Peace Clerics

[ChaseC311]

Is it just me, or are peace domain clerics in Tashas Cauldron of Everything just utterly broken?

. Emboldening Bond scales with your Proficiency Bonus, making the domain a crazy good level dip for multiclassing
. Emboldening Bond can stack with stuff like Guidance and Bardic Inspiration
. Protective Bond essentially acts as both a teleportation option and a damage mitigation option, both of which are insanely good

This is coming from someone who loved the idea of The Unity Domain focusing on damage mitigation and buffs rather than heals: I don't understand why they buffed it so much. The UA version of the Unity cleric seemed fine where it was.

[RogueJK]

I can't say whether it's "utterly broken" until I see it in play. But it does seem very strong. Especially as a 1 level dip on a support-focused Bard or the like.

[stoutstien]

It's the support equivalent of hexblade. Hard to say how big it is yet. I'm thinking of tossing one in as a NPC just to see the impact.

[Waazraath]

Meh. It is a nice lvl 1 ability, but it takes an action and lasts 10 minutes... so often, you can't use it as a pre-buff. Its good, but don't think its a hexblade by any means.

[stoutstien]

Meh. It is a nice lvl 1 ability, but it takes an action and lasts 10 minutes... so often, you can't use it as a pre-buff. Its good, but don't think its a hexblade by any means.

At proficiency charges a day you can afford to pop it anytime you think you might need to make a few rolls. Sure a few may get wasted but that's the nature of dealing with the unknown.

[RogueJK]

Plus it stacks with Bless, which is awesome.

[CMCC]

Treantmonk also mentioned this as the most broken subclass in tashas.

[MaxWilson]

Treantmonk also mentioned this as the most broken subclass in tashas.

He's wrong. Twilight Cleric is even more broken.

[Hael]

He's wrong. Twilight Cleric is even more broken.

They’re similar lvls of broke. That lvl 6 ability is completely bonkers and might be one of the strongest party abilities in all of 5e. It’s a free proficiency number of teleports, free disengage, and the best scaling damage mitigation tool. It’s also free movement and allows almost perfect battlefield control and setup

The gains to action economy are massive, and it’s the best early lvl mistake eraser that I know about.

The two of them together basically makes the party unkillable.

[Chaosmancer]

They’re similar lvls of broke. That lvl 6 ability is completely bonkers and might be one of the strongest party abilities in all of 5e. It’s a free proficiency number of teleports, free disengage, and the best scaling damage mitigation tool. It’s also free movement and allows almost perfect battlefield control and setup

The gains to action economy are massive, and it’s the best early lvl mistake eraser that I know about.

The two of them together basically makes the party unkillable.


Okay, I'm sorry, how is teleporting to intercept an attack within 30 ft and take full damage from it even all that good, let alone broken?

It is a once per turn, get out of position and take a hit. Very good for spreading damage around the party sure, but the wizard sure isn't going to want to teleport next to an enemy to take 30 damage and potentially lose concentration on their spell.

And the barbarian teleporting back to protect the wizard is great, but anything the barbarian was engaged with is now free to run away or dogpile the other party members.

What am I missing here?

[MaxWilson]

They’re similar lvls of broke. That lvl 6 ability is completely bonkers and might be one of the strongest party abilities in all of 5e. It’s a free proficiency number of teleports, free disengage, and the best scaling damage mitigation tool. It’s also free movement and allows almost perfect battlefield control and setup

The gains to action economy are massive, and it’s the best early lvl mistake eraser that I know about.

The two of them together basically makes the party unkillable.

They do synergize well, but Twilight without Peace is stronger than Peace without Twilight. It's not a free teleport, it's teleport-toward-damage as a reaction. Not that easy to use well unless you've got a constantly-renewing supply of temporary HP, e.g. Protector turret or Aura of Vitality.

Twilight cleric also gets Aura of Vitality to boot, plus Warding Bond, so even if someone does take actual damage during combat they can cheaply heal them up afterward.

Peace's saving throw/etc. bonus is nice, but small unless you also stack on Bless, which takes two rounds and concentration. I think it's less OP than Twilight's heavy armor/flying/grantable 300' darkvision/initiative advantage/fear and charm dispel/etc., not to mention access to both Greater Invisibility and Circle of Power.

[CMCC]

He's wrong. Twilight Cleric is even more broken.

I guess we’ll see. He acknowledged that your opinion is the most popular one right now.

Time and gameplay will tell.

Both are possibly broken. But peace’s level 6 is flat out insane.

[Hael]

Okay, I'm sorry, how is teleporting to intercept an attack within 30 ft and take full damage from it even all that good, let alone broken?

It is a once per turn, get out of position and take a hit. Very good for spreading damage around the party sure, but the wizard sure isn't going to want to teleport next to an enemy to take 30 damage and potentially lose concentration on their spell.

And the barbarian teleporting back to protect the wizard is great, but anything the barbarian was engaged with is now free to run away or dogpile the other party members.

What am I missing here?

