Forge Cleric Optimization/Combos

[Mud Puppy]

Well folks it finally happened.... I rolled stats for my next character and got the following:18, 18, 17, 15, 14, & 8. My luck is typically very bad and I normally roll at least 2 stats below 10 and nothing higher than a 15, so I am pretty excited about this.

I think my group is going to do CoS next and I have settled on Forge Cleric. I think I want to use a dwarf too, just for flavor but I'm not set on that.

I have a couple questions:

1. Would you run a Forge Cleric? I've heard mostly good reveiws, but not from anyone that actually played one.
2. Dwarf or some other race?
3. What are some cool things that you can do with the spell list and the abilities of the forge cleric that combo off or are really effective?

I have this picture in my head of a Dwarven smith devoted to Moradin who spends downtime working on a portable forge and crafting items for the party (as a side note one of the other party members might be an artificer, in which case I am sure we can get into some shenanigans).

Overall how do I optimize this while still supporting the party?

[RogueJK]

Forge Clerics are one of the stronger Cleric subclasses, especially if you want to be a frontline Cleric. (Although even the more martial-oriented Clerics will hit a point starting in Tier 2ish where they nearly always better things to do with their Action in a turn than hit an enemy with a weapon once.) And they have a decent amount out-of-combat utility, through things like Identify, Fabricate, Creation, and Artisan's Blessing.

I'd do a Hill Dwarf with stats:
STR 18+2
CON 17
WIS 18+1

Then divvy up the 8, 14, and 15 however you want between DEX/INT/CHA.

Take Resilient CON at 4th. Take a feat with +1 WIS like Fey Touched, Telekinetic, Chef, Observant, etc. at 8th. You'll already be well ahead of the curve, as the standard character isn't expected to have an 18 in their primary stat until Tier 2ish, and a 20 until Tier 3ish.

From the domain spell list, there are a few things to consider:
-Searing Smite might be tempting to you for potentially adding a little more damage to your single melee attack, but it costs your Concentration. Your Concentration is almost always going to be better spent on something more beneficial, like Bless or Heat Metal or Spirit Guardians
-Heat Metal is awesome against big foes wearing metal armor. No save, and no chance for them to remove the armor within a reasonable amount of time (since Medium Armor takes 10 rounds to remove and Heavy Armor takes 50 rounds). It's just guaranteed extra damage each round, at the cost of your Concentration and your Bonus Action.
-Elemental Weapon is better spent on someone else in the party with a bunch of attacks, like a Polearm Master Fighter or Hand Crossbow Master Ranger. It's not worth your Concentration and a 3rd level slot to add +1/+1d4 to just your single melee attack. There are other Concentration spells by this level that overshadow Elemental Weapon anyway, but it's still potentially handy on occasion if you have an ally with multiple attacks and who's lacking a magic weapon while you're fighting something that needs a magic weapon to hit.
-Animate Objects can be a fantastic damage dealer. 10x Tiny flying objects with blindsight, a good AC, and a respectable +8 to hit, potentially doing up to 10d4+40 damage per round (up to 100d4+400 damage over the duration) can be quite nice, and is especially helpful if you're dealing with an enemy spellcaster on whom you want to force a lot of Concentration checks. Just be sure that you're prepared to handle ten summoned creatures, and roll ten attack and damage rolls. If you're not set up to do this efficiently, it can really bog combat down for everyone else at the table. Online dice rollers help, or just a big handful of physical dice rolled simultaneously.

So other than having a slightly higher AC than usual, having easier access to magic weapons, and having access to Heat Metal or Animate Objects at times, the Forge Cleric will fight pretty similarly to other frontline Clerics. This means plan on Concentrating on Bless during many fights, and in big fights Spirit Guardians + Spiritual Weapon will be your go-to default combo. (When you're not utilizing Heat Metal or Animate Objects from your Forge domain spells). When you have SG+SW running, you can still either make a melee attack or cast a Cantrip with your Action, or simply Dodge with your Action, which when combined with your boosted AC will render yourself fairly unhittable while SW+SG are still pumping out respectable DPR using your Concentration and your Bonus Action.

[Quietus]

RogueJK's advice is solid on this one. I would say that if you want to lean into the martial aspects, you may want to spend a feat on Magic Initiate, for the blade cantrips. They'll keep your melee attack relevant for longer. Going this route, I'd consider swapping wisdom and strength from what they'd recommended - start with the 20 wis, 18 strength will do you just fine. Then take MI at 4 (in time for the tier2 bump) and resilient : con at 8.

