Twilight Clerics

[Skrum]

My dnd group is in discussion about Twilight Clerics. Several of them feel that the channel divinity ability that grants temp HP is broken. It's being used every round to give a 1d6+cleric level shield to every party member. They think this is too strong of an option, making the party extremely hard to hurt (as well as making other cleric options, including ones that are supposed to be about healing) look weak.

I haven't actually played with this cleric in my games yet, but I wanted to get some other opinions. My DM-radar is telling me there are easy tactical or mechanical options for working around this, but idk for sure.

Is this ability broken? Or merely super strong? Or none of the above?

[Amnestic]

I wouldn't call it "broken" but I can definitely understand why some people would.

There's a lot of suggested fixes floating around. Some of them include:-

Make it concentration.
Make it 1d6+WisMod instead of 1d6+Level.
Creature can only get temp hit points once per channel divinity use.
Instead of instant-ending charm/fear effect, it gives a new save option and/or advantage on the save


I wouldn't necessarily make all those changes at once (though even if you did, it'd still be "okay"/"good") but just some ideas on adjustments to make.

Also the 300' range darkvision is dumb. Make it 60' if you don't have darkvision or an extra 60' if you do have it from another source.

[The_Jette]

My dnd group is in discussion about Twilight Clerics. Several of them feel that the channel divinity ability that grants temp HP is broken. It's being used every round to give a 1d6+cleric level shield to every party member. They think this is too strong of an option, making the party extremely hard to hurt (as well as making other cleric options, including ones that are supposed to be about healing) look weak.

I haven't actually played with this cleric in my games yet, but I wanted to get some other opinions. My DM-radar is telling me there are easy tactical or mechanical options for working around this, but idk for sure.

Is this ability broken? Or merely super strong? Or none of the above?

You can only use channel divinity once per short rest until you're higher level. It lasts a minute, so it'll probably be good for the whole fight. But, you have to stay within 30' of the cleric to gain the benefit, and then you have to rest to get it again. If your party takes a short rest after every fight I could see how they would see it as powerful. In that case, work to reduce the number of short rests they take so that he can't use it every fight and has to conserve it for the big ones.

[P. G. Macer]

You can only use channel divinity once per short rest until you're higher level. It lasts a minute, so it'll probably be good for the whole fight. But, you have to stay within 30' of the cleric to gain the benefit, and then you have to rest to get it again. If your party takes a short rest after every fight I could see how they would see it as powerful. In that case, work to reduce the number of short rests they take so that he can't use it every fight and has to conserve it for the big ones.

The first sentence is only true in the most technical sense; Clerics can use their Channel Divinity twice per rest starting at 6th level, which plenty of games reach.

[Nefariis]

You are not going to find many people on this board to call anything in 5e broken (which I think is a mistake) - but I think a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that the Twilight Cleric ability is over powered for level 2.

His ability is essentially DR/5.5 at level 2 (DR/13.5 at level 10, DR/23.5 at level 20) for everyone in the party - not to mention a free remove charmed/frightened conditions and shenanigans caused from the 30 feet of dim light rider.

A few (not all) other sub classes that have an ability to reduce damage are

6th level Ancestral Guardians/Spirit Shield reduce by 2d6
3rd level Psi Warrior/Protective Field reduce by 1d6 + int
6th level Clockwork Soul/Bastion of Law reduce by 1-5d8 (based on sorc points)
6th level Fathomless Warlock/Guardian Coil reduce by 1d8

but all of the above are a single target and most of them take a reaction.

twilight cleric is every turn, the whole team, no reaction, no concentration, level 2 - which is definitely overpowered

[The_Jette]

The first sentence is only true in the most technical sense; Clerics can use their Channel Divinity twice per rest starting at 6th level, which plenty of games reach.

I misread his statement. I thought that the player had just got it, thus the "higher level" part of my statement. If they're already level 6+, then it's feasible to use it every combat.

[MaxWilson]

You are not going to find many people on this board to call anything in 5e broken (which I think is a mistake) - but I think a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that the Twilight Cleric ability is over powered for level 2.

I'll call Simulacrum broken--in the sense that it exerts choice effects so powerful as to render the game un-playable in its intended form, once it's available--and Healing Spirit v1. Twilight Cleric is broken in the sense that it renders PHB clerics obsolete, in kind of the same way that Hexblade does for warlocks, but for the whole class not just as a 1 level dip. I.e. if you're going Warlock 10ish, Hexblade doesn't dominate other choices, but if you're going Warlock 1-2/Bard X, Hexblade is the only reasonable pick from a power perspective, although RP doesn't necessarily fit. But Twilight 10 dominates any other Cleric 10 build except arguably Peace 10.

Wish is also broken in the same sense as Simulacrum, but it's fun enough that I've left it alone so far and just let it be broken.

[da newt]

IMO it causes the most issues at low levels where 1d6 + lvl hp / turn is more significant %-wise than at later levels where its a smaller buff, but it is quite effective.

Also, the 30' range can make a huge difference depending on the specifics of the encounter, and often the 'nope' to charmed / frightened is the real game changer.

I think calling it broken is too much, but it does approach OP.

[arnin77]

Twilight Cleric seems like a subclass someone built trying to make a theme fit into the mechanics they wanted.

No other cleric subclass, that I know of; gets 3 features at level 1 (heavy armor and martial weapons for some reason, dark vision and a bonus to initiative); in fact some only have one and it just seems really tacky. Oh and they can gain a flying speed at level 6.

I have no desire to play one at all.

[Nefariis]

Twilight Cleric seems like a subclass someone built trying to make a theme fit into the mechanics they wanted.

No other cleric subclass, that I know of; gets 3 features at level 1 (heavy armor and martial weapons for some reason, dark vision and a bonus to initiative); in fact some only have one and it just seems really tacky. Oh and they can gain a flying speed at level 6.

I have no desire to play one at all.

no kidding

[LudicSavant]

My dnd group is in discussion about Twilight Clerics. Several of them feel that the channel divinity ability that grants temp HP is broken. It's being used every round to give a 1d6+cleric level shield to every party member. They think this is too strong of an option, making the party extremely hard to hurt (as well as making other cleric options, including ones that are supposed to be about healing) look weak.

I haven't actually played with this cleric in my games yet, but I wanted to get some other opinions. My DM-radar is telling me there are easy tactical or mechanical options for working around this, but idk for sure.

Is this ability broken? Or merely super strong? Or none of the above?

IMHO, the Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity is stronger than every other Channel Divinity. And it's not balanced out by their other subclass features either; all of those are at least above average.

So: Is it "broken?" Well... broken's a strong word that I usually reserve for things like Simulacrum Loops or infinite spell slot tricks, so I wouldn't say that. But I would say that it's definitely stronger than it should be, yes.

[J-H]

As a DM, I consider it unbalanced as well as not table-friendly (too much extra to track).
Twilight Clerics as-written are not allowed at my table.

[Sepaulchre]

We reached a similar conclusion at my table. I'm playing the Twilight cleric. We thought it was to powerful and the rolling at the end of every turn slowed the game down. I think we've come up with a decently workable middle ground:

- Still takes an action to start the CD
- When CD is up, it takes the cleric's reaction on my turn or immediately before my turn to grant 2 + cleric level Temp HP OR allow a character to retry an ongoing charm or frightened effect with advantage to WIS mod characters

My DM wasn't super psyched about my cleric's reactions (shield, warcaster) so this mitigates that in their view. I think the action economy tax is fine, but I'd rather have the choice between my reaction and my bonus action. Using my reaction on my turn sometime leads to me checking out between my turns (it's a big party), which is admittedly on me. But for me combat becomes a lot less dynamic if reactions are not a possibility.

[LudicSavant]

Contrast the Glory Paladin's temp HP Channel Divinity.

And before someone says something like "well maybe Cleric Channel Divinities are just way stronger than Paladin ones," that's not generally the case (sometimes they're even identical -- Conquest has the same CD as War Cleric IIRC).

[Gecks]

Broken is a strong word, but Twilight Clerics are extremely strong, and difficulty would need to be adjusted for an on-demand, scaling, regenerating whole-party temp HP buffer (which might make combat more "swingy"- if the TW cleric drops or or is disabled and the party loses their shields during a major battle, things could suddenly go south before they realize they are in trouble). I would need to have a long think before allowing this class at my table, which is unique for official 5th editions classes / subclasses.

I would 100% not allow a twilight cleric and a peace cleric in the same party- the interaction between these two subclasses would be absolutely broken (since it prevents monsters from using focus-fire to bust through the temp HP shields- would make it almost impossible to tune combat to be challenging without devolving into rocket-tag).

I think this class would slow-down play at the table and make the job of the DM more difficult and reduce their enjoyment of the game. Personally, I would only allow it if a player was very invested in the class, and I had the bandwidth for extra homework and challenge as the DM.

[Nefariis]

Broken is a strong word, but Twilight Clerics are extremely strong, and difficulty would need to be adjusted for an on-demand, scaling, regenerating whole-party temp HP buffer (which might make combat more "swingy"- if the TW cleric drops or or is disabled and the party loses their shields during a major battle, things could suddenly go south before they realize they are in trouble). I would need to have a long think before allowing this class at my table, which is unique for official 5th editions classes / subclasses.

