Nerfing Twilight Cleric to be merely very good instead of broken [Archive]

MaxWilson

2021-07-04, 03:00 AM

So I've seen a lot of posts around the internet about people who have banned this subclass because it can basically break the game. I agree that it definitely can break the game, or at least very severely change how it is run, but if I was a DM with someone wanting to take this class I think I would just change it instead of banning it.

My idea is as follows: When you activate your channel divinity, everyone in the area gets the temp hit points as normal. However, instead of anyone in the area automatically refreshing their temporary hit points every turn, now the Cleric must use a bonus action if they wish to refresh the temporary hit points on a character within the radius. Additionally, instead of characters being able to just automatically end fear or charm effects, anyone within the radius of the twilight sanctuary has advantage on fear and charm effect saving throws.

I think after these nerfs this is still a really good subclass and that twilight sanctuary is a fantasitc CD, and it's still probably better than the Artificer Artillerist Guardian, which is probably the next best THP granting ability. But it's not campaign breaking like the vanilla version.

Anyone have ideas about how this could be improved or think my solution is somehow flawed?

Bonus actions are cheap. If you want to bring Twilight Cleric in line with Shepherd Druid, make it a one-time temp HP grant when the Channel Divinity is first activated, instead of every round. Twilight Cleric gets 2 or eventually 3 Channel Divinities per short rest, whereas Shepherd Druid only gets one, but Shepherd Druid gets Mighty Summoner bonuses to offense, so Twilight still has more THP but Shepherd Druid has better offense.

And of course that leaves Artillerists with Protector Turrets as the temp HP-every-round guys, albeit a smallish amount of temp HP.

Unoriginal

2021-07-04, 04:47 AM

Twilight Clerics shouldn't have heavy armor proficiency, like the other Cleric subclasses focusing on caster-y things.

stoutstien

2021-07-04, 06:19 AM

Drop H armor prof and limit the the THP one way or the other. My personal fix is to limit the duration of them so that they have the niche for a big pile of THP that falls off after the fight.

Chronic

2021-07-04, 07:05 AM

The long range darkvision barely bring anything to the table. It always makes me smile when people complain about that when it's utility is so limited in actual play.
For the thp, make it 1+level if you find it too strong. That makes it a bad dip, and still relevant. Or make it concentration.
Don't deprive him of heavy armor, it's already a fairly bad option anyway. 14 dex + medium armor is the way to go for an optimized build.
I have GMed a campaign where a twilight cleric was present and played one myself in another. If you play published module it's gonna be OP, like most optimized build. If you play harder games like I do, they are good but certainly not game breaking, unlike the very, very broken peace clerics.

LudicSavant

2021-07-04, 07:19 AM

You could remove all of the temp hp from the Twilight Cleric CD, and it would still be better than some other Cleric CDs (like Forge or Nature CD).

And it's not like the Twilight Cleric is paying for their CD somewhere else in their kit. All of their features are above average.

Unoriginal

2021-07-04, 07:26 AM

Don't deprive him of heavy armor, it's already a fairly bad option anyway. 14 dex + medium armor is the way to go for an optimized build.

If it's a bad option anyway, why not remove it?

My opinion is that 14 dex is not an investment everyone wants or is able to make, and heavy armor is cheaper than dex for more AC (especially since Clerics are proficiency with shields). Also the Twilight Cleric shouldn't have all martial weapons proficiency.

Twilight Clerics having boosted magic powers isn't a problem, but they shouldn't have boosted magic powers AND added martial combat capabilities like other Clerics who don't get as much boosted magic powers as them.

da newt

2021-07-04, 07:39 AM

I'd think changing the THP to a one time when activated (and remove the roll and just use average for simplicity / speed of play) would be enough of a nerf to make it not OP but still appropriately beneficial.

Or if you prefer the recharge every round, I'd change that to +level THP every round (remove the die roll entirely).

IMO nerfing it more could seem vindictive / targeted. If you are that anti-twilight just ban the subclass outright rather than neuter it.

As for med vs heavy armor, chain comes with a cost of 13 ST for AC 16, scale costs 14 dex for AC 16, half plate costs 750 gp and 14 dex for AC 17, and plate costs 1500 gp and 15 st for AC 18 - it seems a wash to me. I prefer med.

As for 300' dark vision - I agree that it is a bit silly, but also all but irrelevant. IME, in play it's almost never better than 120' dark vision.

quindraco

2021-07-04, 08:22 AM

Chronic

2021-07-04, 11:07 AM

If it's a bad option anyway, why not remove it?

My opinion is that 14 dex is not an investment everyone wants or is able to make, and heavy armor is cheaper than dex for more AC (especially since Clerics are proficiency with shields). Also the Twilight Cleric shouldn't have all martial weapons proficiency.

Twilight Clerics having boosted magic powers isn't a problem, but they shouldn't have boosted magic powers AND added martial combat capabilities like other Clerics who don't get as much boosted magic powers as them.

Because it provide options for people. You need 15 strength to wear heavy armor properly, and those who don't reach 15 are crippled in terms of movements. Some people think it's worth it, I do not, movement is critical in D&d, and losing a third of it is a massive problem, even for a caster.
In the other hand, with dex being so powerful a stat and being synergistic with the abilities and spell list of a twilight cleric, a 14 dex investment is a pretty great deal for what you get of it. Good AC at a much lower price, better initiative, better dex saves, suddenly picking up a stealth proficiency makes a lot of sense with the dim light or darkvision shenanigans.
And twilight clerics may seem like they are good melee characters but they are not. They are short to mid range casters. The only good melee clerics are the ones with booming blades and potent cantrip. Otherwise your dpt suck and you better at doing classic cleric things.
By the way I would take the blessed strike alternate feature other the divine strike. With standard array you won't have the stats to back it up unless you sacrifice your casting stat (which is a questionable idea at best),and will have low priority for the magical weapons compared to true martial.
On the other end, blessed strike is on average fairly good, and versatile.

Unoriginal

2021-07-04, 11:16 AM

Because it provide options for people.

And my opinion is that Twilight Clerics shouldn't have that option on top of their other options.

da newt

2021-07-04, 11:25 AM

Heavy armor doesn't require Strength - the penalty for your Strength being too low is a movement speed penalty, meaning you can address the problem with movement speed solutions rather than Strength solutions, if you like. Dwarves don't even need that, they can just wear the heavy armor with Strength 8.

All true. If you are good with a movement penalty of 10 feet you can ignore the ST requirement, or you find some other way to gain speed to compensate, or you can choose a race like Dwarf for a 25' speed (only a 5 ft penalty vs most races), or go Tortle for 17 AC, or Warforged for racial +1 AC, or ...

I guess you can play a heavy armor wearing halfling or gnome cleric with 6 ST and a 15' speed if you like and still gain all the AC of the armor.

Witty Username

2021-07-04, 11:28 AM

I have heard the suggestion to just use the UA version, that is probably the easiest.

Edit: Cleric armor is not particularly relevant to effectiveness. It mostly determines whether you use dex or str as your secondary stat (15 str for heavy, 14 dex for medium. 16 in the stat if you plan on using a weapon). That being said I am not sure twilight cleric needs heavy armor. So I would not be concerned with its removal.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-04, 11:30 AM

I usually dislike offering magical items as solutions here, but I'll point out that mithral armor, which removes the Strength requirement, is an Uncommon item.

Segev

2021-07-04, 12:03 PM

Twilight Cleric is mainly a kitchen sink problem. None of its features are overpowered by themselves, but they are too much together.

In analogy, other sunglasses have a rank A, rank B or two rank C abilities, and a ribbon or few. Twilight has three Rank A abilities and a Rank B ability or few where others have ribbons.

For example, martial weapon proficiency and heavy armor proficiency arehe LEAST of their domain features, and would be rank B abilities for other sunglasses.

Dr.Samurai

2021-07-04, 12:04 PM

I love OP sunglasses :smallcool:

Damon_Tor

2021-07-04, 12:25 PM

The long range darkvision barely bring anything to the table. It always makes me smile when people complain about that when it's utility is so limited in actual play.

As for 300' dark vision - I agree that it is a bit silly, but also all but irrelevant. IME, in play it's almost never better than 120' dark vision.

I don't get it. Does your DM rule that nothing that doesn't fit on his battlemat can be interacted with? Otherwise I can't imagine why this wouldn't be helpful.

Yeah, in a dungeon darkvision of that distance isn't likely to be relevant, but in any outdoor encounter being able to shoot at an enemy 240 outside their darkvision radius is extremely powerful, or it should be if your DM isn't lazy about his encounters fitting on a battle mat. It would taken them 4 rounds of dashing just to get to a point where they can see you. How many encounters will last for 4 rounds of attacking with advantage by you and your party?

I haven't had a twilight cleric at my table yet, but I've seen gloomstalkers and drow (and drow gloomstalkers) from both sides of the DM screen and so I can definitively say that extended darkvision is extremely useful.

Gignere

2021-07-04, 12:29 PM

da newt

2021-07-04, 01:02 PM

IME - it's a rare encounter where (day or night) the two sides have clear line of sight of each other at more than 120'. Sometimes you do get lucky and find yourself in an outdoor environment where you have the high ground or there are no trees, bushes, buildings, etc and your foe is just standing out in the open.

How many of your party can effectively attack at greater than 120'? If a whole party decides to build for extra range kiting at night, it could be very effective, but most parties I've played with might have 2 PCs at most that can even touch anything beyond 120'.

* but then again, I guess every Twilight Cleric should ensure every member of their party has a light crossbow (simple weapon) ... even the guys with crap DEX can hit pretty well when the target can't even see them (ADV). It's not much damage, but it is all but risk free.

My Twilight Cleric will be buying a longbow or heavy crossbow. Good point.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-04, 01:21 PM

I don't get it. Does your DM rule that nothing that doesn't fit on his battlemat can be interacted with? Otherwise I can't imagine why this wouldn't be helpful.

Yeah, in a dungeon darkvision of that distance isn't likely to be relevant, but in any outdoor encounter being able to shoot at an enemy 240 outside their darkvision radius is extremely powerful, or it should be if your DM isn't lazy about his encounters fitting on a battle mat. It would taken them 4 rounds of dashing just to get to a point where they can see you. How many encounters will last for 4 rounds of attacking with advantage by you and your party?

I haven't had a twilight cleric at my table yet, but I've seen gloomstalkers and drow (and drow gloomstalkers) from both sides of the DM screen and so I can definitively say that extended darkvision is extremely useful.

There's a few problems with this:

-Just because your Darkvision is 300feet doesn't mean you'll see anything, it's still disadvantage on vision checks

-Even outside of dungeons, getting that kind of line of sight without some degree of cover shouldn't be trivial

-Every ranged weapon in the game is at long distance, so unless it's a party of sharpshooters you're attacking straight, not at advantage. And that's assuming no one in the party prefers the use of a ranged weapon that has a shorter long range.

-Realistically this is going to make some characters just unable to do anything unless they're built for extreme ranges (which, is a very small niche to fill), or using weapons they wouldn't use for any other reason than taking advantage of the vision e.g. Str based characters and casters using bows and crossbows with medicore to just straight up bad Dex scores.

It's just weird that it breaks the standard of what superior darkvision distance is, and it's such an extreme range that the times it does come in handy you're likely closing to less than half of that distance anyway so you can be effective at what you're doing rather than poking the hornet's nest.

MaxWilson

2021-07-04, 02:03 PM

Captain Panda

2021-07-04, 02:27 PM

MaxWilson

2021-07-04, 02:32 PM

People these days WILDLY overuse the term "break the game." It's pretty hard to break 5e.

Break the game = render aspects of play irrelevant or nearly so, in this case combat damage.

WotC took ages to figure out that Healing Spirit v1 was game-breaking but they eventually fixed it. And then Tasha's came back with Twilight Clerics which do the same thing all over again, unless the DM relentlessly focuses fire on one PC, which players tend to dislike (and generates counterplay like having that PC Dodge, so Twilight Cleric still ends up breaking the game even if the DM does focus fire--the resulting play experience isn't recognizable).

The best thing you can say about Twilight Cleric is that it's not the only way to break 5E.

Chronic

2021-07-04, 03:06 PM

Dwarves need movement solutions even when they're not wearing armor. 25' movement = the guy who can't run away from monsters.

Exactly, movement is the kind of stat that is disregarded by most people but provide so much in general. It's safety, dpr, and mobility all rolled into a stat.

For damage, honestly are your encounter that easy that a twilight cleric make the entire party unkillable? In my encounters, the foes should be able to drop a d6 hit point class who isn't using a defending ability in a turn, and unless they are idiotic beast, they will use strategy (focus the casters, gang up on a single pc, use embush and the like, and combat rarely will a be longer than 4 rounds except if the pc group is struggling). The Twilight cleric helped feel a little safer, but there was a thousand and one ways to prevent the channel divinity to provide full usefulness.

sithlordnergal

2021-07-04, 03:15 PM

I don't think the class actually needs a nerf to be honest. 1d6+Cleric Level isn't a lot of Temp HP, and it isn't all that impressive of an ability. I can see it being decent at levels 1 through 3, maybe even 4, but even then you're getting a max of 7 to 10 hp respectively. Provided you're tossing monsters that are of a decent CR at the party, then they'll eat through that Temp HP during their turn, and do some proper damage to the PC. And by decent CR I mean make sure the NPC's total CR exceeds the party's average level by at least 2. That's the only way you'll even have a dangerous encounter in the first place.

Next, do keep in mind that this is Temp HP. That means this HP cannot stack, it overrides other sources of Temp HP when its accepted, and you cannot be brought back from being knocked out with it. Sure, you can hand out between 2 to 10 Temp HP at level 4, but if a creature is downed then its not gonna do much to help them. And if you have someone using a spell like Armor of Agathys, they can't accept your Temp HP or they end up losing out on their spell.

Now, is it better than say, the Forge Cleric's CD? Yeah, but that's because the Forge Cleric has a far stronger 1st level ability. You can literally start out with either a +1 weapon or a +1 piece of armor for whoever you want to give it to. That's strong right there. Eyes of the Night may sound strong on paper, but no one is ever going to make full use of it. You're never going to need 300 feet of Darkvision, not unless you're in a very specific circumstance. Its no different then Spell Sniper or Eldritch Spear. Sure its cool to have an Eldritch Blast with a 300+ foot range, but that range is never gonna come up outside of super specific circumstances. Same with being able to share your Darkvision for an hour. Its gonna come up about as often as the spell Darkvision comes up, which is going to be "Rare" to "Never".

As for comparing this to the Shepard Druid...again, its no contest. Yes, this is technically "stronger" healing then the Shepard Druid, because the Shepard Druid can only do it once per Short Rest, they have to use a spell to do the healing, and they only give their Druid level. But keep in mind that The Sheppard Druid also gives your advantage to detect creatures within the aura, the Aura does actual healing instead of granting Temp HP, and Shepard Druids technically aren't healers to begin with. You're essentially comparing a Cleric class to a better version of the Necromancer Wizard and saying "The Cleric is a better healer than the Necromancer". Also, keep in mind that due to how the Unicorn Spirit is worded you don't have to be within its aura to gain advantage to perceive creatures within its aura, and creatures that aren't your allies do not get that benefit against you. So its sort of balanced out.

EDIT: Finally, its an okay subclass, at best, but its a Cleric subclass. Cleric...A class I am routinely unimpressed by due to how worthless their spell list is after 3rd level spells, and constantly disappoints me with how unimpressive its class abilities are.

Chronic

2021-07-04, 03:25 PM

"As for comparing this to the Shepard Druid...again, its no contest"

And you aren't speaking of the massive combat power of multiple Invocations, from action economy to body block and of course the truckload of damage.
I see nova sorcadin, nuclear wizards and summoner Shepare druid with regularity. I also DMed a peace cleric when it came out. This is the only subclass I have ever banned from my table, and i intend to keep it that way. I had to ask the player to reroll his character, he improved the party so much that it became a nightmare to balance in every pillars of play. I'm not denying twilight clerics are strong, but I'm not breaking a sweat when I see one.

MrStabby

2021-07-04, 03:39 PM

People these days WILDLY overuse the term "break the game." It's pretty hard to break 5e. Twilight clerics are strong, yes, perhaps the strongest cleric subclass, but "break the game"? How fragile are the games people are running these days? And what expectations do they come in with? Twilight clerics are strong for a cleric, but druids and wizards are still stronger. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} I think summoning pixies into team polymorph is the only example of something truly game breaking I've actually seen accused of that.

My advice? Someone wants to play a support character instead of breaking the damage meter. Let. Them. The rest of the party isn't going to have less fun because someone brought an effective support character instead of one who just casts a lot of cure wounds.

Support isn't just some monolithic thing and being too good can cause problems. If you have too good a source of temp HP then AC has its value diminished. The sword and board fighter then seems a bit of a waste next to the great weapon fighting barbarian and so on. The healer in the party never has cause to do their thing and so on. Things can be "broken" in the sense of making some other choices... less viable.

Likewise if the massive darkvision means that there are combats where some characters get to fight and others don't because the combat is resolved before they get into range.

Exactly, movement is the kind of stat that is disregarded by most people but provide so much in general. It's safety, dpr, and mobility all rolled into a stat.

I agree so hard with this. I have seen combatants so often be just short of reaching their target... or short of cover, or needing to move an extra 5ft/10f to get line of sight... or to be stuck attacking the tough fighter rather than the squishy wizard... or needing an extra 5ft of movement to force persuers to take a dash action to close the gap.

For something often considered a minor benefi it can have a pretty massive impact.

luuma

2021-07-04, 04:04 PM

I can see why this is considered broken. I think if its CD was just moderately powerful it'd still be a very strong cleric subclass. But instead of something moderate, it has Heroism, with no concentration, in a 30ft sphere, with higher THP.

However, beyond things like the glamour bard, it doesn't particularly overshadow other classes, and it doesn't prevent you from running any particular part of the game. It's just an extremely good support - which is much better than being, say, a very good single target damage dealer.

That's fine IMO - it means you can simply adjust combat (or the party's leveling speed) to fit the party's new power level. If you are worried your fighters aren't feeling the benefits of their AC, add some more damage to the encounter. If you are struggling to sneak up on the party over a distance of 300ft where they have disadvantage on perception checks, have your monsters sneak up from behind natural cover. I can't envision a scenario where this specifically breaks the game.

If you wanted a nerf, I'd say the channel divinity shouldn't affect the cleric - just its allies.

As far as I'm concerned, a much bigger problem is the two separate TCoE subclasses that give the entire party the ability to flipping teleport.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-04, 04:11 PM

Part of the Twilight issue, imho, is that it's a cleric subclass.

Sure, toss a really good subclass onto arguably the strongest chassis in the game.

MaxWilson

2021-07-04, 04:24 PM

Now, is it better than say, the Forge Cleric's CD? Yeah, but that's because the Forge Cleric has a far stronger 1st level ability. You can literally start out with either a +1 weapon or a +1 piece of armor for whoever you want to give it to. That's strong right there. Eyes of the Night may sound strong on paper, but no one is ever going to make full use of it. You're never going to need 300 feet of Darkvision, not unless you're in a very specific circumstance. Its no different then Spell Sniper or Eldritch Spear. Sure its cool to have an Eldritch Blast with a 300+ foot range, but that range is never gonna come up outside of super specific circumstances. Same with being able to share your Darkvision for an hour. Its gonna come up about as often as the spell Darkvision comes up, which is going to be "Rare" to "Never".

Don't forget that Eyes of Night is only one of three 1st level benefits the Twilight Cleric gets. Heavy armor proficiency and granting advantage on initiative are the other two. If your campaign is such that Eyes of the Night isn't useful, your DM probably starts encounters at medium-close range, which means granting advantage on initiative is going to be useful in practically every encounter.

I don't think the class actually needs a nerf to be honest. 1d6+Cleric Level isn't a lot of Temp HP, and it isn't all that impressive of an ability. I can see it being decent at levels 1 through 3, maybe even 4, but even then you're getting a max of 7 to 10 hp respectively. Provided you're tossing monsters that are of a decent CR at the party, then they'll eat through that Temp HP during their turn, and do some proper damage to the PC. And by decent CR I mean make sure the NPC's total CR exceeds the party's average level by at least 2. That's the only way you'll even have a dangerous encounter in the first place.

So let's suppose they do "some proper damage" to a PC. How much damage gets soaked by Twilight temp HP? If it's 50%, then that's like giving damage resistance to the whole party.

And we haven't even started talking yet about synergies, like Rage (or Ancestral Guardian Rage which gives resistance to the whole party) which doubles the effect of the temp HP, or Tiny Servants/animated skeletons/conjured animals/familiars which now suddenly all get 10ish HP per round too. Good luck cutting through a swarm of a dozen Tiny Servants in a Fog Cloud, all of whom are getting 10ish HP/round in temp HP. To say nothing of a good old herd of 1 gp goats (zero spell slot cost, just 20 gp for 20 goats). Normally AoEs are a good counter to swarms/mobs, but Twilight Cleric largely obviates that counter--unlike an Artillerist's Protector turret you don't even need to stay in Fireball Formation to get the benefit of the temp HP--the CD aura has a large AoE, 60' across.

Twilight Cleric looks like a class that was designed by a munchkin on a power trip, with no concern for balance w/rt cleric subclasses outside of Tasha's. The best thing you can say about it is that it's not necessarily more powerful than Peace Cleric.

Chronic

2021-07-04, 04:58 PM

Mate if you use 1 gp goat in combat, I don't think that the Twilight cleric is the problem in your games XD.

Sception

2021-07-04, 05:56 PM

It feels overtuned to me, yeah. Personally, I would make the CD use your reaction to trigger. That may be too heavy a nerf, but it still lands significantly closer to the mark than the published version.

I would also remove the bonus proficiencies & trade divine strike for potent spellcasting, but that's for flavor reasons, not balance. Light/darkness/twilight seems to me to be a more magical & less martial theme.

At the very least, remove the heavy armor proficiency. I could kind of accept a twighlight cleric sporting a rapier or paired scimitars, but plate armor is not evening wear.

luuma

2021-07-04, 06:06 PM

or Tiny Servants/animated skeletons/conjured animals/familiars which now suddenly all get 10ish HP per round too. Good luck cutting through a swarm of a dozen Tiny Servants in a Fog Cloud, all of whom are getting 10ish HP/round in temp HP. To say nothing of a good old herd of 1 gp goats (zero spell slot cost, just 20 gp for 20 goats). Normally AoEs are a good counter to swarms/mobs, but Twilight Cleric largely obviates that counter--unlike an Artillerist's Protector turret you don't even need to stay in Fireball Formation to get the benefit of the temp HP--the CD aura has a large AoE, 60' across.

I feel like the other counter is the DM saying "the 20 goats run off at the first sign of danger" or "the enemy walks over the tiny servants and starts hitting you".

If a player pulls some nonsense like this, I'm sure they'd be happy with me pulling some nonsense in return. And fireball, for example, would still clear the stage completely in both cases.

Twilight Cleric shouldn't be soaking anything close to 50% damage without some significant party-wide cooperation - or, at least, it shouldn't be doing so against smart foes. Smart foes will just pick one target, and focus everything on it. In that case, blocking 10 damage is quite puny - especially since that's at like 7th level. A deadly encounter for a party of four (cr 11) will do about thrice that to a single target - but most parties have more players or npcs than that.

Still some bull though, considering it also has an immunity to charm/fear, and the whole thing takes no concentration. So I'd maintain that it's OP, but I don't think it's gamebreaking.

LudicSavant

2021-07-04, 06:08 PM

To give perspective on just how overtuned it is, you could literally make the Channel Divinity give no temp HP at all and the subclass still would have been better than some other Cleric subclasses.

Seriously, without the temp HP, its Channel Divinity still wouldn't be bottom tier (it'd be better than stuff like Forge and Nature CD). And all of its other features are well above average.

So when you add on the fact that it gives a whopping Inspiring Leader-size non-expiring giant-radius temp hp bonus every turn and potentially every combat on top of that, yeah you better believe it's overtuned. That's stronger than the very best pre-Tasha's Channel Divinities, and it's not paying for it elsewhere in its kit at all. Perma-advantage on initiative, a great spell list, non-concentration flight, AoE cover bonuses, curing charms and fears on the cheap, this is all great stuff on its own.

So: Is it "broken?" Well... broken's a word that I personally 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 much stronger than it should be, yes.

stoutstien

2021-07-04, 07:02 PM

sithlordnergal

2021-07-04, 07:21 PM

Don't forget that Eyes of Night is only one of three 1st level benefits the Twilight Cleric gets. Heavy armor proficiency and granting advantage on initiative are the other two. If your campaign is such that Eyes of the Night isn't useful, your DM probably starts encounters at medium-close range, which means granting advantage on initiative is going to be useful in practically every encounter.

