova damage for cleric standards once per rest.

If you don't see yourself taking advantage of these spells, then perhaps you should try another domain. If you want a gish, the better options are either Death or Arcana. Personally I'm not very fond of Death domain. I wait on WotC to release a necromancy melee cantrip and then I'm game.

Arcana is very convenient. He has access to scag cantrips, so he can grab magic initiate for shillelagh (and absorb elements, best spell to use against dragon breaths), dump str, int and cha, leave dex at 14 and pump WIS and CON like there is no tommorow.

You can do something like
Str 8, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10 + magic initiate, get warcaster at lvl 4, 2 wis ASI, resilient con and a con ASI. If you are planning on playing a very high level campaign, perhaps it's a good idea to get a bit of cha instead of con, and grab 3 sorcerer levels. Metamagics are always useful.

* I define gish as a build that can sustain medium to high melee dpr while still being a high level caster, either by spending minimal resources to do it, or by stacking class features that increase his average. Someone that works like a caster, even if he is durable in melee, isn't a gish and that's why I think that tempest isn't one.

[Anchestor]

Thanks for the replys again.

My plan now is to go 16,8,14,8,16,12. It is not the best stat choice, because cha is not needed that much infight, but I like to use is for role playing. Resilent is my feat to go and I guess I´ll play my cleric like my druid in the past, I fill the gaps if needed. Either taking the hits up front, doing some dmg or supporting the group. I fear that the 8 in Dex will cost me my life in the future because I won´t be able to dodge a critical dragons breath, but whatever^^