[Snails]

Dwarf is very very good for a martial-y cleric. Mountain or Hill will be great.

I like the idea of going for Res:Con at level 4. That will make Bless and Spirit Guardians reliable and resource efficient ways for the party to prevail, while diving into the thick of the fight.

(BTW, I am someone who is really not impressed with Booming Blade. I just do not see many OAs while playing in a party without, so giving enemies incentive to have fewer makes this a losing combo.)

[quindraco]

Well folks it finally happened.... I rolled stats for my next character and got the following:18, 18, 17, 15, 14, & 8. My luck is typically very bad and I normally roll at least 2 stats below 10 and nothing higher than a 15, so I am pretty excited about this.

I think my group is going to do CoS next and I have settled on Forge Cleric. I think I want to use a dwarf too, just for flavor but I'm not set on that.

I have a couple questions:

1. Would you run a Forge Cleric? I've heard mostly good reveiws, but not from anyone that actually played one.
2. Dwarf or some other race?
3. What are some cool things that you can do with the spell list and the abilities of the forge cleric that combo off or are really effective?

I have this picture in my head of a Dwarven smith devoted to Moradin who spends downtime working on a portable forge and crafting items for the party (as a side note one of the other party members might be an artificer, in which case I am sure we can get into some shenanigans).

Overall how do I optimize this while still supporting the party?

RogueJK already gave excellent advice, just trying to supplement.


I would not run a Forge Cleric, but also I have never actually played one. I am deeply unimpressed they don't gain proficiency in martial weapons (, and their L2 ability is absurdly limited, particularly given how conjuration wizards and creation bards work.
Forge Clerics are all about AC: +1 armor at level 1 is super good, and another stacking +1 at L6 is impeccable. While half-elf is automatically tempting since Forge Clerics make some attempt at being MAD (WIS, CON, and STR or DEX), warforged lets you drive that AC up even higher (another reason warforged make such good artificers), and your statline is so obnoxiously good, you don't even need help fixing the MAD issue. Here are some example statlines, though:

Half-Elf: STR 20 WIS 19 CON 18, other stats as you like; you can take two skills, or be a racial variant to grab some martial weapons. This is for leaning into the melee forge cleric idea; the goal is to get good at athletics and shove melee targets prone. Get Elven Accuracy (Wisdom) at L4. Shield Master will serve you well here, as will Skill Expert.
Half-Elf Generalist: You can, of course, use Half-Elf to "fix" both odd stats at once, so 20/18/18/16/14/8.
Mountain Dorf: WIS 20 CON 20 DEX 17 STR 15 is for creative freedom: you'll turn your racial armor proficiencies into toolkits and you can wield a rapier and shield in melee, with a backup heavy crossbow just in case.
Warforged: My favorite, saved the best for last. WIS 20 CON 19 STR 18, ignore the rest. Resilient (Con) at L4, as Rogue suggested. This is AC 20 at L1 (+1 Chain Mail, Shield), and scales to 23 by L6 (if your GM is rewarding you as the GM suggests, you should be able to buy plate armor at L6, so +2 plate, shield). AC has increasing returns, so being AC 23 is excellent. I'll cover this below, but you can acquire plate mail for a lot less money once you're L7.

Combos: You get the Fabricate spell always prepared, which scales directly with your tool proficiencies, as the spell will instantaneously make anything you have the tool proficiency to make, radically cutting down the necessary downtime to make equipment. This is why it's nearly impossible to stop you from owning plate at L7. If you can get your hands on adamantine or mithral, you can also force the available metal into what the party needs with no downtime spent. I recommend using your background (or racials) to get proficiency in mason's tools and carpentry, which will in general let you target walls and turn them into things like doors and staircases without debates about whether or not the spell can handle weirdness like hinges and railings without the tool proficiency.

[Sigreid]

Our group has a warforged forge cleric/Fighter with Defensive fighting style and heavy armor master. With spells and such he can get his armor class up to where nearly all opponents can only hit him on a crit.

[Unoriginal]

Dwarf Forge Clerics are pretty awesome.

Since you're playing Curse of Strahd, I would ask your DM if you can use your "create metal object" feature to silver weapons.

[Maan]

Then divvy up the 8, 14, and 15 however you want between DEX/INT/CHA.
I would put the 14 in DEX, just because winning initiative is just that important. Also, Dex saves.