I and every single other DM I've played with starts encounters at medium/close range. The general rule I and every DM I've played with use is you can't interact/shoot at things off the battlemap unless you can move to them yourself. I.E. once a creature gets off the battle map, they have escaped. No more shooting them, no more attacking them, spells can't reach them, ect., unless you can move right next to them on your round. If you can't make it to your target in that round, then they have 100% escaped and unless you want to go into a chase scene and risk Exhaustion levels due to chase mechanics, there's nothing you can do. As for the size of battlemaps, I think the largest I've used was maaaybe 250 to 300 feet? Most of my maps are only about 120 to 140 feet wide and long.

As for the advantage and heavy armor: Heavy Armor is really nice, but I don't think its such a huge deal that it makes the subclass anything special. In order to really make the best use out of Heavy Armor and get astronomical levels of AC you need the Defense Fighting Style and Shield.

As for the Advantage, ehh its advantage on initiative for one person. Honestly, Wild Magic Sorcerers should be getting that automatically with every encounter via their Tides of Chaos. So again, not all that game breaking or OP.

I'd still consider those two abilities to be weaker then the ability to turn any weapon or piece of non-magical armor into a +1 item. That actually can trivialize tons of encounters, especially at lower tiers.

So let's suppose they do "some proper damage" to a PC. How much damage gets soaked by Twilight temp HP? If it's 50%, then that's like giving damage resistance to the whole party.

And we haven't even started talking yet about synergies, like Rage (or Ancestral Guardian Rage which gives resistance to the whole party) which doubles the effect of the temp HP, or Tiny Servants/animated skeletons/conjured animals/familiars which now suddenly all get 10ish HP per round too. Good luck cutting through a swarm of a dozen Tiny Servants in a Fog Cloud, all of whom are getting 10ish HP/round in temp HP. To say nothing of a good old herd of 1 gp goats (zero spell slot cost, just 20 gp for 20 goats). Normally AoEs are a good counter to swarms/mobs, but Twilight Cleric largely obviates that counter--unlike an Artillerist's Protector turret you don't even need to stay in Fireball Formation to get the benefit of the temp HP--the CD aura has a large AoE, 60' across.

Twilight Cleric looks like a class that was designed by a munchkin on a power trip, with no concern for balance w/rt cleric subclasses outside of Tasha's. The best thing you can say about it is that it's not necessarily more powerful than Peace Cleric.

Lol, its not going to be soaking up even 50% of the damage. Lets say the party is at level 4, and there are 5 party members. If I wanted to have a dangerous encounter for a party that size that are all level 4, I'd probably toss an Air Elemental, Mage, and about 3 Zombies or Skeletons for support. At level 4, the max Temp HP that you can give your allies is 10. The Air Elemental deals an average of 14 damage with 1 attack, and can attack twice. The Twilight Cleric's Temp HP will absorb about 35% of the damage from the Air elemental, but there's still the Mage and 3 Zombies/Skeletons that can go to deal more damage.

As for synergies, Barbarians are in a special case. Their job is to soak up as much damage via their HP as possible, so not really an issue there. I'd say that is working as intended. Next, given this is a level 4 party, they actually don't have access to Tiny Servants, Conjured Animals, or Animated Undead. The Familiars can get it, but they tend to have extremely low HP and unless you're dealing with a Chainlock, they can't really do anything outside of provide the Aid action in combat. At level 5 and beyond when they do have access to such creatures, Fireball. Creatures have to end their turn within a 30ft Radius of the Cleric, and at most they can get 11 to 26 Temp HP. Fireball has a 20ft Radius, so you're gonna catch the Cleric and a few others in it, and it deals an average of 28 damage. Not only is that going to eat through all that Temp HP in one shot, but for most of the time it'll still kill the summoned/animated creatures if they fail their Dex saves. And as long as you're not tossing a single monster at the party and expecting it to be a deadly encounter, then you should have plenty of extra mooks to send it once that Temp HP is gone/lowered.

Finally, if your DM is letting you buy a herd of goats and letting you use that in combat, your DM is allowing far stronger cheese than what a Twilight Cleric can ever hope to achieve.

neonchameleon

2021-07-04, 07:26 PM

IMO the Twilight Cleric is merely very good instead of broken unless you combine it with e.g. a necromancer wizard.

It's seriously easy to overrate how good temp HP spread widely are. Seriously, enemies with any sense should be focus firing. If they are then in the first round (and actions get less important round by round) then for enemies without AoE damage at level 6 you're spending your first round action for an average of a 9.5hp buffer on whoever's taking the focus fire. Given that that's about what a life cleric of the same level gets out of a first level spell and bonus action this is not a very good trade. For that matter the channel divinity doesn't scale very well (or is OP at low level) - and I'd say that by about 6th level the Life Cleric's "Heal Level * 5hp split how you decide has overtaken it. The Twilight Cleric needs to channel divinity as their first action while the life cleric can open by shutting enemies down. And life cleric mass healing not only stacks but can be applied to people who need it - and can get people back onto their feet and back in the fight.

Does that mean that the Twilight Cleric isn't sky blue in the rating system? No. It's very powerful and a little too much. But it's less powerful than the Cleric of Peace and the class features don't overwhelm the spellcasting

And that 1d6hp is there because otherwise the channel divinity becomes weak at low levels. I think they got it backwards tbh. It should be 2d6 temp hit points to a number of characters each round equal to your level.

MrStabby

2021-07-04, 07:30 PM

Don't forget the spell list. Circle of power is one of those spells that make bards so good by sniping it. Not a bad pick on the whole line up.

The whole spell list is kind of insanely good.

1st Faerie Fire, Sleep
3rd Moonbeam, See Invisibility
5th Aura of Vitality, Leomund's Tiny Hut
7th Aura of Life, Greater Invisibility
9th Circle of Power, Mislead

Faerie Fire is often great and situationally awesome at all levels. Sleep is absolutely dominating in low levels, and gets a bit of a boost on a class that has turn undead.

Moonbeam is a solid AoE DoT spell; it does somewhat overlap with Spirit Guardians but you sometimes like the range... and its lower level.

Aura of vitality - one of the best healing spells in the game, a solid use of a bonus action and even better if you don't get access to Tasha's optional rules that give you this spell.

Leomund's tiny hut - arguably the most powerful, game breaking spell on this list. Certainly a very nice spell to get access to.

Greater invisibility is an awesomely good spell, somewhat offset by the fact you are probably making fewer attacks than manay characters - though with an attack action and a spiritual weapon attack it isn't entirely moot. Add to that that it gives a utility aspect and a function the class is somewhat weak on and it is clearly awesome.

Circle of power is, as you note, awesome as well.

This kind of set of domain spells would be powerful on a subclass where the domain spells were the main attraction (like light cleric, or trickery cleric). This gets both a list of this quality and other great features.

LudicSavant

2021-07-04, 07:38 PM

Don't forget the spell list.

I mentioned the spell list in my post. :smallconfused:

sithlordnergal

2021-07-04, 07:41 PM

The whole spell list is kind of insanely good.

1st Faerie Fire, Sleep
3rd Moonbeam, See Invisibility
5th Aura of Vitality, Leomund's Tiny Hut
7th Aura of Life, Greater Invisibility
9th Circle of Power, Mislead

Faerie Fire is often great and situationally awesome at all levels. Sleep is absolutely dominating in low levels, and gets a bit of a boost on a class that has turn undead.

Moonbeam is a solid AoE DoT spell; it does somewhat overlap with Spirit Guardians but you sometimes like the range... and its lower level.

Aura of vitality - one of the best healing spells in the game, a solid use of a bonus action and even better if you don't get access to Tasha's optional rules that give you this spell.

Leomund's tiny hut - arguably the most powerful, game breaking spell on this list. Certainly a very nice spell to get access to.

Greater invisibility is an awesomely good spell, somewhat offset by the fact you are probably making fewer attacks than manay characters - though with an attack action and a spiritual weapon attack it isn't entirely moot. Add to that that it gives a utility aspect and a function the class is somewhat weak on and it is clearly awesome.

Circle of power is, as you note, awesome as well.

This kind of set of domain spells would be powerful on a subclass where the domain spells were the main attraction (like light cleric, or trickery cleric). This gets both a list of this quality and other great features.

To be fair, Clerics don't have that great of a spell list anyway. So I see that as more like a bandaid then anything else. All their good spells are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells, and none of them scale particularly well. After that, Cleric spells tend to be lack luster at best. That's not to say there aren't a few spells that stand out, Banishment, Death Ward, and Mass Cure Wounds are all excellent spells. But most of the Cleric's spell list after 3rd level is kinda useless. I've been playing/DMing DnD for years, and I do quite a lot of high tier play where people have access to 8th and 9th level spells. I don't think I've ever seen players use Divination, same with spells like Scrying, Hallow, Commune, or Holy Weapon.

MaxWilson

2021-07-04, 08:27 PM

If a player pulls some nonsense like this, I'm sure they'd be happy with me pulling some nonsense in return. And fireball, for example, would still clear the stage completely in both cases.

In that specific case, yes, sort of. Depends on level and saves and formation, of course--the THP will ensure that about a quarter of those targeted survive. But yes, if Fireball is what you expect your opponent to use then 22 + THP zombies are a better bet than Tiny Servants.

Captain Panda

2021-07-05, 12:57 AM

To be fair, Clerics don't have that great of a spell list anyway. So I see that as more like a bandaid then anything else. All their good spells are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells, and none of them scale particularly well.

Well, except Spirit Guardians. That's basically the cleric spell. What a spell it is.

But yeah, the people here {Scrubbed} coming up with convoluted house rule nerfs for twilight clerics, man, I just don't get it. Have you never played at a table with effective characters before? I'm not even talking about maximum-cheese coffeelock stuff, here. A twilight cleric is no stronger than a dozen other existing builds. It has a good channel divinity, it's very effective. It's amazingly effective if for some reason your monsters are unable to pierce the temps if they focus fire. Though frankly, if your monster team can't break through the 6-11 temps on someone at level 5, your party is unlikely to be sweating too hard to begin with.

Let's assume a party of four level 6 characters, one of whom is a twilight cleric. 2-12 temporary hp on the party each round. Let's even assume it's the full 12. Your fighter now has 12 temporary hp. Let's assume a single enemy of cr7, such as a giant monkey. A single enemy is typically a pretty easy challenge compared to a group of smaller enemies, so this is a totally reasonable kid-gloves encounter. If the monkey hits twice (+9 to hit, not an outlandish scenario), the average damage is 44. You blocked a little of it, but still took 32 damage. The game has not broken, you simply have a single character with a strong defensive tool. Frankly, it's nice to have a cleric out there who is actually good at supporting a party now.

Let's give the best scenario for a twilight cleric here and add a shepherd druid to the party. Sure, that's a crazy effective combo, but is it unbeatable? If the druid summons animals (and you, as the DM, get to pick them), let's assume something standard like wolves. 15 hp, add about 9 temps, so you have 24. A fireball landing in the group of wolves still instantly kills any who fail the save.

I am genuinely perplexed. What is the problem here? Are clerics supposed to just be there to upcast cure wounds? Is that what people see as balanced, and anything beyond that level of effectiveness is too much? Is that how clerics at your tables are played? If so, and you balance assuming one member of the party is going to be kind of... I mean, not to be rude, but ineffective, that seems like the real issue. A person bringing a functional character to the table should not suddenly break your game. Twilight clerics are effective, they're good, but they are not pixiemorph, they aren't a simulacrum chain. If you can't figure out how to challenge a group because they have a small amount of temp. hp each round, I think it's because you aren't trying.

MaxWilson

2021-07-05, 01:21 AM

Let's assume a party of four level 6 characters, one of whom is a twilight cleric. 2-12 temporary hp on the party each round. Let's even assume it's the full 12. Your fighter now has 12 temporary hp. Let's assume a single enemy of cr7, such as a giant monkey. A single enemy is typically a pretty easy challenge compared to a group of smaller enemies, so this is a totally reasonable kid-gloves encounter. If the monkey hits twice (+9 to hit, not an outlandish scenario), the average damage is 44. You blocked a little of it, but still took 32 damage.

Hitting twice is only about 25% likely against an AC 19ish target, so let's say instead the Giant Ape hits once for 21 HP, 12 of which gets absorbed by THP. That's better than Rage resistance. If the Twilight Cleric precasts Warding Bond it's all absorbed by the 24 THP on the cleric + target, and now even on the rare rounds when King Kong hits twice, the party still takes minimal damage.

And the Twilight cleric also has Aura of Vitality as a domain spell so they're also great at healing damage after combat.

Compare the Twilight Cleric's ability to largely negate Giant Ape damage for a whole combat (call it 60 HP damage prevented) to a Forge Cleric's +1 to AC for somebody in the party, which might save 10ish HP for somebody, or boost damage by 20% or so, and your scenario is illustrating exactly why Twilight Cleric is so powerful compared to other Clerics.

Captain Panda

2021-07-05, 02:11 AM

Compare the Twilight Cleric's ability to largely negate Giant Ape damage for a whole combat (call it 60 HP damage prevented) to a Forge Cleric's +1 to AC for somebody in the party, which might save 10ish HP for somebody, or boost damage by 20% or so, and your scenario is illustrating exactly why Twilight Cleric is so powerful compared to other Clerics.

But it's not apples to apples. You're comparing a resource used that grants a boost to temps to a permanent +1 ac, and given how AC works in this edition, +1 ac is far from weak in comparison. Armor class has accelerating returns, the more you have, the more value it has, up until the point something has to crit to hit you at which point value ceases entirely. For a lot of builds I'd rather have +1 ac than refreshing temps.

And why is 19ac the target you set? Unless you have a party of optimizers (and people like that aren't the ones complaining about twilight clerics here, let's be real), you probably have a couple of much softer targets for a huge creature to slam, greatly increasing the chance of landing a double hit. 6-12 temps isn't nothing, but the effect is being wildly oversold here.

I can see it being "broken" only if you have a group of small enemies who attack the party who evenly distribute their damage so as not to pierce the temps. I do not see that as a reasonable assumption even without a twilight cleric being present.

People aren't imagining that the temps stack, are they? I'm still flummoxed. This just isn't a big deal. It's an effective ability. I'd go so far as to say it's the most effective channel divinity. That doesn't make it broken. If I had to pick a twilight cleric in my party for an important fight or a moon/shepherd druid, it isn't even a contest. I'd extend that to a lot of builds, actually. Twilight clerics are good, but this reminds me of all the rage over heat metal. It's a good spell, it's great at what it does. It is not (and twilight clerics are not) broken.

I'm starting to think a lot of DMs just say "broken" when they mean "I find this feature annoying."

MrStabby

2021-07-05, 03:15 AM

To be fair, Clerics don't have that great of a spell list anyway. So I see that as more like a bandaid then anything else. All their good spells are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level spells, and none of them scale particularly well. After that, Cleric spells tend to be lack luster at best. That's not to say there aren't a few spells that stand out, Banishment, Death Ward, and Mass Cure Wounds are all excellent spells. But most of the Cleric's spell list after 3rd level is kinda useless. I've been playing/DMing DnD for years, and I do quite a lot of high tier play where people have access to 8th and 9th level spells. I don't think I've ever seen players use Divination, same with spells like Scrying, Hallow, Commune, or Holy Weapon.

Your base cleric is a prefectly good class, even with the slightly poor spell list. This just shows how good they can be with a very strong spell list.

Sometimes it is difficult to judge the mid tier list - banishment is obviously excellent for example, but doesn't always get as much play as you might expect because Spirit Guardians from a level 4 slot is so powerful. For this purpose, I would say that represents a good higher level spell. And it isn't like banishment loses its shine either when upcasting. Likewise animate dead from higher level spell slots for an undead horde can sometimes be effective.

I would add on top that the cleric spell list has recieved some possible boosts. Summon Celestial is a solid level 5 spell that is pretty awesome from a level 6 spell slot as well.

I would agree with not seeing some of your high level spells, but not others. Commune sees some play as does Hallow. Scrying less so and Holy Weapon is relatively rare - undeservedly rare in my opinion.

I think that part of the Twilight list's strength is the number of spells that cover very different bases. Something like Greater Invisibility kind of overlaps with Holy Weapon (single target buff to offensive power) but doesn't replace it. On the other hand there is not really anything on the cleric list that fulfils a similar function as see invisability or faerie fire... or even Leomund's tiny hut.

SharkForce

2021-07-05, 03:57 AM

one way of playing the game - arguably, the *recommended* way of playing the game, since it is presented as the standard in the core books - is to have the party go through multiple relatively simple challenges until they are worn down.

in much the same way that people being able to heal hundreds of HP across the party with minimal resources entirely removes that style of play from having any functioning, giving the entire party absolutely absurd amounts of temporary HP negates that style of play. it takes encounters that otherwise would be a drain on resources, and makes them trivial such that no significant resources need to be spent.

even worse, it takes that scenario that is at least *potentially* interesting (good choices and good luck might influence things) to a place where it doesn't matter if you make good decisions or have bad luck, because you're so far beyond the encounter's ability to threaten you that it doesn't matter. you shouldn't bother trying to figure out the best place to use spell slots or superiority dice, just cast your cantrip or do a regular attack, spending anything on the encounter is a waste.

it changes the game so that the only encounters that matter are the ones where you are facing the hardest encounters. anything less is just a tedious way to suck the fun out of the game.

the channel divinity breaks the game in a very real way for many groups.

then you add in that, by the way, not only is it breaking that style of play, but it is *also* incredibly strong. sure, a fireball will do a lot. except, you know, that fireball is also doing 1/3 less than it normally would, assuming it happens at level 5. if people save, the fireball goes from dealing 14 points to dealing around 7. if they have resistance somehow, it might not have even broken the THP. and here's a question: why MUST every enemy have fireball to threaten the party now? the game wasn't like that before. you didn't NEED to put in a fireball-spamming wizard just to clear off the ridiculous amount of temporary hit points the party are gaining.

add on an incredibly powerful exploration ability (and yes, being able to see farther *is* a powerful ability, and the fact that many DMs nerf it by ignoring it doesn't mean it wasn't a problem in the first place; the fact that the party should be able to set up ambushes consistently is a MASSIVE benefit. add on that, as mentioned, it isn't like any of their other abilities aren't also excellent, and slap it all onto one of the more powerful classes in the game, and no... this is not a reasonable subclass.

it is not necessarily the most broken subclass. in some styles of play, where the party is only ever facing triple-deadly encounters, it might not even be that much of a big deal. but it simply removes certain challenges from being significant, multiplies other powerful abilities like resistances or extremely high armour class to be even more powerful beyond what anything else remotely similar does, and makes even challenging fights much easier than they would be without the twilight cleric.

this is not good design, and quite frankly, it doesn't add anything important to the game. if this subclass had never existed, we would be missing out on nothing worth mentioning.

MoiMagnus

2021-07-05, 04:50 AM

stoutstien

2021-07-05, 05:42 AM

I mentioned the spell list in my post. :smallconfused:

For some reason I read it as a great spell caster. Darn scrunched up text on phone.

What's your opinion on peace domain? All n all twilight is powerful and could be about as troublesome as a Shepard druid for some tables but I see peace as a corner stone that could turn some parties into blenders.

Gignere

2021-07-05, 05:46 AM

I'm still unsure why anybody though that was a good idea to roll a d6 at the end of each turn because of this ability. But maybe that's just me that find this part annoying (or at least used to find it annoying up until our GM replaced it by a +3).

It should probably be "proficiency bonus" (or arguably "Wisdom modifier") instead of the d6. And if you find the TC too good, you could probably even remove the d6 completely (so just "Cleric level" THP).

At our table we roll the d6 once and that’s the temp hps restored each turn wheb you end your turn in the aura. In this campaign we’ve just started at level 3 so haven’t seen the higher level synergies of the twilight cleric yet but the DM has challenged us with even with the twilight channel divinity. He’s been real good in exploiting the fact that we need to be 30 feet to the cleric.

Catching us in a fireball, since we’re in fireball formation or having enemies positioned so if we need to melee it we need to decide whether or not to leave the aura. Doesn’t seem that OP yet at level 3.

Hael

2021-07-05, 06:05 AM

WotC took ages to figure out that Healing Spirit v1 was game-breaking but they eventually fixed it. And then Tasha's came back with Twilight Clerics which do the same thing all over again, unless the DM relentlessly focuses fire on one PC, which players tend to dislike (and generates counterplay like having that PC Dodge, so Twilight Cleric still ends up breaking the game even if the DM does focus fire--the resulting play experience isn't recognizable).

That I think is the biggest problem with this class and the related Peace. Namely that the DM has to drop all verisimilitude and focus fire one target (for the Peace its the exact opposite, you need no save auras and no save aoes to challenge a parties resource). In campaigns like the ones I tend to play in, that's not a problem, b/c its much more wargamey than most tables. However its a bit immersion breaking when 2 int creatures are ignoring the target in front of them, and instead beelining towards a target in the back, simply b/c that has less AC and so their combined efforts might punch through the temphp barrier, even if it means certain death for them.

Of course this is easily countered (dodge, misty step, various reactions and cc) and so there is a sort of metagaming affair where the DM has to counter the counter, and so forth.

MaxWilson

2021-07-05, 06:11 AM

For some reason I read it as a great spell caster. Darn scrunched up text on phone.

What's your opinion on peace domain? All n all twilight is powerful and could be about as troublesome as a Shepard druid for some tables but I see peace as a corner stone that could turn some parties into blenders.

Peace is overrated to some degree. It will blunt certain kinds of threats, so if your DM runs campaigns where those are the only serious threats it's great (although the flavor and mechanics are still downright awful--imagine someone is about to take psychic damage from Geas or Mental Prison. How does someone teleporting within 5' of you save you from taking that psychic damage, and what does that have to do with peace as a theme anyway?).

Constraints on Peace:

It has only moderate duration, has to be saved for when threats are imminent.

Until level 17, has only a 30' range (60' at level 17), so doesn't work against PCs who get isolated, e.g. grappled by a dragon.

Costs a reaction to use the damage prevention ability, so doesn't really work against small groups with multiattack or mobs. Good against solos.

Damage is shared, not prevented (although level 17 does grant resistance).

Protection against status effects is minimal (d4, once per turn).

Sharing damage leaves you in Fireball Formation and makes you more vulnerable to AoEs like Mind Blast.

I see "Peace" cleric bonds (should have been called Order cleric) as a win-more type of thing: they'll let you take a fight you were going to win anyway, and win it more reliably, especially against a solo creature with poor mobility. They'll minimize the chance of someone dying die to poor dice. But they won't let you take on a qualitatively different threat than you were already capable of, they have action economy costs, and a smart enemy can also counterplay your bond fairly easily.

I've run lots of adventures where Peace clerics wouldn't have been particularly good or useful, compared to another class like e.g. Lore Bard or Shepherd Druid or even Sharpshooter Samurai.

Verdict: an intensely annoying and inappropriate class but not a game changer from a power perspective, in Combat As War campaigns. Much stronger in Combat As Sport campaigns because of the win-more effects.

That I think is the biggest problem with this class and the related Peace. Namely that the DM has to drop all verisimilitude and focus fire one target (for the Peace its the exact opposite, you need no save auras and no save aoes to challenge a parties resource). In campaigns like the ones I tend to play in, that's not a problem, b/c its much more wargamey than most tables. However its a bit immersion breaking when 2 int creatures are ignoring the target in front of them, and instead beelining towards a target in the back, simply b/c that has less AC and so their combined efforts might punch through the temphp barrier, even if it means certain death for them.

Of course this is easily countered (dodge, misty step, various reactions and cc) and so there is a sort of metagaming affair where the DM has to counter the counter, and so forth.

Yeah, there's definitely a negative impact on either challenge or roleplaying.

Side note: I wouldn't say Peace requires no-save AoEs to counter, just 20% or so more AoEs. Hold Person IV or V, Mind Blast, Fear, etc. remains cheap and effective with or without an extra d4 bonus die from a Peace Cleric. A 10th level party fighting five CR 4 Neogi Masters is looking at ~45 Wisdom saving throws vs. paralysis or domination over the course of three rounds. Assume half of those saves don't have to be made because the party kills or disables the neogi in question first. That still leaves about twenty saves, and roughly 8-12 failures, depending on Dave proficiencies. Peace Bond's d4 will reduce that to 6-10 failures, which isn't terrible but isn't huge either compared to e.g. Counterspell capability, or a Devotion paladin's aura, or good counterplay such as Pyrotechnics/Fog Cloud to completely shut down all 45 saves (forcing the Neogi to switch strategies to e.g. Fear, which has its own counter-counterplay).

MrStabby

2021-07-05, 06:34 AM

Peace is overrated to some degree. It will blunt certain kinds of threats, so if your DM runs campaigns where those are the only serious threats it's great (although the flavor and mechanics are still downright awful--imagine someone is about to take psychic damage from Geas or Mental Prison. How does someone teleporting within 5' of you save you from taking that psychic damage, and what does that have to do with peace as a theme anyway?).

Constraints on Peace:

It has only moderate duration, has to be saved for when threats are imminent.

Until level 17, has only a 30' range (60' at level 17), so doesn't work against PCs who get isolated, e.g. grappled by a dragon.

Costs a reaction to use the damage prevention ability, so doesn't really work against small groups with multiattack or mobs. Good against solos.