I would 100% not allow a twilight cleric and an order cleric in the same party- the interaction between these two subclasses would be absolutely broken (since it prevents monsters from using focus-fire to bust through the temp HP shields- would make it almost impossible to tune combat to be challenging without devolving into rocket-tag).

I think this class would slow-down play at the table and make the job of the DM more difficult and reduce their enjoyment of the game. Personally, I would only allow it if a player was very invested in the class, and I had the bandwidth for extra homework and challenge as the DM.

Im surprised you said Order Cleric, Peace Cleric to me might have some better synergy



Protective Bond
Beginning at 6th level, the bond you forge between people helps them protect each other. When a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond feature is about to take damage, a second bonded creature within 30 feet of the first can use its reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the first creature. The second creature then takes all the damage instead.

Nothing like musical chairs with Temp HP

[Gecks]

Im surprised you said Order Cleric, Peace Cleric to me might have some better synergy




Nothing like musical chairs with Temp HP

Yup, that was a typo, meant Peace cleric- thanks for letting me know!

[Theodoxus]

Twilight is powerful, no doubt. I think dropping the armor and weapon prof's would be sufficient to reign in most of the disparity. The CD is nice, but unless the party is primarily loaded up with darkvision folks, or your TC has a high enough Wis to grant darkvision to the rest of the party, anyone looking for those temp HP are going to be sitting in dim light. And they're temp HP, and not a lot -but they are going to be competing with any other source of temp HP. I'd still take the Life cleric's CD over it. At least it's actual healing, and doesn't require sitting in a pool of disadvantaging dim light.

YMMV.

[x3n0n]

doesn't require sitting in a pool of disadvantaging dim light

FWIW, under normal circumstances, dim light is lightly obscured, which imposes disadvantage on Perception checks based on sight, but not on attack rolls, saves, or any other ability checks that I'm aware of.

In context, it sounded to me like you might have meant it imposed disadvantage on attacks.

[Yakmala]

I've both played a Twilight Cleric and DM'd for one. Is it a powerful Channel Divinity? Certainly.

But it's a single 1 minute use per rest at lower levels, two uses at higher levels and three uses at a level most campaigns never reach.

Stop giving rests every 1-2 fights and force the Twilight Cleric to think hard about when they want to use Twilight Sanctuary.

[ATHATH]

You can only use channel divinity once per short rest until you're higher level. It lasts a minute, so it'll probably be good for the whole fight. But, you have to stay within 30' of the cleric to gain the benefit, and then you have to rest to get it again. If your party takes a short rest after every fight I could see how they would see it as powerful. In that case, work to reduce the number of short rests they take so that he can't use it every fight and has to conserve it for the big ones.
As far as I'm aware, the temporary HP doesn't go away when the CD's 1 minute duration ends and will instead remain until a long rest is taken. This means that a Twilight Cleric can, after taking a long rest, pop their channel divinity while their entire party is inside of it, roll 10 d6s to try to get a maximum temporary HP roll, and then immediately take a short rest, allowing the party to start their adventuring day with both a significant chunk of temporary HP without depriving their Twilight Cleric of a CD usage.

[Hael]

The only thing that slows a peace cleric down a tad is that at low lvls there ability is tied to prof number of bonds. Twilight has no such restriction, and so you could imagine a twilight cleric walking amongst an army and providing tens of thousands of points of temp hp, even in tier1.

So that’s my preferred solution. Adding conc, and tying the numbers to prof for a start. I fear that still won’t be enough, but it obviously needs play testing.. the class should never have been let out in its current state.

[Theodoxus]

The only thing that slows a peace cleric down a tad is that at low lvls there ability is tied to prof number of bonds. Twilight has no such restriction, and so you could imagine a twilight cleric walking amongst an army and providing tens of thousands of points of temp hp, even in tier1.

So that’s my preferred solution. Adding conc, and tying the numbers to prof for a start. I fear that still won’t be enough, but it obviously needs play testing.. the class should never have been let out in its current state.

These throngs of army soldiers have to end their turn inside the bubble to get the benefit... how exactly are you imagining that happening within a minute?

[Hael]

30 foot by 30 foot is 900 ft squared. Let’s say it’s 1000 ft squared. According to google, you can fit about 166 people in a 1000 ft squared area for a party if you pack them tightly. Ten turns of that allows everyone to move in and out assuming everyone has >15 ft movement to exit radially outwards with a bit left over to allow others to come in. Thus ~1660 people can benefit from 1d6+ lvl temp hp. So at lvl 4, that’s over 10k hp, which was my guesstimate. ;)

Or you could just accept that I wasn’t being overly precise. :)

[MoiMagnus]

IMO, the d6 should not be there. It's annoying to roll the die every turn. Our GM averaged it at 3, but honestly it could be removed.

[Eldariel]

Well, it's "broken" in that it's way stronger than basically any other Channel Divinity. The competition is basically:
- Light/Peace: Other healing abilities. This being 1/round for an extended duration and removing status makes it trivially stronger.
- Light/War/Tempest/Death/Grave: Different damage abilities. Generally sustainability is harder to get than damage and in any case, the effective damage prevented by the extra damage these abilities add is generally far less than 1d6+Level for the whole party over an extended period of time (plus did I mention status removal?).
- Forge/Knowledge: Utility abilities, but they kinda fall off pretty quickly. They are really strong and different enough early on to make comparison difficult though.
- Trickery: This is a superstrong ability but takes Concentration. You're a Cleric. Your Concentration is kind of a big deal. So while I think the ability itself is competitive (a perfect image that can be used to cast spells?!), Twilight-ability is superstrong too and lets you Concentrate on other stuff while at it.
- Arcana/Order/Nature: These are all kinda subpar for various reasons. Order lasts too short a time, Nature has too limited of a target scope to be reliably useful and 1 minute is still a fairly short time, Arcana has the "single target save-or-X" issue of potential wasted action and also the fact that the Turning effect ends on damage.


It just does something that is really kinda hard to get otherwise in this edition: it's hard to repeatedly top out your party and getting a sizable damage barrier every turn that also has secondary functions does exactly that. Hell, the d6 is even a bonus on top of it since if you get a higher roll than last time, your THP total increases even if you haven't taken any damage.

[Chronic]

I both play and GM a twilight cleric at this moment, and it's strong. It's also very easy to balance without nerfing anything. Just buff monster damage on the spot and not only the cleric does feel very useful but the party still takes damage. That's the good thing with heal and THP, it's extremely easy to balance without anyone at the table noticing.
Since it affects everyone in the group more or less, it's both easy to balance and feel good for the group, so I still consider it good design in the end.
For game flow, we use one roll a round. When the round start the Twilight cleric roll a d6+level and it apply for every player when its turn start.
Other than that, this cleric might feel like it's getting too much, but heavy Armour is in my opinion kind of trap, you either need 15 strength or you take a 10ft movement penalty and both are bad options imo. 15 strength on a cleric that will suck in melee is a waste, and movement is often key to survivability. Better go medium armor and invest in stealth, which synergise way better.
The radiant dmg on melee strike is probably the best type of damage, but twilight clerics are very bad melee clerics (like most clerics).
On top of that taking a level of druid is not as good on this domain, since it's spell list overlap a fair bit but still lack the best options.
Flying at 6th level is awesome but it takes one use of channel divinity, which means using it out of combat is depriving you of a very important combat option, and using it in combat mean reducing the size of the zone if your allies aren't on the same plane (geometrical plane I mean). So it's good for you, but even flying only 10 feet high to get outside of melee range (15 needed if the enemy has reach) means reducing the size of your defensive sphere to 20ft (15 if reach) on the ground, which reduce maneuverability.
Reality is, twilight cleric is strong, probably one of the best domain for 1 to 20 clerics, but it's a support, helping a lot without stealing thunder of others in the group, and other clerics build are as powerful (melee Arcana cleric is a beast, life and grave are great, peace is an order of magnitude above anyone else, light is cool etc.

On the other hand the peace cleric is so powerful and break the bounded accuracy in such a way that it would demand an entire redesign to be balanced, which I'm too lazy to do, making the only subclass I have ever banned at my table.

Oh I forgot, the artifice THP turret is actually more powerful at low level (a bit more tricky to use tho) and no one is raving about it.

[Amnestic]

On the other hand the peace cleric is so powerful and break the bounded accuracy in such a way that it would demand an entire redesign to be balanced, which I'm too lazy to do, making the only subclass I have ever banned at my table.

"Just buff monster AC/DCs" is surely the exact same response as "just buff monster damage" is to Twilight cleric.

[Chronic]

Nop because it also apply to the group save DC and can be copounded with bless. Suddenly you have a group that excel at everything all the time. Meanwhile you only have to buff the monster damage a bit and focus damage. I play a level 10 twilight cleric and GM a level 7 one, and neither me nor the other gm feel like it's a real problem, people still go unconscious and it does nothing special to contribute to the dpt. Fine by our book. On the other hand I had to ask one player to change his character from peace cleric to anything else because it was too much for me to handle.

[Waazraath]

I wouldn't call it "broken" but I can definitely understand why some people would.

There's a lot of suggested fixes floating around. Some of them include:-

Make it concentration.
Make it 1d6+WisMod instead of 1d6+Level.
Creature can only get temp hit points once per channel divinity use.
Instead of instant-ending charm/fear effect, it gives a new save option and/or advantage on the save


I wouldn't necessarily make all those changes at once (though even if you did, it'd still be "okay"/"good") but just some ideas on adjustments to make.