Amongst other things it can be summons that take the teleport and hit. So that’s proficiency times per turn that you avoid a big hit. It gets ridiculous when things are hitting for 60 and your cr1/4 creature tanks the blow. More than that, it completely allows perfect positioning every turn. Your two dim witted fighters get caught in quicksand? No problem, just tap your cleric and they’re both back.
You have a five foot range of a teleport so you can always guarantee tanks in front, squishies in the rear... every. Single.. turn. Any mistake or ambush is almost completely trivialized, and it allows for some pretty crazy turns (like fighter dives behind enemy lines to kill something, next initiative, familiar taps the cleric and brings him back to safety)

And the spreading out of damage is a very big deal.. it enables auras to have significantly more effective healing.

We’re pretty heavy on the war gaming in our group, and this just seems like it puts things on training wheels.. It will be almost assuredly banned.

[MaxWilson]

You have a five foot range of a teleport so you can always guarantee tanks in front, squishies in the rear... every. Single.. turn.

Hang on now. You can only teleport to an unoccupied space, and if a melee monster hit a backliner you may not even have a frontline space to teleport into--even if you do, the original target is still on the front line too, possibly about to take another attack from Multiattack. It doesn't let you trade places, and if you're reliant on your reaction for defense (e.g. Uncanny Dodge, Defensive Duelist, Shield, Absorb Elements) you're squishier than normal now, and less sticky too since you have no opportunity attack left. (No Sentinel for you!)

As for summons taking damage, well, easier said than done until your proficiency bonus is pretty high. And once they're dead they're dead so it's less "block PB-1 attacks per turn" and more "block PB-1 attacks per fight", if you're maxing out with PB-1 squishy summons, and only if no one AoEs them, which is always the bane of summons. I expect this tactic to be rare in practice before Tier 4ish because PCs will want the bonus instead.

[Hael]

Hang on now. You can only teleport to an unoccupied space, and if a melee monster hit a backliner you may not even have a frontline space to teleport into--even if you do, the original target is still on the front line too, possibly about to take another attack from Multiattack. It doesn't let you trade places, and if you're reliant on your reaction for defense (e.g. Uncanny Dodge, Defensive Duelist, Shield, Absorb Elements) you're squishier than normal now, and less sticky too since you have no opportunity attack left. (No Sentinel for you!)

As for summons taking damage, well, easier said than done until your proficiency bonus is pretty high. And once they're dead they're dead so it's less "block PB-1 attacks per turn" and more "block PB-1 attacks per fight", if you're maxing out with PB-1 squishy summons, and only if no one AoEs them, which is always the bane of summons. I expect this tactic to be rare in practice before Tier 4ish because PCs will want the bonus instead.

You are in a big room and your warlock gets surprised by a bunch of monsters that turned the corner (or were revealed). He’s now in a world of trouble, surrounded and about to be eaten and no one is close to him. I would say, rather than using the barbarians (who is 30 feet away) reaction to take one of the hits, it’s better for the familiar to punch the barbarian and have the warlockuse his reaction to take the familiars hit.

This is effectively like a proficiency times per turn misty step reaction. Now your squad is in a perfect position to deal with the threat. Of course, you could choose to put the barbarian or a summon right on top of the enemy as well.

Again the effective amount of damage mitigation per turn is huge and the amount of situations that can party wipe are massively diminished. You basically only screw up if you all clump together and get surrounded. Even then you can have your party teleport out of there one by one by sending your invisible bonded imp to go smack his head against a wall 30 feet away across the canyon.

And as I said, this at the very least gives a useful reaction and there are many classes that don’t get many options there.

[Swosh]

You are in a big room and your warlock gets surprised by a bunch of monsters that turned the corner (or were revealed). He’s now in a world of trouble, surrounded and about to be eaten and no one is close to him. I would say, rather than using the barbarians (who is 30 feet away) reaction to take one of the hits, it’s better for the familiar to punch the barbarian and have the warlockuse his reaction to take the familiars hit.

This is effectively like a proficiency times per turn misty step reaction. Now your squad is in a perfect position to deal with the threat. Of course, you could choose to put the barbarian or a summon right on top of the enemy as well.

Again the effective amount of damage mitigation per turn is huge and the amount of situations that can party wipe are massively diminished. You basically only screw up if you all clump together and get surrounded. Even then you can have your party teleport out of there one by one by sending your invisible bonded imp to go smack his head against a wall 30 feet away across the canyon.

And as I said, this at the very least gives a useful reaction and there are many classes that don’t get many options there.

While all this sounds nice in theory, in practice its another matter entirely. First of all as mention before you can only affect "proficency" amount of creatures. This negates this significantly, especially if you plan on using it on a summon or familiar. If you have a party of 5 and a proficency of 3 and you plan on using it on a familiar, then you can only affect 2 party members maximum. That is less than half the party and your so-called warlock probably dont even have the buff at all, meaning your familiar wont teleport to take the damage and your group cant reposition themselves as they want.

[Hael]

While all this sounds nice in theory, in practice its another matter entirely. First of all as mention before you can only affect "proficency" amount of creatures. This negates this significantly, especially if you plan on using it on a summon or familiar. If you have a party of 5 and a proficency of 3 and you plan on using it on a familiar, then you can only affect 2 party members maximum. That is less than half the party and your so-called warlock probably dont even have the buff at all, meaning your familiar wont teleport to take the damage and your group cant reposition themselves as they want.

