New Cleric needs some advice! :)

[DeeJay1500]

Well I am new to playing a spell caster and I have run into an issue with the mechanics of my character. I am a newly level 6 Cleric who took Trickery as his domain. I have read it's not an ideal Domain but given the backstory of my character and our party's rogue it is most fitting.

However, I am feeling as if I am severely underplaying the character in regards to the mechanics of the game and what he is capable of. The background story is quite good between myself and the rogue and I hate that inexperience is causing my character to fall short. Especially now that the party is working through a part of the current campaign that directly deals with my character as well as our rogue.

What would be great, is if anyone would like to discuss some options and strategies to help smooth out the playing of a cleric with me so I can get a better grasp of my characters abilities. Whatever information I can provide to help anyone interested in helping me out is no problem and I hope we can make my character a little more badass and have him take a stronger role in our campaign since his story arc is in the spotlight currently.

Thanks!!!

[Shining Wrath]

Start here, perhaps? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?374604-The-Devout-and-the-Dead-a-guide-to-Clerics)

Your spell slots are probably best spent making other people better in combat. Heal in combat only if someone's down and bleeding out.

[Temperjoke]

Maybe some more details in what is happening to make you feel like you're falling short? Tell us about your character as well, what you want to happen versus what has been happening, that sort of thing? What sort of equipment do you have, what levels you and your group are, plus what other people do you have in your group?

[MrFahrenheit]

I feel like clerics that are ultimately geared toward weapon attacks can be the most difficult class in terms of understanding how to play.

I had a conversation about this recently with one of my players (level 13 death domain, so effectively the same boat as trickery in light of my preface above). Basically, early on you want to focus on blasting/support (more the latter for trickery), but once you hit 11, that changes drastically. At this point, when you go against opponents who aren't immune or resistant to your divine strike ability, you actually want to tank it up a bit. Example-

For now: spiritual weapon for offense, while focusing on support and control spells otherwise.

Once you hit 11: summon spirit guardians and cast spiritual weapon round one, then enter melee. Cast support/buff spells as necessary.

[Biggstick]

Once you hit 11: summon spirit guardians and cast spiritual weapon round one, then enter melee. Cast support/buff spells as necessary.

You can't cast Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon in the same round.

[Foxhound438]

remember that invoke duplicity gives you advantage on attack rolls if you and your illusion are within 5 feet of the target. It might be just enough to get in with some inflict wounds.

Otherwise, as others have said, use your spells to buff. it's generally what you're best at, until spirit guardians comes around, and then it's more or less dependent on how many things you can get into the area.

[Slipperychicken]

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What would be great, is if anyone would like to discuss some options and strategies to help smooth out the playing of a cleric with me so I can get a better grasp of my characters abilities. Whatever information I can provide to help anyone interested in helping me out is no problem and I hope we can make my character a little more badass and have him take a stronger role in our campaign since his story arc is in the spotlight currently.

Thanks!!!

Don't know much about trickery domain, but I'll give you some general cleric tips.


You need to conserve spell slots, in part because the party may rely on you for some healing or condition removal. To that end, in most combats you should be casting no more than one or two spells. The majority of your actions should be spent casting a cantrip at your enemy. Ideally you want your dailies (spell slots in this case) to last through 6 to 8 fights in a day. When you feel like your damage-dealers are going to win an encounter no matter what you do, then just hang back and use sacred flame. Your job at the end of the day is to support the party, not compete with them for kills.

If you have Guidance, cast it every time someone's going to make a skill check. Someone wants to pick a lock? Here, have a d4. You're going to search a room? St Ctuhbert, bless my eyes with this d4. And so on and so forth. Generally speaking, be aggressive in finding uses for your cantrips.

An all-around good choice in combat is to cast Bless to boost your damage-dealers. It is a cheap option, it can mean a big difference, and it helps you conserve spells. It is quite helpful for allowing them to hit more often. If you have several damage-dealers, it results in a strong boost in damage, especially when they have trouble hitting.

It's tempting to take out spiritual weapon all the time, but I think it's best used when your party needs help with damage and you don't anticipate using your bonus action elsewhere. When you cast spiritual weapon (or another spell) with a bonus action, use your action for sacred flame or a channel divinity.

Spirit Guardians is best used when your party is facing a mob of weak enemies that 3d8 per round will make short work of, but when you can hold onto concentration it also puts in work against packs of bigger enemies. Against a single boss enemy, you might be better off laying down bless. If you still have it up at the end of a fight, you want to quickly press on so you can keep it up through multiple fights. It's an amazing value when the opportunity presents itself. If enemies are going to beat you down for having spirit guardians up, you can use Cloak of Shadows to buy yourself time.