-Heat Metal is awesome against big foes wearing metal armor. No save, and no chance for them to remove the armor within a reasonable amount of time (since Medium Armor takes 10 rounds to remove and Heavy Armor takes 50 rounds). It's just guaranteed extra damage each round, at the cost of your Concentration and your Bonus Action.
Not to mention the Disadvantage it causes; that can be even more important than the raw damage.

[Mud Puppy]

RogueJK already gave excellent advice, just trying to supplement.


I would not run a Forge Cleric, but also I have never actually played one. I am deeply unimpressed they don't gain proficiency in martial weapons (, and their L2 ability is absurdly limited, particularly given how conjuration wizards and creation bards work.
Forge Clerics are all about AC: +1 armor at level 1 is super good, and another stacking +1 at L6 is impeccable. While half-elf is automatically tempting since Forge Clerics make some attempt at being MAD (WIS, CON, and STR or DEX), warforged lets you drive that AC up even higher (another reason warforged make such good artificers), and your statline is so obnoxiously good, you don't even need help fixing the MAD issue. Here are some example statlines, though:

Half-Elf: STR 20 WIS 19 CON 18, other stats as you like; you can take two skills, or be a racial variant to grab some martial weapons. This is for leaning into the melee forge cleric idea; the goal is to get good at athletics and shove melee targets prone. Get Elven Accuracy (Wisdom) at L4. Shield Master will serve you well here, as will Skill Expert.
Half-Elf Generalist: You can, of course, use Half-Elf to "fix" both odd stats at once, so 20/18/18/16/14/8.
Mountain Dorf: WIS 20 CON 20 DEX 17 STR 15 is for creative freedom: you'll turn your racial armor proficiencies into toolkits and you can wield a rapier and shield in melee, with a backup heavy crossbow just in case.
Warforged: My favorite, saved the best for last. WIS 20 CON 19 STR 18, ignore the rest. Resilient (Con) at L4, as Rogue suggested. This is AC 20 at L1 (+1 Chain Mail, Shield), and scales to 23 by L6 (if your GM is rewarding you as the GM suggests, you should be able to buy plate armor at L6, so +2 plate, shield). AC has increasing returns, so being AC 23 is excellent. I'll cover this below, but you can acquire plate mail for a lot less money once you're L7.

Combos: You get the Fabricate spell always prepared, which scales directly with your tool proficiencies, as the spell will instantaneously make anything you have the tool proficiency to make, radically cutting down the necessary downtime to make equipment. This is why it's nearly impossible to stop you from owning plate at L7. If you can get your hands on adamantine or mithral, you can also force the available metal into what the party needs with no downtime spent. I recommend using your background (or racials) to get proficiency in mason's tools and carpentry, which will in general let you target walls and turn them into things like doors and staircases without debates about whether or not the spell can handle weirdness like hinges and railings without the tool proficiency.


This is why I come here.... someone who thinks in a completely opposite direction from what I was immediately drawn to. Thanks so much!

The idea of the Dwarf cleric is super tropy, even to me but the buffs to Con/Wis or Con/Str from Hill or Mtn Dwarf seemed too good to pass up... I'm definitely going to do a test build in DnD Beyond with a warforged and then look deeper into Creation Bards. I've never found a Bard Subclass that speaks to me but maybe this might do it.

The ability to Fabricate using materials from the environment was one of the things that drew me to the domain in the first place and finding/buying a lump of mithral or adamantine to make into armor or a weapon would be amazing.

[Mud Puppy]

Dwarf Forge Clerics are pretty awesome.

Since you're playing Curse of Strahd, I would ask your DM if you can use your "create metal object" feature to silver weapons.

I wrote this down in my notes on DnD Beyond... my only concern is that the Artisan's Blessing can't create an item worth more than 100gp. I think the DM would have to allow the use of up to 100gp of metal (silver in this case) to augment an existing item.

[RogueJK]

I am deeply unimpressed they don't gain proficiency in martial weapons

Since Forge Cleric is all about high AC, you'll want to be using a shield anyway. And the average damage difference between a one-handed Martial Weapon and a one-handed Simple Weapon is 1 point (4.5 avg for d8 vs. 3.5 avg for d6). You'll only ever have 1 weapon attack, and you won't be making melee weapon attacks often enough to worry about that 1 extra point of damage per turn. Besides, he's looking at starting with 18-20 STR thanks to his ridiculously good stat rolls, which is +1/+2 more in STR bonus that nearly every other character of equivalent level, so that already makes up for the "lost" point of damage.

Besides, if you're really concerned about the extra point of melee weapon damage from Martial Weapon Proficiency, going Dwarf like he's already considering addresses that, since they have racial proficiency with Battleaxes and Warhammers.