The point is you can choose. You could pick say two squishies and the barbarian, and use the barb as a meat shield and indeed that’s probably what a lot of parties will pick. Alternatively you might choose two squishies and the invisible flying familiar, the latter of which goes around and occasionally touches a torch to give useful reaction escapes. Or maybe you give it to the 3 melee guys who can teleport around the back lines and gang up on people in hard terrain as well as splitting up the damage and avoiding focus fire.

The point is, it allows crazy strong battlefield and tactical control, and yes it gets more and more crazy as the proficiency goes up.

[Lyracian]

The super-bless Bond effect is also limited to a number of targets equal to your Proficiency Bonus (PB). That means you are level 9 before you can bond the standard 4 character party. A well structured party will be able to make a lot of use out of that level six 'Misty Step' power. For most groups though I think it will just be free movement for a party Tank to get to monsters they were not otherwise able to contain.


I would agree is looks like one of the best picks for a multi-class dip. Medium Armoured Peace Bards here we come! The fact you can stack with Guidance for +2d4 on skill checks is likely better than Knowledge giving double expertise.

[Sepaulchre]

The super-bless Bond effect is also limited to a number of targets equal to your Proficiency Bonus (PB). That means you are level 9 before you can bond the standard 4 character party. A well structured party will be able to make a lot of use out of that level six 'Misty Step' power. For most groups though I think it will just be free movement for a party Tank to get to monsters they were not otherwise able to contain.


I would agree is looks like one of the best picks for a multi-class dip. Medium Armoured Peace Bards here we come! The fact you can stack with Guidance for +2d4 on skill checks is likely better than Knowledge giving double expertise.

Definitely good on a Bard. I’ve been trying to kick around where the dip could be beneficial on a class without something better to do with their concentration but I haven’t come up with much.

[MaxWilson]

You are in a big room and your warlock gets surprised by a bunch of monsters that turned the corner (or were revealed). He’s now in a world of trouble, surrounded and about to be eaten and no one is close to him. I would say, rather than using the barbarians (who is 30 feet away) reaction to take one of the hits, it’s better for the familiar to punch the barbarian and have the warlockuse his reaction to take the familiars hit.

This is effectively like a proficiency times per turn misty step reaction. Now your squad is in a perfect position to deal with the threat.

Sure, sounds great. Except... has the peace cleric even put up the bond? Moreover, if the warlock is indeed surprised in 5E terms he doesn't have a reaction to use. And familiars can't attack except by a warlock spending an action or bonus action, which can't happen if the warlock is surprised, and if he's not surprised and he wins initiative what's stopping him from casting Misty Step or even just Disengaging away? And if the warlock was concentrating on something, he just took damage so still has to make a concentration save.

I can see your general point--you can damage your allies to let squishies teleport toward _that_ damage instead of other damage that you fear more--but the details make it hard to give examples where that tactic is actually useful. You need a surprised-but-not-too-surprised squishy warlock, an ally within 30' of the warlock who wins initiative and is willing to attack another ally or himself, deadly monsters who nevertheless don't have high movement or ranged attacks, and a Peace Cleric who's created a bond in the past ten minutes.

IMO that's not overpowered on the same level as Twilight Cleric's heavy armor and martial weapons, terrific domain spells (Faerie Fire, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Greater Invisibility, Mislead, and especially Aura of Vitality, Aura of Life, and Circle of Power), 300' grantable darkvision, grantable initiative advantage, flight, and bountiful temp HP Channel Divinity which synergizes amazingly with Aura of Life and Aura of Vitality. (Aura of Life + Vigilant Blessing = 0 HP creatures regain 1 HP when starting their turn and then get d6+LVL temp HP at the end of their turn to keep them up.)

In fact, with Warding Bond + Vigilant Blessing up that warlock might not have needed to flee in the first place.

[CMCC]

IMO that's not overpowered on the same level as Twilight Cleric.

But you agree it’s overpowered?

[MaxWilson]

But you agree it’s overpowered?

The Tasha's clerics are definitely head-and - shoulders above the other clerics, and yes, that makes them overpowered for clerics: they will change the metagame around clerics. (Ditto Tasha's Sorcerers, and Xanathar's Hexblade.)

Overpowered in the larger context? Hard to say without comparing it to something. It's less overpowered than Simulacrum, Wish, or Shepherd Druid. More overpowered than Tempest Cleric or Sharpshooter. Perhaps more overpowered than Hexblade as a dip.

[CMCC]

The Tasha's clerics are definitely head-and - shoulders above the other clerics, and yes, that makes them overpowered for clerics: they will change the metagame around clerics. (Ditto Tasha's Sorcerers, and Xanathar's Hexblade.)

Overpowered in the larger context? Hard to say without comparing it to something. It's less overpowered than Simulacrum, Wish, or Shepherd Druid. More overpowered than Tempest Cleric or Sharpshooter. Perhaps more overpowered than Hexblade as a dip.

Ok I think that’s a completely fair take.

[Dork_Forge]

I feel like I'm missing something here...

Emboldening Bond: This is a nice ability, but the scaling with proficiency bonus is so heavy that you'd be better off just casting Bless at the very least until tier 2 (and I don't think it would get particularly good until you can get the entire party bonded up, which is dependent on how large your particular party is).