Also the 300' range darkvision is dumb. Make it 60' if you don't have darkvision or an extra 60' if you do have it from another source.

Bolded for truth. For me it's the limit, Twilight's channel divinity is extremely powerful for its kind, but I might let it fly since it enhances the entire party. But 300 ft darkvision when the established norms are 60/120, 150 when really trying, is too silly and only makes it seem the 'balance manager' had a day off when Tasha's was finalized.

[Chronic]

300 ft is good, but I've yet to encounter a situation where I said to myself damn I need to nerf it. If your villains are waiting in the open for an ambush, they are bad at their job. Truth is, darkvision is great, but distance as a greatly diminishing return. Rarely will the cleric be able to use it to get more than other people with darkvision on the group and when they do it rarely get them an true advantage.

[Thunderous Mojo]

But Twilight 10 dominates any other Cleric 10 build except arguably Peace 10.

As written Twilight Sanctuary is broken. I have a 6th level Cleric of Trickery in a game where we were sucked into Barovia. Strahd + a bunch of wolves tore the party apart, last Sunday. We considered it a win, that we were able to drive Strahd off without him taking his love interest...and to be fair...Strahd was totally playing with us.

At one point the wolves and a bad roll took down my Calm Emotions spell that was keeping the Fighter and sundry NPCs from acting on the Charm that Strahd had placed on them.

After the session, the DM and I re-ran the battle, but with the change of my Cleric being, instead, a Cleric of Twilight. A Concentration free, remove charm effect, every round coupled with approximately 10 Temporary Hit Points per PC meant instead of 2 players falling unconscious, (multiple times), none would have.

Instead of casting Calm Emotions to negate Charms, I could have by round two had Twilight Sanctuary and Spirit Guardians running which would have devastated the wolves. Suddenly a disrupted and fractured party, became an organized, effective group that held a vampire in an area of sunlight.

The increase in power from the Twilight Cleric was phenomenal...and not balanced.

I strongly suggest requiring Twilight Sanctuary to use the PC's Concentration. It still is an incredible Channel Divinity power even with this modification, but it is not just straight up broken.

[Chronic]

The fight you describe play directly into the Twilight cleric strenght which is a top tier domain meanwhile, you play what can be called the worst domain in the game, no wonder the delta might seems huge.

[Eldariel]

The fight you describe play directly into the Twilight cleric strenght which is a top tier meanwhile, you play what can be called the worst domain in the game, no wonder the delta might seems huge.

Trickery is actually insanely good, unless your DM doesn't run Invoke Duplicity reasonably. It has an approximately 8th level spell effect: it's one of the very few ways to cast spells without opening yourself up to being attacked and it's basically permanent mirror image (just have your clone and yourself walk through each other if you get hit to reset it) plus a way to extend spell range and what-have-you. Unlike most illusions, there's no way to tell what's real and what isn't. It's explicitly a perfect copy. While it costs Concentration, it's still among the best Channel Divinities, just tricky to use.

Now, the Divine Strike is useless but Divine Strike in general is useless: you should just use Blessed Strike and default to cantrips if you wanna do damage in general (Potent Spellcasting is obviously better since it works on OAs even if you dealt damage on your own turn, but that's neither here nor there).

And on top of it, it has the strongest domain list in the game. Pass without Trace, Polymorph, Dimension Door are all top tier spells on strong spellcasting classes and being able to yoink them all with a single domain is just nuts. Add to that a bunch of solid non-Concentration roleplayers like Mirror Image, Blink, Disguise Self & co. and then the whole social manipulation suite that Cleric natively doesn't get access to and you've got a bloody solid list. Plus Dispel Magic is obviously never amiss, though it's at least something you could prepare yourself normally. Indeed, this is the domain that adds the most spells to the list and it happens to have a lot of top tier spells while at it.


Also, Blessings of the Trickster is quite useful when you've got Pass without Trace - further alleviate those bad rolls from your heavy armor point man raising the whole PwT party stealth average (obviously all Trickery Clerics should be Dex-secondaries and have Stealth proficiency and it's worth giving consideration to just wearing a Breastplate instead of Half-Plate; no disadvantage on Stealth checks is probably worth a point of AC, which will still be 18 which is fine - especially since you have so many non-AC means of tanking).

I'd easily take Trickery over Nature, War, or single-classed Tempest. It's a solid mid tier Domain, definitely among the higher tier of PHB Domains.

[Willie the Duck]

You are not going to find many people on this board to call anything in 5e broken (which I think is a mistake)
I've seen everything from Simulacrum to coffelocks to force cage to nuclear wizards to the weapon chart broken around here (the last one pointing to various interpretations of the term broken). I think people rarely call 5e as a whole broken, in the way that sometimes are games like 3e D&D, Rifts, or various incarnations of Shadowrun or the various WoD games.

Overall, to me the Twilight Cleric tracks as simply better -- it clearly got an extra helping when the goodies were handed out, the channel divinity in particular seems over-tuned, the darkvision is 300' instead of the expected 60' (potentially 120' or 60'+30' if already-have), and heavy armor/martial weapons seems like a perk on top of already getting some of the best stuff. As it stands, it has become the go-to option for someone who wants a cleric, but didn't have a specific type in mind. It doesn't obviate all other options (Forge cleric is still a go-to wizard dip, Life cleric is still a great dip or full-class for hp-recovery builds, Storm and Light are still just plain fun, etc.), but it is still undoubtedly powerful.

[Eldariel]

Oh I forgot, the artifice THP turret is actually more powerful at low level (a bit more tricky to use tho) and no one is raving about it.

It doesn't remove conditions though and the area means you have to stay chumped up for AOE to stay in it. Plus Artificer as a whole is largely weaker than any class with 9th level spells so it isn't much of a point of comparison (though there's few abuses available with its unique mechanisms that can pump it to top tier, but those are obviously kinda abuses: Spellwrought Tattoo circumvents the carefully laid-out limitation to not be able to craft any spells you might want and Bag of Holdings ad nauseam open up the Revolving Astral Door that can eat basically anything you might run into). So overall, it's not hard to see why a Cleric domain that gets a similar ability with better scaling (on level 3 Artillerist can have 1d8+3 while Twilight has 1d6+3, but Twilight has had the ability for a level already and on level 5 Twilight is even and pulls ahead afterwards, and that's just raw numbers; the AOE is better anyways and they're only 1 point behind on average for levels 3-4 assuming Artificer puts their level 4 level-up in Int).

And that's without touching on giving 3 characters all day Darkvision 300' on level 1. That's just dumb.

[Chronic]

OK if you think trickster cleric is insane no wonder you think twilight is broken. Don't get me wrong I think trickery is fun, but I think it does nothing to strengthen the role of a cleric. It's a vague side grade.

The duplicate is baaaaad, the fact that it takes concentration on a class that live or die by it's concentration slot is bad.
The fact than it can't talk and rely on your senses makes it impractical.
If it's equivalent to a 8th level spell, it's the kind of 8th level you never cast.
And it takes a bonus action to move. It wreck the action economy of a class that has very little room when it comes to it.

The spell list is fine, in a way. All of the spells are good, but unless no one else has them, it's pretty much a waste on you. Polymorph is still great and versatile, but I'd rather not be polymorphed or concentrating on something else. Still has many uses out of combat. Blink is good but not an every fight spell and is unreliable. Dispel magic is great to have always prepared. Modify memory is really cool but slightly overrated (still really love the spell tho) etc.
The spell list is clearly the best thing about the domain, but is more of a way to play a cleric that wish he was some other class than a true cleric. It's good for people that love to blur the lines between roles, but offer very little synergies with the cleric class. Honestly I would play any other clerics (except tempest which I find boring) other trickery. If I wanted something akin I'd play wizard or sorcerer and do it better.

[Eldariel]

OK if you think trickster cleric is insane no wonder you think twilight is broken. Don't get me wrong I think trickery is fun, but I think it does nothing to strengthen the role of a cleric. It's a vague side grade. The duplicate is baaaaad, the fact that it takes concentration on a class that live or die by it's concentration slot is bad. The fact than it can't talk and rely on your senses makes it impractical.If it's equivalent to a 8th level spell, it's the kind of 8th level you never cast. And it takes a bonus action to move. It wreck the action economy of a class that has very little room when it comes to it. The spell list is fine, in a way. All of the spells are good, but unless no one else has them, it's pretty much a waste on you. Polymorph is still great and versatile, but I'd rather not be polymorphed or concentration on something else. Still has many uses out of combat. Blink is good but not an every fight spell and is unreliable. Dispel magic is great to have always prepared. Modify memory is really cool but slightly overrated (still really love the spell) etc.
The spell list is clearly the best thing about the domain, but is more of a way to play a cleric that wish he was some other class than a true cleric. It's good for people that love to blur the lines between roles, but offer very little synergies with the cleric class. Honestly I would play any other clerics (except tempest which I find boring) other trickery. If I wanted something akin I'd play wizard or sorcerer and do it better.