Damage is shared, not prevented (although level 17 does grant resistance).

Protection against status effects is minimal (d4, once per turn).

Sharing damage leaves you in Fireball Formation and makes you more vulnerable to AoEs like Mind Blast.

I see "Peace" cleric bonds (should have been called Order cleric) as a win-more type of thing: they'll let you take a fight you were going to win anyway, and win it more reliably, especially against a solo creature with poor mobility. They'll minimize the chance of someone dying die to poor dice. But they won't let you take on a qualitatively different threat than you were already capable of, they have action economy costs, and a smart enemy can also counterplay your bond fairly easily.

I've run lots of adventures where Peace clerics wouldn't have been particularly good or useful, compared to another class like e.g. Lore Bard or Shepherd Druid or even Sharpshooter Samurai.

Verdict: an intensely annoying and inappropriate class but not a game changer from a power perspective, in Combat As War campaigns. Much stronger in Combat As Sport campaigns because of the win-more effects.

I think your example of grappling a creature and pulling it away shows just how powerful it is. Emboldening bond makes then harderto grapple in the first place. +d4 isn't huge but it is enough to make a diference. Then when you are grappled, someone can take damage to help you break free and teleport away. And the whole tactic of isolating one person and taking them down works a lot less well when damage can be shared.

And then there are the little things - emoldening bond helping with counterspell or your own dispel magic. Sticking it on a mark of warding dwarf and you can teleport round like a lunatic, tanking so many minor attacks on armour of agathys and dealing loads of damage.

MaxWilson

2021-07-05, 06:36 AM

I think your example of grappling a creature and pulling it away shows just how powerful it is. Emboldening bond makes then harderto grapple in the first place. +d4 isn't huge but it is enough to make a diference. Then when you are grappled, someone can take damage to help you break free and teleport away. And the whole tactic of isolating one person and taking them down works a lot less well when damage can be shared.

You said it yourself: d4 isn't huge. Usually doesn't make a difference. So yes, this shows how powerful it is(n't). Incrementally good, but overrated, not a gamechanger.

And then after that, damage can no longer be shared because you don't have enough allies within 30' or 60'. (Also, the mental image of an ally teleporting in to soak 15 points of dragon claw damage, and then taking 20d6 falling damage, is very funny to me. Thanks for that laugh.)

And then there are the little things - emoldening bond helping with counterspell or your own dispel magic. Sticking it on a mark of warding dwarf and you can teleport round like a lunatic, tanking so many minor attacks on armour of agathys and dealing loads of damage.

This doesn't work.

Note that Armor of Agathys only works when you're hit by a melee attack. It doesn't proc off of damage transfer. "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." That's not a melee hit.

In theory you could try the opposite, using other PCs to soak damage after the AoA dwarf provokes an opportunity attack, and that will be fun but not powerful per se because the monsters can choose to ignore your provocations.

stoutstien

2021-07-05, 07:00 AM

luuma

2021-07-05, 07:07 AM

I expect Peace Domain 6th is exactly as good as it looks. A feature that allows you to share out damage among anyone in a little group is absolutely exceptional and makes your party almost impossible to focus down. Imagine if you forced your party to spread their damage out - and how much riskier each combat would become.

Yes, theoretically, a relatively niche set of circumstances could isolate a single member of the party from the people they're Emboldening Bonded to. But even in that case, one of the bonded creatures can likely make it within 30 feet of the isolated one. At which point they can bonk themselves on the head, allowing the isolated party member to teleport back to perfect safety as a reaction.

It is insane that the feature doesn't require the damage to come from a hostile source, because that capability is actually extremely strong! Love how the peace domain is the only class in the game that encourages self harm lmao

MaxWilson

2021-07-05, 07:08 AM

Funny I see twilight as the "win more encounters you would already win but easier and with less resources expended" option. It does a lot of things well but those are also things most parties will want covered (THP sources, edge in initiative, DV, condition removal/immunity). Peace even as a dip is a force multiplier. A D4 isn't much but when you stack it on other dice manipulation effects it becomes a monster.
Peace is strong as a class but could be flat out of abusable as a dip for someone who already has ways to stack up the dice. I always rate dips as more jarring to the system as a strong single class. At least Twilight has a reason to take it all the way to the top or near it.

I guess I agree about Twilight also being "win more", but the difference is that Twilight also partially negates attrition, which is a gameplay aspect that many 5E adventures seem to rely on. (Mine tend not to, but I don't use Tasha's anyway so for me it's a moot point.)

Good point about dipping. Dipping Peace 1 may not be powerful per se but it's cheap, for certain builds e.g. wizards that want medium armor + shields anyway. I was focusing more on the 6th level protective bond but I see your point--Peace Cleric probably would be a popular dip if I allowed it.

I guess you're looking at what's jarring to the system (which builds get played), and I'm looking at what's jarring to gameplay (what would an observer notice about how encounters happen).

CapnWildefyr

2021-07-05, 07:21 AM

I haven't seen one played at my table yet, but I don't think that twilight cleric breaks anything. Just out of curiosity, how would you rule on the following:

Someone casts fireball or light - does the flying TC fall to the ground?
When in the twilight aura - does that work outdoors at noon? Does it put allies in dim light where they can't see as well as normal?
When you read the CD power, it says ' Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant that creature one of these benefits:" -do you read that as one creature/round, or every creature in the aura per round?'

I'm just thinking that (1) even though 300' vision is whacked (it should be 120 like everything else), the subclass reads like it would be more OP than it will be when played. And I think you can limit it by the encounters or a very strict reading of the text, if needed. Even the advantage on initiative -- someone at the table always rolls a 15+ anyway. Does it really matter that much if one person goes earlier? You can still roll a 5 and a 10.

TC seems strong, yes. But handle-able.

On a side note - at your tables, do you restrict animate dead usage? I am wondering because I have a hard time thinking that some of the possible TD deities would be happy with a cleric that animates zombies and then uses CD to give them more power. (Or maybe I'm stuck on an older edition.)

Chronic

2021-07-05, 08:22 AM

one way of playing the game - arguably, the *recommended* way of playing the game, since it is presented as the standard in the core books - is to have the party go through multiple relatively simple challenges until they are worn down.

in much the same way that people being able to heal hundreds of HP across the party with minimal resources entirely removes that style of play from having any functioning, giving the entire party absolutely absurd amounts of temporary HP negates that style of play. it takes encounters that otherwise would be a drain on resources, and makes them trivial such that no significant resources need to be spent.

even worse, it takes that scenario that is at least *potentially* interesting (good choices and good luck might influence things) to a place where it doesn't matter if you make good decisions or have bad luck, because you're so far beyond the encounter's ability to threaten you that it doesn't matter. you shouldn't bother trying to figure out the best place to use spell slots or superiority dice, just cast your cantrip or do a regular attack, spending anything on the encounter is a waste.

it changes the game so that the only encounters that matter are the ones where you are facing the hardest encounters. anything less is just a tedious way to suck the fun out of the game.

the channel divinity breaks the game in a very real way for many groups.

then you add in that, by the way, not only is it breaking that style of play, but it is *also* incredibly strong. sure, a fireball will do a lot. except, you know, that fireball is also doing 1/3 less than it normally would, assuming it happens at level 5. if people save, the fireball goes from dealing 14 points to dealing around 7. if they have resistance somehow, it might not have even broken the THP. and here's a question: why MUST every enemy have fireball to threaten the party now? the game wasn't like that before. you didn't NEED to put in a fireball-spamming wizard just to clear off the ridiculous amount of temporary hit points the party are gaining.

add on an incredibly powerful exploration ability (and yes, being able to see farther *is* a powerful ability, and the fact that many DMs nerf it by ignoring it doesn't mean it wasn't a problem in the first place; the fact that the party should be able to set up ambushes consistently is a MASSIVE benefit. add on that, as mentioned, it isn't like any of their other abilities aren't also excellent, and slap it all onto one of the more powerful classes in the game, and no... this is not a reasonable subclass.

it is not necessarily the most broken subclass. in some styles of play, where the party is only ever facing triple-deadly encounters, it might not even be that much of a big deal. but it simply removes certain challenges from being significant, multiplies other powerful abilities like resistances or extremely high armour class to be even more powerful beyond what anything else remotely similar does, and makes even challenging fights much easier than they would be without the twilight cleric.

this is not good design, and quite frankly, it doesn't add anything important to the game. if this subclass had never existed, we would be missing out on nothing worth mentioning.

The recommanded play style SUCKS, because it's not even the most relevant to the game system. Hard hitting encounters and difficult challenges are way more of a ressource drain. And when you watch the monsters stat blocks, you realize that monsters often hit hard, while having a relatively small HP pool. That makes for dangerous opponents against whom the party action economy can be leveraged if they are willing to spend ressources to down them quickly.

For the dark vision, I think I've played around 20 sessions of twilight clerics and GMed 12 or so with one. It's useful, kinda. I mean I don't remember a single time where this ability made a major difference for the PC. Between the fact that dark vision is common, that we respect the rules (disadvantage in perception checks), and that open space is fairly uncommon, it simply doesn't comes into play that much.

Hael

2021-07-05, 08:35 AM

Good point about dipping. Dipping Peace 1 may not be powerful per se but it's cheap, for certain builds e.g. wizards that want medium armor + shields anyway. I was focusing more on the 6th level protective bond but I see your point--Peace Cleric probably would be a popular dip if I allowed it.

It's just jarring when you have crap like a 1 peace/X bard class that isn't just 20% more effective, but almost a complete negation of most reasonable saves due to the way the math adds. Shifting the distributions center 2.5 is a big deal, as it allows bless (another 2.5 shift) to basically make all remaining saves be counterable with bardic inspiration without running out before a short rest.

Chronic

2021-07-05, 08:40 AM

Segev

2021-07-05, 08:50 AM

Again, it's not that the Twilight Cleric's abilities are broken by themselves.

Let's put it this way: Heavy armor proficiency isn't that much better than what Bladesinger already gets, so let's just go ahead and give it to them. And all martial weapons, not just one. Let's also give them the ability to sacrifice spell slots for 1d8 per level of extra damage on weapon attacks. And let's let them add their Intelligence to their Initiative modifier.

None of that is, by itself, broken, and could be fine on a wizard subclass (albeit a bit strange for the heavy armor). But it is overpowered all together.

That's the problem with the Twilight Cleric. Those focusing on the fact that the Twilight Aura isn't broken by itself are right, but that doesn't mean it's not too much together with advantage on initiative rolls AND 300 ft. darkvision that can be handed out to allies AND martial weapon proficiency AND heavy armor proficiency.

Theodoxus

2021-07-05, 09:10 AM

All this theorycrafting with Peace makes me think that people don't realize that at 1st level, you can only bond 2 people. 2 people, 2 times a long rest. For something that is a poor mans Bless. It's once per turn, not every instance, like Bless. Yes, it adds to ability checks, but that's kinda meh. That's not dip worthy. There are far better 1 level cleric dips.

It's not until 9th level that you can bond a typical party of 4. Now, at least, you'll probably have 4 encounters a day where this is useful, but it's still not that great. If you have no problem with Bless, I hardly see a reason to be bothered by Emboldening Bond.

I agree with MaxWilson that Protective Bond doesn't make sense against some types of damage, but given that when you obtain the ability, you're looking at 3 party members so bonded, an intelligent foe (especially if there's a group of them) will quickly figure out who in the party aren't bonded, and thus focus fire on them.

Speaking of focus fire, why wouldn't intelligent foes focus fire on the Twilight Cleric first? If the THP are so annoying you want to nerf/ban the class outright, and you're talking about FF on party members to burn through the THP and knock them out, start with the Cleric and all your troubles evaporate. They're in heavy armor, really good chance their Dex is +1 max - hit 'em with Dex saves.

I have no issues with either class. The most annoying thing about the Twilight Cleric is how many other subclasses it steps on. THP isn't exactly uncommon...

ETA: I will agree that I have no idea why they got heavy armor and martial prof. I think a lot of the arguments against it would disappear if they didn't. It's like the splinter in the minds eye that nags at you until you realize the package as a whole is just slightly overtuned. Remove the armor and weapon profs and that nagging nearly disappears.

stoutstien

2021-07-05, 09:11 AM

I guess I agree about Twilight also being "win more", but the difference is that Twilight also partially negates attrition, which is a gameplay aspect that many 5E adventures seem to rely on. (Mine tend not to, but I don't use Tasha's anyway so for me it's a moot point.)

Good point about dipping. Dipping Peace 1 may not be powerful per se but it's cheap, for certain builds e.g. wizards that want medium armor + shields anyway. I was focusing more on the 6th level protective bond but I see your point--Peace Cleric probably would be a popular dip if I allowed it.

I guess you're looking at what's jarring to the system (which builds get played), and I'm looking at what's jarring to gameplay (what would an observer notice about how encounters happen).

Aye. It is unfortunate they fell into old form by trying to make a class more enticing by scaling up power rather than addressing the issue that makes them appear lackluster to begin with.

quindraco

2021-07-05, 09:50 AM

Gignere

2021-07-05, 09:56 AM

All I can tell you is that I am playing an Arcane Trickster 8/Peace Cleric 1 right now, and +2d4 to my only attack (well, to both attacks if I get an OA) and +2d4 to all saves I make (not once in the campaign so far have I needed to make two saves in one turn) is incredible even before I realize I can, if I'm desperate, move one of my +1d4s to attack over to +1d4 to the stealth check to hide.

Is the 2d4 necessary for the attacks though?
I played an AT between BA hide, familiar, Steady Aim I don’t think I missed even once. I guess having elven accuracy really helps too.

MaxWilson

2021-07-05, 09:59 AM

It's just jarring when you have ---- like a 1 peace/X bard class that isn't just 20% more effective, but almost a complete negation of most reasonable saves due to the way the math adds. Shifting the distributions center 2.5 is a big deal, as it allows bless (another 2.5 shift) to basically make all remaining saves be counterable with bardic inspiration without running out before a short rest.

Touche and good example.

stoutstien

2021-07-05, 10:06 AM

Is the 2d4 necessary for the attacks though?
I played an AT between BA hide, familiar, Steady Aim I don’t think I missed even once. I guess having elven accuracy really helps too.

Pretty easy to math it out. +7 hit vs 18 AC is 50/50 chance to hit. Advantage pushes it to 75% hit. 1d4 to hit is 63% and 86% with advantage. 2d4 means the attack normally matches the flat +7 with advantage and with both it's at 93%. Toss on EA on the last one and you would start knocking on the door of 100% chance of hit.

SharkForce

2021-07-05, 02:21 PM

The recommanded play style SUCKS, because it's not even the most relevant to the game system. Hard hitting encounters and difficult challenges are way more of a ressource drain. And when you watch the monsters stat blocks, you realize that monsters often hit hard, while having a relatively small HP pool. That makes for dangerous opponents against whom the party action economy can be leveraged if they are willing to spend ressources to down them quickly.

For the dark vision, I think I've played around 20 sessions of twilight clerics and GMed 12 or so with one. It's useful, kinda. I mean I don't remember a single time where this ability made a major difference for the PC. Between the fact that dark vision is common, that we respect the rules (disadvantage in perception checks), and that open space is fairly uncommon, it simply doesn't comes into play that much.

{Scrubbed}

seriously, just because *you* don't play a certain way doesn't mean that people who play that way are wrong. especially when, as I mentioned, the books tell them that it's an assumption on which the books were written, that in a game called Dungeons & Dragons, people might sometimes face individual challenges with big scary powerful enemies (dragons) but that they *also* might occasionally go to places where there are many monsters to worry about (dungeons) and they face a gauntlet of foes that gradually wear them down. If we're going to welcome abilities to ignore that sort of challenge, the game ought to just be called Dragons, since the dungeons are basically just not really a factor.

I'm also not certain why wide open spaces would be not a thing. does your world not have an outside? are there never enemies apart from in narrow caves with 60 foot long hallways at most? certainly being able to see 2 and a half times as far as even most of the creatures that you would think of as having excellent darkvision won't *always* be useful, but I am completely baffled by the idea that seeing enemies when they're still 5 turns of dashing away from reaching you and 2 turns of dashing away from even being *maybe* able to see you is not a massive advantage. does your group not understand the implications of being able to get all those set-up abilities that take an action into place before the fight starts? even if it only happens some of the time, it is still very powerful. it should be turning even your coveted challenging fights into almost a cakewalk occasionally, since it means the party has time to get into hiding, gain cover, pre-buff themselves, and attack before the other side even knows a fight is going to happen.

and it isn't even as if these are the only very strong abilities they get; everything about the twilight cleric is overloaded, which means anyone who thinks a different subclass sounds cool and fun is paying an effectiveness tax for their roleplaying decision. some of the things it does eliminate an entire style of play. neither of those facts are good for the game. if the twilight cleric brought some awesome really cool new idea to go along with that, and that idea improved the game in some way, then I might say fine, leave them as-is. but that's the thing: what exactly *does* the twilight cleric do to improve the game? if there was no such thing as the twilight subclass for cleric (or the subclass had different mechanical abilities), does the game suffer at all? do the abilities the subclass gets really even sell the idea of "twilight"?

the subclass causes problems for the game. if it isn't bringing something at least approximately equal in value on the positive side, then it should be changed.

MrCharlie

2021-07-05, 03:24 PM

It's just jarring when you have crap like a 1 peace/X bard class that isn't just 20% more effective, but almost a complete negation of most reasonable saves due to the way the math adds. Shifting the distributions center 2.5 is a big deal, as it allows bless (another 2.5 shift) to basically make all remaining saves be counterable with bardic inspiration without running out before a short rest.
To be fair, standing next to a Paladin with bless up does the same thing, basically. They can even take Bard levels and it's not a terrible multiclass.

The difference is that You need six Paladin levels to pull this off and Emboldening Bond's range is a joke compared to the Paladin range.

In other words, the problem isn't a matter of how much numerical bonus there is-there are lots of ways for a party to improve saving throws, and it's easy to find ways that stack-It's that its too good as a dip, grants things that are also great, and has a joke of a limit

Aye. It is unfortunate they fell into old form by trying to make a class more enticing by scaling up power rather than addressing the issue that makes them appear lackluster to begin with.
Which isn't to say that power creep can't also be met with addressing the issue behind the class. In my opinion stars druids, while a power creep, is also addressing what makes Druid feel like a bad caster-limited striker options, too few cantrips, overreliance on wild shape, lack of healing options for a support class, and no way to interact with saving throws (and generally few reactions). Star druid has all of those.

Where Twilight goes wrong is that I can't really imagine what Cleric is missing, but even if I could that suite of abilities isn't fixing it, it's just making them more awesome at what they already do-healing, being reasonably hardy, buffing, and dealing with conditions. Those have always been the clerics strength, and Twilight just does all of those, except more.

To Both:

Peace does fix something that you can argue is missing in the cleric, which is a way to boost saves as a support caster, it's just that it does it in a way that's stupidly strong with no limitations. Bards have action economy, Artificers have limited uses and reaction economy as do Star Druids, and Paladins have to be sitting on their save buff target. Peace cleric basically has nearly arbitrary range, great action economy, and great uses and duration.

(If you view bless as an acceptable solution to the problem, that's fine-maybe Peace wasn't needed.)

If you want to fix peace, limit all the features to 5 feet until level 17. People can clump up to make saves and attacks, but the range is now a serious problem. Also no more teleporting with the protective bond-it's fine as a 5 foot "let's switch positions" ability instead. That also makes the dip much less attractive. There are still ways to abuse it (basically, minions) but a DM should be able to compensate for those and, at worst, just kill the offending creatures if they're staying in range.

If you want to fix twilight cleric, remake half the abilities. Fix a theme in place, build around it. What cleric probably needs is a better social cleric, in my opinion, so make that instead. I just don't think Twilight, as a subclass, has a solid theme. If you want to build around the twilight sanctuary ability, it should simply activate once per creature but keep the remove charm and fear effects-but the problem with Twilight isn't just twilight sanctuary, it's that every ability slot is filled with something incredible that are arbitrary, good, and arbitrarily good.

Captain Panda

2021-07-05, 06:22 PM

one way of playing the game - arguably, the *recommended* way of playing the game, since it is presented as the standard in the core books - is to have the party go through multiple relatively simple challenges until they are worn down.

Twilight clerics do not inhibit attrition based play. If you have 8 encounters, and assume two short rests, they still can't use their channel divinity every encounter even after 6. And even on those fights they do use it on, it's a small layer of temps, it slows damage down, it doesn't stop it. What sort of softball encounters are you guys using that can't beat through 9.5 temps for a level 6 party?

Medium encounters are, to be frank, a total joke to an optimized party with or without a twilight cleric. But even assuming a medium encounter, I'm going to make one on the fly:

Alright, rolled for a random medium, got one young black dragon. So 49 damage across at least two, maybe more players on a failure. I think it's pretty likely at least one person is going to fail that save and eat 40 damage to the face after the temps burn away. The others who make the save will take 14ish. That's not nothing. Twilight clerics don't make a party invincible. But what's more, this is assuming the 8 encounter day (granted, I've never, ever, even once seen a D&D game where there were 8 encounters a day), and this is only one of the encounters. You have seven more encounters to go, and for at least two of them you aren't going to have this channel divinity.

in much the same way that people being able to heal hundreds of HP across the party with minimal resources entirely removes that style of play from having any functioning, giving the entire party absolutely absurd amounts of temporary HP negates that style of play. it takes encounters that otherwise would be a drain on resources, and makes them trivial such that no significant resources need to be spent.

If your monsters cannot drain any resources because of 9 temporary hit points, maybe throw harder encounters at your party.

even worse, it takes that scenario that is at least *potentially* interesting (good choices and good luck might influence things) to a place where it doesn't matter if you make good decisions or have bad luck, because you're so far beyond the encounter's ability to threaten you that it doesn't matter.

{Scrubbed}

you shouldn't bother trying to figure out the best place to use spell slots or superiority dice, just cast your cantrip or do a regular attack, spending anything on the encounter is a waste.

{Scrubbed}

it changes the game so that the only encounters that matter are the ones where you are facing the hardest encounters. anything less is just a tedious way to suck the fun out of the game.

No. Medium encounters for a level appropriate party should be able to smash through some temps with little issue. Here, look, I'm going to roll another medium encounter and prove it, that's Kobold Fight Club.

Four level 6 characters fight two giant scorpions and two blink dogs. That's a normal, medium encounter. Are you serious suggesting having ~9 temporary hit points makes this a combat that poses no challenge to that actual hp of the party? Are you genuinely suggesting that? This isn't me picking out the hardest possible medium encounter for a party, this is exactly the sort of fight they should expect. Is this a fight you seriously assert will pose no danger of draining resources? Because if you are asserting that I just don't know what to say. Sure, if the rest of the party is optimized like crazy (shepherd druids, all of them!) and stomp on the enemies before they get a round off, maybe then there will be no danger of the scorpions smashing through some temps, but then that isn't down to the twilight cleric, that's down to other people in the party.

the channel divinity breaks the game in a very real way for many groups.

Again, I'm just forced to conclude that "break the game" translates in a very real way to "annoys me as the DM." Because absolutely nothing here is broken.

why MUST every enemy have fireball to threaten the party now? the game wasn't like that before. you didn't NEED to put in a fireball-spamming wizard just to clear off the ridiculous amount of temporary hit points the party are gaining.

They don't. Fireball is just an example of how not-broken the ability is. At 6th level a party encountering a caster with fireball is totally fair, and while this channel divinity certainly helps against a fireball, it isn't exactly making you immune to aoe damage.

add on an incredibly powerful exploration ability (and yes, being able to see farther *is* a powerful ability, and the fact that many DMs nerf it by ignoring it doesn't mean it wasn't a problem in the first place; the fact that the party should be able to set up ambushes consistently is a MASSIVE benefit. add on that, as mentioned, it isn't like any of their other abilities aren't also excellent, and slap it all onto one of the more powerful classes in the game, and no... this is not a reasonable subclass.

Be real, the ability is unlikely to be of any practical use at most tables, most of the time. If it's totally dark, you are probably in a dungeon. The ability doesn't let you see through walls. You don't need 300 feet. There is a point at which you no longer really benefit from extended range.

this is not good design, and quite frankly, it doesn't add anything important to the game. if this subclass had never existed, we would be missing out on nothing worth mentioning.

Also wrong. It adds a cleric who actually functions well as a support to the party. If you want to be a cleric who helps the party not die, before Tasha's you would be able to fill that role better as several other classes. Now you can do a good job at that as a cleric, and even as someone who doesn't play clerics I appreciate WotC giving them something. It takes the 'best support' title from the druid (my favorite class, mind) and at least gives a cleric subclass a fighting chance at holding it.

sithlordnergal

2021-07-05, 08:33 PM

[COLOR="#0000FF"]I'm also not certain why wide open spaces would be not a thing. does your world not have an outside? are there never enemies apart from in narrow caves with 60 foot long hallways at most? certainly being able to see 2 and a half times as far as even most of the creatures that you would think of as having excellent darkvision won't *always* be useful, but I am completely baffled by the idea that seeing enemies when they're still 5 turns of dashing away from reaching you and 2 turns of dashing away from even being *maybe* able to see you is not a massive advantage. does your group not understand the implications of being able to get all those set-up abilities that take an action into place before the fight starts? even if it only happens some of the time, it is still very powerful. it should be turning even your coveted challenging fights into almost a cakewalk occasionally, since it means the party has time to get into hiding, gain cover, pre-buff themselves, and attack before the other side even knows a fight is going to happen.

