Cleric/Wizard vs Cleric/X

[NerdCaptain]

So I have a choice between rolled stats.

18,16,15,12,11,10 -- 14,13,13,13,13,13

I am definitely interested in doing a cleric and it seems best to do a hill dwarf.

At first, I was thinking of doing a cleric/wizard build, using blur, and mage armor to act as a secondary tank and healer. I am not sure if the campaign will last to level 20. Basically wearing a shield, and open hand.

However, with stats, I am thinking more of cleric/fighter build just wanted to see what your thoughts were.

I am open to any ideas and creativity just want to see what others think.

[Sapient]

While Shield and Blur are great spells for defense a cleric has good options to defend itself without dipping wizard. Shield of faith is one example if you feel like you need to step up to the plate to tank. Many domains such as Life have access to heavy armor. Hill dwarves have quite the HP pool as well. From the perspective of a wizard these spells are life savers in the event they have to face the brunt of an attack. But every cleric can have 18 AC at level one with either medium (if you have a +2 modifer for the dex) or heavy armor. Up to 20 if you use shield of faith. All of these defenses are always on, unlike Blur and Shield. And while these spells are great, they could burn valuable spell slots you can use to heal or buff your party.

So while having a wizard dip might give you some utility spells, you'd be just fine going straight cleric.

[Tetrasodium]

an option you might be overlooking is gnome fighter/wizard. It's not as outlandish as you might think.


Fighter 1 gives you martial weapons (who cares) & heavy armor prof (8 dex is spiffy). shields (yay AC). some skills that might duplicate with your background & give you any other skill or just the usefulness of athletics sometimes. As long as you have 13 strength you can wear chainmail for 16 ac. If you can bring that up to 15 at some point, plate becomes an option. 10+con hp at first level, 1d10+1hp second wind for a bit of extra cushion.

More importantly is that you get strength (meh) and con(w00t!) saves.

As a gnome you get +2 int, darkvision 60', advantage on charisma/int/wis saves (sure you might not have incredible have wis/cha, but you are making those ad avdantage). Forest & rock gnomes both give some extra useful stuff, likewise with deep gnomes. wgte's mark of scribing gnome might open some interesting doors too.

Sure you lose one level of caster progression, but you get a bunch of goodies in exchange.

[CTurbo]

So I have a choice between rolled stats.

18,16,15,12,11,10 -- 14,13,13,13,13,13

I am definitely interested in doing a cleric and it seems best to do a hill dwarf.

At first, I was thinking of doing a cleric/wizard build, using blur, and mage armor to act as a secondary tank and healer. I am not sure if the campaign will last to level 20. Basically wearing a shield, and open hand.

However, with stats, I am thinking more of cleric/fighter build just wanted to see what your thoughts were.

I am open to any ideas and creativity just want to see what others think.


Wood Elf Knowledge Cleric 1/Abjurer Wizard X
Start 11 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, 18 Int, 14 Wis, 10 Cha

Cleric gets you medium armor, shields, some knowledge skills, and some nice Abjuration spells

You'd be a better tougher than normal Abjurer.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Wizard dipping cleric works out better then cleric dipping wizard.

[Sindeloke]

Life cleric doesn't need to dip anything to tank, and does adequate healing by 5e standards. A level of fighter for Con save proficiency is nice and can open up Sentinel polearm shenanigans for better stickiness, but I'd pick a different domain in that case so you're not wasting build resources on redundancy, and obviously you'd lose your shield (the control is worth the trade-off imo but it depends on how much your DM promotes tactical movement).

Two levels of paladin gives you a nice offensive choice in melee and some free spot healing at the cost of a spell level. Less necessary now that toll the dead is a thing but the two classes are very thematic together and Defensive fighting style is always gravy.

