Curse of Strahd: Cleric domain of Life, or Light?

[~Soul]

Hi! I'm going to play Curse of Strahd, and this is my team:

- Crossbow warrior
- Warlock
- Rogue
- Paladin
- (me, I would join at lvl 3) Cleric (hill dwarf)

Just one thing, our DM plays with this homebrew rule: short rest 8hours, long 7 days.

I don't know what domain would be more useful for us, life or light, also how to distribute the stat points, so please, let me know your thoughts.

Thanks you!

Edit: I choose Domain of Life, and this will be the build:

STR 14
DEX 10
CON 16 = 14 + 2 (RACIAL)
INT 10
WIS 16 = 15 + 1 (RACIAL)
CHA 8

What do you think?

[GooeyChewie]

Either would be highly valuable in this campaign, so I would say go with whichever you like better.

For attributes:

-Wisdom is your spellcasting stat, and you are a spellcaster. Max it out.
-Con can help with extra hit points and passing Concentration checks. Very usefully
-Dex is better for Light than Life, since Life gets heavy armor.
-Strength helps with melee attacks, though you are generally better off using cantrips than melee attacks.
-Intelligence and Charisma help with a variety of skills, and that’s it. You aren’t a skill monkey, so don’t worry too much about these.

[Laserlight]

In that party, I'd do Life. If I need a heal, it's probably urgent, and I'd rather the healer be in heavy armor and shield rather than getting dogpiled because he's the easy target and the paladin is down.

[Vogie]

A Gritty Realism Strahd game? Nice.

While light is nice as it's more versatile and more powerful, I'd probably lean towards life. It's that AoE heal that refreshes on short rest which is going to be gold in that scenario. You'll be slightly tankier due to heavy armor, your healing spells are more powerful, and being able to get your whole team up to full with that empowered Prayer of healing.

Ideally the Warlock is Celestial to give you and the Paladin more help, but that remains to be seen.

Since you're using gritty realism rules, I'd suggest SOMEONE get 2 levels of Bard for Song of Rest, but I don't think it'd be you.

[Talij]

Agreed on Life. Better healing and backup tank.

Grave is also a good choice for a Strahd campaign.

[Tallytrev813]

I say it in every thread,

But i like V. Human Arcana Cleric with Magic Initiate (Druid) for Shillelagh + Booming Blade on their Quarterstaff. You become a great healer, a great offtank, and a great buff/debuffer

[~Soul]

Thanks for the answers!

I'm going to choose Domain of Life so. I was thinking be a Hill Dwarf (+2 con, +1 wis)

[stoutstien]

Vote for light here. Makes you way more SaD with needing 14 Dex and maxing Wis .
Also fireball.

[bid]

Hill dwarf is a great idea for heavy armor, since you can dump Str and not slow down.
Str8 Dex10 Con16 Int14 Wis16 Cha10, if nobody else covers Int skills.

Make sure one of your Cha players get inspiring leader. That's ~10 thp you won't have to heal.

[~Soul]

Hill dwarf is a great idea for heavy armor, since you can dump Str and not slow down.
Str8 Dex10 Con16 Int14 Wis16 Cha10, if nobody else covers Int skills.

Make sure one of your Cha players get inspiring leader. That's ~10 thp you won't have to heal.

What do you think about this?

STR 14
DEX 10
CON 16 = 14 + 2 (RACIAL)
INT 10
WIS 16 = 15 + 1 (RACIAL)
CHA 8

Should I set STR down 13? And up CON to 17?

[jaappleton]

Light is..... Ok. I love Light normally, but here it’s surprisingly not great.

Not to get into spoilers but some enemies have Fire Resistance, and Light’s channel Divinity, despite making sunlight, doesn’t actually do anything. Vampires must start their turn in sunlight to be impacted by it, and Radiance of the Dawn doesn’t do that.

I recommend Grave, personally.

[djreynolds]

I played a hill dwarf life cleric... it was great.

But the reality is chainmail and shield is just as good as scale mail with shield and 14 dex will give you an 18 AC

I think a wood elf light cleric would be great.

max out wisdom and get dex high, 16 to 18 range is okay, you are only getting 2 ASI at 4th and 8th

Short sword with a shield and scale mail

8th level add you wisdom modifier to sacred flame, this is a big deal as it is save or suck and can be used in melee

Warding Flare is very good

And the fire spells are very useful addition to your cleric spell list

Yes, wood elf cleric of light

[~Soul]

I played a hill dwarf life cleric... it was great.

But the reality is chainmail and shield is just as good as scale mail with shield and 14 dex will give you an 18 AC

I think a wood elf light cleric would be great.

max out wisdom and get dex high, 16 to 18 range is okay, you are only getting 2 ASI at 4th and 8th

Short sword with a shield and scale mail

8th level add you wisdom modifier to sacred flame, this is a big deal as it is save or suck and can be used in melee

Warding Flare is very good

And the fire spells are very useful addition to your cleric spell list

Yes, wood elf cleric of light

Why DEX and not STR?