It's just not a Cleric in the traditional role - that's different from "bad". It's very functional in its given role and a solid addition to the right party especially if the party has enough smarts to not just kick the door in and fight all day every day. It's pretty easy to play a Cleric in any number of ways filling any party role from DPR to skill monkey to tank to support to controller to any combination thereof. It's just a matter of picking the right spells. And yes, obviously you have to make sacrifices and obviously moving Invoke Duplicity costs you your bonus action which can be huge (between Spiritual Weapon, Healing Word & Sanctuary) but obviously that tradeoff is pretty insignificant if enemies are taking one-sided actions that they can't respond to: at its best Invoke Duplicity enables you to deal with things without them ever knowing your real location.

But again, it's pretty irrelevant what you do if your DM is manipulating encounters on the fly to make sure they're just challenging enough. Everything will be tailored so the party never dies but nothing is easy anyways so what you do as a player doesn't really matter. To that end, of course nothing is overpowered and nothing is underpowered when the power level is pulled to a static line.

[Amnestic]

Nop because it also apply to the group save DC and can be copounded with bless. Suddenly you have a group that excel at everything all the time. Meanwhile you only have to buff the monster damage a bit and focus damage. I play a level 10 twilight cleric and GM a level 7 one, and neither me nor the other gm feel like it's a real problem, people still go unconscious and it does nothing special to contribute to the dpt. Fine by our book.

Are there any other cleric subclasses where you have had to buff monsters on the spot because they deployed their second level ability?

[Chronic]

It's the role of a DM to adjust and adjudicate things, a tabletop rpg is not a boardgame.
And yeah as soon as a paladin can smite, balance is actually a problem. The good thing with twilligh cleric is that since it concern pretty much everyone it's actually easy to balance. And order cleric is not balancable on the spot, and require a tremendous amount of work in prep. That's broken.
Oh and by the way in didn't balance it by level 2, no need since I had no reason to try to kill them at that level, despite 5e balance being awful at level 1-2 where new players can die from a crit.

[Segev]

Twilight Cleric seems like a subclass someone built trying to make a theme fit into the mechanics they wanted.

No other cleric subclass, that I know of; gets 3 features at level 1 (heavy armor and martial weapons for some reason, dark vision and a bonus to initiative); in fact some only have one and it just seems really tacky. Oh and they can gain a flying speed at level 6.This was exactly my impression when I read it. Not only did I keep double-taking as I realized that I hadn't hit a higher-than-1st-level-ability yet, but the "theme" feels very painted on over a collection of very good (not individually "overpowered," necessarily, but very good) features that are generally desirable in literally any combat.

"This is somebody's home brew to build a buff suite he wants with a flimsy fluff excuse" was exactly my impression. This is the kind of thing I expect from dandwiki when the designer is experienced enough to know what to value (rather than just giving 2d10 damage attacks or something).


I've both played a Twilight Cleric and DM'd for one. Is it a powerful Channel Divinity? Certainly.

But it's a single 1 minute use per rest at lower levels, two uses at higher levels and three uses at a level most campaigns never reach.

Stop giving rests every 1-2 fights and force the Twilight Cleric to think hard about when they want to use Twilight Sanctuary.
The same can be said of any Channel Divinity, but they're far less universally effective nor perfectly tuned to literally every combat.

Twilight Domain is overpowered. If it is the "new standard," every other domain can get moderate to substantial buffs to their Channel Divinity features and be just fine by that standard.

Knowledge could easily get a second special ability at level 1, given that all it gets is extremely narrow Expertise on skills that are rarely going to need it. Perhaps something like Battle Tutor: Once, when you can see an enemy in combat with an ally within 30 feet, if your ally can hear you, you may substitute a roll on the skill you chose for Blessings of Knowledge for the ally's attack roll, after having seen the ally's roll but before the result is resolved.

Then add to their Channel Divinity the ability to grant languages and to grant the benefits to another character rather than just the cleric, and, if the target has the proficiency already, grant expertise.

Life could improve its buffed healing by having any healing spell affect every ally within 30 feet. Stronger than the temp hp each round, sure, but this is Life's entire schtick. The Channel Divinity can be buffed to grant fast healing equal to the cleric's proficiency bonus to all allies in the radius for 1 minute.

Light could gain the ability to have the light cantrip, when cast on a target, also grant 1d4+1 temporary hp as the light itself forms a protective shell. The channel divinity could have each creature that takes damage also be affected by faerie fire.


I actually think I put more thought into extending themes here than the writers of Twilight put into shoehorning the combat buffs they wanted into the "twilight" theme.

It's not a well-designed Domain.



I should note that 300 ft. darkvision doesn't bother me on any level other than the fact that it's better than any other darkvision source in the game. It should be no better than Goggles of Night. If anything is going to give very long-range darkvision, it should be the 2nd level spell.

I'd make darkvision either grant unlimited-range darkvision or 300 ft. of darkvision, because that way it's useful even to creatures with Superior Darkvision rather than feeling like a spell slot and spell known tax for a very limited number of creatures. Frankly, the Twilight Cleric shouldn't grant Darkvision. "Eyes of Night" should let the cleric see in dim light as if it were bright light, but nothing else; this already is a boon to those without Darkvision, giving them the "low light vision" part of that feature, and a boon to those with Darkvision, giving them "bright light" vision even in pure darkness (out to their Darkvision range). "Vigilent Blessing" can just be replaced with "Twilit Vigilence," and cause their eyes to glimmer like distant stars and fill an area of 300 feet in radius around them with dim light (lowering light levels or raising them as appropriate). Then the Channel Divinity can permit the cleric to, as an action, expend a use of it to gain the benefits of Twilight Sanctuary to allies who end their turn within the (massively increased) 300 ft. radius of your Twilit Vigilence...but only until the end of your next turn.

The huge radius is very nice, as will be the temp hp or the removal of the devastating conditions, but it's way more in line with other one-off defenses that channel divinity and other domain features grant.

[Amnestic]

It's the role of a DM to adjust and adjudicate things, a tabletop rpg is not a boardgame.

That's not what I asked.

For all the talk you have about how Twilight Cleric is fine, you've only named Peace Cleric - and now Order - as broken above it.


And order cleric is not balancable on the spot, and require a tremendous amount of work in prep. That's broken.

What part of Order Domain? I'm assuming the Channel Divinity, but surely that's as simple as "buff their wisdom saving throw on the fly", same as "buff HP on the fly" you're doing for Twilight Clerics.

[Nefariis]

[His whole quote]

I agree with all of it - go back and reread it.

[Thunderous Mojo]

The fight you describe play directly into the Twilight cleric strenght which is a top tier domain meanwhile, you play what can be called the worst domain in the game, no wonder the delta might seems huge.

What I described above, is an scene from one of the most popular modules, in the history of D&D. A module, that has appeared, in some form, in every edition, going back to 1981.

This isn't a perfectly tailored thought experiment, this is Curse of Strahd.

More importantly, the number of things that apply the Charmed and Frightened Condition, is legion.

Being able to cancel those effects, in an area greater than a Calm Emotions spell can, and grant Temp HP, at the low, low, low cost of: No Action and no use of Concentration...is a Strength that most creatures will fall prey to...including the titular Dragon, on the masthead of the game.

Chronic, would you elucidate on what set of circumstances are immune to being impacted by Twilight Sanctuary?

I am interested in better understanding your vantage on the subclass.

Wraiths with Advantage on Initiative checks and Sleep spells is the only encounter that I can think of, that might not be too impacted by Twilight Sanctuary, and even then, Temporary Hit Points from a prior use of Twilight Sanctuary might be relevant.

Twilight Sanctuary for every other type of encounter it grants a large amount of THP, every round for the cost of one action, and cancels the Charmed and Frightened condition.

[Chronic]

Oh sorry I said order, I wanted to say peace every time.

I don't care about module to be honest, they are lazy and any team with any composition could breeze through most modules. If published module are supposed to be the norm of encounter building, then the baseline I use is very very different.
The chocking thing about twilight cleric is that they are actually good at healing, which is not the norm in 5e. Does that makes it broken? Not in my opinion, but It does change the way you might run encounter. In my groups, it doesn't change much, because I was already running very high damage ennemies, and so does the other GM of my group. We have a base rule of thumb, a martial enemy should render a wizard unconscious in one turn if every attack hit and no ressource is expended by the wizard. On the other hand, every enemy should be useful in it's own right, no Mooks, no cannon fodder and usually the number of enemy shouldn't be higher than the number of pc.
They also have a wide range of tactical options, making for fast and deadly fights. Twilight clerics run very well in this environment, but if your ennemies hit like noodle I understand it might be a problem.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Twilight clerics run very well in this environment, but if your ennemies hit like noodle I understand it might be a problem.

Perhaps you misunderstand....but I don't think Eladriel.."Give me a Forcecage spell and I can kill it", or Ludic Savant whom talks about how their campaigns are an "Old School, Tucker's Kobolds, 6 Deadly Encounters per Adventuring day" style affair...are stating the Twilight Cleric is broken because the subclass will wreck the games they may run as DMs.

My reading of their comments in the thread, is they feel the Cleric of Twilight cleric is broken, not due to what the subclass will do to their games, but what they can do as players to your game, with it.

(My apologies Ludic and Eladriel if this is a mischaracterization of your positions.)

I know the aforementioned reason is why I dislike the cleric of Twilight.
I find it gauche....

The encounter I wrote about previously, was a party of 4, 6th level characters, versus 20 Wolves and 1 Strahd.

I've not looked at Strahd's specific stats, but the MM has a CR 15 Wizard Vamp...which is probably what Strahd is...........all together, it was a
Deadly Encounter x 10....that was well played by the DM.