[SLOTHRPG95]

While Shield and Blur are great spells for defense a cleric has good options to defend itself without dipping wizard. Shield of faith is one example if you feel like you need to step up to the plate to tank. Many domains such as Life have access to heavy armor. Hill dwarves have quite the HP pool as well. From the perspective of a wizard these spells are life savers in the event they have to face the brunt of an attack. But every cleric can have 18 AC at level one with either medium (if you have a +2 modifer for the dex) or heavy armor. Up to 20 if you use shield of faith. All of these defenses are always on, unlike Blur and Shield. And while these spells are great, they could burn valuable spell slots you can use to heal or buff your party.

So while having a wizard dip might give you some utility spells, you'd be just fine going straight cleric.

Yeah generally Clerics can be pretty good meat-shields without dipping at all, and not much is gained from a few levels of Wizard for someone taking mostly levels in Cleric. Honestly, splitting levels between two full casters (not including pact magic) isn't that strong in this edition, especially if it's more than just dipping. For better or worse (and I think it's sort of both), gone are the days that you can cast Chain Lightning in one round and then Heal in the next. Unless your DM allows Theurgy (or if you sack a higher-level spell known as a Divine Soul, or if you're a Bard). But generally speaking, splitting your levels semi-evenly between two full casters in 5e really gimps your character.

[CTurbo]

Tempest Cleric 2/Evoker Wizard X would be an amazing blaster. Tough as nails in heavy armor and being able to shock damage as reaction.

[Tetrasodium]

pretty much any kind of splash cleric/fighter/paladin for defense (don't forget +1 ac from defensive style on fighter) that immediately flips back to wizard will get huge benefits from the crossbow expert feat so you can do things like ranged spell attack spells from melee without disadvantage. Its stupid & annoying that there isn't a caster version of it like sharpshooter's spell sniper caster focused version

[Sapient]

Yeah generally Clerics can be pretty good meat-shields without dipping at all, and not much is gained from a few levels of Wizard for someone taking mostly levels in Cleric. Honestly, splitting levels between two full casters (not including pact magic) isn't that strong in this edition, especially if it's more than just dipping. For better or worse (and I think it's sort of both), gone are the days that you can cast Chain Lightning in one round and then Heal in the next. Unless your DM allows Theurgy (or if you sack a higher-level spell known as a Divine Soul, or if you're a Bard). But generally speaking, splitting your levels semi-evenly between two full casters in 5e really gimps your character.

Yeah trying to manage int, wisdom, strength, and maybe con will be some serious MAD issues down the road for the character as well.

[Tetrasodium]

Yeah trying to manage int, wisdom, strength, and maybe con will be some serious MAD issues down the road for the character as well.

yea that's another reason why fighter1 wizard whatever is a good combo, you only need enough strength to use your choice of heavy armor, con for +hp, & maxed out int. You can survive with soso strength for one level & the strength to get out of fighter remains useful for your armor. You might one day get some use out of athletics or something & sage bacjground wull let you get extra languages/arcana/history on top of the researcher feature.

[Snowbluff]

yea that's another reason why fighter1 wizard whatever is a good combo, you only need enough strength to use your choice of heavy armor, con for +hp, & maxed out int. You can survive with soso strength for one level & the strength to get out of fighter remains useful for your armor. You might one day get some use out of athletics or something & sage bacjground wull let you get extra languages/arcana/history on top of the researcher feature.

I think most people would just suck it up and use heavy armor so they can have more dex at a smaller investment. Dex is a better stat because it gives init, which is important to a wizard.

[CTurbo]

I'd rather have 8 str, 14 Dex and use medium armor than attempting to have 15 str, 8 dex to use heavy armor

Dex is way more useful. Having a 15 str on a full caster is otherwise useless.

[Tetrasodium]

I'd rather have 8 str, 14 Dex and use medium armor than attempting to have 15 str, 8 dex to use heavy armor

Dex is way more useful. Having a 15 str on a full caster is otherwise useless.

Indeed, but look at the stats the OP is working with "18,16,15,12,11,10", it's not exactly an ordinary situation. He's not using an 8 anything.

[CTurbo]

Indeed, but look at the stats the OP is working with "18,16,15,12,11,10", it's not exactly an ordinary situation. He's not using an 8 anything.