[Gecks]

What do you think about this?

STR 14
DEX 10
CON 16 = 14 + 2 (RACIAL)
INT 10
WIS 16 = 15 + 1 (RACIAL)
CHA 8

Should I set STR down 13? And up CON to 17?

Str 14 is a nice melee fallback, especially with a party a little light on dedicated frontline fighters, but I would go 13 /17; first 1 or 2 ASIs would be wisdom to boost wisdom to 20, but a 17 would let the third ASI be the resilience constitution feat and a nice hp boost along with a "big 3" saving throw proficiency and great concentration save. If you are having trouble with concentration or staying up in combat, taking resilience con early would not be the worst.

One quick suggestion- not to spoil anything, but Curse of Strahd might contain one or more vampires. Where long rests are going to be few and far between, I'd recommend grabbing sacred flame for a reliable way to put out radiant damage. I might even ditch the superior toll the dead in favor of it, if you only have room for one attack cantrip. It might be risky to rely on spell slots or the paladin's smite for that, since there will probably be times you'll want radiant damage when the party is running on empty.

[BarneyBent]

Hill dwarf is a great idea for heavy armor, since you can dump Str and not slow down.
Str8 Dex10 Con16 Int14 Wis16 Cha10, if nobody else covers Int skills.

Make sure one of your Cha players get inspiring leader. That's ~10 thp you won't have to heal.

If INT is covered, what about moving that 14 into DEX? That way you get the benefit of Heavy Armour with +2 to initiative and DEX saves, plus a half decent melee attack if you need to make weapon attacks for any reason.

[bid]

Should I set STR down 13? And up CON to 17?
BarnetBent plan is better IMO.

I'd only do Str14 for a battleaxe RP flavor, if I felt handaxe wasn't dwarvish enough.
And Con17 will only pay off around level 12, when you grab resilient(Con), which is too late for my taste.

I'd also consider Cha14, since that save is important in CoS (right?).

[djreynolds]

Why DEX and not STR?

Well with a cleric your weapons are limited, but elf comes with long bow and short sword proficiency.

With a 14 dex and scalemail and shield, you are as good as that guy in chainmail and shield

So with just standard array 15/14/13/12/10/8 or point buy

Str10

Dex 14 +2 from elf 16

con 14

int 10

wis 15 +1 from elf 16

chr 8

10/16/14/10/16/8... its not a terrible stat line, you can max out wis and with a 16 dex your still effective in combat with a short sword and shield, AC 18

[BarneyBent]

Why DEX and not STR?

DEX is a better save, buffs initiative and is just generally a more useful ability score. As a Dwarf, you don’t need STR to wear Heavy Armor. And you’ll presumably be wielding a shield, meaning your max damage dice from a weapon is a d8, which you can get from both STR and Finesse weapons (rapier).

Basically, you gain very little with a 14 in STR that you don’t also gain with a 14 in DEX, which also gives you better initiative and utility.

Also, you can get a 19 in STR from an Uncommon magic item (Gauntlets of Ogre Power). There are no magic items that overwrite your DEX, meaning each point in DEX is worth more than each point in STR.

[~Soul]

DEX is a better save, buffs initiative and is just generally a more useful ability score. As a Dwarf, you don’t need STR to wear Heavy Armor. And you’ll presumably be wielding a shield, meaning your max damage dice from a weapon is a d8, which you can get from both STR and Finesse weapons (rapier).

Basically, you gain very little with a 14 in STR that you don’t also gain with a 14 in DEX, which also gives you better initiative and utility.

Also, you can get a 19 in STR from an Uncommon magic item (Gauntlets of Ogre Power). There are no magic items that overwrite your DEX, meaning each point in DEX is worth more than each point in STR.

What? I think the STR minimun to wear chain mail is 13

[Vogie]

What? I think the STR minimun to wear chain mail is 13

The STR minimum to not be slowed down by Chain mail is 13. All you need to wear it without getting messed up is proficiency.

And Dwarves' racial ability is to not be slowed down by heavy armor, as their speed is already slow.

[bid]

What? I think the STR minimun to wear chain mail is 13
Except dwarves.

"Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."

[~Soul]

The STR minimum to not be slowed down by Chain mail is 13. All you need to wear it without getting messed up is proficiency.

And Dwarves' racial ability is to not be slowed down by heavy armor, as their speed is already slow.


Except dwarves.

"Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor."

I see, looks good.

STR 10: 150 encumbrance
DEX 14: +2 mod DEX, +2 init, skills, save dex, scale mail 14 AC + mod DEX, and still can wear heavy armors.

Yeah, looks very good. And +4 light crossbow, and future finesse weapons.