Honestly, with the right monsters/terrain/preparation....Deadly encounters may not be needed....in fact they help adventuring parties by spiking advancement through over awarding XP.

[MaxWilson]

Bolded for truth. For me it's the limit, Twilight's channel divinity is extremely powerful for its kind, but I might let it fly since it enhances the entire party. But 300 ft darkvision when the established norms are 60/120, 150 when really trying, is too silly and only makes it seem the 'balance manager' had a day off when Tasha's was finalized.

And it's unthematic. I'd accept being able to see normally even in dim light out to 300', but darkness? What does uber darkvision have to do with twilight?

[Thunderous Mojo]

And it's unthematic. I'd accept being able to see normally even in dim light out to 300', but darkness? What does uber darkvision have to do with twilight?

I seem to recall the 2e AD&D, "Moonstar" specialty priest from the Forgotten Realms being 'overturned' as well..so maybe 'Tradition' is the theme.🃏

The subclass could be a St. George the Dragon Slayer subclass and make as much thematic sense as it does now.
The subclass should be called what it really is:
an Übermensch Cleric subclass.🃏

[javianhalt]

Other than that, this cleric might feel like it's getting too much, but heavy Armour is in my opinion kind of trap, you either need 15 strength or you take a 10ft movement penalty and both are bad options imo. 15 strength on a cleric that will suck in melee is a waste, and movement is often key to survivability. Better go medium armor and invest in stealth, which synergise way
Just go Dwarf and stop caring about that :)
Clerics with heavy armor always felt odd to me anyway but it seems to be a classic theme.



Oh I forgot, the artifice THP turret is actually more powerful at low level (a bit more tricky to use tho) and no one is raving about it.
The range is inferior and you need everyone closer when you activate the ability. It also cost something IIRC (bonus action? Cant remember)
Artificer is more broken in general because they have many other ways of doing stupid things (on top of the THP) but if you consider only the THP capabilities, Twilight wins easily.

[ATHATH]

I'm personally not bothered by the 300 ft. darkvision thing. It's probably the most on-theme ability the subclass has, and it's useful while not being blatantly overpowered. Plus, it kind of makes sense that a Cleric who's devoted themselves to a god of twilight would be better at seeing in the dark than someone who just happened to be born a dwarf or whatever.

[ATHATH]

And it's unthematic. I'd accept being able to see normally even in dim light out to 300', but darkness? What does uber darkvision have to do with twilight?
Darkvision upgrades dark lighting to dim lighting for you, turning night into twilight. Or, uh, something like that.

[Contrast]

I've both played a Twilight Cleric and DM'd for one. Is it a powerful Channel Divinity? Certainly.

But it's a single 1 minute use per rest at lower levels, two uses at higher levels and three uses at a level most campaigns never reach.

Stop giving rests every 1-2 fights and force the Twilight Cleric to think hard about when they want to use Twilight Sanctuary.

My experience is that most people fight 6 combats or less in a day. Short rests classes often need a couple of short rests in that balance to feel impactful. Cleric is broadly a long rest resource class who can contribute fine without getting any short rests at all - Twilight just also happens to get a particularly powerful short rest ability. Limiting short rests specifically to counter the power of a cleric has a lot of potential for unintended consequences.


I both play and GM a twilight cleric at this moment, and it's strong. It's also very easy to balance without nerfing anything. Just buff monster damage on the spot and not only the cleric does feel very useful but the party still takes damage. That's the good thing with heal and THP, it's extremely easy to balance without anyone at the table noticing.

I don't think this is good advice for two reasons:

1. Nerfing one thing is simpler and more reliable than buffing everything. Do I only buff damage in combats when they use the ability? How much do I buff it by individually each time for every individual monster/spell? Simpler and more reliable just to nerf the ability down to a level you find workable.

2. I find it bad form to put players on a treadmill rather than place hurdles in front of them and let them run. They should find the game challenging but this is very specifically planning to make a characters ability meaningless. Plus, my experience is that players are more perceptive than many DMs think. Perhaps I play with people who play more but people I play with would notice immediately if everything was suddenly doing more damage.

[Willie the Duck]

And it's unthematic. I'd accept being able to see normally even in dim light out to 300', but darkness? What does uber darkvision have to do with twilight?


I'm personally not bothered by the 300 ft. darkvision thing. It's probably the most on-theme ability the subclass has, and it's useful while not being blatantly overpowered. Plus, it kind of makes sense that a Cleric who's devoted themselves to a god of twilight would be better at seeing in the dark than someone who just happened to be born a dwarf or whatever.

For me, this just again raises the question what exactly is a cleric/god of twilight supposed to be? If it were Nighttime or Darkness or even the Moon I'd have some idea what to think on the matter, but as it stands it's just a great big question mark.

[Dalinar]

I do think it's a little strange how people laser-focus on the 300ft darkvision range. It *is* odd that this one source of darkvision has a much longer range than standard, don't get me wrong, but how often does that actually come up? Are you frequently running encounters outdoors in places with few light sources and little blocking your line of sight? Or, like, massive cavernous spaces?

Granted, the ability to grant it to your party members is excellent (the Darkvision spell seems like terrible value for a 2nd-level anyway), and Twilight's other features are also quite good. "Broken" is a pretty subjective term. I don't think it's game-destroying in a vacuum, but you can certainly argue it's the best subclass for an already good class besides maybe Peace.

If you'd ask me how to balance it? The CD drastically increasing the number of necessary dice rolls to resolve an encounter is a game flow problem, so I'd look at just removing the d6 entirely. I'm confused why martial weapon proficiency is there (the heavy armor part at least makes sense when the CD requires you to at least be close to the thick of things). I'm extra confused what flight has to do with anything, and would probably replace that with something for that reason alone. Dunno what, though.

I also like to joke about Twilight 2 / Shepherd 6 when you want to annoy your entire table.

[Willie the Duck]

I do think it's a little strange how people laser-focus on the 300ft darkvision range. It *is* odd that this one source of darkvision has a much longer range than standard, don't get me wrong, but how often does that actually come up? Are you frequently running encounters outdoors in places with few light sources and little blocking your line of sight? Or, like, massive cavernous spaces?

Well, no, that's kind of the reason. If they just gave the archetype +1 on all dice rolls or something, we'd have a nice little answer like ('this archetype is one of the writer's pets, so-to-speak,' or 'they just wanted to boost clerics across the board, and did it through a new highly powered subtype rather than going back and fixing the class). Instead we have... well, an oddity. If we it were in isolation (not alongside the heavy armor/martial weapons and outside-normal-power-curve channel divinity) it'd just be one of those wacky things that creeps into the rules that one noodles on during slow days or something (nature clerics in plate mail, one handed quarterstaves and shields, True Strike, etc.), but together it just leaves a great big 'what exactly was the plan here?' kind of mystery, with the 300' darkvision being most notable mostly for how outside of things we've seen previously.


Granted, the ability to grant it to your party members is excellent (the Darkvision spell seems like terrible value for a 2nd-level anyway), and Twilight's other features are also quite good. "Broken" is a pretty subjective term. I don't think it's game-destroying in a vacuum, but you can certainly argue it's the best subclass for an already good class besides maybe Peace.
Nothing in the class, by itself, breaks things. Even the Twilight Sanctuary only disrupts a few types of encounters**. It's just a case of 'simply better' and it isn't clear why. Did clerics need boosting? They have a limited number of fun spells at high levels, but the solution to that is, well, more fun spells at high levels, not a rather front loaded archetype.
*maybe barring wacky shenanigans like moving an entire army within 30' of the cleric within a minute and giving thousands of soldiers a nice big temp hp bonus before the final battle
**some low level threat which does a small amount of hp damage every round for a minute to a large number of characters

[x3n0n]

Even the Twilight Sanctuary only disrupts a few types of encounters**.

**some low level threat which does a small amount of hp damage every round for a minute to a large number of characters

To be fair, it also disrupts higher-level encounters in which enduring charm or fright are intended to be a major concern. That said, Paladins do as well (especially Devotion), but it's a new, inexpensive way to do so, combined in the same feature that messes with the damage as you describe above.

[Segev]

I'm personally not bothered by the 300 ft. darkvision thing. It's probably the most on-theme ability the subclass has, and it's useful while not being blatantly overpowered. Plus, it kind of makes sense that a Cleric who's devoted themselves to a god of twilight would be better at seeing in the dark than someone who just happened to be born a dwarf or whatever.

I agree that it's not broken, but I think the darkvision spell should be at least as good. After all, you're spending build and daily resources on it, and the daily resource (a 2nd-level spell slot) is actually more valuable (and requires a higher level to get) than the once/short rest resource that can't be used on anything else.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Nothing in the class, by itself, breaks things. Even the Twilight Sanctuary only disrupts a few types of encounters**. It's just a case of 'simply better'

Twilight Sanctuary is a clear escalation in the availability of Temporary Hit Points. An Artillerist or Celestial Warlock are balanced by being odd spell casters, and not full spell casters.