I mean, here's the thing. The sort of scenario you're talking about doesn't happen. Now, I've played through a lot of campaigns, from Curse of Strahd and Storm Kings Thunder to homebrew games and Rime of the Frost Maiden. I've also run plenty of campaigns, from Homebrew games, to pre-written single adventures, to Tomb of Annihilation. I have never, not even once, been in a situation where you start combat when you're 5 turns away from an enemy. Never have I been in, or heard of, a situation where you're fighting at such a long range. The farthest combat has ever started was about 240 feet, as it took two rounds of dashing through an open desert to reach an enemy fort. But even then the attack was in broad daylight, so Darkvision didn't matter. Even if you're setting up an ambush, its a useless ability because generally you know where the target is going before you set up the ambush. You never spot a group far off and suddenly set up an ambush on the fly.

As such, 300 foot Darkvision is a moot point. Its a cool ribbon feature, but its about as useful as the Ranger's Favored Enemy. Its nice to have, but ultimately its a ribbon feature.

Chronic

2021-07-05, 09:46 PM

Chronic

2021-07-05, 10:22 PM

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}[/COLOR]

seriously, just because *you* don't play a certain way doesn't mean that people who play that way are wrong. especially when, as I mentioned, the books tell them that it's an assumption on which the books were written, that in a game called Dungeons & Dragons, people might sometimes face individual challenges with big scary powerful enemies (dragons) but that they *also* might occasionally go to places where there are many monsters to worry about (dungeons) and they face a gauntlet of foes that gradually wear them down. If we're going to welcome abilities to ignore that sort of challenge, the game ought to just be called Dragons, since the dungeons are basically just not really a factor.

I'm also not certain why wide open spaces would be not a thing. does your world not have an outside? are there never enemies apart from in narrow caves with 60 foot long hallways at most? certainly being able to see 2 and a half times as far as even most of the creatures that you would think of as having excellent darkvision won't *always* be useful, but I am completely baffled by the idea that seeing enemies when they're still 5 turns of dashing away from reaching you and 2 turns of dashing away from even being *maybe* able to see you is not a massive advantage. does your group not understand the implications of being able to get all those set-up abilities that take an action into place before the fight starts? even if it only happens some of the time, it is still very powerful. it should be turning even your coveted challenging fights into almost a cakewalk occasionally, since it means the party has time to get into hiding, gain cover, pre-buff themselves, and attack before the other side even knows a fight is going to happen.

and it isn't even as if these are the only very strong abilities they get; everything about the twilight cleric is overloaded, which means anyone who thinks a different subclass sounds cool and fun is paying an effectiveness tax for their roleplaying decision. some of the things it does eliminate an entire style of play. neither of those facts are good for the game. if the twilight cleric brought some awesome really cool new idea to go along with that, and that idea improved the game in some way, then I might say fine, leave them as-is. but that's the thing: what exactly *does* the twilight cleric do to improve the game? if there was no such thing as the twilight subclass for cleric (or the subclass had different mechanical abilities), does the game suffer at all? do the abilities the subclass gets really even sell the idea of "twilight"?

the subclass causes problems for the game. if it isn't bringing something at least approximately equal in value on the positive side, then it should be changed.

Yeah my foes aren't standing in the open like idiots, but hey you do you.
Most of the complain I read have the distinct ring of white room scenarii, the kind that allow players to completely trivialize an encounter because everything happen to go in their favor once in a while. And when it's good once in a while.
In a fairly wild world, open space with longue distance line of view... kinda rare, and will rarely be the theater of embush or attacks unless the attaquer think they have a overwhelming advantage in power or number. So when it happen, cool, that's the time when the feature will be actually useful.

It's like the martial weapon and the heavy proficiency. Seems cool on paper, but find me a Twilight cleric build that get decent dpt in melee. And the heavy armor have either a severe prerequisite or a severe malus If you don't match it. And clerics either get martial and heavy or potent cantrips.
Given the choice I would go for potent cantrips any day of the week.

{Scrubbed} It's obvious that it goes through my personal lens, that the definition of an opinion. You agree or you don't that's up to you. I've played 5e and it's predecessor a lot, and I'm speaking of the parameters I think work best using this game engine, and they are different from the one the PHB advise us to follow.

Also, yes the subclass sells it theme very well to me. It strike a very mythological cord that has it's root within the very primal emotion mankind has toward the change from day to night. Both a herald of a time of respite and vulnerability. It's actually amongst the few themes that transcend time, space and cultures.

Sception

2021-07-05, 10:32 PM

It's not 9.5 temps tho, it's 9.5 temps every round, to every party member. Enemies cant always concentrate fire. Some enemies deal aoe damage, or melee damage with targeting limited by positioning & spacing & the abilities of party controllers and tanks.

If the fight runs 5 rounds and enemies have to split their attacks onto even two party members you're looking at 95 hit points of damage mitigation from a single channel divinity. It is absolutely oppressive, it dramatically narrows the kinds of enemies & encounters the dm can use if they want to remotely challenge the party, and it all but obsoletes every other temp hp generating ability anybody else in the party might be bringing.

And this is on top of permanent free advantage on initiative for whatever party member most gains from it, the best armor proficiencies, one of the best domain spell lists, and concentration free flight.

The twilight cleric CD is far too much on its own, and it's attached to a subclass that would already be on the high end of cleric subclasses before you even look at its CD. It's flat busted. Makes the game worse by existing.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-05, 10:38 PM

Sception

2021-07-05, 10:48 PM

Don't forget that the THP comes with effective immunity to fear and charm to all creatures in the field. Which is kinda crazy when combined.

Yeah, it's nuts. Again, I endorse my 'the cd requires a reaction on your part to trigger the effect on a target' change. The initiative advantage could probably also be limited to proficiency times per day. I have muxed feelings on the darkvision. It won't come up often in mist campaigns but its sufficiently out of step with system norms to annoy me. I'd be inclined to agree with those who would limit it to 60 feet, 120 on targets that already have darkvision, but it's not the major problem that the CD is.

I'd also drop the heavy armor proficiency, but again that's more for flavor reasons.

Theodoxus

2021-07-05, 11:33 PM

Don't forget that the THP comes with effective immunity to fear and charm to all creatures in the field. Which is kinda crazy when combined.

Actually, you have to pick. You get either the THP or the charm/fear effect round per round. Though I can count on zero hands the number of times my players have been charmed. And fear is pretty rare too.

LordShade

2021-07-05, 11:54 PM

FWIW, put me in the camp that thinks the concentration-free 60' AOE heal-over-time with a built-in, optional status clear is very strong.

That on top of the weapons and armor, good spell list, unlimited advantage on initiative, concentration-free flight, and situational but occasionally useful long-range sight, and I agree that this class is overpowered.

Hael

2021-07-06, 01:33 AM

Actually, you have to pick. You get either the THP or the charm/fear effect round per round. Though I can count on zero hands the number of times my players have been charmed. And fear is pretty rare too.

Yea but when it happens you start approaching TPK level of danger. In fact for most modules, which are super trivial and low risk, i'd venture to guess a good percentage of potential TPKs come from application of one of those two conditions. So you are quite happy to have something like this which smoothes out the variance.

Gignere

2021-07-06, 06:30 AM

Yea but when it happens you start approaching TPK level of danger. In fact for most modules, which are super trivial and low risk, i'd venture to guess a good percentage of potential TPKs come from application of one of those two conditions. So you are quite happy to have something like this which smoothes out the variance.

Not really if the party is well built and prepared. Usually TPKs happens because the DM starts chaining crits and maybe one other bad thing is going on, assuming you aren’t facing things way out of the party’s league.

da newt

2021-07-06, 08:24 AM

MrStabby

2021-07-06, 10:27 AM

Charm/fear immunity sure is handy when it comes up (vamp encounter for example), and the equivalent of a one turn action cost that provides an upcast Mass Healing Word every round for 10 rounds of combat can be game changing (yea - its temp hp, but still), and you can counter darkness and FLY, and ADV to initiative ... all by lvl 6. Then at lvl 8 you get the paladin's lvl 11 feature and double it at lvl 14.

Is it OP? - I don't think so, but it is over tuned and contributes to the power creep I believe is rampant in 5e.

I've only played one up to lvl 5 in CoS, but the CD was the one thing that allowed our very unoptimized party of 5 (lvl 3 monk, barb, rogue, wiz, cleric) survive a slog of a battle with 30+ blights and 3 low level druids. It was a classic mob of minions sort of thing that lasted 12 rounds - exactly what this CD is great at.

Having played a devotion palading, I have to say that fear/charm immunity is really useful... sometimes. I have found it depends on the DM. Some DMs think that fear/charm means you dont do anything and therefore isn't fun and therefore shouldn't be in the game (like the fear spell or hypnotic pattern spell); with such DMs the ability is worthless. On the other hand, others throw down terrifying dragons, vampires etc. where such abilities really, really shine.

MaxWilson

2021-07-06, 11:23 AM

Captain Panda

2021-07-06, 06:20 PM

And it's not like the Twilight Cleric doesn't excel at real healing as well, to cover whatever the temp HP doesn't cover. Aura of Vitality is fantastic at patching up actual injuries that make it past temp HP.

All clerics get that, and that's a third level spell slot. Not a bad use of one, but that's a major resource and not really related to the subclass at all, except that they have a not-horrible channel divinity in addition to the usual cleric stuff. (Fine, not-horrible is me underselling it just like a bunch of people here are wildly, wildly overselling it, it's good)

MaxWilson

2021-07-06, 06:54 PM

All clerics get that

Nope. Tasha's has an option to let individual clerics acquire extra spells with DM approval, but that's not the same as "all clerics."

Even if it were, how would that make the Twilight cleric not excel at real healing?

MrCharlie

2021-07-06, 07:40 PM

All clerics get that, and that's a third level spell slot. Not a bad use of one, but that's a major resource and not really related to the subclass at all, except that they have a not-horrible channel divinity in addition to the usual cleric stuff. (Fine, not-horrible is me underselling it just like a bunch of people here are wildly, wildly overselling it, it's good)
The relation to the subclass is that spells like aura of vitality heal a small-moderate amount of HP but do it over multiple turns. Combined with another spell that effectively "shields" a moderate amount of HP, it's entirely possible to keep people topped off on HP entirely simply by casting aura and healing any damage that pierces the shield.

I.E. There is a big difference between someone taking 17 HP of damage and healing them for 7, and them taking 17-8=9 HP of damage and healing them for 7, over the course of multiple turns. After three rounds of this the first guy is down 30 HP and the second is down 6.

The real test is when you compare a life cleric using aura of vitality and a twilight cleric using aura of vitality and their twilight sanctuary. Against a single target, the life cleric has healed 2d6+5=13. Against a single target, the twilight cleric has healed 2d6, but mitigated 8 damage. It's straight up more for a single character. If we take that 17 HP hypothetical, after three rounds the guy being healed by the life cleric is down 12 HP, and the guy healed by the twilight cleric is down 6.

If we start looking at the fact that the twilight clerics ability is AOE, it gets even worse. A life cleric can spam out mass healing word for 11-12 healing, while the twilight cleric mitigates 8 damage and then heals for 7-8 on the same turn. On a party wide scale, the twilight cleric heals 5 more hit points than the life cleric-and the twilight cleric didn't need to cast that spell to be doing half of that.

Basically-there is almost no situation where any other cleric is a better healer than the twilight cleric. At worst they are equal. At best, the twilight cleric is completely eliminating the damage the entire party is suffering, every round, at the cost of a single channel, and the other cleric has a party which is half dead and they're out of spell slots

Captain Panda

2021-07-06, 07:57 PM

Nope. Tasha's has an option to let individual clerics acquire extra spells with DM approval, but that's not the same as "all clerics."

If a DM allows the twilight subclass it is pretty likely that they'll allow clerics to use the expanded spell list. The expanded list is honestly just fixing flaws in their initial design that left clerics, who should be good healers, as pretty bad healers compared to other classes/builds.

Even if it were, how would that make the Twilight cleric not excel at real healing?

Excel in the context of it being a cleric subclass. If all clerics get it, it's on both sides of the equation. It cancels out. So saying "they get a great CD AND this great healing spell, this subclass is broken!" is not reasonable, because the subclass gets a spell that is on the cleric list. If a DM allows the twilight subclass but then does not allow the expanded spell list, sure, twilight clerics excel, but I find that to be an exceptionally unlikely scenario and a bit of a reach to support your argument.

Basically-there is almost no situation where any other cleric is a better healer than the twilight cleric. At worst they are equal. At best, the twilight cleric is completely eliminating the damage the entire party is suffering, every round, at the cost of a single channel, and the other cleric has a party which is half dead and they're out of spell slots

That's why I view it to be such an excellent addition to the game; clerics are supposed to be good healers. Life clerics are used as a dip for "real" healing builds that focus on other classes primarily, and no other cleric subclass before Tasha's was good at the job of healing, which historically should absolutely be a thing a cleric is good at. But they weren't, and still aren't if a DM decides not to allow Tasha's expanded spells. Tasha's fixes that by giving clerics an actual, decent heal with the expanded list and by giving them a subclass that provides serious support/healing capabilities.

I'd still say that a cleric standing there just using the channel divinity and aura of vitality isn't playing to their fullest capability, but hey, at least now they have a build that isn't a joke. I mean no shade to people who enjoy the playstyle, but I think it's just a mathematical fact that previously clerics who healed, especially in combat, were wasting spell slots and mostly just taking up space. Sure, a DM can tone things down or the rest of the party can pick up the slack, but people keep comparing things to old clerics using cure wound upcasts and mass healing words as their main thing, and that's just a horrible playstyle from an optimization standpoint. Now clerics have some good options for combat healing. This is a good thing! Why are people so down on healing? If you really want to hurt your players, well that's mean, but you still can. I gave example combats earlier. Sure, the aura will hurt a party less with a twilight cleric, but not so much less that the party is going to feel invincible.

Worst case, if your party does feel invincible, beef up your encounters slightly.

Theodoxus

2021-07-06, 07:58 PM

Not really if the party is well built and prepared. Usually TPKs happens because the DM starts chaining crits and maybe one other bad thing is going on, assuming you aren’t facing things way out of the party’s league.

While true, I think I've seen more TPKs (or at least close, without a miraculous die roll) from overwhelming numbers. Not even a massive CR difference, just basically critters that are 2 CR lower than the party, but number at least 50% more - their higher action economy tends to let them focus fire on one character - can even be the supposed tank - and if you're not ready for it - or have a party member capable of healing through it - will lead to a catastrophic failure.

Most memorable one I played in, I was a Life Cleric (natch), in a CoS game. We were out in a field in a druid generated lightning storm. Four 4th level party members vs 6 wolves, a druid directing the wolves and calling down lighting, and some zombies that came in about 6 rounds after we rolled initiative (I don't know if this was an actual book encounter or a random encounter or something the DM created on the fly).

The party ranger jumped up on some stones to get elevation, and immediately took a bolt, nearly dropped him, and a wolf took him to zero the next round. I burned a HW to pop him back up and bashed at a wolf (no Spiritual Weapon that round, thanks to HW). The Wizard (generally useless) tried to aoe the wolves, but got swarmed the next round. And the resident Fighter ran towards the druid. The Druid realized I was the bigger threat, popping guys back up, so the wolves swarmed me next, and within 2 rounds had me making death saves. The Wizard was making a run for it, burning Misty Steps for a couple rounds to make as much distance as he could. The Fighter made it to the Druid, but took 2 lightning bolts in the meantime, so wasn't looking good even after burning his second wind.

So, no Ranger, no Wizard (who eventually managed to find Baba Yaga on his own - another tale of stupidity there), and the Fighter was on their last legs. The wolves broke after chasing the Wizard and didn't return - and then we hear the moans of zombies. On my second death save, I rolled a nat 20. I reminded the DM that death saves are at the start of the turn, so I jump back up and immediately pop my CD, dumping 5 HP into me and the Ranger and 10 into the Fighter. The Fighter and Ranger pummel the Druid down into submission and I Sacred Flame the bajubuz out of the Zombies, kiting them while burning the last of my spell slots on HW for the other two.

That nat 20 was the only thing that turned a TPK into a win. The DM didn't even award the Wizard any XP since he barely singed the wolves... But that fight ended up being the most memorable of the entire game. Baba Yaga was a close second, but only because of a Giant Elk summoned from a Bag of Tricks.

MrCharlie

2021-07-06, 08:33 PM

That's why I view it to be such an excellent addition to the game; clerics are supposed to be good healers. Life clerics are used as a dip for "real" healing builds that focus on other classes primarily, and no other cleric subclass before Tasha's was good at the job of healing, which historically should absolutely be a thing a cleric is good at. But they weren't, and still aren't if a DM decides not to allow Tasha's expanded spells. Tasha's fixes that by giving clerics an actual, decent heal with the expanded list and by giving them a subclass that provides serious support/healing capabilities.

I'd still say that a cleric standing there just using the channel divinity and aura of vitality isn't playing to their fullest capability, but hey, at least now they have a build that isn't a joke. I mean no shade to people who enjoy the playstyle, but I think it's just a mathematical fact that previously clerics who healed, especially in combat, were wasting spell slots and mostly just taking up space. Sure, a DM can tone things down or the rest of the party can pick up the slack, but people keep comparing things to old clerics using cure wound upcasts and mass healing words as their main thing, and that's just a horrible playstyle from an optimization standpoint. Now clerics have some good options for combat healing. This is a good thing! Why are people so down on healing? If you really want to hurt your players, well that's mean, but you still can. I gave example combats earlier. Sure, the aura will hurt a party less with a twilight cleric, but not so much less that the party is going to feel invincible.

Worst case, if your party does feel invincible, beef up your encounters slightly.
Here's the problem with that reasoning-if it were true, then if healing was at all a thing depends on if there is a twilight cleric in the party.

Or more generally, an entire facet of gameplay is defined by a single archetype defining the meta. If a twilight cleric is present, you adjust encounters to bypass the incredible healing. If it isn't, you don't.

There is also the fact that, generally, 5e combat healing has been in the state it's in non-incidentally, and twilight cleric, as a fix to that, is a bloody awful fix. There actually are, situationally, useful healing options-but they are all situational, usable in certain exceptional circumstances. Twilight clerics channel is, with very situational exceptions, a huge, constant, bloated, low effort heal that represents an order of magnitude more healing over the course of a combat than any other healer.

I was providing that usage just to illustrate why healing, if you choose to build for it, is a twilight cleric exclusive. You're right that the twilight cleric is much better off casting other spells, because they don't need to pay any attention to their healing and are still the best at it-it's just less impressive to say that this always active effect is effectively healing 1d6+5 when you can burn a high level slot to heal the same amount, despite the fact that burning that slot is a huge investment.

But I'll actually admit, I don't actually mind the twilight cleric that much, I just think it needs to be acknowledged that, yes, Twilight cleric is now the single best healing cleric, in fact single best healer in the game, to the degree that it can combat heal effectively as a dedicated strategy. My only problem with twilight cleric is that it does so many other things well, and in my opinion the state of healing in the game was perfectly fine-we didn't need a buffed healing build. What we actually needed was a buffed social cleric (Order did this) and a buffed...buffer cleric (Peace did this, but is so past all balance that I regret ever wanting it). I think that, otherwise, cleric is and was in a great place.

MaxWilson

2021-07-06, 08:51 PM

But I'll actually admit, I don't actually mind the twilight cleric that much, I just think it needs to be acknowledged that, yes, Twilight cleric is now the single best healing cleric, in fact single best healer in the game, to the degree that it can combat heal effectively as a dedicated strategy.

Naw. Twilight cleric is excellent at damage prevention but multiclass builds can exceed its healing capacity per se.

After Tier 1, the best healer in the game is probably a Jorasco Life Cleric X/Sorc 3 using Extended Spell metamagic (although in some scenarios a Unicorn Spirit-using Shepherd Druid is better). Life Cleric Channel Divinity is great for healing severely wounded PCs, and Extended Aura of Vitality is great for healing them back up to full HP after combat, which is where Life clerics normally struggle.

Technically a Jorasco Wizard can heal more HP per day (Spell Mastery: Cure Wounds) but the Life/Sorc has a smoother progression (good from levels 1-20) and better in-combat healing.

None of this means that Twilight Cleric isn't problematic, just that Twilight's niche is more damage mitigation than healing. (And it's not like Twilight clerics can't take a Sorc 3 dip either to become ALMOST the best healers in the game.)

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-06, 09:59 PM

...

Excel in the context of it being a cleric subclass. If all clerics get it, it's on both sides of the equation. It cancels out. So saying "they get a great CD AND this great healing spell, this subclass is broken!" is not reasonable, because the subclass gets a spell that is on the cleric list. If a DM allows the twilight subclass but then does not allow the expanded spell list, sure, twilight clerics excel, but I find that to be an exceptionally unlikely scenario and a bit of a reach to support your argument.

Honestly, aura of vitality is a spell that I have Issues with clerics having. Paladins have few enough unique spells as it is, let them keep one of the best 3rd level healing spells, dammit. Subclasses are a unique case, so I won't argue (any more) against Twilight getting it.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-06, 10:56 PM

Technically a Jorasco Wizard can heal more HP per day (Spell Mastery: Cure Wounds) but the Life/Sorc has a smoother progression (good from levels 1-20) and better in-combat healing.

Tangent: The notion that Wizard's can be great healers because the Jorasco Halfling exist is so... bothersome.

Getting access to a selection of healing spells doesn't make a great healer, or even a good one. Abilities that enhance those spells or give you healing separately does (And Spell MAstery is so high level it's not even worth mentioning).

This wasn't even directed at you sorry, just brought up a topic I find... yeah.

Thunderous Mojo

2021-07-06, 11:49 PM

Captain Panda's position seems to boil down to:
The Twilight Cleric is fine, if and only if, the following is true:

1) The DM only uses combat challenges of 'Hard' level of difficulty or higher. CPT Panda, seems to advocating Deadly + difficulty.

2) The DM uses Eight Combat Challenges (!) either per session or Adventuring Day. (I'm unclear on which unit was meant to be used)

3) All creatures, even mindless oozes, must be played as if they were
Hannibal level tactical and strategic geniuses and "Focus all Firepower on the Super Star Destroyer".

4) "Optimizers" only focus on their own stats, and not on 'optimizing' their tactics. I'm inferring this, as CPT Panda, never acknowledges, that Adventuring Groups that are designed to inflict their will on others, and not have others, Inflict their will on the PC group, will attempt to control the details of the encounter.

The above list, strikes me, as a description of a particular, type or style of game, but not a Universal Style.

Unless, you railroad, experienced players, with actual narrative freedom, find a way to have encounters happen, on their terms, (indeed in truly difficult games this may be the only way to survive).

Twilight Sanctuary in my games, requires Concentration. If Twilight Sanctuary was a 2nd level spell, instead of a CD, it would be one of the most broken things on earth, especially w/o requiring Concentration .🃏

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 12:31 AM

Honestly, aura of vitality is a spell that I have Issues with clerics having. Paladins have few enough unique spells as it is, let them keep one of the best 3rd level healing spells, dammit. Subclasses are a unique case, so I won't argue (any more) against Twilight getting it.

Paladins and clerics have a lot of thematic overlap, and honestly clerics need it more. Paladins are pretty great, they can share.

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 12:41 AM

Captain Panda's position seems to boil down to:
The Twilight Cleric is fine, if and only if, the following is true:

1) The DM only uses combat challenges of 'Hard' level of difficulty or higher. CPT Panda, seems to advocating Deadly + difficulty.

Straw man. The examples I gave were medium encounters. Plug the numbers into Kobold Fight Club.

2) The DM uses Eight Combat Challenges (!) either per session or Adventuring Day. (I'm unclear on which unit was meant to be used)

Also not my assertion. If there are fewer, harder encounters the twilight ability goes from excellent to okay. It really shines when there are more less intense fights. My point is that even in such a case the temps are not sufficient to completely render monsters impotent.

So if you have fewer, bigger encounters it's definitely not overpowered. If you have more, weaker encounters it's strong, but the strength is being firmly overstated.

3) All creatures, even mindless oozes, must be played as if they were
Hannibal level tactical and strategic geniuses and "Focus all Firepower on the Super Star Destroyer".

Nope. That straw man sure is taking a beating, you're 0/3 right now.

4) "Optimizers" only focus on their own stats, and not on 'optimizing' their tactics. I'm inferring this, as CPT Panda, never acknowledges, that Adventuring Groups that are designed to inflict their will on others, and not have others, Inflict their will on the PC group, will attempt to control the details of the encounter.

