Cleric Domain: Webs Of Darkness

[JNAProductions]

Webs Of Darkness

Domain Spells
As a Cleric of the Webs Of Darkness, you gain the following spells. They are always prepared, and do not count against your number of normally prepared spells.



1st
Beast Bond (Spiders Only), Detect Poison And Disease


3rd
Darkness, Web


5th
Stinking Cloud, Vampiric Tough


7th
Vitriolic Sphere, Giant Insect (Spiders Only)


9th
Contagion, Awaken (Spiders Only)



Bonus Proficiency
When you gain this Domain at level one, you gain proficiency in Martial Weapons.

Poison Resilience
Also at level one, you gain resistance to poison damage and advantage on saves against poison.

Channel Divinity: Binding Blackness
At level two, you may use your Channel Divinity to bind creatures with inky blackness.

As an action, you summon pure black webs on a number of creatures of your choice within 30' of you, up to your Wisdom modifier. They must make a Dexterity save or become restrained by the darkness. On their turn, they may replace an attack with a Strength check against your spell DC to break free.

The webs last for up to one minute, and so long as you maintain Concentration on them.

Lolth's Sight
At level six, you gain the ability to see through magical darkness within the range of your Darkvision. If you do not already possess Darkvision, you gain it out to 60'.

Potent Spellcasting
At level eight, you may add your Wisdom modifier to damage dealt with Cleric cantrips.

Chosen Of The Spider Goddess
At level seventeen, you become an avatar of Lolth. This makes you immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition, as well as allowing you to surround yourself in an aura of darkness once per short rest.

As a bonus action, you can make or dispel an aura of magical darkness surround you out to 10'. This aura lasts one minute, unless ended early. Any foe who starts their turn in or enters the aura takes necrotic damage equal to your Wisdom modifier. Additionally, as an action, you can attempt to bind a foe within the aura using webs of darkness. They must make a Dexterity save against your spell DC, becoming restrained on a failed save. Once restrained, they may replace an attack with a Strength check against your spell DC to attempt to free themselves. While restrained, they exude their own aura of magical darkness out to 5'-this aura does not deal damage, but does leave the hapless victim unable to see. The webs of darkness do not require concentration, and are indefinite until dispelled or broken free from.

[nickl_2000]

You help everyone out on here. I've got to hop in an put in my opinion.

1) How in the world does this not have Web as a domain spell :smallbiggrin:?

Channel Divinity. It's pretty powerful, but the fact that it requires concentration certainly evens it out. So, it is likely going to be fine as it is. Also, how does replacing an attack with a save here work with monster multiattack?

Lolth's Sight - I know it would be a little odd considering the fluff of the subclass, but there is potential that someone wouldn't have darkvision at this point. If I played a VHuman of this domain, I wouldn't get much out of the level 6 ability, unless someone cast darkvision on me (or I got the goggles of night). I don't see an issue giving darkvision to X feet if you don't already have it at 6th level.

Potent Spellcasting - Since you are giving martial weapons, I would personally give the melee attack damage boost instead, but that is just me. On the other hand, a lot of the abilities here require that you have high wisdom, so my initial thought it probably wrong.

Chosen Of The Spider Goddess - So, this doubles up that you need to give darkvision at level 6, because this would be pretty useless if you can't see through it. Wouldn't this also give disadvantage to anyone who attempts to attack you and make it so that most casters couldn't target you with ranged spells? Don't get me wrong, level 17 abilities should be powerful, but having it on all the time seems a little excessive to me. If would feel more balanced to me as a defensive ability if you could use it X times per day and it last X minutes (my opinion though).


The domain spells being spider only are pretty flavorful, but also pretty limiting. As a cleric you get lots of choices already, but this may be a case where I wouldn't mind seeing a third spell available at certain levels (give web at 1, and commune at 9 possibly).

[JNAProductions]

You help everyone out on here. I've got to hop in an put in my opinion.

1) How in the world does this not have Web as a domain spell :smallbiggrin:?

Channel Divinity. It's pretty powerful, but the fact that it requires concentration certainly evens it out. So, it is likely going to be fine as it is. Also, how does replacing an attack with a save here work with monster multiattack?

Lolth's Sight - I know it would be a little odd considering the fluff of the subclass, but there is potential that someone wouldn't have darkvision at this point. If I played a VHuman of this domain, I wouldn't get much out of the level 6 ability, unless someone cast darkvision on me (or I got the goggles of night). I don't see an issue giving darkvision to X feet if you don't already have it at 6th level.

Potent Spellcasting - Since you are giving martial weapons, I would personally give the melee attack damage boost instead, but that is just me. On the other hand, a lot of the abilities here require that you have high wisdom, so my initial thought it probably wrong.

Chosen Of The Spider Goddess - So, this doubles up that you need to give darkvision at level 6, because this would be pretty useless if you can't see through it. Wouldn't this also give disadvantage to anyone who attempts to attack you and make it so that most casters couldn't target you with ranged spells? Don't get me wrong, level 17 abilities should be powerful, but having it on all the time seems a little excessive to me. If would feel more balanced to me as a defensive ability if you could use it X times per day and it last X minutes (my opinion though).


The domain spells being spider only are pretty flavorful, but also pretty limiting. As a cleric you get lots of choices already, but this may be a case where I wouldn't mind seeing a third spell available at certain levels (give web at 1, and commune at 9 possibly).

Web is totally there! I totally didn't just edit it in! :P
Thanks for that, don't know how I missed it.

DM's call on replacing an attack from Multiattack, but in general, I'd allow them to replace any single attack roll with a break-out attempt.

Good catch on granting Darkvision-added.

Honestly, I wish Clerics could just CHOOSE which one to take. Different Clerics of the same domain will have different builds.

Yeah, fair point. Will adjust the 17th level feature.

[nickl_2000]

Web is totally there! I totally didn't just edit it in! :P
Thanks for that, don't know how I missed it.

DM's call on replacing an attack from Multiattack, but in general, I'd allow them to replace any single attack roll with a break-out attempt.

Good catch on granting Darkvision-added.

Honestly, I wish Clerics could just CHOOSE which one to take. Different Clerics of the same domain will have different builds.

Yeah, fair point. Will adjust the 17th level feature.

I must have just missed it the first time :smallwink:

I agree with you on the level 8 feature. it seems like a no brainer in allow flexibility of builds to do that and fingers crossed that they will do something like that in the new Tasha's book.

[JNAProductions]

I must have just missed it the first time :smallwink:

I agree with you on the level 8 feature. it seems like a no brainer in allow flexibility of builds to do that and fingers crossed that they will do something like that in the new Tasha's book.

Thank you for your feedback. It's much appreciated!

[sandmote]

Huh. I have a worse version of this concept in my workspace. Taking from that, any reason not to make the 6th level feature a knockoff of the Devil's Sight eldritch invocation?

Similarly, 5e doesn't really do "Spell (X targets only)." Maybe replace Awaken with Passwall so you can drop that without issue?

I'd maybe also remove Lloth from being named; this domain would work great with Shargaas, The Great Mother, and Shar.