Balm of Peace: This starts off strong and just steadily gets worse as it has absolutely no scaling outside of maxing your Wis modifier. Great if you have multiple team mates down, but you're limited by your speed and starting position and besides potentially getting you into a better position at the end of it, you're worse off than using a Life Cleric's ability for a lot of your career (yes you can heal over half, it's still 2d6+Wis range of touch). Strong tier 1 and half of tier 2, meh the rest of the time unless you are frequently low on slots.

Protective Bond: Being able to spread damage around can be nice, it'd be nicer to not take the damage period and at the end of the day this ability is relying on too much: 1) you need your bond up 2) A party member that's a more suitable target needs to have their reaction 3) That PC (and player) need to be willing to eat damage intended for someone else. Then when all is said and done that PC is then in the firing line without their reaction available. I'd be more interested if this let bonded creatures spend their reaction to reduce damage by an amount.

Expansive Bond: Double range and resistance to the triggering damage with a prof bonus worth a damn for this ability, this is more like it but resistances don't stack and it's coming in at 17th level, meh.

[Chaosmancer]

Okay, I'm going to break this apart a bit. (Edit: Seems a lot of these points were addressed already)


Amongst other things it can be summons that take the teleport and hit. So that’s proficiency times per turn that you avoid a big hit. It gets ridiculous when things are hitting for 60 and your cr1/4 creature tanks the blow.

A few notes with this.

1) Clerics have no ability to summon any allies before level 9 (the new summon Celestial Spirit spell) or is they use Animate Dead to create Zombies and Skeletons. Meaning that this is a combo of a cleric and another class who has used a summoning spell generally, using up their concentration. Good? Yes. But not a guaranteed aspect of the Domain.


2) You only get to choose a number of creatures equal to your Prof bonus to bond. By level 6, that is three. So, if you want to bond the barbarian and two summoned creatures, then you are limiting the usage of the d4's to all the attacks, skills and saves.

3) This bond only lasts ten minutes, limiting your ability to summon creatures and bond them to the allies you want to protect if you want to do this before the fight.

So, is this useful? Sure, if you have someone that can summon allies, and get them summoned, and get the bond in place limiting only to a single target and a bunch of throw away targets to quickly chew through the bond until it is no longer giving the bonus to hit and saves... but that doesn't seem OP to me.



More than that, it completely allows perfect positioning every turn. Your two dim witted fighters get caught in quicksand? No problem, just tap your cleric and they’re both back.

Perfect positioning every turn is not what this is. This is teleporting out of position to get hit in the face.

Also, I am not convinced of the utility of causing damage to my allies just to get someone out of a trap slightly faster. Especially since if they have the bond already, they are getting a 1d4 to rolls to avoid and escape anyways.

Sure, maybe you are in a combat and it makes more sense to waste two actions (or a single action if the person has two attacks) to cause damage to your own team to teleport your fighters out of some dangerous terrain, but that seems niche at best.



You have a five foot range of a teleport so you can always guarantee tanks in front, squishies in the rear... every. Single.. turn. Any mistake or ambush is almost completely trivialized, and it allows for some pretty crazy turns (like fighter dives behind enemy lines to kill something, next initiative, familiar taps the cleric and brings him back to safety)

1) Familiars can't attack, unless you are a warlock pact of the chain. So you are requiring an ally to waste an attack on a party member, damaging the fighter.

2) Again, the bond only lasts 10 minutes, so you activated it, and were ambushed in a very small window of time.

3) The teleport only happens if the other bonded individual would take damage. So, you can't teleport every single round. And even if you do teleport and take an attack for the squishy, you can't occupy the same space as the attacker, so at best you are beside the enemy that is threatening the squishy target, waiting for your turn, and leaving a hole where your fighter used to be.

4) What happens when the enemy targets the fighter? Does the squishy mage teleport closer to danger to take a blow meant for the tank? And remember, you've only got three people you can bond. So squishy, fighter and one more.


And the spreading out of damage is a very big deal.. it enables auras to have significantly more effective healing.

Sure, this can be useful, but there is very little wide healing in the game. And something like Aura of Life is actually better used on a single target who is taking all the damage, so spreading the damage actually makes it less effective.


We’re pretty heavy on the war gaming in our group, and this just seems like it puts things on training wheels.. It will be almost assuredly banned.

Ban it if you want, but I think you are far far overestimating the use cases for this teleport. These sort of optimal moments just do not happen with regularity where the best move is to self-harm to teleport a heavy hitter back away from the enemy.

[MaxWilson]

Sure, this can be useful, but there is very little wide healing in the game. And something like Aura of Life is actually better used on a single target who is taking all the damage, so spreading the damage actually makes it less effective.

BTW, wide healing is why the Twilight + Peace and Twilight + Warding Bond combos are so effective, especially since Twilight Cleric also has deep healing (Aura of Vitality).

[Aramul]

BTW, wide healing is why the Twilight + Peace and Twilight + Warding Bond combos are so effective, especially since Twilight Cleric also has deep healing (Aura of Vitality).

Aura of Vitality is on the expanded list of spells in Tasha's for Clerics, so every Cleric gets it. That's not to say Twilight isn't strong otherwise, but that particular spell being on their list doesn't contribute to their strength.

[Dork_Forge]

BTW, wide healing is why the Twilight + Peace and Twilight + Warding Bond combos are so effective, especially since Twilight Cleric also has deep healing (Aura of Vitality).