Circle of Power and Twilight Sanctuary disrupts spellcasters.
Twilight Sanctuary and Spirit Guardians disrupts melee.
Twilight Sanctuary alone disrupts Vampires, and Charmed/Frightened effects.🃏
** Few Encounters means Melee, Spellcasters, Charmers or Scary Creatures**🃏

Similar to how a Shepherd Druid can summon a gaggle of creatures, buff them, and then bounce via Meld with Stone; a Twilight Cleric can summon a Twilight Sanctuary and then bounce, via Meld with Stone.

A professional Basketball Player dunking on an eight year old doesn't 'break Basketball' but it is a bit unseemly.🃏

[Willie the Duck]

Twilight Sanctuary is a clear escalation in the availability of Temporary Hit Points.
Yes, it is.


Circle of Power and Twilight Sanctuary disrupts spellcasters.
Twilight Sanctuary and Spirit Guardians disrupts melee.
Twilight Sanctuary alone disrupts Vampires, and Charm/Frightened effects.
We are using the term disrupt in different manners. By disrupt, I mean obviates the threat of a type of challenge or encounter. Temporary hit points reduce the overall attrition that opponents attacking to remove HP accomplishes*, but it does not negate the charging ogre who does well more than 1d6+cleric's level hp/round in damage, the way it would completely obviate a low-burn ongoing area-effect damage that lasts 1 minute, like I described. x3n0n rightly pointed out the charmed/frightened issue and I concede the point (any party worth its salt should already have an answer to these, but this may be a resource-cheaper solution.
*Which fits well within my conception of 'strictly better'

[LudicSavant]

One bullet point is a repeated AoE charm/frighten clear which is on its own arguably better than some Cleric subclasses' Channel Divinities (like Nature or Forge or Arcana) and I would seriously have considered it a solid subclass if that were all it did.

The other bullet point is basically an Inspiring Leader's worth of temp hp every round on unlimited creatures instead of just 6 (read: minionmancy). No concentration, no spell slot cost, nothing. This temp hp also doesn't expire, so it's not only influencing the current fight, but very likely the next one, too. This bullet point on its own would be comparable to some of the best Channel Divinities even if it only lasted 1 round (example: Life Cleric was often considered by optimizers to have one of the best Channel Divinities in the game. By max level, it'd heal up to 100 hp. Well, a single round of Twilight Cleric provides 23.5 temp hp per creature and doesn't require them to be below half hp, and it can be pre-cast and is thus more action-economy efficient).

Oh, and it has a third benefit too: filling an area with dim light, which is useful for certain synergies and optimizations.

There's no reason a Channel Divinity should do this much. Certainly not unless it's paying for it somewhere in the rest of its kit... and it's not paying for it somewhere in the rest of its kit. All of its abilities are strong, including its spell list.

[arnin77]

A professional Basketball Player dunking on an eight year old doesn't 'break Basketball' but it is a bit unseemly.🃏

Is it wrong that I want to see that on a poster?

https://i.imgflip.com/57muj9.jpg

[Aylowan]

For me, this just again raises the question what exactly is a cleric/god of twilight supposed to be? If it were Nighttime or Darkness or even the Moon I'd have some idea what to think on the matter, but as it stands it's just a great big question mark.

My take is that their theme was intended as "protectors against the scary things in the dark night" -- kinda like liminal dieties, protectors of cities or travelers, and similar. From the subclass description: "The darkness can also bring terrors, but the gods of twilight guard against the horrors of the night." To me, there's overlap with the theme of Oath of the Watchers paladins.

That's why they have heavy armor and martial weapons (though, on a cleric, I don't think those are all *that* powerful compared to default cleric armor/weapons.)
That's why they have the darkvision / initiative stuff. (Similar to the Watchers initiative boost.)
That's why they have spells like See Invisibility and Aura of Vitality.

That being said, having a coherent theme doesn't mean their Channel Divinity isn't overpowered. Obviously the class could have used more fine-tuning to be thematic without going too far.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I agree with every word in Ludic's Post, #60, of this thread.👍



We are using the term disrupt in different manners. By disrupt, I mean obviates the threat of a type of challenge or encounter.

So based off the above quote, would it be accurate to clarify that the word that best fits what you meant was the word "NEGATE" instead of "DISRUPT"?

My experience, has been that receiving just 10 THP, from round to round, from an Artillerist's Protector Canon is sufficient to boost the effectiveness of damage mitigating abilities.

A Fireball that has a damage roll of 40 points of damage can quickly be reduced to a glancing blow through the combination of THP, Absorb Elements, and making the saving throw for half damage.

A weapon attack that would do 30 points of damage is doing, substantially less once 20 points of harm are negated by Temporary Hit Points and the Interception Fighting Style.

The above are all examples of real events that happen in a Eberron campaign I play in where the Adventuring Party consists of a Psi Warrior, an Enchanter, an Artillerist, and a Storm Sorcerer.

When we successfully surprise our foes and have THP, we often take no damage from an encounter. An Artillerist might have to spend all of their 1st level spell slots to have the Protector Cannon up and running for encounters spread over a 5 hour time frame.

A Twilight Cleric just needs access to Short Rests to cover the same number of encounters with no expenditure of spell slots, and of course Twilight Sanctuary is more powerful than a Protector Cannon.

A regular supply of THP can easily disrupt the expected attrition rate of resources a party has to expend, compared to the resources expended by a PC Group that lacks regular access to THP.


Is it wrong that I want to see that on a poster?
From a perspective of Kantian Categorical Imperative Ethics....probably.....but it is a darn funny image...that I too would love to see on a poster. 🥸

[Willie the Duck]

So based off the above quote, would it be accurate to clarify that the word that best fits what you meant was the word "NEGATE" instead of "DISRUPT"?
Sure, if you prefer.


A regular supply of THP can easily disrupt the expected attrition rate of resources a party has to expend, compared to the resources expended by a PC Group that lacks regular access to THP.
Yes, Twilight Clerics wildly change the usage of HP depletion* as a significant limiter of how long a party can keep going. In a way, it is the 2.0 of the original-language Healing Spirit.
*or the mitigation of that depletion, barring that one front-liner who always gets hit for a lot (and mass healing/mitigating everyone for X doesn't change that they are hit for 2X every fight)

[Dork_Forge]

Twilight Clerics are a mess of features that are too much individually and OP altogether, especially since they break whatever conventions have come before.

The Channel Divinity

-The Temp HP calc is just insanely good, I don't understand what made them make it die+level, imo if they wanted it to do all of these things it should be just Wis mod.

-Removing Charmed and Frightened for free every round? That's crazy good against a lot of monsters

-Let's not forget that whilst the above are show stoppers, the CD is also facilitating later class features

Nerf the smurf out of the temp hp calculation, put a duration on the temp hp, and if the remove condition effect remains make it concentration. Even with all of those nerfs, it's still a good CD.

Eyes of Night

This is just nonesense, where on earth did they get 300ft from, who thought that would even be reasonable? And then allowing the Cleric to share this ridiculous distance with the party?!

Just give them Darkvision/Improve existing Darkvision a la Gloom Stalker and be done with it, if this even needs to be here at all (it doesn't)

Vigilant Blessing

Not sure why this is here, only one creature isn't bad, would rather see a duration or number of uses=Wis mod like other Clerics...

Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons

No, just no. It doesn't make thematic sense why, it just seemed like they threw the last buff on top they thought they could get away with

Steps of the Night

Also too much in my opinion and is just an odd choice

Twilight Shroud

It's like someone looked at the Artillerist's turret and thought, this... but we need to make it even more powerful.


On the topic of the CD being once per rest at early levels, that doesn't even really matter. It's going to trivialise HP depletion to the point where it will have a huge knock on effect on other encounters.

[Segev]

I agree overall with Dork_Forge, here, but I want to state that the reason for the heavy armor/martial weapons proficiency is almost certainly because EVERY domain gets either that, or bonus cantrips. So remove that, and we'd be saying the same thing about the bonus cantrips, most likely.

[PhantomSoul]

I agree overall with Dork_Forge, here, but I want to state that the reason for the heavy armor/martial weapons proficiency is almost certainly because EVERY domain gets either that, or bonus cantrips. So remove that, and we'd be saying the same thing about the bonus cantrips, most likely.

Not quite, Trickster and Knowledge get neither, and Life gets heavy armour but not martial weapons. (There may be more; I only checked the PHB Domains.)

That said, they apparently wanted this thing to be OP while in melee range, so of course they gave it martial weapons and heavy armour.

[LudicSavant]

Putting "martial weapon proficiency" or "heavy armor proficiency" on a Cleric has more psychological influence than actual influence.

They're not what makes a Twilight Cleric strong.

[Dork_Forge]

I agree overall with Dork_Forge, here, but I want to state that the reason for the heavy armor/martial weapons proficiency is almost certainly because EVERY domain gets either that, or bonus cantrips. So remove that, and we'd be saying the same thing about the bonus cantrips, most likely.

If that was the case I don't think it'd really be that contentious to get a cantrip, since it's use would be situational at best rather than a straight upgrade in armor and weapon options.

That said, this subclass already gets a lot at 1st level and there's already precedence for getting neither cantrips or HA/MW at 1st level (Like the Knowledge domain). You'd just cut out the profs and flip 8th level to potent casting, though the other features would still need to be addressed.

The fluff is what makes all of this more confusing, it doesn't really match the abilities at all. It's meant to be about providing comfort during rest and venturing into the dark to protect from threats, yet not one ability has jack to do with resting and granting an initiative bonus isn't venturing into the dark, it's preparing you for when things come out of it.

