Best class progression for war cleric/champion fighter?

[genderlich]

I'm replacing my current character in a homebrew campaign, currently at level 9, wanting to multiclass war cleric and champion fighter. Variant human for war caster feat, and then I'm thinking cleric 6/fighter 3 to start--that way I get action surge and 19-20 crits right away while still having 3rd level spells. But how do I level up from there? I am tempted to put the next two levels right into fighter to get extra attack as fast as possible, but then my spell progression is hurt. And there are ability score increases to think about. What's the optimal way to level up this character?

[SLOTHRPG95]

What are you looking to get out of this multiclass? How do you envision your character's actions being spent in combat? If you're just trying to beef up a War Cleric's melee combat prowess a bit, then you'd probably be better off single-classed, so at 9th level you'd have your Divine Strike (which is more of a damage increase than Improved Crit, generally speaking), and more than double the number of 3rd+ level spell slots for Spirit Guardians and upcast Spiritual Weapon and the like. If instead you want to focus on weapon attacks, with spells merely augmenting your combat presence a bit, and providing more to do out of combat, then 6th level of Cleric would be a good place to get off. You have your channel divinity 2/SR and a moderate number of spell slots, and meanwhile your lack of Extra Attack is the big thing holding back your at-will DPR at this point. You mentioned ASIs, and even if your table doesn't allow feats this is still an ASI-hungry build, heavily relying on three stats (Str, Con, Wis). With that in mind, if you're dead set on the War Cleric/Champion 6/3 beginning split, then I'd go up to 6/6 from there both for Extra Attack and for rapid ASIs, and then probably go back to advancing Cleric, unless you think the campaign is going to go to level 17+ and want to stick around to Fighter 11 for the additional Extra Attack.

[Edea]

What are you ability scores? What kind of weapon/fighting style? What race?

I would probably start as Fighter and go Fighter (Champion) 8/Cleric (War) 1, if forced to use these two subclasses, then just continue advancing in Fighter, but if you're open to different subclasses or classes then let us know.

I also would not bother with War Caster, given the above build preference; those two spell slots are likely to just turn into healing word drops or commands, neither of which needs a somatic component or concentration (and as for opportunity attacks...I'm a fighter, I'm going to smack them with my weapon). I'd get Strength, Constitution and Wisdom up (that last one mainly to milk the War Priest feature), then probably grab Resilient (Wisdom).

[CTurbo]

I'm curious what you're wanting out of this character? Mostly Fighter or mostly Cleric?

1 level of War Cleric is excellent for any Fighter, and starting 1 level of Fighter is good to excellent for any Cleric. I'm not sure about a more even split of the two. I guess if you're just really looking for a more melee capable War Cleric, 5 levels of Fighter is fine, but it's going to really hurt your spellcasting.

I consider the War domain one of the weaker options and if I was going to make an split Cleric/Fighter mix, I would use Tempest or Forge.

Starting Fighter gets you Con save proficiency so you wouldn't really NEED Warcaster, but it's still a good pick. You're probably going to want to get your Str and Wis up as high as you can though so I would maybe skip on the feats.

[Chugger]

I'd go full cleric and not dip fighter. If you want to crit-fish why not make a build that truly shines off this? A half elf Vengeance Paladin with Elven Accuracy feat and a lvl of hexblade (to curse, crits on 19 or 20 on one target per short rest) - when you get a crit you can then choose to smite, adding a lot more damage. Sorcadin also works with this.

A full cleric can upcast spirit guardians and it often makes sense to do so.

Let's say you're level 8 and upcast SG on round one and three enemies are near you. That's 4d8 x 3 damage or 54 damage if all fail STs. On round two you can upcast spiritual weapon as a bonus action and do toll the dead (pick a cleric type with Potent Spellcasting) - and from here out let's just focus on one enemy.

SG does 18 damage if they fail ST. Toll the dead, if they fail, does 2d12 +5 or 18 damage. And spir weapon does 2d8 +5 or 14 damage. That's 50 damage, not to mention other targets may be taking damage from SG, too!

A GWM fighter does 2 x [2d6 +5 +10] or 44 damage a turn, less than you. Granted, enemies will make STs, you won't always do 50 damage, but the fighter suffers a -5 to hit w/ GWM and isn't going to do 44 damage every turn, either.

And on a less important fight, don't upcast spirit guardians, don't upcast spir weapon (or don't even cast it - it depends on your slot management strategy and how tough you think the current fight is).

Pure clerics are awesome, if you know how to play them. You don't need fighter to put out great damage.

[Eldariel]

I'm curious what you're wanting out of this character? Mostly Fighter or mostly Cleric?

1 level of War Cleric is excellent for any Fighter, and starting 1 level of Fighter is good to excellent for any Cleric. I'm not sure about a more even split of the two. I guess if you're just really looking for a more melee capable War Cleric, 5 levels of Fighter is fine, but it's going to really hurt your spellcasting.

I consider the War domain one of the weaker options and if I was going to make an split Cleric/Fighter mix, I would use Tempest or Forge.

Starting Fighter gets you Con save proficiency so you wouldn't really NEED Warcaster, but it's still a good pick. You're probably going to want to get your Str and Wis up as high as you can though so I would maybe skip on the feats.

IMO at 20, Fighter 11/War Cleric 9 is just a better Fighter by and large. Of course, War Cleric specifically really wants you to two-hand or sharpshoot and make use of the +10 to land those haymakers. Holy Weapon is a pretty nice capstone all things considered for instance.