I honestly have no idea what point you're trying to make here. Optimization is both at the character and party level.

Twilight Sanctuary in my games, requires Concentration. If Twilight Sanctuary was a 2nd level spell, instead of a CD, it would be one of the most broken things on earth, especially w/o requiring Concentration .🃏

Good for you, I guess? Not a table I'd want to play at, but I am pretty biased against house rule nerfs. That one is an example of why I'm against them. DMs who define "broken" as "feature that annoys me" go way overboard with nerfs.

MaxWilson

2021-07-07, 12:46 AM

Straw man. The examples I gave were medium encounters. Plug the numbers into Kobold Fight Club.

But the examples you gave were also pretty trivial encounters. One Giant Ape vs. a whole 6th level party? Someone is going to disable it with e.g. Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

The most dangerous encounters are generally mob encounters and encounters with spellcasters flinging paralyzation spells and/or AoEs like Fireball, and Twilight Cleric obviates mob encounters and mitigates AoEs like Fireball. Solo encounters like the ones you conjectured don't need extra mitigation, they are already pretty easy.

Straw man... Nope. That straw man sure is taking a beating, you're 0/3 right now. *snip* DMs who define "broken" as "feature that annoys me" go way overboard with nerfs.

For someone who likes to complain about being strawmanned you sure do love to beat on up strawmen.

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 01:30 AM

But the examples you gave were also pretty trivial encounters. One Giant Ape vs. a whole 6th level party? Someone is going to disable it with e.g. Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

An encounter with more, lower CR creatures makes my point stronger, not weaker. More creatures tends to mean more incoming damage.

Also, yes, of course a medium encounter can be ended by a spell. That's part of why I'm scratching my head wondering why people are complaining about this channel divinity so much. It's strong, but if you compare it to exactly what you just suggested, a level 1 spell removing an entire encounter, doesn't that show just how not broken this is?

The most dangerous encounters are generally mob encounters and encounters with spellcasters flinging paralyzation spells and/or AoEs like Fireball,

Agreed.

and Twilight Cleric obviates mob encounters

It just doesn't, though. The temporary hp are only overpowered if one assumed that damage is distributed evenly over the party and thus the real underlying hit points are never damaged. Otherwise it's just a fairly small buffer.

and mitigates AoEs like Fireball. Solo encounters like the ones you conjectured don't need extra mitigation, they are already pretty easy.

Medium encounters generally are pretty easy. The idea that twilight clerics trivialize them is false for a couple reasons, one of which being that they are already pretty trivial, the other being that twilight clerics are great, but there are still a lot of just better builds out there.

For someone who likes to complain about being strawmanned you sure do love to beat on up strawmen.

I don't think that's true. The post I was replying to attributed to me positions I absolutely do not hold, and that one could not reasonably infer from reading what I've said here. Contrarily, I really do think a lot of DMs just get annoyed by something and assume that because something is effective and annoys them, it must be broken. I don't limit that to this conversation, I've seen a LOT of things called broken by DMs who just weren't happy their monsters didn't put up much of a fight. Some of the things called broken I can understand (healing spirit, pixies), but a lot of the things called broken just... aren't. Heat metal, healing word, hypnotic pattern, conjure animals, and now clerics finally get a turn as this channel divinity is on the chopping block of D&D public opinion. I don't play clerics, but it's sad for them to finally get something nice only to have people poo-poo it.

MrStabby

2021-07-07, 04:25 AM

I don't think that's true. The post I was replying to attributed to me positions I absolutely do not hold, and that one could not reasonably infer from reading what I've said here. Contrarily, I really do think a lot of DMs just get annoyed by something and assume that because something is effective and annoys them, it must be broken. I don't limit that to this conversation, I've seen a LOT of things called broken by DMs who just weren't happy their monsters didn't put up much of a fight. Some of the things called broken I can understand (healing spirit, pixies), but a lot of the things called broken just... aren't. Heat metal, healing word, hypnotic pattern, conjure animals, and now clerics finally get a turn as this channel divinity is on the chopping block of D&D public opinion. I don't play clerics, but it's sad for them to finally get something nice only to have people poo-poo it.

I think your issue might be that your definition of "broken" is not universally shared. There seem to be a number of different (and valid) meanings to the word:

1) So grossly overpowered that you cannot in any meaningful way play the same game anymore
2) Sufficiently overpowered that it obviates certain options
3) Powerful enough that the availability of the option makes the game less, rather than more fun for the other players.
4) Sufficiently powerful that it is clearly better than competing options
5) Powerful in a way that precludes a certain playstyle/campaign style
6) Abilities just don't work as they are supposed to, can include being very underpowered.

There may be others. Of these I would say that twilight doesn't quite make 1, it does tick the box for 2, 3 depends on party composition so more "it is capable of breaking the game", I think twilight does match 4 - it blows other clerics out of the water. I think the big one is 5 though. 6... well it passes this one - I think the pieces do what they are supposed to do.

5 Basically means that to challenge the pary the DM needs to change what they were wanting to do. Factions throwing fireballs are screwed. Terrain with pools of acid constantly inflicting damage are uninteresting. Ranged nighttime encounters are very different. Enemies using fear and charm are out... Not all of this is unique to the Twilight cleric - others, like say the devotion Paladin are similarly "broken" by this definition, but the design flaws of a different class do not make this class well designed.

Sometimes a DM can work around these things - make things harder or easier. A few more enemies, a bit more damage etc. can go a long way to balancing powerful abilities. In this case though it opens up its own problems. What if the cleric used their CD on the wrong encounter? Such a powerful ability to turn a fight is then missing from an encounter where you had ramped up the damageto make things challenging.

The trouble with"broken" is not just that it is a pretty hard level to define, but also that it tends to be pretty low bar to clear. For most people "broken" means something is worse for banance than simply an opton that makes the game less fun for other people. By itself this isn't an issue - what becomes problematic is when people assert "not broken=fine". Something can still be spoiling a game, making it less fun than it otherwise would be and still, by many people's definitions, not be "broken".

Just because you can play with an option doesn't mean your table should or that the game works better with it than without it.

Segev

2021-07-07, 08:21 AM

I really do think a lot of DMs just get annoyed by something and assume that because something is effective and annoys them, it must be broken.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I have been consistently maintaining that no one of the features of the Twilight Cleric is overpowered by itself. The trouble with the Twilight Cleric is not that they have the really nice Twilight Aura. It's that they have the really nice Twilight Aura, AND an unrivaled Darkvision, AND the ability to share that unrivaled Darkvision with others, AND the ability to grant Advantage on Initiative (to themselves or others), AND a pretty awesome list of domain spells, AND heavy armor proficiency, AND martial weapon proficiency.

Any of those would be fine on their own, or even mixed with other features. The heavy armor proficiency is something about a third of Cleric domains get, and even the martial weapon proficiency isn't much more than a ribbon, but both together are still on the "that's pretty good" end of what goes in the slot they get it from.

It's not that any one thing is too much.

But as it is, it seems like the Twilight Cleric was somebody's homebrew for their personal PC where they just asked, "If I could have everything I wanted on this character to be a generically good combatant, what would it be?" and nobody stopped to pick one really good thing and tone the rest back to "nice side benefits."

Thunderous Mojo

2021-07-07, 08:42 AM

Straw man. The examples I gave were medium encounters. Plug the numbers into Kobold Fight Club.

Straw Man? Yet on page 3 of this same thread you stated:

Twilight clerics do not inhibit attrition based play. If you have 8 encounters, and assume two short rests, they still can't use their channel divinity every encounter even after 6. And even on those fights they do use it on, it's a small layer of temps, it slows damage down, it doesn't stop it. What sort of softball encounters are you guys using that can't beat through 9.5 temps for a level 6 party?

Medium encounters are, to be frank, a total joke to an optimized party with or without a twilight cleric.

My summation, based off the quote above, seemingly is accurate. You advocate for more difficult and a greater quantity of Encounters, until you don't.

This, however,:
Nope. That straw man sure is taking a beating, you're 0/3 right now. .......not so accurate.🤷🏻..perhaps that is just my opinion.🤷🏻

So if you have fewer, bigger encounters it's definitely not overpowered. If you have more, weaker encounters it's strong, but the strength is being firmly overstated.

The Temp HP from a 10th level Artillerist is sufficient to keep squishy 10th level Wizards and Sorcerers from Instant Death when facing Tiamat. I saw this personally, two weekends ago. Do you have any evidence to support your contention that a Twilight Cleric couldn't also achieve this same feat?

Your position is full of panache, and conviction...but verve and forcefulness is not evidence. I'm not attacking you personally....not intentionally....I merely, don't believe you have made your case.

I honestly have no idea what point you're trying to make here. Optimization is both at the character and party level.

Every example you have presented in this thread on how to curtail the THP of a Twilight Cleric assumes the DM can Wolfpack/Concentrate Fire on the cleric at will.

My playing experience, indicates, that with experienced groups, a DM should not just assume that 'Wolfpacking the cleric' is always a "sure thing".

Good for you, I guess? Not a table I'd want to play at, but I am pretty biased against house rule nerfs. That one is an example of why I'm against them. DMs who define "broken" as "feature that annoys me" go way overboard with nerfs.

If Invoke Duplicity requires Concentration...why shouldn't Twilight Sanctuary, an ability that combines the impact of Aura of Vitality and the best part of Calm Emotions, (both spells that require Concentration) also not?

A cleric in a Curse of Strahd game, with the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and the Aura of Life spell active can shut down vampire spawn, rather handily.

Add in Twilight Sanctuary on top of it, and you are in effect a Pro NBA player dunking on an Eight Year Old with their Nerf Basketball set.

I play a cleric in a CoS game....time permitting...I've re-run encounters with Strahd and other Vampires, using the same game log... but swapping the cleric domain to Twilight. Concentration-less Flight + OP Amulet +Twilight Sanctuary significantly impacts the difficulty.

Again..CPT Panda...your posts describe a particular style of game...but can we agree...not everyone plays that style of game, with the same underlying assumptions.

Intimating that DMs that can't handle 6-9 THP, are somehow guilty of poor play, risks insulting people. https://duckduckgo.com/y.js?ad_provider=bing&eddgt=I7WeWH8d5b1yXhhoCYJmfA%3D%3D&rut=b559f2a2bf1577624fbc40186f5082a5816fa75ca57517 ae4d92c1f5da0c5fb7&u3=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Faclick%3Fld%3De8sx 5U63P9p7SbgD0tRh6a%2DTVUCUxA3x2DoPPf%2DA46bLNN305w cTX5f5yTStCszKLcAB1Ql0frTvGwpPOIimp18FiEDLPS9shfZF 8lXWzbyhdV9miYKwLJGpMfGsNmNO_Oz2yG5HI1n9I_JZfNbtET 4Q7ZV9T6C5KlVD1SAWO8dU4__Ubok1g7Ka4_JApn0mNoj%2DHs 3g%26u%3DaHR0cHMlM2ElMmYlMmZ3d3cudGhyaWZ0Ym9va3MuY 29tJTJmdyUyZmhvdy10by13aW4tZnJpZW5kcy1hbmQtaW5mbHV lbmNlLXBlb3BsZS1ieS1kYWxlLWNhcm5lZ2llJTJmMjQ5MzU1J TJmaXRlbSUyZjQwNTI3ODMlMmYlM2Zpc2JuJTNkMDY3MTcyMzY 1MCUyNmlkaXElM2Q0MDUyNzgzJTI2bWt3aWQlM2Q3aVJwdkxlW CU3Y2RjJTI2cGNyaWQlM2QxMTU1ODg1ODI2MiUyNnBrdyUzZCU yNnBtdCUzZGJlJTI2c2xpZCUzZCUyNnByb2R1Y3QlM2Q0MDUyN zgzJTI2cGxjJTNkJTI2cGdyaWQlM2QzOTcwNzY5MzM2JTI2cHR haWQlM2RwbGEtMTEwMTAwMjg1OTg5MCUyNnV0bV9zb3VyY2UlM 2RiaW5nJTI2dXRtX21lZGl1bSUzZGNwYyUyNnV0bV9jYW1wYWl nbiUzZEJpbmclMjUyMFNob3BwaW5nJTI1MjAlMjU3QyUyNTIwQ nVzaW5lc3MlMjUyMCUyNTI2JTI1MjBJbnZlc3RpbmclMjZ1dG1 fdGVybSUzZCUyNnV0bV9jb250ZW50JTNkN2lScHZMZVglN2NkY yU3Y3BjcmlkJTdjMTE1NTg4NTgyNjIlN2Nwa3clN2MlN2NwbXQ lN2NiZSU3Y3Byb2R1Y3QlN2M0MDUyNzgzJTdjc2xpZCU3YyU3Y 3BncmlkJTdjMzk3MDc2OTMzNiU3Y3B0YWlkJTdjcGxhLTExMDE wMDI4NTk4OTAlN2MlMjZtc2Nsa2lkJTNkOWI2NTJlNjljZWU0M TlmMjE0Y2Y0ZThjNjFmZDhkZGM%26rlid%3D9b652e69cee419 f214cf4e8c61fd8ddc&vqd=3-21953426019910833756522993619462788899-291085443915950127886492275565269610110&iurl=%7B1%7DIG%3D76F245F4987D4079815F2BF97F8A0A6C% 26CID%3D0212E798578365DD0A7EF7F556656455%26ID%3DDe vEx%2C5771.1

Gignere

2021-07-07, 09:23 AM

The Temp HP from a 10th level Artillerist is sufficient to keep squishy 10th level Wizards and Sorcerers from Instant Death when facing Tiamat. I saw this personally, two weekends ago. Do you have any evidence to support your contention that a Twilight Cleric couldn't also achieve this same feat?

Not quite the same the temp hp from the artillerist is I would say better than the Twilight Cleric because the cannon lasts an hour so can be precast, and it can spam the temp hp the whole time to maximize temp hp to start combat with. Still go into several combats with it.

It has better action economy to activate, however twilight cleric is better to maintain.

The cannon does have a smaller radius but it is front loaded and what I mean by that is that the temp hp comes in whenever it’s the cannon’s turn.

The twilight cleric’s temp hp doesn’t actually kick in until the end of the character’s turn and you must end in the aura. There were fights we had to make a decision to stay in fireball formation to take advantage of temp hps or disperse and forgo the temp hp and avoid fireball formation.

At least for the cannon if it wants it can just stick next to the tanks who definitely are the ones who need the temp hps and the rest of the party can avoid fireball formation.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 10:12 AM

Not quite the same the temp hp from the artillerist is I would say better than the Twilight Cleric because the cannon lasts an hour so can be precast, and it can spam the temp hp the whole time to maximize temp hp to start combat with. Still go into several combats with it.

It has better action economy to activate, however twilight cleric is better to maintain.

The cannon does have a smaller radius but it is front loaded and what I mean by that is that the temp hp comes in whenever it’s the cannon’s turn.

The twilight cleric’s temp hp doesn’t actually kick in until the end of the character’s turn and you must end in the aura. There were fights we had to make a decision to stay in fireball formation to take advantage of temp hps or disperse and forgo the temp hp and avoid fireball formation.

At least for the cannon if it wants it can just stick next to the tanks who definitely are the ones who need the temp hps and the rest of the party can avoid fireball formation.

Part of the problem with the CD is the liklihood of having the temp hp available, unless the Cleric downs or the fight takes longer than the CD you're probably going to walk into the next encounter with temp hp beacuse there's no stated time limit in the CD text for it.

Combine that with the short rest nature (and two times per short rest at 6th) of CD and it's an incredibly spammable ability.

The Turret is still nice, but to use it you have to give up the potential damage from the other options and your bonus action, then burn spell slots after the first use is gone.

Thunderous Mojo

2021-07-07, 11:19 AM

Gignere

2021-07-07, 11:37 AM

I agree with Dork Forge. Twilight Sanctuary lasts one minute, so it is a viable tactic to have already created the Twilight Sanctuary before battle is joined.

Spiritual Weapon is also a bonus action to use.
A cleric, similarly to an artillerist, is capable of walking and chewing gum. 😇

But if you do that you lose the most valuable part of TS that’s the regen Temp hp and constantly ending frightened and charmed conditions. I can count on the number of fingers where we get the drop on the enemies and can prebuff exactly one round and get into a fight immediately without initiative being rolled.

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 02:45 PM

Straw Man? Yet on page 3 of this same thread you stated:

My summation, based off the quote above, seemingly is accurate. You advocate for more difficult and a greater quantity of Encounters, until you don't.

Let's look at the quote provided. "Twilight clerics do not inhibit attrition based play. If you have 8 encounters, and assume two short rests, they still can't use their channel divinity every encounter even after 6. And even on those fights they do use it on, it's a small layer of temps, it slows damage down, it doesn't stop it."

So that means I am clearly arguing for the "assumed" 8 medium encounters being perfectly suitable at challenging a party with a twilight cleric.

"What sort of softball encounters are you guys using that can't beat through 9.5 temps for a level 6 party?

Medium encounters are, to be frank, a total joke to an optimized party with or without a twilight cleric."

The latter statement is something I do believe, but not the point I was advocating for. Medium encounters are weak, and the 6-8 encounter day is something I've never seen and only even rarely heard of being actually used, but that doesn't change the fact that I was arguing that yes, 8 medium encounters is perfectly sufficient to challenge a twilight cleric. I've given examples of how multiple times in this thread. If you guys want to actually break down some mock battles between four characters and 8 encounters, we can do that.

This, however,:.......not so accurate.🤷🏻..perhaps that is just my opinion.🤷🏻

I maintain that it is accurate, but hell, I've been accused of strawmanning here too. So long as you aren't doing it intentionally, sometimes people just miss each other's points.

The Temp HP from a 10th level Artillerist is sufficient to keep squishy 10th level Wizards and Sorcerers from Instant Death when facing Tiamat. I saw this personally, two weekends ago. Do you have any evidence to support your contention that a Twilight Cleric couldn't also achieve this same feat?

...Tiamat? Full power Tiamat? The dragon that deals 88 damage to at least a couple members of the party (more, if they aren't spread out) as a legendary action every few turns? The DC is 27, so they're gonna fail that save unless they have a paladin handy and get lucky? That Tiamat? I'm having a REALLY hard time picturing a scenario where, at level 10, your twilight cleric and his piddling 13 temps refreshing each round is going to save you from being a stain on the floor if Tiamat is being played correctly.

Your position is full of panache, and conviction...but verve and forcefulness is not evidence. I'm not attacking you personally....not intentionally....I merely, don't believe you have made your case.

And yet I'm the only one providing actual, plausible encounters that the ability might come up against. o.O

Every example you have presented in this thread on how to curtail the THP of a Twilight Cleric assumes the DM can Wolfpack/Concentrate Fire on the cleric at will.

My playing experience, indicates, that with experienced groups, a DM should not just assume that 'Wolfpacking the cleric' is always a "sure thing".

Not always, but it often will be an effective tactic. If the party is in terrain such that they can protect the cleric, and there are foes with no ranged attacks, sure, very effective channel divinity. That isn't always the case. If the foes are too stupid to see what's going on and attack the cleric on that basis, I wouldn't suggest a DM metagame and have the enemies focus fire if they aren't in a position to do so, so again, a situation where the channel divinity is highly effective.

There being situations where a strong ability shines does not, certainly by my definition, make something broken. If that's your definition of broken and needing a nerf, I suspect you'll need to go through each of the rulebooks with a highlighter and nerf a LOT of classes and abilities.

If Invoke Duplicity requires Concentration...why shouldn't Twilight Sanctuary, an ability that combines the impact of Aura of Vitality and the best part of Calm Emotions, (both spells that require Concentration) also not?

Because invoke duplicity is hot garbage and suggesting that other channel divinities should be more like it, and not less like it, is a slap in the face of anyone who wants to play a cleric (which again, to be clear, I absolutely do not). And another thing that you're kind of missing... in 5e design, temporary hp are damage prevention, and damage prevention costs a lot less of a premium than real healing. Don't believe me? Look at the absolute best healing options at 3rd-4th level and compare it to the preventative damage of a 4th level crowd control spell or polymorph. Polymorph is far and away the better heal, on top of other bonus effects.

A cleric in a Curse of Strahd game, with the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and the Aura of Life spell active can shut down vampire spawn, rather handily.

Not familiar with the module. Are we just assuming magic items are in the mix, now?

Add in Twilight Sanctuary on top of it, and you are in effect a Pro NBA player dunking on an Eight Year Old with their Nerf Basketball set.

I play a cleric in a CoS game....time permitting...I've re-run encounters with Strahd and other Vampires, using the same game log... but swapping the cleric domain to Twilight. Concentration-less Flight + OP Amulet +Twilight Sanctuary significantly impacts the difficulty.

I believe a pretty common complaint about vampires generally, way before twilight clerics, was how soft and pitiful they were as enemies. Having a well-built party, which can definitely include a twilight cleric, is going to make these marshmallow soft foes seem even softer. Hardly seems like a reason to pick on twilight clerics in particular.

Again..CPT Panda...your posts describe a particular style of game...but can we agree...not everyone plays that style of game, with the same underlying assumptions.

Intimating that DMs that can't handle 6-9 THP, are somehow guilty of poor play, risks insulting people.

No insult is intended, but I maintain the point. If you are finding those temps to be too much, it is probably not just because of the twilight cleric, it is likely a party effort (hey, teamwork is good) and because the DM is either throwing encounters that are too weak at the party, or not piloting them properly. Given the example you gave earlier was TIAMAT, and how her abilities were foiled by a 10th level artificer, I suspect that it might be the latter. Tiamat popping up is a failstate where the DM is not supposed to hold back. Was this powered down Tiamat, or full power Tiamat? If it was full power Tiamat your entire party should have been turned into chunky salsa and eaten. :D

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 03:02 PM

But if you do that you lose the most valuable part of TS that’s the regen Temp hp and constantly ending frightened and charmed conditions. I can count on the number of fingers where we get the drop on the enemies and can prebuff exactly one round and get into a fight immediately without initiative being rolled.

Let me clarify this, you don't need to prebuff. There's no limit in the temp hp duration built in, so in reality you'll usually be carrying over temp hp into your next encounter from the first time the CD is used.

Tbh I'm not entirely sure what your overall point is, it seems to be that Twilight Ceric was a good addtion to the game and now OP/overtuned, is that an accurate summation?

On the off chance the above is correct:

-Do you really think that 1d6+level every turn without action cost is a reasonable temp hp formula?

-How do you think dumping hundreds of temp hp a day from a single ability doesn't make a mockery of attrition gameplay?

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 03:12 PM

On the off chance the above is correct:

-Do you really think that 1d6+level every turn without action cost is a reasonable temp hp formula?

Yes, I do! I'm glad you asked!

In fact, I love it as both a player and a DM. Teamwork! It's like the tankiness of a moon druid spread out. A less selfish moon druid! Teamwork! Frankly a lot of the people I've DMed for, even the ones who optimized, focus on just their own character and not the team. Twilight clerics are the ultimate team player, and I love it. I am absolutely on board with this channel divinity as-is.

-How do you think dumping hundreds of temp hp a day from a single ability doesn't make a mockery of attrition gameplay?

Because it doesn't. Look, random encounter time, making a random encounter. Going to assume a party of four level 8 characters this time (to mix it up, been using level 6, but hey, if it's OP should still be OP at 8).

First attempted generation gave a single sea hag (coven), which suggests to me that Kobold Fight Club has no clue how covens work. Rerolling and get... an elephant and five brass dragon wyrmlings. Let's assume they have their temporary hit points up, get the average of 12 (rounding up). One fail against one of those wyrmling breath weapons knocks the temps away and then some, and then you have four more. Or, let's assume you pass all of the saves, it's a pretty low DC. Let's assuming two people get hit, even if they pass all of their saves that's still 35 damage each, 23 of which bleeds right through the temps, and then the elephant gets a turn and might hit for ~20. It might miss, but hey, that's combat.

Is that unstoppable? No. But it's a medium encounter. If you want attrition gameplay, the party should be facing six or seven more fights at that level of intensity, and even if things go pretty well for them, they are still not made invincible by those temps. The channel divinity makes attrition slower, it gives a solid buffer, but it doesn't make damage politely go away.

Gignere

2021-07-07, 03:17 PM

Let me clarify this, you don't need to prebuff. There's no limit in the temp hp duration built in, so in reality you'll usually be carrying over temp hp into your next encounter from the first time the CD is used.

Tbh I'm not entirely sure what your overall point is, it seems to be that Twilight Ceric was a good addtion to the game and now OP/overtuned, is that an accurate summation?

On the off chance the above is correct:

-Do you really think that 1d6+level every turn without action cost is a reasonable temp hp formula?

-How do you think dumping hundreds of temp hp a day from a single ability doesn't make a mockery of attrition gameplay?

Personally I don’t think the channel divinity is OP. Although the whole package does lead me to the conclusion that Twilight is definitely one of the stronger cleric domains. At high levels I think it still goes to arcana domain just because of wizard spells.