Yeah but the same holds true. You stick a 15 in Str and you're crippling Con, Wis, or Int.

See my Knowledge Cleric/Abjur example above. If that was War, Tempest, Forge that was trying to use heavy armor instead of medium, you'd end up with a 10-12 Con

[Tetrasodium]

Yeah but the same holds true. You stick a 15 in Str and you're crippling Con, Wis, or Int.

See my Knowledge Cleric/Abjur example above. If that was War, Tempest, Forge that was trying to use heavy armor instead of medium, you'd end up with a 10-12 Con

with gnome, he'd have 2-0 int out of the gate and advantage on wisdom saves, having advantage on a save is a lot more useful than a point or two bonus

[Merudo]

So I have a choice between rolled stats.

18,16,15,12,11,10 -- 14,13,13,13,13,13

I am definitely interested in doing a cleric and it seems best to do a hill dwarf.

At first, I was thinking of doing a cleric/wizard build, using blur, and mage armor to act as a secondary tank and healer. I am not sure if the campaign will last to level 20. Basically wearing a shield, and open hand.

However, with stats, I am thinking more of cleric/fighter build just wanted to see what your thoughts were.

I am open to any ideas and creativity just want to see what others think.

Cleric is an excellent early level class. Unless starting as a Fighter or Sorcerer for the Con proficiency, I would recommend going 5 straight levels of Cleric.

The main problem with the Cleric is that the main chassis doesn't really get new shiny tricks after level 5. The level 4+ spells you learn tend to be unimpressive and you often upcast lower levels spells. Some domains give you a good features at level 6 (Forge, Grave, Life, Nature, etc) and some give you good spells at level 7/9 (Forge, Tempest, Trickery), but that's not every domain.

There is, IMO, little point in staying a pure Cleric after level 9. I strongly recommend multiclassing at that point.

A single level in Wizard is one of the best dip at higher levels. You can get a familiar, the Shield spell, the Absorb Element spell, the SCAG cantrips, and a variety of nifty Rituals. At this level there is not as much use for level 1/2 slots, so you can tremendously improve your defense and add significant utility, while keeping the same spellslot progression. A second level gives you a potentially powerful Tradition ability, such as Portent. Level 2 spells are unfortunately lacklusters, and higher level Wizard spells often require high Intelligence to be effective, so I wouldn't make this more than a dip.

Warlock 2 is probably the next best thing. It gives you a significantly better cantrip, and you can improve it further through Invocations. Really neat.

Sorcerer 3+ can be quite handy, and let you do nifty metamagic tricks. It requires full blown investment to be useful, though.

Bard 2 can be a good multiclass if you don't have a skill monkey. Jack of All Trades & Expertise are amazing at higher levels.

Fighter 2 give you a fighting style, but more importantly Action Surge. That ability is extremely good for any class.

[Snowbluff]

I agree, Wizard brings the very good Shield and Absorb Elements spells to the table. For a dip, Divination for Portent is pretty potent. This is synergistic with Cleric which tends to get good bonus action spells (Healing Word, Sanctuary, Spiritual Weapon).

I'd like to casually remind everyone that Bardic Inspiration is often better than advantage and stacks with Guidance. However, it would require a sizeable investment in levels and/or cha to make it good. There is a lot of flexibility here, however, as you can spec into lore for more skills and spells known, or into swords to become a better fighter.

I was recently suggested a Tempest Cleric/Lore Bard who took Lightning Arrow as a magical secret, which scales very well with spell slots (6d8 +2d8/slot ). Combined with the Tempest Cleric's channel divinity it can add up to a lot of damage.

For sorcerer I will point out that they get similar spells to wizards on the reaction front, but Metamagic and Shadow Sorcerers allow you to impose disadvantage on spells saves which is super handy. I play a storm sorcerer/tempest cleric who uses a sorc dip to get blade cantrips and shield. With Spirit Guardians it's a nice tanking build.