If you wanted to wide heal, you'd probably be better off pairing a Twilight Cleric with a Shepherd Druid (Unicorn).

[stoutstien]

I would say the CD is the weak point for peace. I would definitely take the alternative spell slot recovery over the price is right high five healing.

[Snowbluff]

Protective Bond: Being able to spread damage around can be nice, it'd be nicer to not take the damage period and at the end of the day this ability is relying on too much: 1) you need your bond up 2) A party member that's a more suitable target needs to have their reaction 3) That PC (and player) need to be willing to eat damage intended for someone else. Then when all is said and done that PC is then in the firing line without their reaction available. I'd be more interested if this let bonded creatures spend their reaction to reduce damage by an amount.


This ability is pretty decent alone. Warding Bond is a spell I use a lot, especially on mounted builds. But you know what would make it super good? The Twilight Cleric's ability to give their level in THP to each member on your team every round.

[MaxWilson]

Aura of Vitality is on the expanded list of spells in Tasha's for Clerics, so every Cleric gets it. That's not to say Twilight isn't strong otherwise, but that particular spell being on their list doesn't contribute to their strength.

Tasha's says otherwise. Unlike PHB features, you do NOT automatically get Expanded Spell List.


If you wanted to wide heal, you'd probably be better off pairing a Twilight Cleric with a Shepherd Druid (Unicorn).

Peace Cleric lets you convert wide healing into deep protection. Shepherd is just more of the same wideness. They're not directly comparable.

[Hael]

Sure, maybe you are in a combat and it makes more sense to waste two actions (or a single action if the person has two attacks) to cause damage to your own team to teleport your fighters out of some dangerous terrain, but that seems niche at best.

1) Familiars can't attack, unless you are a warlock pact of the chain. So you are requiring an ally to waste an attack on a party member, damaging the fighter.

4) What happens when the enemy targets the fighter? Does the squishy mage teleport closer to danger to take a blow meant for the tank? And remember, you've only got three people you can bond. So squishy, fighter and one more.

Ban it if you want, but I think you are far far overestimating the use cases for this teleport. These sort of optimal moments just do not happen with regularity where the best move is to self-harm to teleport a heavy hitter back away from the enemy.

It doesn't have to be a familiar using a warlock action. Another members tiny servant or a zombie/skeleton from your lvl 3 animate dead spell can touch a torch for 1hp damage. Or indeed, the familiar can use its move action and fly into a wall for a few hp damage. You don't have to waste a party members action unless you have absolutely nothing to summon with. (In which case you are probably better off simply bonding the 3 melee fighters).

A couple notes.. Let's just consider the effective hp reduction between the Twilight clerics thp aura and this. At say lvl 8, they get 8 + 1d6 THP per turn. For 5 people that's ~53 hp mitigated per turn if you are perfectly effective at mitigation and maximally use every thp each turn (in practice it will probably be only a few people that take damage). At lvl 8, you will be facing potential attacks that can do upwards of 30-60 hp on the high end. For instance a CR10 young red Dragon has a ~55 hp breath weapon. If you have a smoke mephit summon bonded, you can have him take the breath for exactly zero damage (fire immunity) (or just sacrifice a low hp summon and the entire negative hp worth of damage is effectively gained).

The take away is that a single reaction *can* in principle be a very large amount of effective hp gained. On the more median end you will be choosing to take blows that are doing ~25-30 hp a turn. Something like the barbarian will mitigate about 15 hp worth of that with a single reaction. So right there you are close to equaling the avg THP aura's per turn mitigation where two melee players are getting hit with a single reaction. This works even better when you have damage resistances/immunities/THP and know beforehand what you are walking into. And I can't speak for many groups, but overwhelmingly I see focus fire being the thing that tends to kill things in our group, as opposed to a slow steady team wide whittling of hp.

Also, as good as that part is (and it scales ridiculously well as various party members get resistances and proficiency goes up). As far as i'm concerned, it's the constant per turn positioning reset that matters so much more. Again having your tiny servant walk away from the action and giving per turn misty step reactions to select group members, is just so strong. It bypasses counterspell, silence, prone or restrained... Pretty much any status condition that leaves your reaction intact is kosher etc etc. It also solves immobile party members for little resource cost and nicely solves most issues with dangerous terrain. And indeed, for tactical flexibility there will be some turns, where you simply want to take the provided reaction to move a few feet away so as to avoid pile ups and positioning snafus. As far as I can see, this ability provides a potential solution to so many of the rare but deadly scenarios that can lead to full team wipes.

As far as the lvl 1 ability. It stacks with bless, which can be great against very high AC targets. It is also perfect for a skill monkey as that ability also stacks with guidance. The CD ability is basically spell slot fodder after lvl 10 or so, but is actually quite a good amount of healing in the early game..

[Thunderous Mojo]

I guess we’ll see. He acknowledged that your opinion is the most popular one right now.

If Treantmonk had not Teleported away in the "Monks Suck" thread his video engendered, I think MaxWilson would have slew him the next round.

I'm pretty sure MaxWilson gained a supernatural boon due to his heroics.

MaxWilson's keyboard gained the epithet "Roundup Treantslayer".
All Plant creatures have Vulnerability to logic based attacks composed on
"Roundup Treantslayer".