If attrition gameplay is your problem the artillerist cannon is way worse than Twilight’s CD. You can get into multiple fights with one casting and have full temp hps to start in multiple fights. If you use spell slots you can keep it going all day.

Im playing alongside a Twilight cleric so far the CD hasn’t been game breaking yet but we are still low levels. Maybe higher levels it might be an issue.

MaxWilson

2021-07-07, 03:18 PM

The latter statement is something I do believe, but not the point I was advocating for. Medium encounters are weak, and the 6-8 encounter day is something I've never seen and only even rarely heard of being actually used, but that doesn't change the fact that I was arguing that yes, 8 medium encounters is perfectly sufficient to challenge a twilight cleric. I've given examples of how multiple times in this thread. If you guys want to actually break down some mock battles between four characters and 8 encounters, we can do that.

Honestly that sounds like a lot of fun, even though I suspect in the end the disagreement is more semantic than factual (what do different people think "challenge a twilight cleric" means?).

Mock battles are fun to do or read about, even when they don't really prove anything except that certain assumptions lead to certain results.

I propose a 5th level party of four PCs generated using Basic rules (Champion, Thief, Life Cleric, Evoker) vs. 8 Kobold.club-generated Deadly encounters in a row, with up to two short rests allowed. See how far the PCs get before TPKing. Then, re-run those same encounters with a Twilight Cleric in place of the Life Cleric. PC builds, equipment, spells prepared, etc. are all chosen before the monsters are rolled. (It's best to roll an encounter then run both parties through it, then roll the next encounter, and so on.)

Captain Panda is the one arguing that Twilight Clerics are not that strong, so he can run the monsters and someone else runs the PCs. This ensures that if there are synergies or tactics Captain Panda is overlooking, the Twilight Cleric can still use them.

Anyone interested in seeing this?

Segev

2021-07-07, 03:37 PM

Because invoke duplicity is hot garbage and suggesting that other channel divinities should be more like it, and not less like it, is a slap in the face of anyone who wants to play a cleric
I'd be interested to hear more on why you say this, so I started a new thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?633741-Is-Invoke-Duplicity-quot-hot-garbage-quot-or-really-cool-Both-somehow&p=25114411#post25114411) to avoid derailing this one.

MrStabby

2021-07-07, 03:39 PM

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 03:39 PM

Captain Panda is the one arguing that Twilight Clerics are not that strong,

To be clear, I'm not arguing that they are not strong, I am arguing that they are not broken. I'm not even saying twilight clerics are not the best cleric subclass, some subclass is going to be the best for a class, and this is that for the cleric. I like strong subclasses. :)

For the record, I'll define how I use broken. For a class to be broken, it needs to trivialize encounters at and above the party's weight class consistently at little to no risk to the party.

An example of something being broken in 5e would be being able to summon pixies and having them all polymorph/fly the party and then bolting. Having four flying giant apes instead of PCs (and having a full refresh of that waiting if they somehow get dropped) is pretty clearly broken. It will trivialize an entire adventuring day. I do not consider an ability that is simply strong enough to irritate the DM to be broken, and there are countless examples of this: hypnotic pattern, heat metal, healing word, conjure animals, spirit guardians. Those abilities all have the potential to do a ton of damage or otherwise turn an encounter around at relatively low cost compared to the bad spells that people rarely use (and to be clear, comparing good spells to the bad spells people rarely use is not an argument I find at all compelling, because they're the bad spells people rarely use), but being strong is not the same as being broken in my definition.

MrStabby

2021-07-07, 03:40 PM

Segev

2021-07-07, 03:48 PM

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 03:48 PM

Well how do you define "broken"?

Was editing the post to include just that already. :D

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 03:51 PM

I would argue that it's too strong. Again, not because of any one feature. But because all of the features are too good to be on the same subclass, together. It's... if you have some kids playing with make-believe figures in a game, and one of them says, "My guy is good at X," and another says, "My guy is great at Y," while a third one says, "My guy is great at both of those, and at Z, too," it's clear that one of them is, shall we say, overpowering his "guy" compared to the others. Even though being good or great at X and Y or even Z isn't a problem, being great at all three of them is.

Here is my issue with that...

Actually, nah, you're right. The total package is kind of much. Not so much I'd feel tempted to nerf my players (I have a strong bias against that, hate, hate, hate homebrew nerfs unless they are absolutely necessary), but yeah, I'd probably tone down some of those features. Not the channel divinity, that's their signature ability, but if it was still in the design phase I'd suggest WotC tune the darkvision down to maybe the same as normal improved darkvision, and drop the martial weapon proficiency. I'd also probably tie the flight specifically to their channel divinity so they can't just fly around in any dim spot, but have to use a resource for that.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 03:51 PM

Yes, I do! I'm glad you asked!

In fact, I love it as both a player and a DM. Teamwork! It's like the tankiness of a moon druid spread out. A less selfish moon druid! Teamwork! Frankly a lot of the people I've DMed for, even the ones who optimized, focus on just their own character and not the team. Twilight clerics are the ultimate team player, and I love it. I am absolutely on board with this channel divinity as-is.

Team work has nothing to do with the appropriateness of the temp hp formula, you're focusing on the concept of the Cleric giving out temp hp period.

There's no need for the die to be involved at all, would you still feel the same about the ability if it was just Cleric level in temp hp?

And for the record sharing Moon Druid durability like that is not a good thing, Moon Druid's make heavy compromises to get that durability.

Because it doesn't. Look, random encounter time, making a random encounter. Going to assume a party of four level 8 characters this time (to mix it up, been using level 6, but hey, if it's OP should still be OP at 8).

First attempted generation gave a single sea hag (coven), which suggests to me that Kobold Fight Club has no clue how covens work. Rerolling and get... an elephant and five brass dragon wyrmlings. Let's assume they have their temporary hit points up, get the average of 12 (rounding up). One fail against one of those wyrmling breath weapons knocks the temps away and then some, and then you have four more. Or, let's assume you pass all of the saves, it's a pretty low DC. Let's assuming two people get hit, even if they pass all of their saves that's still 35 damage each, 23 of which bleeds right through the temps, and then the elephant gets a turn and might hit for ~20. It might miss, but hey, that's combat.

Is that unstoppable? No. But it's a medium encounter. If you want attrition gameplay, the party should be facing six or seven more fights at that level of intensity, and even if things go pretty well for them, they are still not made invincible by those temps. The channel divinity makes attrition slower, it gives a solid buffer, but it doesn't make damage politely go away.

Assuming the encounter lasts 3 rounds and like you say, they go into it with the temp hp:

That's 46 temp hp.

A level 8 Cleric with +2 Con has 59hp.

You don't think coming pretty darn close to equaling (and certainly in the case of some Sorcerers and Wizards, exceeding) the total hp of the average character with decent Con is a bit much?

At level 8 they can do this 6 times assuming two short rests. There's no way that doesn't trivialise the damage portion of medium encounters. The overflow damage is easily manager by the total hp, and subsquent patch healing/short rest hit die.

Personally I don’t think the channel divinity is OP. Although the whole package does lead me to the conclusion that Twilight is definitely one of the stronger cleric domains. At high levels I think it still goes to arcana domain just because of wizard spells.

If attrition gameplay is your problem the artillerist cannon is way worse than Twilight’s CD. You can get into multiple fights with one casting and have full temp hps to start in multiple fights. If you use spell slots you can keep it going all day.

Im playing alongside a Twilight cleric so far the CD hasn’t been game breaking yet but we are still low levels. Maybe higher levels it might be an issue.

They're pretty different, Artillerist needs to make heavy compromises to make the temp hp happen on that scale (giving up their damage options, committing their bonus actions and some slots) vs the Cleric using a dedicated resource and no action cost after the initial set up... in a much bigger area.

Then there's the Artillerist starting out strong and petering out as the formula has very little scaling, whereas the Twilight Cleric scales all the way up.

Anyone interested in seeing this?

I'd put five coppers on that

MaxWilson

2021-07-07, 04:12 PM

To be clear, I'm not arguing that they are not strong, I am arguing that they are not broken. I'm not even saying twilight clerics are not the best cleric subclass, some subclass is going to be the best for a class, and this is that for the cleric. I like strong subclasses. :)

The Twilight Clerics' problem isn't just that it's a strong subclass though--it's that it's an outlier and it's not on-theme and it's a latecomer (therefore power creep). If Tempest Cleric, for example, were the strongest cleric subclass according to conventional wisdom because it got a whole bunch of thunder and lightning damage, with a couple of other cleric subclasses right behind it, that would be okay.

But the Twilight cleric is just a grab-bag of random powers having nothing really to do with twilight. How much of an outlier is it? Are there other pre-Tasha's subclasses that can compete with Twilight Cleric? Well, we could test that by running some mock Kobold.club-generated battles with Twilight Cleric in one party and one of the PHB/Xanathar's subclasses in the other. Do you think that e.g. War Cleric can compete with Twilight?

Because if not, Twilight is breaking the game in the sense that it's removing options from serious consideration. This may not be the definition of "broken" that you like best, but it's one form of breakage.

MrStabby

2021-07-07, 04:19 PM

I think that one thing that annoys me about both the Twilight and the peace cleric is that I actually really like them as concepts.

I feel the twilight cleric - the sense of protection as the sun goes down, the home and hearth at dusk. The spells seem good - faerie fire to capture the fae feeling of dusk, moonbeam for moonlight, tiny hut for the home and so on. I really get the theme and like it and it is the kind of cleric I could get behind playing (the heavy armour seems a bit out of place though).

Likewise for Peace. I feel that the paladin aura of protection is a better fit for the more spiritual cleric than the martial paladin (if it were a bonus to AC I could see it being a Paladin thing) so a chance to play a cleric with what feels like an appropriate ability is tempting. It also has a really good feel to it.

I just wish they were a bit better balanced.

The Twilight Clerics' problem isn't just that it's a strong subclass though--it's that it's an outlier and it's not on-theme and it's a latecomer (therefore power creep). If Tempest Cleric, for example, were the strongest cleric subclass according to conventional wisdom because it got a whole bunch of thunder and lightning damage, with a couple of other cleric subclasses right behind it, that would be okay.

But the Twilight cleric is just a grab-bag of random powers having nothing really to do with twilight. How much of an outlier is it? Are there other pre-Tasha's subclasses that can compete with Twilight Cleric? Well, we could test that by running some mock Kobold.club-generated battles with Twilight Cleric in one party and one of the PHB/Xanathar's subclasses in the other. Do you think that e.g. War Cleric can compete with Twilight?

Because if not, Twilight is breaking the game in the sense that it's removing options from serious consideration. This may not be the definition of "broken" that you like best, but it's one form of breakage.

It seems we have very different views here!

Edit: One thing I don't like about comparing classes through mock battles, is it says nothing about out of combat utility. I compare twilight cleric to knowledge cleric... of course twilight cleric will be better in combat but it overlooks all the really good stuff the knowledge cleric brings.

In this case, how would you rate the value of Leomund's Tiny hut? This is a great spell in a lot of campaigns and any metric that doesn't reflect its value will be problematic.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 04:22 PM

It seems we have very different views here!

It's interesting that you mostly focused on the spells regarding the theming though. How do you fit the flying and initiative boosting in?

MrStabby

2021-07-07, 04:29 PM

It's interesting that you mostly focused on the spells regarding the theming though. How do you fit the flying and initiative boosting in?

These are a bit odd. There is a case to be made for each though.

Flying is maybe the assiciation beween twilight and witchcraft.

Initiative is perhaps reflective of the ideal of standing watch in preparedness.

I think each of these fits with twilight, but I will accept that all together there may be an element or two that, whilst fitting with the twilight concept, doesn't mesh with the other twilight concepts as part of the same ideal. I don't think that this is that unusual for a subclass though.

Segev

2021-07-07, 05:00 PM

Here is my issue with that...

Actually, nah, you're right. The total package is kind of much. Not so much I'd feel tempted to nerf my players (I have a strong bias against that, hate, hate, hate homebrew nerfs unless they are absolutely necessary), but yeah, I'd probably tone down some of those features. Not the channel divinity, that's their signature ability, but if it was still in the design phase I'd suggest WotC tune the darkvision down to maybe the same as normal improved darkvision, and drop the martial weapon proficiency. I'd also probably tie the flight specifically to their channel divinity so they can't just fly around in any dim spot, but have to use a resource for that.Honestly, if I were worried about balance, I'd probably just not permit the domain. It's Too Good, in the sense that picking others feels bad in comparison. It's too much a go-to for multiclassing, to the point that - as an optimizer and powergamer at heart - I find myself looking for excuses to pick it up even if I just want, say, Martial Weapon Proficiency out of it, because the rest of the package is so good for anything that could use martial weapon proficiency.

It's interesting that you mostly focused on the spells regarding the theming though. How do you fit the flying and initiative boosting in?Yeah, I'd probably take away the martial weapon proficiency (it can keep heavy armor; it's clearly supposed to be supporting the front line), and the initiative boost, and the flight. I am not sure what, if anything, I'd replace any of them with, but those are the ones that feel the most like somebody just threw their wish list at the subclass to see what stuck, and nobody bothered to actually try cleaning it up. This is somewhat subjective, of course.

These are a bit odd. There is a case to be made for each though.

Flying is maybe the assiciation beween twilight and witchcraft.

Initiative is perhaps reflective of the ideal of standing watch in preparedness.

I think each of these fits with twilight, but I will accept that all together there may be an element or two that, whilst fitting with the twilight concept, doesn't mesh with the other twilight concepts as part of the same ideal. I don't think that this is that unusual for a subclass though.This is interesting, but I think they're stretches at best. In practice, they're things that feel like they need to hunt for justification, but are the sort of things that every character would crave. They're high on my list of culprits for "my guy is good at everything"-ism being a thing with this subclass.

I do appreciate you sharing the ideas for what their justifications might be, though!

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 05:04 PM

These are a bit odd. There is a case to be made for each though.

Flying is maybe the assiciation beween twilight and witchcraft.

Initiative is perhaps reflective of the ideal of standing watch in preparedness.

I think each of these fits with twilight, but I will accept that all together there may be an element or two that, whilst fitting with the twilight concept, doesn't mesh with the other twilight concepts as part of the same ideal. I don't think that this is that unusual for a subclass though.

Whilst I can get where you're coming from, the domain doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft and both feel... reaching. I have a feeling that whoever designed this had either just seen or worked on the Watcher's Paladin.

Yeah, I'd probably take away the martial weapon proficiency (it can keep heavy armor; it's clearly supposed to be supporting the front line), and the initiative boost, and the flight. I am not sure what, if anything, I'd replace any of them with, but those are the ones that feel the most like somebody just threw their wish list at the subclass to see what stuck, and nobody bothered to actually try cleaning it up. This is somewhat subjective, of course.

TBH I don't see the on the frontline thing at all, the CD aura is relatively massive and the spells don't say frontliner at all.

I do agree that it's an overall too good grab bag, it's kind of ridiculous.

LordShade

2021-07-07, 05:41 PM

Captain Panda is the one arguing that Twilight Clerics are not that strong, so he can run the monsters and someone else runs the PCs. This ensures that if there are synergies or tactics Captain Panda is overlooking, the Twilight Cleric can still use them.

Anyone interested in seeing this?

I am very interested, and enjoying this thread a lot. I learn a lot from debates on game mechanics.

I also want to appreciate the politeness and general respect on this thread, and just say that it makes me more engaged in the discussion.

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 10:29 PM

It's too much a go-to for multiclassing, to the point that - as an optimizer and powergamer at heart - I find myself looking for excuses to pick it up even if I just want, say, Martial Weapon Proficiency out of it, because the rest of the package is so good for anything that could use martial weapon proficiency.

See, I actually (as an optimizer myself) see it another way. I see twilight as a pretty bad dip, since the channel divinity comes online at 2 (2 is a lot to ask for a dip), and for dips I'd say life would be my favored choice, or even knowledge for non-combat reasons. I've dipped into knowledge as a high level wizard who didn't really want the level 20 feature. Life cleric combined with goodberry and just all the other generally awesome stuff a druid can do makes for a great combo, but twilight cleric stands pretty well on its own and I don't know if I'd want to go two levels into it.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 10:33 PM

See, I actually (as an optimizer myself) see it another way. I see twilight as a pretty bad dip, since the channel divinity comes online at 2 (2 is a lot to ask for a dip), and for dips I'd say life would be my favored choice, or even knowledge for non-combat reasons. I've dipped into knowledge as a high level wizard who didn't really want the level 20 feature. Life cleric combined with goodberry and just all the other generally awesome stuff a druid can do makes for a great combo, but twilight cleric stands pretty well on its own and I don't know if I'd want to go two levels into it.

Obviously a matter of opinion, but two levels isn't really that much of a dip, especially when the first level is so heavily loaded like in Cleric.

MaxWilson

2021-07-07, 10:38 PM

Obviously a matter of opinion, but two levels isn't really that much of a dip, especially when the first level is so heavily loaded like in Cleric.

I can easily imagine someone dipping Twilight 1 just for heavy armor, advantage on initiative, Faerie Fire and Sleep, and super-darkvision for multiple PCs. It's not the only good Cleric 1 dip (Forge, Life, Knowledge are good too) but it's still one of the best, even without the Channel Divinity.

Captain Panda

2021-07-07, 10:52 PM

Obviously a matter of opinion, but two levels isn't really that much of a dip, especially when the first level is so heavily loaded like in Cleric.

It depends on when the dip is and what you're getting, and what you're losing by not going elsewhere, I suppose. On a shepherd druid recently I took life cleric 1 for greatberry and better heals (I still view in-combat healing as a bit of an optimizer sin, but it's a luxury that shepherd druids get, since they are typically overflowing with spell slots as their main punches are just so gosh darned slot efficient) and then took divine soul sorcerer for a level, mainly for the shield spell and the short rest ability to add 2d4 to a saving throw (hah, no more breaking my concentration!). But now I feel like I'm derailing things a bit. Back on point: twilight clerics being the best does not, in my view, make the rest of the subclasses in cleric all bad. Though obviously none of them are as good for a single-class cleric, in my view, at least in most circumstances.

Most, but not all. For example, arcana cleric swings into first place pretty hard once they get to plunder the wizard list and steal wish.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-07, 11:46 PM

I can easily imagine someone dipping Twilight 1 just for heavy armor, advantage on initiative, Faerie Fire and Sleep, and super-darkvision for multiple PCs. It's not the only good Cleric 1 dip (Forge, Life, Knowledge are good too) but it's still one of the best, even without the Channel Divinity.

I didn't mean to say that Twilight 1 was bad or that people should only take the one level, quite the contrary, I was saying that because level 1 is so good it makes getting to that second level so easy.

The entire package is ridiculous, I can't think of a single below average aspect, or even really just average. With the proficiencies thrown in (for some reason) they're basically the kitchen sink Cleric.

It depends on when the dip is and what you're getting, and what you're losing by not going elsewhere, I suppose. On a shepherd druid recently I took life cleric 1 for greatberry and better heals (I still view in-combat healing as a bit of an optimizer sin, but it's a luxury that shepherd druids get, since they are typically overflowing with spell slots as their main punches are just so gosh darned slot efficient) and then took divine soul sorcerer for a level, mainly for the shield spell and the short rest ability to add 2d4 to a saving throw (hah, no more breaking my concentration!). But now I feel like I'm derailing things a bit. Back on point: twilight clerics being the best does not, in my view, make the rest of the subclasses in cleric all bad. Though obviously none of them are as good for a single-class cleric, in my view, at least in most circumstances.

Most, but not all. For example, arcana cleric swings into first place pretty hard once they get to plunder the wizard list and steal wish.

Side tangent: Our opinions are wildly different lol, in combat healing is valuable and underrated imo because of pop up culture.

When something is so out of line, it can be disruptive not only to general group play (it's a huge, huge party boost, and the DM will likely have to compensate, but should the Cleric not do the expected or go down, then it can spiral out of hand very quickly.

I don't think it makes other Clerics unplayable, but they certainly look less appealing by contrast and I can foresee the Hexblade effect happening 'Going to Dip Cleric, going to play a Cleric etc. may as well make it a Twilight!'

MaxWilson

2021-07-07, 11:59 PM

I don't think it makes other Clerics unplayable, but they certainly look less appealing by contrast and I can foresee the Hexblade effect happening 'Going to Dip Cleric, going to play a Cleric etc. may as well make it a Twilight!'

And then WotC decides to make a new Cleric (Warlock) subclass, but it had to compete with Twilight (Hexblade) to even be considered, so they make the new subclass also very powerful (Genielock)... and that's how power creep happens.

Thunderous Mojo

2021-07-08, 02:35 AM

No insult is intended, but I maintain the point. If you are finding those temps to be too much, it is probably not just because of the twilight cleric, it is likely a party effort (hey, teamwork is good) and because the DM is either throwing encounters that are too weak at the party, or not piloting them properly.

Essentially, you are stating that X amount of THP, constantly regenerating, turn after turn, somehow, doesn't make an impact on how the game is played.

I find this demonstrably false, as does anyone that has ever played with an Artillerist, in their group.

I've never made any claims that THP are insurmountable, Personally I love THP.

I propose a D&D Pepsi Challenge.

Add Twilight Sanctuary (say as a 9th level cleric) to make a Frost Giant Zombie Cleric, (from Explorer's Guide to Wildemont), that leads a band of plain Frost Giant Zombies and whatever other zombies you want to sprinkle in.

Then run the same encounter but don't give the Frost Giant Zombie Cleric the Twilight domain in the second run through, and track the differences in play and outcomes.

My experience, is players, generally notice an impact to play, when a monster has a constantly replenishing pool of THP.

Given the example you gave earlier was TIAMAT, and how her abilities were foiled by a 10th level artificer, I suspect that it might be the latter. Tiamat popping up is a failstate where the DM is not supposed to hold back. Was this powered down Tiamat, or full power Tiamat? If it was full power Tiamat your entire party should have been turned into chunky salsa and eaten. :D

You presume too much.

Without asking questions, with no knowledge of the players, the DM, the history of the game....you presume you can accurately describe, (and unsolicitedly), offer a diagnosis of what is wrong, in such aforementioned game?
...sigh....
.............There is more under heaven and earth, than can be.......✌️

5e D&D is more than equipped to handle an old school, Gygaxian Campaign, where the stakes are high, but so are the rewards. 10th level parties, can handle Tier 4 challenges, as long as they play smart, and have access to Legendary Magic Items.

The game is set in Eberron.

The Aid spell Upcast to 5th level adds 20 Hit Points. Everyone in the party, (Sorcerer, Wizard, Artificer, Fighter),except myself, has access to the Absorb Elements spell.

Each person could survive one failed breath weapon saving throw. So the key is to limit each partymates exposure to the hazard, between Healings.

When in such straits, yes, 9-10 points of Damage Mitigation in the form of THP matters.

Sorcerer had a Cubic Gate, so we Gated in Drynn to battle the Daughter of Kyber as we knew Drynn's plans of world domination conflicted with the Daughter of Kyber's plan.

Tiamat eats Drynn, but takes damage, the party moves in...fully buffed...the arcane casters, in a coordinated fashion draw Fire, (and lightning, and acid etc, etc), while my fighter flys up, and starts grabbing Dragon necks and going snickersnack with my Magic Sword, that was specially made for this purpose,
(And cost my character his Destiny).

Victory, was by no means assured... Legendary Items for the win!

Captain Panda

2021-07-08, 03:28 AM

Essentially, you are stating that X amount of THP, constantly regenerating, turn after turn, somehow, doesn't make an impact on how the game is played.

Mate, again, no offense meant, but you are consistently missing the point. It's a good ability, it makes a difference, it SHOULD make a difference. Casting hideous laughter on a giant so that it's out of the fight makes a difference, we could have more or less the same debate over any number of things.

Let's plug my stance and your retort into another example, maybe that will help. I don't think hypnotic pattern is overpowered, I think it's strong. I think people who say it's overpowered are wrong and that it's not going to break a game.

Your reply is akin to replying to that by saying: "Essentially, you are stating that taking three or four monsters out of the fight and completely halting their damage, turn after turn, doesn't make an impact on how the game is played."

No. I'm not saying that it has no impact, I'm saying that it's strong but not broken. This has been stated already.

I find this demonstrably false, as does anyone that has ever played with an Artillerist, in their group.

I'm not accusing you of hitting a straw man intentionally, but you are unintentionally giving a scarecrow one hell of a beating right now. Please, please, if you reply to this make a genuine effort to understand the point I'm making before typing a response. You can disagree, disagreeing is fine, but understand my stance.

I propose a D&D Pepsi Challenge.

Add Twilight Sanctuary (say as a 9th level cleric) to make a Frost Giant Zombie Cleric, (from Explorer's Guide to Wildemont), that leads a band of plain Frost Giant Zombies and whatever other zombies you want to sprinkle in.

Then run the same encounter but don't give the Frost Giant Zombie Cleric the Twilight domain in the second run through, and track the differences in play and outcomes.

My experience, is players, generally notice an impact to play, when a monster has a constantly replenishing pool of THP.

A group of frost giant zombies? Assuming they're all cr 8, you'd need a level ~17 group for that to be a medium encounter.

