Thunder cleric and Tasha

[Bloodcloud]

Ok, so Thunder cleric can max out damage on thunder and lightning with his channel divinity. With Tasha, you get access to metamagic, including the new one that allows to switch damage type.

Question is, on what spell would the switch be worth it?

I can see Firestorm, boosting from 7d10 to 70. That sounds really good.

Harm is, I think ineligible.

Flame strike, only works for half so that's meh.

I can't really see any other spell that would apply, but firestorm might be good enough to justify the feat at high level...

Did I miss anything?

[Rara1212]

That sounds really good actually. Any spell with large dmg dice instead of many smaller more out of maximizing.
Wondering what you'd take for other meta-magics, maybe extended spell?

[Nidgit]

Fire Storm is tops if you're restricted to the Cleric spell list, but dipping Tempest Cleric from another class could let you do the same thing with stuff like Come of Cold and Delayed Blast Fireball (and regular Fireball).

[MrStabby]

Worth throwing in there spells like wall of fire from the Izzet background not so much from maximising but from pushing back people (level 6) who try and go through/make them take additional damage.

[Dualswinger]

Worth noting that the Cleric's Channel Divinity power only works for a single ROLL of thunder/lightning damage, so ongoing spells would require multiple uses of the ability. You cannot for example max out a vampiric touch spell and reuse that maxed out damage over and over.

[MrStabby]

Worth noting that the Cleric's Channel Divinity power only works for a single ROLL of thunder/lightning damage, so ongoing spells would require multiple uses of the ability. You cannot for example max out a vampiric touch spell and reuse that maxed out damage over and over.

Althought that also fails because of damage type I believe.

[Dualswinger]

Althought that also fails because of damage type I believe.

Well Order of Scribes wizards can make it thunder/lightning

[MrStabby]

Well Order of Scribes wizards can make it thunder/lightning

It can... but then it must be a wizard spell which means at least 5 levels of scribe wizard to be able to get Vampiric touch as a wizard spell... less good if you want to mainly be a tempest cleric.

[micahaphone]

Well Order of Scribes wizards can make it thunder/lightning

You'd need a thunder/lightning spell of the same level though, they changed it from UA. For example you can only make a lightning fireball if you have a 3rd level lightning spell, like Lightning Bolt.

Granted, the wizard spell list has 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells that do lightning damage but depending on what you're planning to change it can be rough to spend spells known on them just for a secondary benefit. Knowing Chain Lightning for a 100 damge Disintegrate isn't too bad, but learning Prismatic Wall just so you can do a maximized Meteor Swarm might not be worth it. Probably better to just take the Metamagic Adept feat and 2x a day change an elemental spell to the maximized element.


Actually now that I'm thinking on it, that metamagic doesn't work with Disintegrate, so maybe there is a point towards a Scribes/Storm over a sorcerer multiclass

[Dualswinger]

You'd need a thunder/lightning spell of the same level though, they changed it from UA. For example you can only make a lightning fireball if you have a 3rd level lightning spell, like Lightning Bolt.

Granted, the wizard spell list has 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells that do lightning damage but depending on what you're planning to change it can be rough to spend spells known on them just for a secondary benefit. Knowing Chain Lightning for a 100 damge Disintegrate isn't too bad, but learning Prismatic Wall just so you can do a maximized Meteor Swarm might not be worth it. Probably better to just take the Metamagic Adept feat and 2x a day change an elemental spell to the maximized element.


Actually now that I'm thinking on it, that metamagic doesn't work with Disintegrate, so maybe there is a point towards a Scribes/Storm over a sorcerer multiclass

Wizard has enough for the earlier levels too

1st - Thunderwave/Chromatic Orb
2nd - Shatter/Dragons Breath

Weirdly you're right, no 5th level spells deal thunder or lightning damage. Huh.

[Silpharon]

Hellish rebuke upcast to level 9 transmuted and destructive wrath gets 100 flat damage to your attacker (or 50 if they succeed the save).

Heat Metal can do quite a bit of damage upcast without a save.

FYI, this thread is a repeat. See here:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?623390-Breaking-Tempest-Cleric-(Transmuting-Damage)&p=24831303

[Bloodcloud]

Just looked at the other thread, but that's mostly multiclassing, and if we multiclass then there is ample choice, however straight cleric, I'm not finding much.

However, Boros or Rakdos wall of fire is a good call. Rakdos also gets Hellish rebukes which is good scaling. I checked eberron, no dice on dragonmark spells. Maybe good on a vhuman.

So, to me, on a straight Tempest cleric, metamagic adept is a good 12th or 16th level pick, to use on max damage Firestorm, or earlier with Ravnica background.

[LudicSavant]

Ok, so Thunder cleric can max out damage on thunder and lightning with his channel divinity. With Tasha, you get access to metamagic, including the new one that allows to switch damage type.

Question is, on what spell would the switch be worth it?

I can see Firestorm, boosting from 7d10 to 70. That sounds really good.

Harm is, I think ineligible.

Flame strike, only works for half so that's meh.

I can't really see any other spell that would apply, but firestorm might be good enough to justify the feat at high level...

Did I miss anything?

Going through all of the Cleric spells that are eligible for the metamagic, you've got Fire Storm and Flame Strike and... that's it, unless you count Glyph of Warding.

No really. That's it. There's just not a whole lot of Fire, Acid, Cold, or Poison spells on the Cleric list.

Okay, so what about expanding our spell list through Ravnica Backgrounds or races? Well in that case we can look at...

Acid Splash
Burning Hands
Cloudkill
Fire Bolt
Flaming Sphere
Heat Metal
Hellish Rebuke
Produce Flame
Ray of Sickness
Scorching Ray
Wall of Fire
Armor of Agathys
Create Bonfire
Flame Blade
Frostbite
Green-Flame Blade
Infestation
Poison Spray
Ray of Frost
Searing Smite

Of those... only really one is a single fat roll, and that's Hellish Rebuke, which you can pick up from Rakdos Cultist. Wall of Fire is on there too. *Shrug*