Joking aside:

Emboldening Bond can be short circuited by a Suggestion or Mass Suggestion spell.
(Keep at least 40' away from your fellow adventures, at all times)

The following conditions also prevent the feature from working:
Frightened, Incapacitated, Stunned, etc

I'm considering if using a Dominate effect on an enemy, to compel the foe to accept an Emboldening Bond, would be a worthwhile tactic.

A cleric will have to use their Action to take direct control, and their Reaction to move the creature to intercept the damage.

Practically speaking, this tactic will only work up to 17th level. Then, the cleric of Peace receives Expansive Bond...and the creature gets Resistance to damage you force them to take.

[Dork_Forge]

This ability is pretty decent alone. Warding Bond is a spell I use a lot, especially on mounted builds. But you know what would make it super good? The Twilight Cleric's ability to give their level in THP to each member on your team every round.

Warding Bond is a great spell, Warding Bond this ability is not:

-WB gives the users each a +1AC, reducing the amount of damage they take in the first place
-WB gives resistance
-WB doesn't require your reaction every round to function

The Twilight Cleric's THP is insane, but tbh a lot goes really well with that.



Peace Cleric lets you convert wide healing into deep protection. Shepherd is just more of the same wideness. They're not directly comparable.

I'm not completely following you to be honest. Do you mean, for example, the entire party could start soaking damage for a single individual? Otherwise I'm not sure what amounts to 'deep protection' in this scenario.

[MaxWilson]

A couple notes.. Let's just consider the effective hp reduction between the Twilight clerics thp aura and this. At say lvl 8, they get 8 + 1d6 THP per turn. For 5 people that's ~53 hp mitigated per turn if you are perfectly effective at mitigation and maximally use every thp each turn (in practice it will probably be only a few people that take damage). At lvl 8, you will be facing potential attacks that can do upwards of 30-60 hp on the high end. For instance a CR10 young red Dragon has a ~55 hp breath weapon. If you have a smoke mephit summon bonded, you can have him take the breath for exactly zero damage (fire immunity) (or just sacrifice a low hp summon and the entire negative hp worth of damage is effectively gained).

Zero damage to that PC--what about the other four PCs? It seems overly convenient to suppose that the dragon is breathing fire on only one PC, especially when you're using an ability that requires them to stay close and frequently teleports them next to each other.

Furthermore your math isn't right. With 5 PCs plus at least one smoke mephit getting d6+8 (11.5) THP per turn, that's 69 HP mitigated not 53, more if there are familiars or other mephits. Even ignoring the mephit it's 57.5 HP, not 53.



I'm not completely following you to be honest. Do you mean, for example, the entire party could start soaking damage for a single individual? Otherwise I'm not sure what amounts to 'deep protection' in this scenario.

Essentially yes. It means the enemy cannot (completely) focus fire, and the Twilight THP can all come into play every round. (Of course against really large groups of enemies with ranged weapons it may not be enough, they may still be able to mostly focus on one PC. And you're vulnerable to AoEs afterward.)

Shepherd unicorn is more about if you want to stack even more wide healing on top. You might still "waste" a lot of the Twilight THP that way. Hence, Shepherd and Peace aren't directly comparable.

[Hael]

Zero damage to that PC--what about the other four PCs? It seems overly convenient to suppose that the dragon is breathing fire on only one PC, especially when you're using an ability that frequently teleports them next to each other.
.
I mean some or all of those will clearly take damage as well (unless you had another resistant or immune character to take reactions). The point was that the effective damage mitigated from a single reaction against a big hit could be nearly equal to a twilight clerics full feature on the party, already at lvl 8. (You are correct about my math mistake).

As the lvls grow, some of those big damage, single attack abilities are both more frequent and continue to grow in intensity. Meanwhile the party has more and more reactions and more and more resistances and ways to mitigate the damage. For instance at lvl6, this already provides a great deal of immunity to poison, due to the zombie and skeleton immunities. If you have a Druid and eventually Ranger in the party, this of course gives access to a number of other immunities, many of which are behind simple cr1/4 creatures.

I havenÂ’t played the class due to the lockdowns, but I would be very surprised if in the hands of a careful party, that this wouldnÂ’t outmitigate nearly any other feature (hard to think of any other than the Twilight cleric that could even compete... maybe a shepherd druids wide heal or a paladins aura).

[Dork_Forge]

Essentially yes. It means the enemy cannot (completely) focus fire, and the Twilight THP can all come into play every round. (Of course against really large groups of enemies with ranged weapons it may not be enough, they may still be able to mostly focus on one PC. And you're vulnerable to AoEs afterward.)

Shepherd unicorn is more about if you want to stack even more wide healing on top. You might still "waste" a lot of the Twilight THP that way. Hence, Shepherd and Peace aren't directly comparable.

I feel like this is more applicable the higher up you go, some things to consider:

-There's a period of 4 levels between Twilight (and Shepherd) coming online and Protective Bond coming online, at those levels the THP is going to be fairly easily depleted if focus fire or bigger hits are in play to begin with: 5-8.5 temphp can easily be wiped off each turn and if you're protecting your squishies (like Wizards and Sorcerers) then their hp will still drop quickly
-When you get PB you can only bond three creatures, which means two damage transfers a round maximum if those bonded creatures have their reactions available, which between AoOs and personal defenses (which increase over time) doesn't seem reliable
-PB is not going to cover the entire party until late tier 2 (unless you have a very small party)
-PB forces a teleport, which not only disrupts any formations (just because someone is taking damage doesn't mean the formation wasn't working), increases the threat of any AOEs and begs the question: If there is no available space to teleport to, doesn't PB just fail?