Usually the temps would be noticeable, but manageable. At level 17? Those temps are highly unlikely to register unless I tell the party they're there.

You presume too much.

You're free to think so.

Chronic

2021-07-08, 06:45 AM

Twilight cleric isn't the best cleric subclass. Peace is miles ahead, Arcana melee is vastly more powerful as it contribute in a very efficient way to the dpt for example. Is it strong? Hell yeah. Will it allows the group to survive longer? I hope so, that's what it's made for.
To me, I basically judge a thing to be broken on basically 2 axis. The first one go from teammate friendly to overshadow other characters and the second is the power level, from "I Need to buff it" to "I need to wildly change my encounters just because of it".

For the first axis, it pass with flying colors, in both campaign where a TC cleric was present, everyone loved it. It provide much to the group and makes them feel better while stealing no thunder from anyone.

For the second axis, it does necessitate adjustment since it is quite strong. As a Gm I was a bit worried at first, but I realized that you just need to buff the damage dealing of the monsters in some instances. As far as adjustments go, damage is among the easiest to do, even on the fly. There is many things I'd rather not face as a Gm, this is not one of them, and my players really loved it.

This is not a pvp games, so what if it makes a group stronger, there is a DM, he has every tools he need to keep things balanced and enjoyable. Nerfs, is in my opinion, the lazy one of the bunch.

Sception

2021-07-08, 07:39 AM

To me, I basically judge a thing to be broken on basically 2 axis. The first one go from teammate friendly to overshadow other characters...

For the first axis, it pass with flying colors, in both campaign where a TC cleric was present, everyone loved it.

EDIT: in retrospect this post reads as way more rude and condescending than I intended it to. I apologize for that. I'll leave it as is since it has led to some useful conversation comparing twilight cleric to artillerist arteficer, but yeah, the tone here wasn't appropriate and I should have caught that and corrected it before posting.

Clearly you didn't have any other party members with temp hp abilities, because the twilight channel is so wildly out of step with other temp hp abilities in the game that it largely obsoletes most of them, completely overshadowing significant abilities on a number of other possible character builds.

As for your second factor, forcing significant encounter changes, it's even more wildly over the line there, basically negating charm, frighten, and spread damage (whether aoe or individual target attacks that just can't be concentrated) for the entire encounter in which the ability is used, which is eventually two encounters per short rest - at which point it will be active in more combat encounters than it isn't. It's just too much. It would be too much on its own, even if the other subclass features were garbage, which they very much aren't.

There are other ways do mitigate or negate some of those threats - paladin's aura of courage for instance negates frighten. But /just/ frighten, and it comes online at a later level, and the short range of that aura means relying on it makes the party /more/ vulnerable to aoe damage.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 07:50 AM

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 09:12 AM

I guess you haven’t played in a party with an artillerist. An artillerist will overshadow the twilight CD.

Depends on the level and length of the day, 6th level onwards Twilight easily takes over without really having to compromise on doing normal Cleric things.

The Artillerist's formula doesn't age as well and starts to eat into their limited spell slots after the first use, whilst also kneecapping their damage potential.

Chronic

2021-07-08, 09:19 AM

I must admit I have never seen an artificer in any of my games, I personally don't like the flavor of the classe, I don't know why the others at my table never played one tho.
And temp hp, while it exist, from multiple source, isn't that prevalent. Outside of the artifice there isn't much class of subclass that I would consider leaning on this play style. And even the artifice will still provide much, his turret isn't wasted, he still provide magic items and such.
Also charm and frighten, so what... there is 15 or so different conditions...i don't feel impaired by this.
And I doesn't prevent me from putting monster who inflicts it. First because what's the point of having an ability if it never comes up, second because when it comes up, in that moment they won't get the THP.
It's not a significant change in my encounter design.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 09:24 AM

Depends on the level and length of the day, 6th level onwards Twilight easily takes over without really having to compromise on doing normal Cleric things.

The Artillerist's formula doesn't age as well and starts to eat into their limited spell slots after the first use, whilst also kneecapping their damage potential.

I’ve been in different games and have experience with both and I find the cannon way more problematic than the Twilight Cleric CD. At least the DM with the artillerist complained about the cannon and I haven’t heard the current DM complain about the Twilight CD.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 10:09 AM

I’ve been in different games and have experience with both and I find the cannon way more problematic than the Twilight Cleric CD. At least the DM with the artillerist complained about the cannon and I haven’t heard the current DM complain about the Twilight CD.

Whether or not two different DMs will vocalise their frustration with a player's class feature seems like a pretty bad metric.

What levels are we talking about here and how heavily are they being used? Which player in your estimation is actually giving out more temp hp?

Gignere

2021-07-08, 10:20 AM

Whether or not two different DMs will vocalise their frustration with a player's class feature seems like a pretty bad metric.

What levels are we talking about here and how heavily are they being used? Which player in your estimation is actually giving out more temp hp?

The artillerist game ended at level 8, and the twilight cleric campaign just started we’re level 3 in. It’s not even a comparison the cannon passed out way way more temp hps. Like orders of magnitude more. Hell the cleric doesn’t even necessarily use the CD in every fight because he rather use his action on other things. The cannon is so easily abuse we got through dungeons just relying on the temp hps provided.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 10:26 AM

The artillerist game ended at level 8, and the twilight cleric campaign just started we’re level 3 in. It’s not even a comparison the cannon passed out way way more temp hps. Like orders of magnitude more. Hell the cleric doesn’t even necessarily use the CD in every fight because he rather use his action on other things. The cannon is so easily abuse we got through dungeons just relying on the temp hps provided.

With all due respect that's a very lopsided comparison, the Twilight CD at it's lowest end vs the Artillerist when it's formula is strongest and with one player that isn't inclined to use the CD.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 10:37 AM

With all due respect that's a very lopsided comparison, the Twilight CD at it's lowest end vs the Artillerist when it's formula is strongest and with one player that isn't inclined to use the CD.

Not really even at level 3 when the artillerist just got the cannon we quickly realized that the best thing to do with his cannons was at beginning of dungeon pass out max temp hps to everyone.

During a fight park it next to the melee or hell just ride on a meleer and pass out temp hps during the fight.

After fight sit around another minute and assume everyone got max temp hps again. Rinse and repeat for the whole dungeon. If the cannon runs out or actually goes down, spell slot and it’s up again.

Fact that the cleric (nor the party) doesn’t think the CD is the best use of his actions already shows it’s not nearly as good.

MaxWilson

2021-07-08, 10:56 AM

Not really even at level 3 when the artillerist just got the cannon we quickly realized that the best thing to do with his cannons was at beginning of dungeon pass out max temp hps to everyone.

During a fight park it next to the melee or.... just ride on a meleer and pass out temp hps during the fight.

After fight sit around another minute and assume everyone got max temp hps again. Rinse and repeat for the whole dungeon. If the cannon runs out or actually goes down, spell slot and it’s up again.

Fact that the cleric (nor the party) doesn’t think the CD is the best use of his actions already shows it’s not nearly as good.

So you've got an 8th level party where d8+4ish (5-13) THP per round is extremely powerful to the point of trivializing adventures.

And you've got another 3rd level party where the cleric doesn't even bother to activate d6+3 (4-9) THP per round during or before combat, even though at 3rd level 4-9 THP is proportionately waaaaay more than 5-13 THP is at level 8.

This tells me that either the campaign is very different (3rd level campaign is less of a dungeon crawl) or the Twilight Cleric is missing a big opportunity. Even if he doesn't want to use an action during combat, at minimum he should be passing out 9 THP (~30% HP boost!) to everybody per short rest.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 11:01 AM

So you've got an 8th level party where d8+4ish (5-13) THP per round is extremely powerful to the point of trivializing adventures.

And you've got another 3rd level party where the cleric doesn't even bother to activate d6+3 (4-9) THP per round during or before combat, even though at 3rd level 4-9 THP is proportionately waaaaay more than 5-13 THP is at level 8.

This tells me that either the campaign is very different (3rd level campaign is less of a dungeon crawl) or the Twilight Cleric is missing a big opportunity. Even if he doesn't want to use an action during combat, at minimum he should be passing out 9 THP (~30% HP boost!) to everybody per short rest.

It’s starting every fight with 12 temp hps and regenning without even much of an action cost.

But you’re correct I should tell the cleric to use his CD if it isn’t on cool down before a short rest. That hasn’t hit us yet. The one hour duration on the cannon made it very obvious to use to max temp hps on everyone before every fight.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 11:02 AM

Not really even at level 3 when the artillerist just got the cannon we quickly realized that the best thing to do with his cannons was at beginning of dungeon pass out max temp hps to everyone.

During a fight park it next to the melee or hell just ride on a meleer and pass out temp hps during the fight.

After fight sit around another minute and assume everyone got max temp hps again. Rinse and repeat for the whole dungeon. If the cannon runs out or actually goes down, spell slot and it’s up again.

Fact that the cleric (nor the party) doesn’t think the CD is the best use of his actions already shows it’s not nearly as good.

So you've got an 8th level party where d8+4ish (5-13) THP per round is extremely powerful to the point of trivializing adventures.

And you've got another 3rd level party where the cleric doesn't even bother to activate d6+3 (4-9) THP per round during or before combat, even though at 3rd level 4-9 THP is proportionately waaaaay more than 5-13 THP is at level 8.

This tells me that either the campaign is very different (3rd level campaign is less of a dungeon crawl) or the Twilight Cleric is missing a big opportunity. Even if he doesn't want to use an action during combat, at minimum he should be passing out 9 THP (~30% HP boost!) to everybody per short rest.

Not just what Max said, the Cleric would still be able to leverage their bonus action for Healing Word top ups and Spiritual Weapon, where as the Artillerist has to spend their bonus doling out the temp hp in aoe formation.

The "straight from level 3" is also misleading, the Artillerists formula is front loaded, the earlier the level the better it is. The only difference between 3rd level and 8th is going to be 1-2 points from buffing Int.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-08, 11:03 AM

It'll become increasingly obvious when the cleric hits 6th level and gets a second CD per short rest, I'd warrant.

MaxWilson

2021-07-08, 11:12 AM

It’s starting every fight with 12 temp hps and regenning without even much of an action cost.

But you’re correct I should tell the cleric to use his CD if it isn’t on cool down before a short rest. That hasn’t hit us yet. The one hour duration on the cannon made it very obvious to use to max temp hps on everyone before every fight.

He can even do it first thing in the morning, then take a short rest to regain CD while the wizard is busy preparing his spells or whatever. Those temp HP don't expire until you take a long rest.

FabulousFizban

2021-07-08, 02:52 PM

If you have a table of munchkins the problem is your players, not the game. Any system can be exploited with enough effort.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 02:54 PM

If you have a table of munchkins the problem is your players, not the game. Any system can be exploited with enough effort.

Optimising isn't necessarily a bad thing, the problem here is the power that's on tap from just playing the subclass period, you don't have to optimise it at all when the features themselves are too much and too many.

MaxWilson

2021-07-08, 03:11 PM

If you have a table of munchkins the problem is your players, not the game. Any system can be exploited with enough effort.

Any system, really? How are you defining "exploit"?

How would you go about exploiting chess?

Segev

2021-07-08, 03:11 PM

If you have a table of munchkins the problem is your players, not the game. Any system can be exploited with enough effort.

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here. What are the assumptions going into this or the implications we're meant to infer from it? What conclusion would you like us to draw?

Sception

2021-07-08, 04:24 PM

I guess you haven’t played in a party with an artillerist. An artillerist will overshadow the twilight CD.

Others have already discussed this, but...

The artillerist temporary HP offered comes at a higher resource cost (spell slots on a half caster are more precious than a cleric's channel divinity), and is bolted onto a weaker base package - clerics are significantly more effective than artificers before you factor in their subclass features. That's not a big problem or a huge knock on artificers, the basic class design of artificers just happens to lean more heavily on their subclass features for basic round by round functionality than clerics do. But while an artillerist's temporary hp generation is also very impressive and also arguably a bit over the top even, that's pretty much all they're contributing. In particular, the shield comes at the direct cost of their offensive output.

Twilight cleric can throw out their channel divinity while casting spiritual weapon in the same round, and follow up with bless or spirit guardians - ie, they can be doing the very effective things that clerics do by default before you even look at their subclass features, and can maintain all these effects at the same time. AND their channel comes online a level before artillerist shield. AND it also negates charm and fear. AND they have more casts per day than the artillerist - especially one burning slots to keep their shield up, and the cleric accesses higher level spells sooner. AND while the artillerist's shield is competitive with the temphp generation (and only the temphp generation) through the mid levels, eventually the twilight cleric pulls ahead there too.

There really is no comparison. It's just silly, even by the standard set by the second most ridiculous temphp abilityin the game.

neonchameleon

2021-07-08, 05:02 PM

Clearly you didn't have any other party members with temp hp abilities, because the twilight channel is so wildly out of step with other temp hp abilities in the game that it largely obsoletes most of them, completely overshadowing significant abilities on a number of other possible character builds.

Glamour Bard is IMO worse; it's a comparable number of temp hit points but you do it using bonus actions rather than your standard action and you can spread it across multiple small encounters better while also spreading out better.

But the big problem is that to me is that oodles of temp hit points everywhere leads to 5e fights getting even grindier and forcing focus fire onto the DM that much more.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-08, 05:31 PM

Glamour Bard is IMO worse; it's a comparable number of temp hit points but you do it using bonus actions rather than your standard action and you can spread it across multiple small encounters better while also spreading out better.

But the big problem is that to me is that oodles of temp hit points everywhere leads to 5e fights getting even grindier and forcing focus fire onto the DM that much more.

Glamour Bard is worse in terms of strict THP distribution, as is the Glory Paladin.

Let's assume 5th level (as that's an HP bump for Glamour.) So this is how it breaks down in terms of amount per target/number of targets/times usable per SR/total THP.

THP per target
# of targets
# of uses per SR
Total THP per SR

Artillerist Artificer
1d8 + 4 (Int mod) = 8.5
up to 12 (grid)
0.33
8.5*4*600*0.33 = 6800 THP

Glamour Bard
8 THP
4 (Cha mod)
4 (BI dice)
32*4*4 = 512 THP

Glory Paladin
up to max
Infinite**
1 (CD and required smite)
2d8 + 5 = 14 THP

Twilight Cleric
1d6 + 5 = 8.5
Infinite***
1 (CD)
8.5*4*10 = 340 THP

*Artillerist gets 1 free usage per LR, not SR, and must expend spell slots to use it again
**Glory Paladin can hit up to 14 creatures: they can distribute to any creature within 30 feet, but it draws from a common pool of THP
***Any creature within 30 feet, but an unlimited number of the cleric's choice

Before anything else: I assume 4 party members across the board (except the poor Paladin) in an effort to maintain sanity. Assuming more than 4 gives a huge boost to the Twilight versus Artillerist comparison because the former is 30 feet radius, while the latter is only 10 feet.

Artillerist Artificer by far blows away any and all competition, but that's over an hour. And since it doesn't stack, most of it will go to waste, unlike the Twilight cleric. If there's only 1 fight in that 24 hour-span, at 5th level they're actually pretty close to identical. Which is neat. If there's more than 1 fight in that hour-long stretch, the Artillerist comes out ahead. If you get any SRs at all that day, however, the cleric pulls way ahead as they don't have to invest any resources (AKA spell slots that could be put to other use) to get their healing refreshed.

This is a really quick and dirty method to really prove that the Artillerist and Twilight are the only real game in town when it comes to THP. Glamour Bard does a lot better than I gave it credit for, but that requires them to use their BI dice for nothing except granting THP (and movement), which kinda ruins the thing?

EDIT: Also, it really really points out hard the Glory Paladin is screwed. Like, Wow.

EDIT2: Inspiring Leader gives 5 + 4 (level + Cha mod) THP per SR, times we'll say 4 creatures, giving you 36 THP. Nowhere in the league of the big hitters.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 05:40 PM

Artillerist Artificer by far blows away any and all competition, but that's over an hour. And since it doesn't stack, most of it will go to waste, unlike the Twilight cleric. If there's only 1 fight in that 24 hour-span, at 5th level they're actually pretty close to identical. Which is neat. If there's more than 1 fight in that hour-long stretch, the Artillerist comes out ahead. If you get any SRs at all that day, however, the cleric pulls way ahead as they don't have to invest any resources (AKA spell slots that could be put to other use) to get their healing refreshed.

This is a really quick and dirty method to really prove that the Artillerist and Twilight are the only real game in town when it comes to THP. And before you say it, Inspiring Leader grants less than Glamour Bard.

EDIT: Also, it really really points out hard the Glory Paladin is screwed. Like, Wow.

There were adventuring days where we fit a whole “day” of encounters in that 1 hour. Although rare having the free cannon up for 2-4 fights are not.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-08, 05:45 PM

There were adventuring days where we fit a whole “day” of encounters in that 1 hour. Although rare having the free cannon up for 2-4 fights are not.

And that's your experience. I try to account for that by mentioning that the Artillerist does pull ahead in your case. But this is raw numbers (and man, you must not get a lot of monks, fighters or warlocks in your group).

But if that's typical for your group, it throws off balance for a lot of 1 hour duration spells that aren't supposed to last "all day", and I'm not going to take that as the average. That choice lies with your DM, or the particular module that they're running.

Gignere

2021-07-08, 05:52 PM

And that's your experience. I try to account for that by mentioning that the Artillerist does pull ahead in your case. But this is raw numbers (and man, you must not get a lot of monks, fighters or warlocks in your group).

But if that's typical for your group, it throws off balance for a lot of 1 hour duration spells that aren't supposed to last "all day", and I'm not going to take that as the average. That choice lies with your DM, or the particular module that they're running.

We just had a great group, amazing DPR, people knew their characters ability and we only rested when we needed to. The DM ran the same module for two groups at the same time and he said dungeons that took the other group like 3-4 sessions to finish we pretty much ezmode it in a session and a half

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 06:50 PM

Glamour Bard is worse in terms of strict THP distribution, as is the Glory Paladin.

Let's assume 5th level (as that's an HP bump for Glamour.) So this is how it breaks down in terms of amount per target/number of targets/times usable per SR/total THP.

THP per target
# of targets
# of uses per SR
Total THP per SR

Artillerist Artificer
1d8 + 4 (Int mod) = 8.5
up to 12 (grid)
0.33
8.5*4*600*0.33 = 6800 THP

Glamour Bard
8 THP
4 (Cha mod)
4 (BI dice)
32*4*4 = 512 THP

Glory Paladin
up to max
Infinite**
1 (CD and required smite)
2d8 + 5 = 14 THP

Twilight Cleric
1d6 + 5 = 8.5
Infinite***
1 (CD)
8.5*4*10 = 340 THP

*Artillerist gets 1 free usage per LR, not SR, and must expend spell slots to use it again
**Glory Paladin can hit up to 14 creatures: they can distribute to any creature within 30 feet, but it draws from a common pool of THP
***Any creature within 30 feet, but an unlimited number of the cleric's choice

Before anything else: I assume 4 party members across the board (except the poor Paladin) in an effort to maintain sanity. Assuming more than 4 gives a huge boost to the Twilight versus Artillerist comparison because the former is 30 feet radius, while the latter is only 10 feet.

Artillerist Artificer by far blows away any and all competition, but that's over an hour. And since it doesn't stack, most of it will go to waste, unlike the Twilight cleric. If there's only 1 fight in that 24 hour-span, at 5th level they're actually pretty close to identical. Which is neat. If there's more than 1 fight in that hour-long stretch, the Artillerist comes out ahead. If you get any SRs at all that day, however, the cleric pulls way ahead as they don't have to invest any resources (AKA spell slots that could be put to other use) to get their healing refreshed.

This is a really quick and dirty method to really prove that the Artillerist and Twilight are the only real game in town when it comes to THP. Glamour Bard does a lot better than I gave it credit for, but that requires them to use their BI dice for nothing except granting THP (and movement), which kinda ruins the thing?

EDIT: Also, it really really points out hard the Glory Paladin is screwed. Like, Wow.

EDIT2: Inspiring Leader gives 5 + 4 (level + Cha mod) THP per SR, times we'll say 4 creatures, giving you 36 THP. Nowhere in the league of the big hitters.

I think the Glory Paladin's formula is actually pretty good and a balanced ability (I'd prefer a reaction or no action though) and it's just the Artillerist and Twilight abilities that are drastically out of line.

The Glamour Bard temp hp is realll, the Bard in one fo my games has basically kept the party alive with that temp hp + Healing Word patch healing, but it did make him feel like he couldn't spend dice on inspiring. I quickly just gave him an item that gave him one use of Bardic Inspiration so he wouldn't feel bad about it.

We just had a great group, amazing DPR, people knew their characters ability and we only rested when we needed to. The DM ran the same module for two groups at the same time and he said dungeons that took the other group like 3-4 sessions to finish we pretty much ezmode it in a session and a half

Even if you can get through encounters back to back without resting that's one thing, but to physically get to all of those encounters all within an hour is a problem of the dungeon itself.

I've never really understood the point of dungeons where things are so close together you can get multiple encounters together in such a short time. It'll ultimately lead to things being easier a lot of the time as you can get more out of 10 minute/1 hour spells, meaning you can afford to dump more resources into the problem overall.

neonchameleon

2021-07-08, 07:39 PM

Glamour Bard is worse in terms of strict THP distribution, as is the Glory Paladin.

Of course they are. The best way of preventing damage isn't temp hit points - it's to stop the enemy from inflicting it. The Glamour Bard dishes out THP as a minor action, while the Glory Paladin uses one of their most damaging actions and gives THP out for free. Meanwhile the Twilight Cleric needs to use their first (and hence most valuable) action. They ought to be the best at handing out THP - or second best behind the artillerist which gives up even more in the way of potential damage to be a dedicated THP donator.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 07:46 PM

quindraco

2021-07-08, 07:48 PM

Before anything else: I assume 4 party members across the board (except the poor Paladin) in an effort to maintain sanity. Assuming more than 4 gives a huge boost to the Twilight versus Artillerist comparison because the former is 30 feet radius, while the latter is only 10 feet.

EDIT2: Inspiring Leader gives 5 + 4 (level + Cha mod) THP per SR, times we'll say 4 creatures, giving you 36 THP. Nowhere in the league of the big hitters.

Almost no parties are only 4 creatures big, but I agree, it's very difficult making valid assumptions about party size. Twilight Clerics and Artillerists just keep getting better until the party no longer fits in the THP bubble, so e.g. having a Shepherd Druid, Necromancer, or other member specializing in minion spam changes a lot. That includes the buffers themselves - any Artillerist can have a haemonculus and a familiar, for example.

Chronic

2021-07-08, 08:31 PM

Gignere

2021-07-08, 08:34 PM

Captain Panda

2021-07-08, 08:38 PM

Optimising isn't necessarily a bad thing, the problem here is the power that's on tap from just playing the subclass period, you don't have to optimise it at all when the features themselves are too much and too many.

I agree that optimizing isn't a bad thing, and the anti-optimization bent in recent D&D cultural is kind of irritating to me, but I don't know that I agree that just having a subclass that's easy also be strong is bad. Some people don't want to optimize, and they shouldn't be prevented from playing an effective character. Twilight clerics are good, but an optimizer should have no trouble coming up with a character who outperforms them. Maybe not outperforms them at handing out temps, but outperforms them more generally.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 08:42 PM

Almost no parties are only 4 creatures big, but I agree, it's very difficult making valid assumptions about party size. Twilight Clerics and Artillerists just keep getting better until the party no longer fits in the THP bubble, so e.g. having a Shepherd Druid, Necromancer, or other member specializing in minion spam changes a lot. That includes the buffers themselves - any Artillerist can have a haemonculus and a familiar, for example.

Have to hard disagree on the 'almost no parties are only 4 creatures big' part, if there's 4 or less actual PCs then it's pretty likely there's only 4 creatures unless certain exceptions happen, like companion subclasses.

Why do you say any Artillerist can have a homunculus and a familiar? They can have a homunculus, but using it conflicts with their turret, and to get a familiar at all they need to get the spell from outside their class.

Do you really think minions are that prevalent when they're a fraction of the overall character options?

I agree that optimizing isn't a bad thing, and the anti-optimization bent in recent D&D cultural is kind of irritating to me, but I don't know that I agree that just having a subclass that's easy also be strong is bad. Some people don't want to optimize, and they shouldn't be prevented from playing an effective character. Twilight clerics are good, but an optimizer should have no trouble coming up with a character who outperforms them. Maybe not outperforms them at handing out temps, but outperforms them more generally.

My point was that the floor of Twilight being so high is a problem, but it only goes up from there.

I certainly can't think of a temp hp based support character that wouldn't include a Twilight Cleric.

MaxWilson

2021-07-08, 08:51 PM

Have to hard disagree on the 'almost no parties are only 4 creatures big' part, if there's 4 or less actual PCs then it's pretty likely there's only 4 creatures unless certain exceptions happen, like companion subclasses.

