Help me reskin a Cleric for cold damage? Also Revenant playable race?

[CTurbo]

My daughter has a character concept for her next character. I'm trying to see if I can create it within reason.

I need a character that is a split between healing and cold damage. They need to be able to be useful with a sword, but not necessarily focus on sword attacks. The race will be a nerfed/altered human Revenant. Lets go ahead and talk about that first.

The DM is ok with her using the UA Revenant provided the "vengeful goal" angle all all features attributed to it are gone. Since the usual healing spells don't heal undead, I like the idea of a small amount of regen per turn.

I was thinking-

+2 Con and +2 to one other ASI of your choice.

Regeneration: You regain half your proficiency modifier(rounded up) hit points at the beginning of each turn provided you have less than half of your hit point maximum. Or just 1 hp per turn without the half hp maximum requirement.

Undead. You count as an undead creature for all spells and abilities that affect the undead. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 4 hours each day. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.

Darkvision: You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Poison Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisoned, you have resistance against poison damage.

Damage Vulnerabilities: Fire and Radiant

Condition Immunities: Frightened

I know the damage vulnerabilities and condition immunity are probably too much and could easily be scrapped. What do you think? I wasn't sure how to handle character death. Maybe after 24 hours, the character just wakes up as long as the body wasn't destroyed? I can see the party having to carry around the corpse for a day haha.


Ok on to the class. I was thinking taking Cleric and swapping all Radiant damage spells for Cold. I'm not seeing any issues with that. Am I missing something? Seems to work just fine with Sacred Flame, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians. Would Chill Touch be a better option than Sacred Flame?

For Subclass, I think Death Cleric is fitting. Originally, I was thinking about changing all the Necrotic damage spells to Cold as well, but that may be overkill. Maybe I can just swap out Ray of Sickness and Ray of Enfeeblement for Ice Knife and Armor of Agathys or Sleet Storm. Level 8 Divine Strike would be cold for sure. And speaking of swinging a sword, I was thinking refluffing Green-Flame Blade to Cold damage. I'm not even against Feat tax and taking Magic Initiate to get it. I could throw in Ray of Frost or Frostbite too and a solid first level spell. Find Familiar?

I'm open to suggestions.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

My first thought was Light Cleric as the template. You'd be having to change the damage type on the CD as well as several of the spells including Fireball and Burning Hands. Maybe warding flare could stay as is? It's blasty obviously, though I don't know if it meets the 'good with a sword' bit you were looking for.

[Unoriginal]

My daughter has a character concept for her next character. I'm trying to see if I can create it within reason.

I need a character that is a split between healing and cold damage. They need to be able to be useful with a sword, but not necessarily focus on sword attacks. The race will be a nerfed/altered human Revenant. Lets go ahead and talk about that first.

The DM is ok with her using the UA Revenant provided the "vengeful goal" angle all all features attributed to it are gone. Since the usual healing spells don't heal undead, I like the idea of a small amount of regen per turn.

I was thinking-

+2 Con and +2 to one other ASI of your choice.

Regeneration: You regain half your proficiency modifier(rounded up) hit points at the beginning of each turn provided you have less than half of your hit point maximum. Or just 1 hp per turn without the half hp maximum requirement.

Undead. You count as an undead creature for all spells and abilities that affect the undead. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. Instead of sleeping, you enter an inactive state for 4 hours each day. You do not dream in this state; you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.

Darkvision: You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of grey.

Poison Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poisoned, you have resistance against poison damage.

Damage Vulnerabilities: Fire and Radiant

Condition Immunities: Frightened

I know the damage vulnerabilities and condition immunity are probably too much and could easily be scrapped. What do you think? I wasn't sure how to handle character death. Maybe after 24 hours, the character just wakes up as long as the body wasn't destroyed? I can see the party having to carry around the corpse for a day haha.


Ok on to the class. I was thinking taking Cleric and swapping all Radiant damage spells for Cold. I'm not seeing any issues with that. Am I missing something? Seems to work just fine with Sacred Flame, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians. Would Chill Touch be a better option than Sacred Flame?

For Subclass, I think Death Cleric is fitting. Originally, I was thinking about changing all the Necrotic damage spells to Cold as well, but that may be overkill. Maybe I can just swap out Ray of Sickness and Ray of Enfeeblement for Ice Knife and Armor of Agathys or Sleet Storm. Level 8 Divine Strike would be cold for sure. And speaking of swinging a sword, I was thinking refluffing Green-Flame Blade to Cold damage. I'm not even against Feat tax and taking Magic Initiate to get it. I could throw in Ray of Frost or Frostbite too and a solid first level spell. Find Familiar?

I'm open to suggestions.