[Mud Puppy]

racial proficiency with Battleaxes and Warhammers.

Yep this was the solve, to get a martial weapon.... but I was a little thrown by the warforged option.... still going to have to go through that test build just for the fun of it.

[RogueJK]

Warforged is a fine option. As noted, you don't need a Martial weapon. The extra AC bonus from Warforged is well worth 1 less point of melee damage on the occasional turn.

[Eldariel]

If you're still taking suggestions for other classes, with stats like that, I'd go with something incredibly MAD that's hard to pull off otherwise. Bladesinger and Paladin immediately spring to mind, though Swords Bard (Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter) also seems really good. Hell, why not Paladin 2/Bladesinger X. I generally don't like multiclassing, but there's something deeply satisfying about Smiting to the kingdom come on a Wizard chassis (with Arcane Recovery to fuel your Smiting), though it does delay the good stuff from Wizard to the point that straight Bladesinger is probably ultimately better. Those stats would even suffice to go Strength-based working with Polearm Master (20 Int, 19 Str, 18 Dex, 15 Con) though that would mean you couldn't use Elven Accuracy; one level dip in Hexblade would let you use Cha instead (Quarterstaff as the omnitool, both a casting focus and a weapon). The Cha-build could be the best Magic Jar user on the planet with Cha-save proficiencies and 20 Cha (aside from Bards using Magical Secrets for the spell of course), though it would come 3 levels late which does rain on the parade.

Those stats scream Half-Elf: gets you 20 Dex, 19 Int/Cha/Wis (depending on which way you go), 18 Con (or 16 in tertiary stat and take Resilient: Con for 18 Con later). Which is sweet especially since you don't need to dump Wis either (though you do if you go Paladin/Bladesinger: then you need to put 14 and 15 in Wis and Str to multiclass). This would let you Bladesong for 22 AC and +8 Concentration saves on level 2: 23 AC and +9 Concentration on level 4 after you've taken Elven Accuracy (and 28 AC with the Shield-spell). Which is pretty nuts so early. Normally I'd suggest going weapon proficiencies for multihitting but with these stats? Skill proficiencies, stat! You want as many skill proficiencies as you can since you can get like +3 in a tertiary stat (straight Bladesinger going the 20 Dex/17 Con/19 Int/16 Wis route for example gets +3 to Wis skills) allowing you to excel at things normally incredibly difficult for a Bladesinger. For example Perception and Insight are really nice skills to have, to go with your Int- and Dex-based stuff. You'd obviously want to load up on Tool proficiencies too: martial weapon profs would let you trade the less useful weapons for those but just the two from background is not bad either. One Bladesinger build (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?628446-Best-race-for-Bladesinger-post-tasha-s&p=24966950#post24966950) that outlines most of what I'd suggest if you did go this route.

[quindraco]

Warforged is a fine option. As noted, you don't need a Martial weapon. The extra AC bonus from Warforged is well worth 1 less point of melee damage on the occasional turn.

Absolutely.

[DracoKnight]

Warforged is a fine option. As noted, you don't need a Martial weapon. The extra AC bonus from Warforged is well worth 1 less point of melee damage on the occasional turn.

If you're a warforged forge cleric, you can grab a yklwa, and still deal d8 damage like with a warhammer and battleaxe. Best of both worlds.

[prototype00]

If you are interested in the Blade Cantrips, there is a possibility to go High Elf instead and save yourself a feat, with Tasha’s Ability swap, you aren’t even missing out on that much.

[Merudo]

You get the Fabricate spell always prepared, which scales directly with your tool proficiencies, as the spell will instantaneously make anything you have the tool proficiency to make, radically cutting down the necessary downtime to make equipment. This is why it's nearly impossible to stop you from owning plate at L7. If you can get your hands on adamantine or mithral, you can also force the available metal into what the party needs with no downtime spent. I recommend using your background (or racials) to get proficiency in mason's tools and carpentry, which will in general let you target walls and turn them into things like doors and staircases without debates about whether or not the spell can handle weirdness like hinges and railings without the tool proficiency.


Unfortunately, Fabricate only works on raw materials, so it will be ineffective on worked walls.


And the average damage difference between a one-handed Martial Weapon and a one-handed Simple Weapon is 1 point (4.5 avg for d8 vs. 3.5 avg for d6).

For dex builds the difference is 2 points of damage (1d4 dagger vs 1d8 rapier), which is the only time I would worry about weapon proficiencies.