Wizard or chainlock familiars
Beastmaster pets
Artificers turrets or steel defenders
Phantom Steeds
Paladin Steeds/Greater Steeds
Tiny Servants
Animated dead
Conjured animals
Unseen Servants
NPC hirelings/guides/allies
Mounts

I wouldn't say "almost no parties" but still, it's fairly rare IME to see a party without at least one of these, especially familiars. I'm guessing 75%+ of 4-PC parties I've seen have at least 5 creatures in the party most of the time.

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-08, 09:54 PM

Of course they are. The best way of preventing damage isn't temp hit points - it's to stop the enemy from inflicting it. The Glamour Bard dishes out THP as a minor action, while the Glory Paladin uses one of their most damaging actions and gives THP out for free. Meanwhile the Twilight Cleric needs to use their first (and hence most valuable) action. They ought to be the best at handing out THP - or second best behind the artillerist which gives up even more in the way of potential damage to be a dedicated THP donator.

Hard disagree. The CD doesn't give Glory Paladin a bonus: it's actually more limiting than the other Paladin CDs because you need to use it while you still have spell slots. No spell slots? Can't use it all. And it's not free - they need to use their CD and their bonus action.

If it was a better CD, I could see it maybe being justified. Maybe give a set amount of THP to a limited number of creatures. As it stands, only Oath of the Crown matches it for terrible CD options. Compare it to literally any other Oath and you'll see how lacking it is in comparison. Their CD is meant to be this big, flashy ability. Peerless Athlete has its uses, but Inspiring Smite is just sad. No, nothing you can say will make me change my mind on this, I'm afraid.

I agree that optimizing isn't a bad thing, and the anti-optimization bent in recent D&D cultural is kind of irritating to me, but I don't know that I agree that just having a subclass that's easy also be strong is bad. Some people don't want to optimize, and they shouldn't be prevented from playing an effective character. Twilight clerics are good, but an optimizer should have no trouble coming up with a character who outperforms them. Maybe not outperforms them at handing out temps, but outperforms them more generally.

See, here's the thing. The level that I nabbed, 5th? I grabbed it because it was low level (as most games tend to be) and it was the first increase for the Glamour Bard THP. The higher you level up, the closer Twilight comes to catching up.

By the time that you hit 20th level, for example, the Artillerist gets (1d8+5)*600 = 5700 THP per person for "free" (not having to use any additional resources). The Twilight cleric? (1d6+20)*600*3 = 42 300 THP per person, assuming no SRs. That's 7.42x times as much THP. Zero optimization effort.

The formula for THP runs heavily in favour of the cleric the more you level up, both in per-turn THP to total amount granted. It literally wins in every rubric. And that's not using a single spell slot on either party's behalf - and I'm willing to bet that the cleric will come out on top with that as well, given similar or less optimization.

EDIT: I apparently cannot math. Twilight cleric gets (1d6+20)*10*3=705 THP per person per LR, assuming no SR. I do not know why my brain derped and made the cleric CD last an hour.

The point is kinda the same, though. After a certain point, the THP granted by the Artillerist is meaningless. At low levels, I will agree that the Artillerist is king of THP generation. 9ish THP to everyone in a small radius is great, especially when you can enter combat with it. Once you hit level 6+, though, the Twilight cleric starts pulling ahead, and doesn't really look back, imo.

And this is the Artillerist's entire (practical) 3rd level feature. Compare that to the cleric's heavy armor, martial weapons, advantage on initiative and huge (shareable!) darkvision in addition to the CD.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 10:11 PM

I wouldn't say "almost no parties" but still, it's fairly rare IME to see a party without at least one of these, especially familiars. I'm guessing 75%+ of 4-PC parties I've seen have at least 5 creatures in the party most of the time.

Cut up your reply for better reply formatting, but what you listed largely falls under exceptions.

Wizard or chainlock familiars There's 13 classes, it's very easy to have no Wizard and there's two other Warlock pacts (that matter)
Beastmaster pets One subclass of many
Artificers turrets or steel defenders Turrets aren't creatures, Steel Defender one of 4 subclass options
Phantom Steeds I've never seen this spell outside of the forum, but redundant in a temp hp conversation since it can't benefit from them
Paladin Steeds/Greater Steeds If the Paladin goes for it, 5th level and above
Tiny Servants Never seen in actual play and high enough level spell to make it a minority case
Animated dead Necromancers sure, edge subclass, general use ime players tend to avoid creating undead unless they're playing a necromancer
Conjured animals ime more a forum strategy but table differences and all that, these usually last an hour and miss most fights
Unseen Servants Not a creature
NPC hirelings/guides/allies game dependent whether they would be present nevermind in combat
Mounts If the party has mounts, which isn't common ime, mounted combat is rare even with them, so technically in the party but not in combat regardless

Out of the sheer number of player options, the vast majority don't give pets or companions. There's entire classes without a companion/pet option (Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Monk) and of the ones that do the subclasses are greatly outnumbered by subclass options that don't provide them.

Even of the list that you provided that's applicable, a fair few are limited time creatures that may or many not be present for whatever reason in any given combat. Even then a lot of what you presented ended up being 5th level or higher too.

There's certainly enough options to get additional creatures, but I don't think those options are either wide spread enough or a large enough percentage of the overall options to factor into default assumptions.

LordShade

2021-07-08, 10:32 PM

MaxWilson

2021-07-08, 10:41 PM

Cut up your reply for better reply formatting, but what you listed largely falls under exceptions.

Out of the sheer number of player options, the vast majority don't give pets or companions. There's entire classes without a companion/pet option (Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Monk) and of the ones that do the subclasses are greatly outnumbered by subclass options that don't provide them.

Yes, but when you've got a party of 4 characters, it's very common for at least one of them to be from the large minority that does. It's not exactly rare to have a wizard in the party, or a paladin, or a druid. Sometimes you've got all three.

Even of the list that you provided that's applicable, a fair few are limited time creatures that may or many not be present for whatever reason in any given combat. Even then a lot of what you presented ended up being 5th level or higher too.

I don't remember any stipulation that we were talking only about Tier 1, so yes, I gave some examples that included level 5+.

There's certainly enough options to get additional creatures, but I don't think those options are either wide spread enough or a large enough percentage of the overall options to factor into default assumptions.

I'm not trying to make arguments about default assumptions, just observing that IME it's more common than not to have additional creatures beyond PCs in the party. (It's also fairly common to forget about those creatures' existence, especially familiars, and to accidentally skip their turns in combat because there's no player attached to them.)

I don't have a "therefore."

====================================

??? I am DMing a campaign with 3 players. I keep offering them a healer sidekick but they keep refusing. The party size is 3.

Edit--I see MaxWilson is counting mounts and the like. They have a couple of magebred donkeys to carry their loot. But they're in a dungeon right now and it might be interesting to see what they do if the donkeys are dead when they come back out.

Exactly. It's very easy to forget about non-player character creatures in the party, and basically I'm just saying that parties are deceptively large and that "oh, I forgot, [other creatures] are also here" is an experience which I feel like I have constantly. Would it make a difference if those magebred donkeys have extra temp HP or not? Beats me, but with a Twilight cleric in the party they'd probably have temp HP by default as a side effect of the cleric buffing the rest of the party.

quindraco

2021-07-08, 11:06 PM

Why do you say any Artillerist can have a homunculus and a familiar? They can have a homunculus, but using it conflicts with their turret, and to get a familiar at all they need to get the spell from outside their class.

Do you really think minions are that prevalent when they're a fraction of the overall character options?

1) Find Familiar is available from the Replicate Magic Item infusion, inside their class.
2) Yes. I've never played a 5E game without at least one minion in the party. Obviously it's possible to make a party without minions, but you often have to go out of your way to avoid it. Just to pick some low-hanging fruit, I'll list some good spells that result in minions that love having THP on them, and we'll see how many classes I can cover:

Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard: Animate Objects
Cleric, Wizard: Animate Dead
Druid, Ranger: Conjure Woodland Beings
Paladin: Find Steed, Find Greater Steed
Warlock, Wizard: Find Familiar (for Warlocks, this is from Tome or Chain pact - Blade and Talisman don't get it natively), Summon Aberration, Summon Undead

That's... *counts* 9 of the 13 core classes because I hit every single full and partial caster, and I didn't even get into subclass-generated or subclass-highly-encouraged minions. The 4 martial classes typically won't have minions unless their subclass provides one, like how every Arcane Trickster also has a familiar.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 11:07 PM

Yes, but when you've got a party of 4 characters, it's very common for at least one of them to be from the large minority that does. It's not exactly rare to have a wizard in the party, or a paladin, or a druid. Sometimes you've got all three.

It's not rare to have those classes, but besides the Wizard grabbing a Familiar because of the extremely low cost there's only one pet Druid subclass and how much Druids summon depend on what they are, e.g. the Star Druid in one of my games doesn't summon anything (even though she specifically acquired the component for a spell... I want to say Summon Celestial maybe, a Tasha's one), she just casts AOE spells and blasts. Liekwise the Paladin in that same group has used Find Steed, but the steed has been present in maybe two combats out of... two dozen maybe? Since he gained access to the spell.

I don't remember any stipulation that we were talking only about Tier 1, so yes, I gave some examples that included level 5+.

No stipulation at all, just observation that the higher level the option the less likely to be applicable it is, especially given the most played level range and multiclassing.

I'm not trying to make arguments about default assumptions, just observing that IME it's more common than not to have additional creatures beyond PCs in the party. (It's also fairly common to forget about those creatures' existence, especially familiars, and to accidentally skip their turns in combat because there's no player attached to them.)

Forgetting about them is certainly very easy!

In my experience (and opinon based on the options and spread of those options) it's more common to either have no additional creatures in the party, or for those creatures to not be combat relevant/benefit from temp hp.

Probably more a difference in play experience than anything else

quindraco

2021-07-08, 11:12 PM

??? I am DMing a campaign with 3 players. I keep offering them a healer sidekick but they keep refusing. The party size is 3.

Edit--I see MaxWilson is counting mounts and the like. They have a couple of magebred donkeys to carry their loot. But they're in a dungeon right now and it might be interesting to see what they do if the donkeys are dead when they come back out.

Splitting the party is usually a bad idea, but leaving donkeys laden with loot just... outside, for any passing predator to eat or bandit to steal, is something I've never been in a party that would even consider doing.

Unless their party comp is devoid of spellcasting, I'd expect them to pick up more minions in the future, if they don't have any already. I do suggest you punish your players for what amounts to animal neglect by having their donkeys eaten, stolen, or both, which should teach them actions have consequences - and they should acquire a minion to guard their donkeys during a dungeon crawl, if they want to maintain left-behind donkeys as their solution to loot hauling. A small set of caravan guards costs pocket change.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-08, 11:23 PM

1) Find Familiar is available from the Replicate Magic Item infusion, inside their class.
2) Yes. I've never played a 5E game without at least one minion in the party. Obviously it's possible to make a party without minions, but you often have to go out of your way to avoid it. Just to pick some low-hanging fruit, I'll list some good spells that result in minions that love having THP on them, and we'll see how many classes I can cover:

1) Replicating... what? Is this a Spellwrought Tattoo thing? Even if technically possible this is... a stretch

2) I think we have both vastly different experiences and thoughts on what constitutes a minion

Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard: Animate Objects I wouldn't count this as 'minions' it's a 5th level spell that lasts a minute. Whilst I can see why you would, it's a stretch imo to lump these in the same way as say a familiar or at least a summon with a much longer duration.

Cleric, Wizard: Animate Dead Never seen a Cleric (or a non Necromancer Wizard) use Animate Dead, usually because it's pretty polarizing a point for a character.

Druid, Ranger: Conjure Woodland Beings More reasonable at an hour, but ime a player is either inclined to use summons or they aren't, most Druids I've seen... aren't and all the Rangers I've seen with pets were Beast Masters (A minority of the Rangers I've seen)

Paladin: Find Steed, Find Greater Steed Pretty common, fighting on a steed pretty rare ime both as player and DM, it just isn't really viable unless you're a small race on a medium creature a lot of the time. So might be around, but not necessarily in combat

Warlock, Wizard: Find Familiar (for Warlocks, this is from Tome or Chain pact - Blade and Talisman don't get it natively), Summon Aberration, Summon Undead Familiars yep, never seen a Tomelock take it (though yes possible) and I think most groups I've ran or been in don't even have a Wizard.

That's... *counts* 9 of the 13 core classes because I hit every single full and partial caster, and I didn't even get into subclass-generated or subclass-highly-encouraged minions. The 4 martial classes typically won't have minions unless their subclass provides one, like how every Arcane Trickster also has a familiar.

I think this highlights our difference in experiences pretty well, I've seen a few ATs, and not a single one has taken Find Familiar, either because it's a poor choice (without Ritual casting and on a restricted list it is a significant opportunity cost) or they just didn't want to insert a familiar because they can.

Maybe that's part of the disconnect here for me. Most players ime have a character concept in their minds and they will build that, it doesn't really matter if they can have low hanging fruit minions, it isn't in their concept so they ignore it if they thought about it at all.

MaxWilson

2021-07-09, 12:18 AM

Splitting the party is usually a bad idea, but leaving donkeys laden with loot just... outside, for any passing predator to eat or bandit to steal, is something I've never been in a party that would even consider doing.

The idea is that you leave the donkeys outside while you go in and get the loot. Donkeys are cheap enough that if something eats them, oh well, bad luck.

Obviously if you can somehow take them in with you, even better.

Thunderous Mojo

2021-07-09, 11:58 AM

My point was that the floor of Twilight being so high is a problem, but it only goes up from there.

I certainly can't think of a temp hp based support character that wouldn't include a Twilight Cleric.

Yeah..
A cleric's use of Twilight Sanctuary is centered on them, and moves with them, it doesn't emanate from the cleric. A Twilight Cleric can use Twilight Sanctuary, then cast a Concentration spell of their choice...such as Summon Celestial, and then follow this up with Meld with Stone.

While I can see a need to keep the cleric safe, or in reserve in a Combat as War style game, a semi-decently played Twilight Cleric may likely push the campaign into more a Combat as War style....even when the group wants a Combat as Sport style game.

I don't find the argument that the Twilight Domain cleric is needed to help less savvy players compete, to be particularly persuasive.

"Easy Mode" might have proliferated too far, when a player can literally get stoned, (Meld into Stone[d]), and sit around with a Summon(ed) Celestial, and spam Temporary Hit Points.

This is a bit too easy.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-09, 12:09 PM

Yeah..
A cleric's use of Twilight Sanctuary is centered on them, and moves with them, it doesn't emanate from the cleric. A Twilight Cleric can use Twilight Sanctuary, then cast a Concentration spell of their choice...such as Summon Celestial, and then follow this up with Meld with Stone.

While I can see a need to keep the cleric safe, or in reserve in a Combat as War style game, a semi-decently played Twilight Cleric may likely push the campaign into more a Combat as War style....even when the group wants a Combat as Sport style game.

I don't find the argument that the Twilight Domain cleric is needed to help less savvy players compete, to be particularly persuasive.

"Easy Mode" might have proliferated too far, when a player can literally get stoned, (Meld into Stone[d]), and sit around with a Summon(ed) Celestial, and spam Temporary Hit Points.

This is a bit too easy.

I've only had to deal with one Twilight Cleric so far, but it really trivialised combat to a large degree when the CD was used. I had to focus fire on a single player to make a dent, which (although their positioning justified it) doesn't feel good as a DM.

And annecdotally, every player in the aura rolling a die at the end of every turn is a very real degree of cludge.

Gignere

2021-07-09, 12:16 PM

And annecdotally, every player in the aura rolling a die at the end of every turn is a very real degree of cludge.

We house ruled to the cleric rolls once when he first brings up the CD and that’s the number of THP everyone gets if they end their turn in the aura.

Dork_Forge

2021-07-09, 12:28 PM

We house ruled to the cleric rolls once when he first brings up the CD and that’s the number of THP everyone gets if they end their turn in the aura.

That's definitely smoother, personally I think I'd just drop the die altogether. It brings the formula more in line (in my opinion) and speeds things up altogether.

Jophiel

2021-07-09, 12:33 PM

I always saw the free move has the most important part of the ability, not temp hp, but it's personal.
I played a Glamour Bard to 14 and, unless we were specifically doing a chase or something happened that needed a real realignment of our positions, most of the time less than half the players would elect to take the move. Most wanted to preserve their reactions for Counterspells or Opportunity Attacks or Shield or whatever else. Was actually a little frustrating to me but I learned to accept that most players really just wanted the temp hp.

MrStabby

2021-07-09, 02:14 PM

I've only had to deal with one Twilight Cleric so far, but it really trivialised combat to a large degree when the CD was used. I had to focus fire on a single player to make a dent, which (although their positioning justified it) doesn't feel good as a DM.
Yeah, it does feel like bit discriminatory the extent to which you need to go to challenge the party...

Or you just cast banishment and incapacitate the cleric. Because that's also fun for everyone.

And annecdotally, every player in the aura rolling a die at the end of every turn is a very real degree of cludge.

Every player, every familiar, every summoned creature, every hireling and ally...

Dork_Forge

2021-07-09, 04:06 PM

Yeah, it does feel like bit discriminatory the extent to which you need to go to challenge the party...

Or you just cast banishment and incapacitate the cleric. Because that's also fun for everyone.

Seriously, like it might be fun for them to shrug off damage at first, but if you never feel challenged by combat then what's the point of having it? Escalation is inevitible, even if in a minority of encounters.

It doesn't even have to be high damage, it can be something like bating the Cleric by including a bunch of low CR undead in the encounter. They pop their CD to destroy them and they're left with what the encounter was meant to be from the start.

Every player, every familiar, every summoned creature, every hireling and ally...

Recurring dice mechanics are generally just bad design imo, rolling unnecessary dice will always slow the game down to some degree.

Suichimo

2021-07-09, 04:40 PM

Dork_Forge

2021-07-09, 04:55 PM

So for those of you on the op side of the fence and who are looking to nerf it, have you tried simply rolling back to the UA version of the Twilight Cleric? From what I understand, it was still good, but not crazy good.

In a few ways it was worse:

-The temp hp was only 1d8, this is obvisouly no where near as good, still clunky

-The Darkvision just had no upper limit at all...

-Steps of Night also gave you permanent advantage on saves against being frightened

-Instead of just half cover, Twilight Shroud let you just hand out the Darkness/Devil's Sight combo to the party

Segev

2021-07-09, 05:02 PM

So for those of you on the op side of the fence and who are looking to nerf it, have you tried simply rolling back to the UA version of the Twilight Cleric? From what I understand, it was still good, but not crazy good.

Like I've said, I'd just pick a few of the extraneous features that I think fit it the least and remove them. Personally, for me, that list includes martial weapon proficiency, the advantage on initiative, and flying.

Incidentally, I think, in response to the Twilight Domain's Eyes of Night, I'd make the darkvision spell provide darkvision with no distance limit. You're spending a second level spell known/prepared AND a second level spell slot. It SHOULD be better than what you can get with basic racial traits.

Chronic

2021-07-09, 05:18 PM

We house ruled to the cleric rolls once when he first brings up the CD and that’s the number of THP everyone gets if they end their turn in the aura.

We did something similar. Every time the cleric get it's turn, he rolls the dice once, applied to anyone susceptible.

Chronic

2021-07-09, 05:23 PM

I played a Glamour Bard to 14 and, unless we were specifically doing a chase or something happened that needed a real realignment of our positions, most of the time less than half the players would elect to take the move. Most wanted to preserve their reactions for Counterspells or Opportunity Attacks or Shield or whatever else. Was actually a little frustrating to me but I learned to accept that most players really just wanted the temp hp.

It may be different at my table because we tend to have obstacles and hazards, or objectives that aren't "kill this guy". So it may render movement more important.
One of the GM even has a concept tied to that: If everyone is just doing their optimal actions every turn, the encounter is poorly design. I do not completely agree but I think there is sense to that thought.

MaxWilson

2021-07-09, 06:35 PM

It may be different at my table because we tend to have obstacles and hazards, or objectives that aren't "kill this guy". So it may render movement more important.
One of the GM even has a concept tied to that: If everyone is just doing their optimal actions every turn, the encounter is poorly design. I do not completely agree but I think there is sense to that thought.

I would phrase it this way: if everyone is doing their routine, go-to actions (warlocks spamming Eldritch Blast, Sharpshooters shooting their bows, etc.), then the encounter doesn't have any counterplay in it. That makes it potentially unexciting. If it's designed to be unexciting filler, then it's not poorly designed. Maybe the point of this encounter isn't to be exciting, but to showcase how dominant the PCs are relative to their foes, or give players a chance to relax and work on their teamwork together in a live-fire exercise.

But in general, unexciting filler is better skipped than played out in detail. If the 9th level party is killing a dozen hobgoblins because the Necromancer needs bodies to make zombies, it might not be the best use of table time to roll things out in detail--consider just rolling a handful of dice and narrating a plausible result. E.g. just roll 24 attacks all at once, 24d20, and allocate each die to attacking the PC of whichever player the dice lands nearest to, and that's what happened before all of the hobgoblins are dead.

For those who enjoy challenge, and I am one of them, the majority of your fun is going to come from counterplay and counter-counterplay and counter-counter-counterplay (but don't go too deep!). Not only does that add interesting complications to a given combat, it makes even simple, straightforward combats more interesting as the players speculate about what counterplay they might be about to face. (Will attempting to Fireball those hobgoblins get Counterspelled by an invisible Hobgoblin Devastator? Does that mean the Fireball caster should save his reaction for counter-Counterspell instead of using it on Shield?)

So anyway, straightforward encounters are not necessarily poor design, but forcing players to think (or regret it) is fun.

Jophiel

2021-07-09, 06:37 PM

It may be different at my table because we tend to have obstacles and hazards, or objectives that aren't "kill this guy". So it may render movement more important.
Eh, we had that stuff. Really, most long running games I've been in have all that stuff. People still felt more inclined to hold onto their Reactions than spend them on movement. Not everyone all the time and some events made it super useful but, in general, my experience was that the players were far more interested in the temp hit points than the Reaction movement. Only some characters needed to move sometimes but everyone was happy to get 11 temp hit points always. Your mileage may vary, all tables are different, yadda yadda. Just saying that your opinion about the value of Mantle of Inspiration wasn't my personal experience through extensive play.

Master O'Laughs

2021-07-09, 08:26 PM

Kuulvheysoon

2021-07-09, 08:54 PM

As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die. Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant that creature one of these benefits:

Out of curiousity, are you required to grant all creatures the THP?

Key word there is can grant one of those benefits. You don't have to grant either if you don't want to. If there's an enemy within 30 feet, you can just choose to look at 'em and say "nah." If it was intended to be all creatures, it'd say "Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, grant that creature one of these benefits:"

Master O'Laughs

2021-07-09, 09:10 PM

Key word there is can grant one of those benefits. You don't have to grant either if you don't want to. If there's an enemy within 30 feet, you can just choose to look at 'em and say "nah." If it was intended to be all creatures, it'd say "Whenever a creature (including you) ends its turn in the sphere, grant that creature one of these benefits:"

Ahh, did they not used to use the wording "may"? I think that is what led to my confusion.

Chronic

2021-07-09, 09:44 PM

I would phrase it this way: if everyone is doing their routine, go-to actions (warlocks spamming Eldritch Blast, Sharpshooters shooting their bows, etc.), then the encounter doesn't have any counterplay in it. That makes it potentially unexciting. If it's designed to be unexciting filler, then it's not poorly designed. Maybe the point of this encounter isn't to be exciting, but to showcase how dominant the PCs are relative to their foes, or give players a chance to relax and work on their teamwork together in a live-fire exercise.

But in general, unexciting filler is better skipped than played out in detail. If the 9th level party is killing a dozen hobgoblins because the Necromancer needs bodies to make zombies, it might not be the best use of table time to roll things out in detail--consider just rolling a handful of dice and narrating a plausible result. E.g. just roll 24 attacks all at once, 24d20, and allocate each die to attacking the PC of whichever player the dice lands nearest to, and that's what happened before all of the hobgoblins are dead.

For those who enjoy challenge, and I am one of them, the majority of your fun is going to come from counterplay and counter-counterplay and counter-counter-counterplay (but don't go too deep!). Not only does that add interesting complications to a given combat, it makes even simple, straightforward combats more interesting as the players speculate about what counterplay they might be about to face. (Will attempting to Fireball those hobgoblins get Counterspelled by an invisible Hobgoblin Devastator? Does that mean the Fireball caster should save his reaction for counter-Counterspell instead of using it on Shield?)

So anyway, straightforward encounters are not necessarily poor design, but forcing players to think (or regret it) is fun.

Oh I agree, I lean toward challenging encounter myself. But don't go toward "unique" fights all the time. If everything is special,well nothing is. You need to establish a routine in order to beautifully break it. Also, people tend to be resistant to change, so constant special mechanics and circumstances tend to annoy players. My opinion on this is that you have to find the proper balance by mixing things up often enough that players aren't destabilized when you do it while keeping things fresh. It's not easy tho, every player being different.