Arcane Cleric or Divine Soul?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Due to the pandemic, our weekly Monster Hunt campaign had to be postponed over a year ago. The DM wanted to use his new minis he'd printed, and it just wasn't the same over discord and roll20.

But, bright spot! He's talking about bringing it back soon! And he's letting us respec our old characters, if we'd like. And mine has... well, she's changed a lot since campaign start, and now I'm thinking of different ways to represent the character I have, as opposed to the character I started with.

Astrid began life as a High Elf Divination Wizard with a custom background largely combining the Sage and Soldier backgrounds. Her primary motivation was to become a super-powerful wizard and a "bastion of light and happiness", since that would draw out the Avarongoy (2nd edition undead demon who eats happiness and magic) who killed her family. She was a "God" Wizard, as Treantmonk's guide would put it, focusing on spells that would maximize her team's efforts to win encounters. She wore ogre gauntlets, and could participate in melee with the others if things got spicy, but she preferred to hang back and lob mind spikes, fog clouds, and once in a blue moon fireballs, using her Divination dice to make sure her spells stuck.

Trouble is, as time went on, she became more and more of a Cleric, in disposition. Or, potentially a zealot. As we hit mid-levels, she wanted to create a Radiant School of arcane magic, and became obsessed with destroying Necromancy, which was by the lore of the setting True Evil. Her ultimate goal now became: Figure out how to create a Good-Lich and sacrifice self to save world. She even had a few books on the subject, and the campaign (according to DM) would have supported her doing just that, before we had to cancel.

tl;dr Played a Wizard that roleplay wise is now more of an arcane/divine hybrid, and I'm looking for mechanical ways to do the character justice in the revamp.

So, unless there's a Good Mystic Theurge out there - and I know there isn't - my big choice is to either go Divine Soul Sorcerer with a Hexblade dip for armor and such, playing up the original character's raw magical power and radical ideas, or Arcana Cleric, probably better reflecting her more studious nature and her alliance with holy factions. I'm leaning towards the former, but I need some way to still keep a decent knowledge score in Arcana, Nature, and Religion, since I'm the main researcher into monstrous weaknesses (something the DM made a big deal in this campaign). I've even toyed with some other wacky builds like Lore Bard/Arcane Trickster, but at this point I'm exhausted.

I'm just... stuck in Overthinking Mode at the moment, and could use some fresh insight into the concept, if anyone has an idea for a build that would combo Arcane and Divine spellcasting.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'd go with Sorcerer as it's closer to your previous character, but I don't see a Hexblade dip fitting the character in the slightest. Replace that with a Fighter dip which fits with your background and accomplishes the same thing, plus get the Interception fighting style. Skill proficiencies can be swapped out per Tasha's, so get the knowledge skills you need, plus swap out those redundant Elf weapon proficiencies for a bunch of tool proficiencies.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'd go with Sorcerer as it's closer to your previous character, but I don't see a Hexblade dip fitting the character in the slightest. Replace that with a Fighter dip which fits with your background and accomplishes the same thing, plus get the Interception fighting style. Skill proficiencies can be swapped out per Tasha's, so get the knowledge skills you need, plus swap out those redundant Elf weapon proficiencies for a bunch of tool proficiencies.

I suppose. I'll miss the free Sorcery Points though. Do I go for 2 or 3 levels? I can see either.

[Chad.e.clark]

I think Arcane Cleric fits a little more cleanly, especially with wanting to create a radiant school of magic and such.

[Asmotherion]

Both are good, I just like Divine Soul better. It's a very nice concept, and mixing Sorcerer and Cleric spells this way, gives you a great combination.

[MrStabby]

Well there are theurge options that might work well for you, so do t give up on that too soon.

The new twilight and peace domains for example will serve you well. Great support channel divinity and giving you access to spells that feel appropriate to your character, for example faerie fire to reveal the evil in the darkness. Combine with house Jorasco if you want even more healing.

[Wraith]

What other characters are in the party, please?

As personal preference I like Arcane Cleric more than I like Sorcerer, but if you already have two more Clerics in your group then you might feel more valuable being something other than Cleric #3. Doubly so if the group doesn't have a Paladin or Bard, and then you can pick up the party's CHA role.

[clash]

Why not both? You only need 13 wisdom to multiclass cleric. Take knowledge cleric for the expertise or a different one for the heavy armor. You can pick up a few cleric spells that will always be good like bless and shield of faith, maybe healing Word. And it doesn't slow your spell slots at all unlike hexblade or fighter.

[Unoriginal]

I would go Celestial Warlock, personally.

[Fryy]

Divine Soul is great to play. A 1 to 3 level dip in either hexblade or cleric nets you more spells known that straight sorcerer or Fighter/Sorcerer.

