Grave Cleric is broken

[Talamare]

This has to be one of the most 'meta' based 'min max' designs I have ever seen

Circle of Mortality - This is the first to truly express the meaning of the 'meta' it's already pretty encouraged by core game mechanics to only ever heal people when they are at 0 HP. Someone with 1 HP deals the exact amount of damage as someone with 1000. So this feature literally stamps that mentality home.

Eyes of the Grave - Congratulations on creating a feature DESIGNED to RUIN the encounter! Hey DM, tell me exactly where every single undead is, exactly how many there are, exactly where all the 'surprise' and 'reinforcements' one are hiding, oh and go ahead and tell me who the final boss is! Oh what? The strongest Undead in the area is a Lich who is directly infront of us disguised as the Mayor? Oh Welp

Also, how laughable is the fact its a MILE range

Path to the Grave - Hey, you... Take double damage... moving on!

Sentinel of Death's Door - Hey, what's the one thing that may ruin a Min Maxers plans? A crit you say? Well, let's go ahead and get rid of enemy Crits then!

Keeper of Souls - I actually thought this was pretty cool, no real gripes with it.

[Spellbreaker26]

I'm going to disagree on the level 6 ability. It's more useless than anything. A pure disadvantage on attacks on nearby fallen allies would be better.

But you make some good points for the rest of the subclass.

The channel divinity is actually worse than at first glance. It removes not only resistance, but immunity, which is ridiculous. Some immunities (such as devils to poison) is because it cannot effect them. They do not have a biology that will be affected by toxins. Does the magic temporarily give them internal organs that can be damaged like that? How can it make creatures made of fire able to be damaged by fire?

The domain just feels slapped together really.

[LudicSavant]

Grave cleric seems pretty poorly thought out. I really wanted a Cleric that fit the flavor of religions like Wee Jas or the Undying Court, and this just... doesn't really seem to fit. It feels like a mess in terms of both flavor and mechanics.

- Circlet of Mortality bothers me. "Nah, I shouldn't heal him, because it'll be more efficient if he dies first" seems like a rather awkward thing to translate into your own character's perspective. I count this one as a loss for flavor and mechanics.

- Eyes of the Grave sounds like an ability that will give DMs headaches. The minute a PC asks a DM the exact number of undead within a mile of the necropolis or whatever (not to mention the distance and direction of each), the DM suddenly has a logistics problem to solve.

And of course, Kaius isn't going to be happy about any of this if these guys are supposed to represent the Undying Court... somehow...

Again, this seems like a loss both for flavor and mechanics.

- Path to the Grave is another awkward-feeling ability. It doubles the first source of damage done to the target, which means you want to have the right initiative order, with the right teammate following you... one who does their damage in one roll rather than multiple ones. Its effectiveness will vary wildly based on the particular method by which your allies divvy up their damage, more than their actual damage output in a round. It's another ability which seems to encourage an odd sort of thinking from a metagame perspective.

All of these abilities seem rather awkward both in terms of flavor and in terms of mechanical caveats.

- Sentinel at Death's Door at least seems straightforward enough to use, but again feels like a rather awkward fit in terms of flavor. What exactly is your character doing to turn the critical hit into a normal one? And what exactly is the core fantasy they're trying to sell here? As a fan of Wee Jas, Hades, the Undying Court, and other such factions... these abilities just feel like an odd fit. Like they didn't really know what they were going for.

- Yet another odd mechanic. Why is the amount of hp regained based on the monster's hit dice? AFAIK, hit dice isn't used for balancing any other effects in the game, including monster hp! (Don't believe me? Check the DMG guidelines for such things) This seems like an out-of-place throwback to unwanted mechanics from past editions.

The entire thing seems rather wonky, both mechanically and flavorfully.

[Foxhound438]

Eyes of the grave feels like a side grade of divine sense, longer range but much more narrow application

but aside from that, it does feel like it was put together with a "gamey" mindset. heals at 0 is just better, and giving things vulnerability, even though it's just for one hit, can really break encounters on an ability that's 2 or 3 per short rest.

[mephnick]

Circle of Mortality - This is the first to truly express the meaning of the 'meta' it's already pretty encouraged by core game mechanics to only ever heal people when they are at 0 HP. Someone with 1 HP deals the exact amount of damage as someone with 1000. So this feature literally stamps that mentality home.


Yeah, this is why I use a pretty punishing injury/exhaustion table when PCs hit 0. Not a fan of this part of the metagame.