When you have a concentration spell up, resist the temptation to drop concentration for something else unless it is absolutely vital to making it through the encounter. I have seen casters waste huge numbers of spell slots because they couldn't decide what spell they want up. Every time you want to cast a spell that isn't a cantrip, think "Is this a worthwhile use of this spell slot? What difference will it actually make?".

Outside combat, keep Prayer of Healing available because of how efficient it is. It's easily one of the most efficient heals in the game, barring shenanigans involving aura of vitality or goodberry. Your party will also look to you for condition removal, so keep spells like Lesser Restoration, Dispel Magic, and Remove Curse.
Take rests, that's where most of your healing will come from. I'm serious, you might want to be a big damn hero, but in D&D 5th edition big damn heroes need their hour-long meal breaks. Or else they quickly become big dead heroes. Don't press on unless you need to, and turn back while you still have enough dailies to make it to safety. I've seen so many PCs die because their players pushed them too hard for no reason.
For feats, I think your strongest choice is War Caster, because it lets you hang on to your best spells (i.e. spirit guardians) longer and thereby improve your efficiency. Also, using sacred flame as an opportunity attack is pretty nice. I also like the healer feat, because it saves you spell slots and gives your party more endurance between short rests.

For equipment, a cleric generally wants the best medium armor he can get, and a shield. You're easily looking at AC 18, which is very helpful. It's more of build advice, but don't neglect your con (12 is good, 14 is ideal), and you can take a good number of attacks. Way I see it, you shouldn't be a squishy caster.

[MrFahrenheit]

You can't cast Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon in the same round.

You're right, my mistake. Round one: spiritual weapon and charge in with divine strike. Round two: spirit guardians + already-cast spiritual weapon + divine strike. Or vice versa.

[MrStabby]

So I love trickery cleric - the problem is it is a pretty weak archetype. On the positive side it is a great archetype to multiclass with if you are happy to do so. Multiclassing is often less painful for cleric than other casters as theyr are a little frontloaded in terms of good spells.

A lot of the advice you have been given is sound, I would qualify the resource expenditure advice a bit more. It isn't about you not running out of resources before the next rest, it is about the party running out. If you can do something more efficiently than a team mate, you should do it not them.

I would add, you probably want to use your domain spells as much as possible. Your domain spells are very characterful, are actually very good spells and are what will set your character appart from other clerics.

Ask your DM on how he feels about spirit guardians being cast by your illusiory clone - the rules seem a little muddy to me (by my memory, I am away from the book at the moment). I think that the duplicate is lost if you fail a concentration save like a spell, however I don't think it is a spell with concentration (as it isn't a spell) and I don't think the rules say that it uses up your concentration. I am kind of 60% confident it was intended to use concentration but the result may depend a little on the relative power of characters, if you are underpowered then maybe ask for the stricter interpretation?

What is your stat array? If you have high dex then using a bow and adding some fighter, rogue, ranger levels might help you? Rogue 1 gives you expertese, so your tricery cleric can actually be skilled in the trickiest abilities - stealth? Slight of hand?, sneak attack (which seems thematic given your invoke duplicity etc.) and a second level gives you cunning action (again a thematically consistant skill for a cleric of a trickery god). The ranger is a bit more martial - giving you archery fighting style at level 2 and a bunch more spells. Ensaring strike is beautiful when you have the spell slots to use it more frequently.

If you want to stay single class (or cannot MC) then try and change the way the party approaches problems - if you can avoid martial conflict and focus more on decption type interactions to solve problems then you will shine a bit more.

[Specter]

If at all possible, take one rogue level; Expertise in Insight and some other trickery skill goes a long way.

I'm writing a guide on social character optimization; should be finished by next week.

[Blue Wizrobe]

I don't play a Trickery Cleric specifically, but I do play another "weak" domain (by general concensus) Knowledge Cleric. The only major difference (mechanically speaking - not remotely accounting for flavor here) is that you're more optimized for melee as your default "everything's running smoothly" action, whereas I Sacred Flame to fill Actions while keeping up Concentration buffs.