I'm not sure who wrote this domain but it makes no real sense mechanically or thematically.

[Segev]

If that was the case I don't think it'd really be that contentious to get a cantrip, since it's use would be situational at best rather than a straight upgrade in armor and weapon options.

That said, this subclass already gets a lot at 1st level and there's already precedence for getting neither cantrips or HA/MW at 1st level (Like the Knowledge domain). You'd just cut out the profs and flip 8th level to potent casting, though the other features would still need to be addressed.

The fluff is what makes all of this more confusing, it doesn't really match the abilities at all. It's meant to be about providing comfort during rest and venturing into the dark to protect from threats, yet not one ability has jack to do with resting and granting an initiative bonus isn't venturing into the dark, it's preparing you for when things come out of it.

I'm not sure who wrote this domain but it makes no real sense mechanically or thematically.

Agreed. I think it bears repeating: it seems like this was a bundle of "I want to have a bunch of powers that make fights easier," and then they decided that "Twilight" as as good a domain as any to try to justify a connection between them.

[RogueJK]

and it's not paying for it somewhere in the rest of its kit. All of its abilities are strong, including its spell list.

Yep. The fact that they get 3 of the best non-Cleric spells in the game (Faerie Fire, Greater Invisibility, and Circle of Power) is solid by itself.


Circle of Power in particular is really underappreciated, likely because it's only otherwise available to Paladins who are Level 17+, or Bards who happened to know to look for it with one of their Magical Secrets picks. So I'm guessing it doesn't get much love mostly because a lot of people have never seen it in play, or paid much attention to its spell description since it's just a Tier 4 Paladin spell. (I've only ever seen it used by Tier 3 Bards myself, in fact.)

A lot of people seem to go gaga over the Ancients Paladin aura at first read, thinking it gives nearby allies Magic Resistance, which it doesn't... Circle of Power, on the other hand, does exactly that. Plus grants Evasion.

And a Twilight Cleric gets it at 9th(!) level. Basically twice as early as the Paladins it was originally intended for.

[stoutstien]

Yep. The fact that they get 3 of the best non-Cleric spells in the game (Faerie Fire, Greater Invisibility, and Circle of Power) is solid by itself.


Circle of Power in particular is really underappreciated, likely because it's only otherwise available to Paladins who are Level 17+, or Bards who happened to know to look for it with one of their Magical Secrets picks. So I'm guessing it doesn't get much love mostly because a lot of people have never seen it in play, or paid much attention to its spell description since it's just a Tier 4 Paladin spell. (I've only ever seen it used by Tier 3 Bards myself, in fact.)

A lot of people seem to go gaga over the Ancients Paladin aura at first read, thinking it gives nearby allies Magic Resistance, which it doesn't... Circle of Power, on the other hand, does exactly that. Plus grants Evasion.

And a Twilight Cleric gets it at 9th(!) level. Basically twice as early as the Paladins it was originally intended for.

Aye. The twilight cleric looks like some of the homebrew material floating around. Not completely game shattering but it does have strong Mary Sue vibes with a side of unnecessary creep.
It's bad because it's too good in the same way shepherd druids can be.

[Segev]

Aye. The twilight cleric looks like some of the homebrew material floating around. Not completely game shattering but it does have strong Mary Sue vibes with a side of unnecessary creep.
It's bad because it's too good in the same way shepherd druids can be.

I think it's a little worse if only because it's so obviously potent. Shepherd druids... keep slipping under my radar, and require a somewhat specific play style to be as powerful as they can be. Twilight Cleric is just "open up the box and win" in design.

[stoutstien]

I think it's a little worse if only because it's so obviously potent. Shepherd druids... keep slipping under my radar, and require a somewhat specific play style to be as powerful as they can be. Twilight Cleric is just "open up the box and win" in design.

Eh. Clerics are turn key to begin with as far as full casters go. Does it make it a better caster because they have simple to apply combos compared to something like a mark of healing evoker or the summoning focused DS sorcerer?

I try to avoid making judgement on material based on sticker value. I want to see one in play in various pacing and game focus to see if needs a warning label. If anything I'm happy to see some clerics that have strong reasons to stay cleric. Easy to jump out after a certain point just because nothing really scales with more cleric.

[PhantomSoul]

Eh. Clerics are turn key to begin with as far as full casters go. Does it make it a better caster because they have simple to apply combos compared to something like a mark of healing evoker or the summoning focused DS sorcerer?

It makes it worse for what it tells us about the complete lack of care, effort or interest in quality control in the book... but at least it's easier to see it should probably just not be included in player options from the start!

[da newt]

In my last session we encountered a combat where the perfect storm of factors allowed Twilight Sanctuary to be ridiculously beneficial.

Party of lvl 3 PCs, cleric, barbarian, monk, wizard vs ~ 3 vine blights, 20 needle blights, and 5 twig blights in a building (5' passages, stairs, doors). My cleric Blessed the group as the hoards approached, and we retreated to a 2nd floor hallway to limit how many could approach at once, then once combat started, popped TS. Combat went 11 rounds, the monk went down once early (vine blight), but healing word + TS kept them up the rest of the fight, the barbarian face tanked like a boss. It was a slog, they just kept coming like a zombie movie, but we prevailed almost entirely due to the TS temp hp recharge. It was silly.

Against a mob of weak hitters, this ability really shines. Without it, I think we would have been TPKed by a hundred paper-cuts.

[Snowbluff]

Man, it feels good that there's a cleric that people can say are overpowered. Honestly, most of the PHB cleric are pretty bad for one reason or another, basically trapping new players with a "playstyle" option while not at all doing a good job supporting that one. Someone made a case for the trickster earlier, and I have to say the duplicate is awful and its good spell list doesn't work if you've the duplicate out, and if you wanted those spells you really should have played a bard or a wizard. Tempest tends to be my favorite out of those subclasses because it doesn't necessarily conflict with the normal kind of action and concentration economy the base cleric has.

Cleric also just has inherent problems are a list of spells that doesn't actually have a lot of broadly applicable spells. You have to collect a list of ones that are very situational, and lot of those spells are going to be concentration and therefore mutually exclusive with each other. Some days you just aren't going to have the foresight or information to know to have Deathward or Freedom of Movement applied to your party going into a fight. Channel Divinities tend to be the load instead of build defining, unlike some of the Paladin ones, and this meant to be equivalent to the potentially extra spell casts a day wizard or sorcerer get. Healing spells are just awful outside of a few choice ones for reasons I am sure everyone is very well aware off. Some people complain about Clerics often devolving into Bless, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Summon X bots, but these really tend to be the best option when all of your other spell prep plans just didn't line up.

So when I see Twilight Cleric, I see what is basically a life cleric that won't get laughed at at my table. That being said the die roll from the THP should be removed for being slow and as a slight nerf for lower levels. Comparing it to Healing Spirit 1.0 isn't really an apt comparison. First, it takes an action, and secondly, doesn't actually heal anyone. Healing spirit wouldn't compete with whacking or cantripping on your turn (which has varied usefulness), and you could use it to entirely remove the damage taken between fights by doing the famous merry go round after each fight for cheap. I'm not sure if THP can bring a creature back up from unconsciousness, like Healing Spirit can. On the other hand, Twilight Sanctuary is a short rest resource and reaches your team arm more easily, but I think your mileage may vary, as not every DM affords players short rests while others may give a glut of them.

[Segev]

Man, it feels good that there's a cleric that people can say are overpowered. Honestly, most of the PHB cleric are pretty bad for one reason or another, basically trapping new players with a "playstyle" option while not at all doing a good job supporting that one. Someone made a case for the trickster earlier, and I have to say the duplicate is awful and its good spell list doesn't work if you've the duplicate out, and if you wanted those spells you really should have played a bard or a wizard. Tempest tends to be my favorite out of those subclasses because it doesn't necessarily conflict with the normal kind of action and concentration economy the base cleric has.

Cleric also just has inherent problems are a list of spells that doesn't actually have a lot of broadly applicable spells. You have to collect a list of ones that are very situational, and lot of those spells are going to be concentration and therefore mutually exclusive with each other. Some days you just aren't going to have the foresight or information to know to have Deathward or Freedom of Movement applied to your party going into a fight. Channel Divinities tend to be the load instead of build defining, unlike some of the Paladin ones, and this meant to be equivalent to the potentially extra spell casts a day wizard or sorcerer get. Healing spells are just awful outside of a few choice ones for reasons I am sure everyone is very well aware off. Some people complain about Clerics often devolving into Bless, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Summon X bots, but these really tend to be the best option when all of your other spell prep plans just didn't line up.

So when I see Twilight Cleric, I see what is basically a life cleric that won't get laughed at at my table. That being said the die roll from the THP should be removed for being slow and as a slight nerf for lower levels. Comparing it to Healing Spirit 1.0 isn't really an apt comparison. First, it takes an action, and secondly, doesn't actually heal anyone. Healing spirit wouldn't compete with whacking or cantripping on your turn (which has varied usefulness), and you could use it to entirely remove the damage taken between fights by doing the famous merry go round after each fight for cheap. I'm not sure if THP can bring a creature back up from unconsciousness, like Healing Spirit can. On the other hand, Twilight Sanctuary is a short rest resource and reaches your team arm more easily, but I think your mileage may vary, as not every DM affords players short rests while others may give a glut of them.