In contrast a Shepherd Druid is just doing their thing, their summons will benefit from the Twilight Cleric's THP (making Bear redundant) and any Unicorn healing will benefit everyone in the area (whereas PB is very limited), including the summons they'll be focusing on anyway.

I think Peace is a good and interesting domain, I'm just not seeing all the fuss about it being so powerful and certainly not in the same league as Twilight (which is ridiculous good at pretty much every point of progression).

[MaxWilson]

-There's a period of 4 levels between Twilight (and Shepherd) coming online and Protective Bond coming online, at those levels the THP is going to be fairly easily depleted if focus fire or bigger hits are in play to begin with: 5-8.5 temphp can easily be wiped off each turn and if you're protecting your squishies (like Wizards and Sorcerers) then their hp will still drop quickly


You make valid points, and I'm definitely not denigrating Shepherd Druids.

I just want to say though, about this gap you mention here: not only is 5-8.5ish THP per round pretty good (IME based on Artillerist turrets), but as a cleric you've also got native access to Warding Bond to make it even better.

Of course, I'm thinking of scenarios where everyone has decent armor class (16-19+) and nobody is truly squishy. I agree that AC 10ish wizards aren't going to benefit much from 7ish THP per round, they need to stay out of range or hide instead.

[ZRN]

I would say, rather than using the barbarians (who is 30 feet away) reaction to take one of the hits, it’s better for the familiar to punch the barbarian and have the warlockuse his reaction to take the familiars hit.



Starting at 1st level, You can forge an empowering bond among people who are at peace with one another.

If your DM doesn't break the empowering bond when the party members start smacking each other, he's going beyond permissive into the realm of enabling.

[Dork_Forge]

You make valid points, and I'm definitely not denigrating Shepherd Druids.

I just want to say though, about this gap you mention here: not only is 5-8.5ish THP per round pretty good (IME based on Artillerist turrets), but as a cleric you've also got native access to Warding Bond to make it even better.

Of course, I'm thinking of scenarios where everyone has decent armor class (16-19+) and nobody is truly squishy. I agree that AC 10ish wizards aren't going to benefit much from 7ish THP per round, they need to stay out of range or hide instead.

I amy not have put my point across correctly, I'm not saying that it isn't a lot of THP (I'm DMing a Glamour Bard, regular THP is a crazy durability boost) and that it greatly increases durability. What I'm saying is that it's quite likely to be expended still and over rounds cause a whittling down of the characters actual hp. This is where the Shepherd's wide healing would come in (in my estimation) as well as covering creatures that aren't in the bond, or that took un mitigated hits.

What you say about Warding Bond is true, but that can be accomplished by the Twilight Cleric anyway, if we're talking about adding another Cleric specifically to the roster then Peace is certainly down the list for me. A Life Cleric or even a Light Cleric would serve better imo.

Yeah everyone having good armor class etc. is certainly a huge factor here but shouldn't be assumed, as players you can only influence one character directly. For annecdotal example in one group I run there's a Wizard with a Mage Armored AC of 14 and a 0 Con mod. Unless everyone is onboard with a certain degree of optimisation or naturally want to play tougher characters, most parties will have at least one squishy link.

[MaxWilson]

I amy not have put my point across correctly, I'm not saying that it isn't a lot of THP (I'm DMing a Glamour Bard, regular THP is a crazy durability boost) and that it greatly increases durability. What I'm saying is that it's quite likely to be expended still and over rounds cause a whittling down of the characters actual hp. This is where the Shepherd's wide healing would come in (in my estimation) as well as covering creatures that aren't in the bond, or that took un mitigated hits.

What you say about Warding Bond is true, but that can be accomplished by the Twilight Cleric anyway, if we're talking about adding another Cleric specifically to the roster then Peace is certainly down the list for me. A Life Cleric or even a Light Cleric would serve better imo.

Yeah everyone having good armor class etc. is certainly a huge factor here but shouldn't be assumed, as players you can only influence one character directly. For annecdotal example in one group I run there's a Wizard with a Mage Armored AC of 14 and a 0 Con mod. Unless everyone is onboard with a certain degree of optimisation or naturally want to play tougher characters, most parties will have at least one squishy link.

Yes, having a Twilight Cleric cast Warding Bond is exactly what I had in mind. And yes, 7ish THP isn't enough to prevent you from burning some real HP as well. And yes, unicorn spirits are useful to the extent that the enemy is not focusing fire. Yes, sometimes other PCs are squishier or less savvy than you wish they were.

We good now?

[Dork_Forge]

Yes, having a Twilight Cleric cast Warding Bond is exactly what I had in mind. And yes, 7ish THP isn't enough to prevent you from burning some real HP as well. And yes, unicorn spirits are useful to the extent that the enemy is not focusing fire. Yes, sometimes other PCs are squishier or less savvy than you wish they were.

We good now?

We never weren't, I was just discussing the topics and your thoughts. Apologies if I came across as confrontational at any point.