[paladinn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Arcana cleric's access to wizard spells is pretty limited, at least at first.

I've played Divine Souls a lot, and they are awesome! You get access to the full sorcerer list; and if you want to supplement with healing or such, you can. The only things missing from being a cleric are the channel divinity features and armor and weapons. But if you multiclass with hexblade, you can make up some of that And become CHA SAD And get the best attack cantrip in the game. And if you can work some paladin into the mix, it gets even better.

My favorite character has been a sorlocadin.. Soo much fun.

[Keravath]

You could go divine soul with a 1 level knowledge cleric dip to start with.

Knowledge cleric includes expertise in two knowledge skills in addition to your starting skills and also includes the medium armor and shield use you were looking for. Follow up with divine soul for the combination of arcane+divine that you were looking for. Make sure to start with at least 14 wis and 16 cha - rest of the stats to suit.

Hexblade+divine soul is a common/powerful choice but from your description, hexblade doesn't fit the character unless you rewrite/reflavor the lore for it.

[Eldariel]

Why not just...keeping going as a Diviner and flavour everything as you describe? The subclass is innately kinda divine-leaning and you've already got (with Tasha's) stuff like Augury, Divination, etc. on your spell list. Perhaps take Magic Initiate and splice the usual Cleric suspects to your list (something like Healing Word + Guidance + Thaumaturgy + etc.) and go from there. Straight Lore Bard seems workable too but, since you're Int and want to stay Int, Diviner just seems like the place where you want to be already.

Order of the Scribes could work too, giving you access to Radiant Everything (Wizard has a few Radiant spells on their list, such as Wall of Light, Sickening Radiation, Crown of Stars, etc. so you can do this on a fair few levels) - far as "cleansing fire wiping away the evils of this world" goes this actually seems like just the way to go. You could even flavour the spirit of your spellbook as an avatar of your deity and a sign of your connection making you extremely Clericy. Really, the only thing you're missing are few spells - if you could get DM to reflavour House of Jorasco Halfling as an Elf instead getting those healing spells at the cost of most of your other racial features (or just "reincarnate" as a Jorasco Halfling). This would make you a full Cleric/Wizard hybrid while still remaining Int-based and base Wizard (which is just great on this level).


If you wanna be in the front and fight, you can just take Moderately Armored (and Lightly Armored if necessary) and get into the frontline and start hitting things in the face...or have enough Dex and use Mage Armor instead. Stuff like Tenser's and Haste also works to this end.

EDIT: Yeah, I think you would be best served by just going Order of the Scribes, learning Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade and learning to go melee as necessary and starting your Radiant School of Magic and burning the evils of this world. There's a Radiant Damage spell for levels 3-8 so as long as you upcast stuff to those levels, you can make everything you know Radiant (Spirit Shroud is the level 3 option).

[Chugger]

Divine Soul w/ a Hexblade dip is pretty good. That allows you to Eldritch Blast on a round where cantrips make sense. The ability to mix sorc and cleric spells is amazing.

The main drawback is that sorc gets far fewer spells than a cleric.

Your div soul sorc can have counterspell and fireball - or counterspell and spirit guardians - but really only a cleric can get dispel magic, remove curse, spirit guardians and maybe 1 or 2 other very useful lvl 3 spells. The sorc can pick from such great spells - a huge list - but it's painful how few they can pick. If you really want Fly, for example, what lvl 3 do you not take? Dispel magic? Better make sure someone else in the party has it, because while it is situational, when a situation calls for it, someone in the party better have it - or really bad things happen.

A cleric can have many super useful spells (but not the most useful spells, often) - and the spirit guardian/spir weapon combo is great in any fight of 3 rounds or longer. But a sorc w/ meta magic and the right spells selected can be crazy good. Fighting a caster? If he's about to fireball the party, you can subtle-counterspell it. They can't counterspell your counterspell. You can twin Haste, which makes it worth casting, especially if there are two hard-hitting meleers in the party, say. Twinning Death Ward and other spells can be very handy.

[Gyor]

My suggestion is if feats are allowed, go Divine Soul and get Ritual Caster: Wizard or Cleric, this will up the amount of spell you can use at will, and reinforce the themes your looking for, and in the case of Wizard includes great spells like Phantom Steed, Unseen Servant, Hut, and Find Familiar (which in of itself has been equited to a class feature by itself). You can get roughly 15 more utility spells as ritual and you can still use metamagic on them. That is nearly doubles the spells DS get normal get. The feat really addresses the weakest point for Sorcerers.

This helps shore up some of the Sorcerers weaknesses.

If your a high elf that Misty step once per rest feat is worth getting too.