You're the first person with demonstrated system experience and mastery that I've ever seen allege that the Cleric is underpowered. Most people with any system mastery experience seem to agree that the class as a whole is quite solid, possibly a bit overtuned. Yes, the spells you list (e.g. bless, spirit guardians) are often named as go-to choices, but that's because, as you note, they are really good.

The Twilight Cleric certainly won't get laughed away from a table, but the idea that ANY Domain would is odd to me. The Twilight Cleric sins on two fronts: it's just too many Quite Good abilities in a very front-loaded package, and its theme feels like it's actually the "Win Fights" Domain with a thin "twilight" skin applied over the top of it. Even the share-able 300 ft. darkvision, while not a problem in my mind in and of itself, is a game-changer when the cleric can share it with his archer buddy in a dark cave and let the archer buddy have a round or few of free shots with advantage against even drow. And again, most of these abilities are not, by themselves, beyond the pale. They're VERY GOOD, but not overly so. (I do think the freebie removal of conditions every round is probably pushing it to "broken" on its own, but on another chassis without other advantages this has, maybe that could still work.) The trouble is that it has all of them.

As an analogy, there's nothing overpowered about sneak attack, or flurry of blows, or ambusher (the gloomstalker extra attack), or action surge. But if you gave all of those in the first three levels to one class, that would be overpowered.

There's nothing wrong with most (if not all) of the individual things the Twilight Cleric gets in the first two levels. But all of them together is a bit much.

[Theodoxus]

Re: Cleric spells. The fact that there are so very few actually good, usable spells doesn't make the Cleric either an overly poor or good class, just boring. Outside of a few domain spells, nearly every spell kit is going to look 80-90% identical, and that's boring.

Domain spells and domain abilities help differentiate a bit, but much like Wizard, Cleric tends to suffer from sameness across most tables.

Twilight has the advantage of bringing a couple of unique mechanics to the table, and as noted, those mechanics on the same chassis is quite powerful. But their spell kit will still be 90% of a Life or War Cleric, because again, there are so few decent spells.

I'll let others decide if that's good or bad in general, but it's one reason I've not seen many times where two Clerics are appreciated (despite the fact that being able to concentrate on two different spells would actually be gonzo). Most of the time when two people come to the table with Clerics, one will switch out, thinking they don't "need that much healing". Which is really sad and short sighted.

[Snowbluff]

You're the first person with demonstrated system experience and mastery that I've ever seen allege that the Cleric is underpowered. Most people with any system mastery experience seem to agree that the class as a whole is quite solid, possibly a bit overtuned. Yes, the spells you list (e.g. bless, spirit guardians) are often named as go-to choices, but that's because, as you note, they are really good. I wouldn't go that far, and I apologize if I was being unclear. I don't mean to say that cleric is underpowered, but rather the domains tend to not be as helpful for fulfilling their "purpose" as one would expect or otherwise have gripes I think drag them down a bit, especially in the case of Life Cleric. I also think that due to the limitation of the Domain lists not going all 9 levels of spells, when combined with the sometimes lackluster efficacy of the domains, means that over time a lot of clerics feel less like their domain and are just riding on their base class's chassis.

I'm going to have to agree along the line of what Theodoxus has said as well, I guess. I think I might've ended up just saying kind of the same thing.

[Kuulvheysoon]

...

So when I see Twilight Cleric, I see what is basically a life cleric that won't get laughed at at my table. That being said the die roll from the THP should be removed for being slow and as a slight nerf for lower levels. Comparing it to Healing Spirit 1.0 isn't really an apt comparison. First, it takes an action, and secondly, doesn't actually heal anyone. Healing spirit wouldn't compete with whacking or cantripping on your turn (which has varied usefulness), and you could use it to entirely remove the damage taken between fights by doing the famous merry go round after each fight for cheap. I'm not sure if THP can bring a creature back up from unconsciousness, like Healing Spirit can. On the other hand, Twilight Sanctuary is a short rest resource and reaches your team arm more easily, but I think your mileage may vary, as not every DM affords players short rests while others may give a glut of them.

It cannot. From the PHB:



TEMPORARY HIT POINTS

Some spells and special abilities confer temporary hit points to a creature. Temporary hit points aren't actual hit points; they are a buffer against damage, a pool of hit points that protect you from injury.

When you have temporary hit points and take damage, the temporary hit points are lost first, and any leftover damage carries over to your normal hit points. For example, if you have 5 temporary hit points and take 7 damage, you lose the temporary hit points and then take 2 damage.

Because temporary hit points are separate from your actual hit points, they can exceed your hit point maximum. A character can, therefore, be at full hit points and receive temporary hit points.

Healing can't restore temporary hit points, and they can't be added together. If you have temporary hit points and receive more of them, you decide whether to keep the ones you have or to gain the new ones. For example, if a spell grants you 12 temporary hit points when you already have 10, you can have 12 or 10, not 22.

If you have 0 hit points, receiving temporary hit points doesn't restore you to consciousness or stabilize you. They can still absorb damage directed at you while you're in that state, but only true healing can save you.

Unless a feature that grants you temporary hit points has a duration, they last until they're depleted or you finish a long rest.

[LudicSavant]

I don't mean to say that cleric is underpowered, but rather the domains tend to not be as helpful for fulfilling their "purpose" as one would expect or otherwise have gripes I think drag them down a bit, especially in the case of Life Cleric.

What do you have against Life Clerics? :smallconfused:

[Snowbluff]

What do you have against Life Clerics? :smallconfused:

It's a combination of things. For starters, Cleric doesn't really get a lot of the synergistic healing spells like Healing Spirit or Good Berry, and healing isn't really a good use of your time, and this isn't mention the banality of their spell list. Life Cleric tends to reinforce the "Clerics are the healing class" mentality, which also creates the trap of "the best cleric is the life cleric because they're the best at healing!"


It cannot. From the PHB:

Thanks for the rules check!

[quindraco]

What do you have against Life Clerics? :smallconfused:

I have absolutely nothing against Life Clerics personally, but I will point out that a Shepherd Druid is quite often better at healer support than the Life Cleric, who's supposed to be the ideal healer support. The healing output of Unicorn Spirit is insane. Depending on what assumptions you make, Shepherd Druids are arguably the best healers overall, with Life Clerics in second place.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Someone made a case for the trickster earlier, and I have to say the duplicate is awful and its good spell list doesn't work if you've the duplicate out, and if you wanted those spells you really should have played a bard or a wizard.

I'm afraid this isn't accurate...of the 10 Domain spells granted by Trickery Domain, only 4 spells require Concentration, (Polymorph, Modify Memory, Dominate Person, and PWoT).

I also want to state the Harness Divine Power feature introduced by TCoE, is a nice, weaker version of Arcane Recovery, that can be used more frequently.

Effectively having five 2nd level spell slots as a 6th level cleric, enhances the spell casting facet of the class.


Re: Cleric spells. The fact that there are so very few actually good, usable spells doesn't make the Cleric either an overly poor or good class, just boring. Outside of a few domain spells, nearly every spell kit is going to look 80-90% identical, and that's boring.

This has been true, since 1e. I do think Theodoxus, that when it comes to "Generally, good Adventuring Spells that work in many different situations"..most classes have a 'common loadout'...not just the cleric class.

The cleric spell list is substantial....I rarely had the exact same spells Prepared from day to day, and the Augury and Divination spells can aid you in narrowing down your selections.

A cleric is typically one Long Rest away from having a solution to the problems that arise.

[Snowbluff]

I'm afraid this isn't accurate...of the 10 Domain spells granted by Trickery Domain, only 4 spells require Concentration, (Polymorph, Modify Memory, Dominate Person, and PWoT).


Yes, you listed the good spells on the list. That was my point, that the good additions to the list were overlapping with their class feature. I apologize if that wasn't more clear.

I did forget about the little divine arcane recovery, but that does mean that you're offloading your channel divinity into casting more spells which will probably be from the cleric base list. It's nice to have to deal with a bad Channel Divinity, but I do worry it would lead to more clerics feeling too similiar because another domain feature has been supplanted by the chassis.


I have absolutely nothing against Life Clerics personally, but I will point out that a Shepherd Druid is quite often better at healer support than the Life Cleric, who's supposed to be the ideal healer support. The healing output of Unicorn Spirit is insane. Depending on what assumptions you make, Shepherd Druids are arguably the best healers overall, with Life Clerics in second place.
I agree. Combine this with the preferable druid list for healing and I would rate that a better healing option.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Yes, you listed the good spells on the list. That was my point

Aesthetic preferences are individualized. Out of curiosity, do you not consider Charm Person, Disguise Self, Dispel Magic, and Dimension Door to be "good spells"?

Even spells that are more situational such as Mirror Image and Blink, are nice to have on a Domain List; if the situation arises, you know you are prepared.


it would lead to more clerics feeling too similiar because another domain feature has been supplanted by the chassis.

To my aesthetic sensibilities, the 5e cleric has more differentiation between the various Domains, than any version of cleric presented in other D&D editions, with the exception of 2E's Specialty priest.

I have been an "Always DM" for many years now, and in general do not play clerics when I am a player, (A custom 2E Specialty Priest was the only other cleric I played); I've been surprised at how much fun the class is to play.

Each 5e cleric PC that I have had the pleasure to referee has seemed very different from each other.