[Chaosmancer]

It doesn't have to be a familiar using a warlock action. Another members tiny servant or a zombie/skeleton from your lvl 3 animate dead spell can touch a torch for 1hp damage. Or indeed, the familiar can use its move action and fly into a wall for a few hp damage. You don't have to waste a party members action unless you have absolutely nothing to summon with. (In which case you are probably better off simply bonding the 3 melee fighters).

Which again, you are using one of your three bonds on a summoned creature, which requires you to have a summoned creature, potentially a 3rd level slot for Animate Dead.

That is not a guarantee in most parties, and maybe the familiar doesn't have anything better to do than kamikaze run a wall, but your undead was likely to be an attack, that you just didn't take.


A couple notes.. Let's just consider the effective hp reduction between the Twilight clerics thp aura and this. At say lvl 8, they get 8 + 1d6 THP per turn. For 5 people that's ~53 hp mitigated per turn if you are perfectly effective at mitigation and maximally use every thp each turn (in practice it will probably be only a few people that take damage). At lvl 8, you will be facing potential attacks that can do upwards of 30-60 hp on the high end. For instance a CR10 young red Dragon has a ~55 hp breath weapon. If you have a smoke mephit summon bonded, you can have him take the breath for exactly zero damage (fire immunity) (or just sacrifice a low hp summon and the entire negative hp worth of damage is effectively gained).

The take away is that a single reaction *can* in principle be a very large amount of effective hp gained. On the more median end you will be choosing to take blows that are doing ~25-30 hp a turn. Something like the barbarian will mitigate about 15 hp worth of that with a single reaction. So right there you are close to equaling the avg THP aura's per turn mitigation where two melee players are getting hit with a single reaction. This works even better when you have damage resistances/immunities/THP and know beforehand what you are walking into. And I can't speak for many groups, but overwhelmingly I see focus fire being the thing that tends to kill things in our group, as opposed to a slow steady team wide whittling of hp.

Okay, I'm ignoring the Smoke Mephit example, because that again requires a lot of coordination, and a class is not balanced around these sort of combos.

Now, most characters don't have resistance to damage and almost no one has immunity to damage. I also tend to find that assuming the party knows the exact enemies and dangers they will be facing to be a large assumption. Sure, you might know that you are going to confront a Red Dragon, but you don't know about the minions that will be in the lair.

And you are forgetting that not all monsters do single big attacks. Sure, a CR 6 cyclops is attacking twice for about 20 damage each, so taking a single blow of that is significant. But a Barbed devil, CR 5, makes three attacks for 10/6/6 and taking that 10 isn't all that significant if the person you are protecting takes another 12 from the other two attacks.

You also have to consider AOEs, not for mephit immunity to damage, but because if you are teleporting into an AOE, you are going to take that damage from being in the area of effect, or if the AOE is big enough, you were getting hit anyways. So the Barbarian can tank 25 damage for the wizard, but now they've taken 50 damage from a single attack.

Or maybe you want to have your summon take the damage, but as a DM I might rule that the damage the summon took was enough to kill it, therefore it doesn't have a reaction to use.

Or maybe an enemy stepped past your barbarian to get to the wizard, so the Barbarian took an opportunity attack, and now they can't teleport to protect the wizard from one of the attacks.


Look, I'm not saying there are not powerful uses for this ability. But I think you are getting caught up in white room analysis here and declaring things OP while only considering ideal circumstances.




Also, as good as that part is (and it scales ridiculously well as various party members get resistances and proficiency goes up). As far as i'm concerned, it's the constant per turn positioning reset that matters so much more. Again having your tiny servant walk away from the action and giving per turn misty step reactions to select group members, is just so strong. It bypasses counterspell, silence, prone or restrained... Pretty much any status condition that leaves your reaction intact is kosher etc etc. It also solves immobile party members for little resource cost and nicely solves most issues with dangerous terrain. And indeed, for tactical flexibility there will be some turns, where you simply want to take the provided reaction to move a few feet away so as to avoid pile ups and positioning snafus. As far as I can see, this ability provides a potential solution to so many of the rare but deadly scenarios that can lead to full team wipes.

As you said, these are rare scenarios.

But sure, your cleric predicting there was trouble cast this ability, then two turns later your wizards tiny servant runs into a wall behind the party so the Barbarian can teleport out of the crush of bodies in the narrow cooridor... so that they can just walk right back into it on their turn?

I mean, grapple is pretty worthless against a melee type, because they are just fine being next to you. Silence is nothing. Prone is bad when it isn't your turn, so getting away from advantage attacks can be nice, but since we keep assuming barbarian I'm going to assume Reckless attack, so being prone is no different than normal.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it. Again, there are nice uses for this, some of them powerful, but nothing that seems to be OMG OP PLZ NERF. Just solidly good options.



As far as the lvl 1 ability. It stacks with bless, which can be great against very high AC targets. It is also perfect for a skill monkey as that ability also stacks with guidance. The CD ability is basically spell slot fodder after lvl 10 or so, but is actually quite a good amount of healing in the early game..

Sure, that is powerful. But again, is it broken? I just don't think so. Guidance and the Help action tend to cover most skill checks. A Paladin's aura is far better for increasing saves (for a similar distance). So, we are looking at high AC targets with stacking Bless and the Bond, which is awesome, I love it, but not broken.