Slipperychicken's tips are very good. Let me just echo the importance of the Guidance cantrip. If you feel like you're abusing it, you're probably doing it right. Also, remember that d20 rolls fall into one of only 3 categories - attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. In other words, anything that is not an attack roll or a saving throw that requires a d20 roll is an Ability Check, and is therefore boosted by Guidance. That means Initiative is boostable by Guidance, assuming you are not trying to maintain another Concentration spell when Initiative is rolled. As in all things, I'd confirm with your DM that it's acceptable to use Guidance "on the fly" while initiatives are rolling (I could see it being reasonable not to allow Guidance when the caster was surprised, for instance)

Buff spells like Bless are also great. Let me also direct you to Aid. Aid is a concentration free buff with an 8 hr duration. If cast as a 2nd level spell, you can add 5 temp HP to the hit pools of 3 different allies (or yourself and 2 others). That's 15 hps of inbound damage that you don't have to heal - easily 2 castings of L1 Cure Wounds (on average) or more L1 Healing Words. This frees up at least 2 spell slots to cast something that isn't a heal. Far more efficient than reactive healing.

While we're on the subject of the relative inefficiency of reactive healing, lets talk about Bless (huh?) It's a great spell, and a fine "not sure what else to cast" spell. However, depending on the situation, there may be better choices for your concentration and spell slots. For instance, lots of monsters are relatively easy to hit and have no effects that provoke a saving throw. In these cases, Bless is kinda overkill. However, Monsters also tend to dish out pretty good damage. I strongly urge you to consider Bane. Bane imposes the inverse of Bless on up to 3 enemies when cast as a L1 spell. It targets the monster's CHA save (monsters are typically less charismatic than desktop support technicians) which means it's likely to work, and you manage to bork their saving throws, making them vulnerable for more of your more imposing effects like Blindness/Deafness or a 5th Level Bestow Curse. It also reduces the targets' attack rolls by 1d4, making it less likely that your allies will take damage, again reducing the number of spell slots you need to earmark for Cure spells. Damage prevented > Damage Healed in every situation I can think of.

Your most limiting resource is really Concentration. By Clr 5, you will have enough spell slots to get through 4 combats casting 2 spells per combat (not counting Cantrips) in between long rests, and one spell slot left over for a spell cast out of combat. Slots become less of a limiting resource but it's still important to keep an eye on them. If you can prepare 15 spells, and 10 of them require concentration however, it won't matter how many spell slots you have available. Your options will be extremely limited. So try to prepare a mix of Conc. and non-conc spells. I personally think it's fine to only pick one of the L1 healing spells (Cure Wounds or Healing Word) and prepare that. Don't feel like you *need* to have both ready to go. I lean toward Healing Word for action economy and range, but it is a weaker effect in terms of HP restored. I encourage you to look for good support spells that prevent or limit the damage your party takes, as these are more efficient (in terms of action/slots needed) than traditional "healing".

Reason for edits: speling r gud

[Slipperychicken]

I personally think it's fine to only pick one of the L1 healing spells (Cure Wounds or Healing Word) and prepare that. Don't feel like you *need* to have both ready to go. I lean toward Healing Word for action economy and range, but it is a weaker effect in terms of HP restored. I encourage you to look for good support spells that prevent or limit the damage your party takes, as these are more efficient (in terms of action/slots needed) than traditional "healing".

I agree with this. Personally, the only reason my cleric has cure wounds prepared at all is because it's a life domain spell, so he doesn't have a choice. On average, healing word is only 2 less than cure wounds because a d4 is 2.5 as opposed to a d8's 4.5. At level six that's not a huge difference unless you're casting it from a high level slot. I prefer healing word because it lets you bring downed allies back into the game, without moving as much, while you continue doing stuff with cantrips or channel divinity. If you intend to use it outside combat, then cure wounds is slightly more efficient for that.


Also, remember that short rests will be the main source of healing for most parties, so don't be shy about short resting. Just do it in a reasonably safe place (preferably outside the dungeon), or a place you can easily fortify when monsters aren't coming for you.

[djreynolds]

All cantrips scale at 5th, 11th, etc. So its like getting in two swings with the war hammer, and three, etc.

I like resilient con over war caster, both are awesome and it is a choice. But I've been paralyzed by ghouls and resilient con would've saved my bacon.

For me, the big deal is trying to get some use out of your divine strike.

I'm currently playing a life cleric in CoS, and I'm focusing on wisdom but my party is larger and I'm actually busy.

I try to position myself in the middle where I can affect the most PCs and provide support.

Sacred flame is very good, as is shillelagh. I find the hill dwarf the best race for cleric, he can wear heavy armor, snag shillelagh via magic initiate and fight with a quarterstaff in full plate and leave strength at 10.

4th level ASI wisdom, 8th magic initiate for shillelagh, 12 ASI wisdom, 16 resilient con, 19 ASI con.

[DeeJay1500]

Wow guys, thank you so much for the response. I apologize for not getting back with the thread earlier, but life calls lol.

I'll make a proper response when I get home from work and address some of the questions asked to me about the character.

Again, thanks so much for the replies!