A Divine Soul Sorcerer with a racial ability for sword training could give you what you want without hassle, I think.

[Emongnome777]

My first thought was tempest cleric and change out their spells for cold ones. You’d also have to switch the CD and stuff to be cold damage. Tempest comes with martial weapon proficiency already. If you give it a “blue ice blade” cantrip I think the character would be serviceably competent with a sword.

[Pildion]

Death or Grave domains that you change out the spells or damage type would work well thematically.

[Sception]

There is an official take on a nerfed/altered human revenant in the form of the 'reborn' lineage in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Humanoid, not technically undead, if only to avoid the problems with healing & 'turn undead', but doesn't need to eat, sleep or breathe and has advantage on death saves to get a bit of that not-quite-alive feel. Can gain a bonus on skill checks, and has floating ability modifiers by default. Definitely one of the weaker races in the game, but perfectly playable. Starting with Reborn and powereing it up a bit if you think it really needs it would probably be easier than starting with Revenant and trying to power it down until it's reasonable.

[ImproperJustice]

How about Arctic Land Druid?

Can pack a scimitar, change flame blade to “ice blade”, and take Elemental Adept to Freeze and cut down your foes.

Healing is in there too.

[CTurbo]

Druids and Grave Clerics hate undead so really aren't good fits unless I go for irony. Death seemed the most thematic, but Tempest is a very good fit too. Being able to maximize cold damage with the CD would be fun. I could just swap the thunder/lightning spells for cold/water. Sleet Storm and Control Water are already there. I really wanted to make Life work, and still could, but I don't know how to handle the level 6 feature of healing herself when she heals other. If she wants to play undead, I like the idea of her base healing spells not working on herself. The Revenant is strong so there has to be SOME kind of nerf. That's also why I threw in damage vulnerabilities. Life Cleric provides a blank slate for domain spells too.

I was thinking about the Turn Undead CD feature from the Cleric's base class. I'm think maybe instead of destroying them, they become friendly towards you. She won't be able to control them, but they won't be hostile anymore. Could be interesting. Sort of like a Calm Emotions for Undead.

I'm considering Divine Soul Sorcerer and/or Celestial Warlock/Bladelock. I'm trying not to multiclass though. Sorcerer would work, but just doesn't know very many spells. Her current character is a Pyro Sorcerer so I was trying to go with something different. The Sorcerer chassis is something she's already familiar with so there'd be less learning if I stick with it though.

She specifically wants to be undead. She actually wants to be a zombie and we'll probably flavor her that way, but not a typical DnD zombie, but one of those walking talking "cute" zombies you see in pop culture.

[JLandan]

My first thought was tempest cleric and change out their spells for cold ones. You’d also have to switch the CD and stuff to be cold damage. Tempest comes with martial weapon proficiency already. If you give it a “blue ice blade” cantrip I think the character would be serviceably competent with a sword.

+1 on this. I was thinking the same, but switching thunder and lightning to cold and necrotic. But just cold is still okay.

For race consider the Reborn lineage from Ravenloft.

[Joe the Rat]

+1 on this. I was thinking the same, but switching thunder and lightning to cold and necrotic. But just cold is still okay.

For race consider the Reborn lineage from Ravenloft.
+1 on the +1, and the damage substitutions. Late stage 3rd ed had the Utterdark cluster of magics, which combined cold and necrotic. I want to say fimbulwinter did as well, but I think it was just "LOTS of cold EVERYWHERE."

Pitch it like this: Cold damage chills the body, necrotic damage chills the soul. Some necrotic effects could literally be freezing the lifeforce out of you.

[RogueJK]

How about this domain spell list on a reskinned Tempest Cleric, with swapping the Thunder/Lightning maximizing Channel Divinity for Cold/Necrotic.

1: Fog Cloud, Ice Knife
2: Rime's Binding Ice, Ray of Enfeeblement
3: Animate Dead (or Summon Undead), Sleet Storm
4: Shadow of Moil, Ice Storm
5: Cone of Cold, Negative Energy Flood

I'd also be good with letting them take Ray of Frost/Chill Touch in place of Sacred Flame.

[JLandan]

I've never found switching cantrips to be an issue.

In respect to Immunities and Resistances, is Cold/Necrotic any better or worse than Thunder/Lightning?

This has me wondering if other combos would be feasible. Say an Alchemy domain that works on Acid/Poison?

[Kane0]

Seconding the reskinn/respelled Tempest cleric, or if you prefer maybe a Warlock.

[CTurbo]

Ok I love a good debate. It seems that Tempest is the favorite here. Let me start by saying that the Tempest is easily my favorite Cleric subclass. It's so much fun to play, and it's GOOD too.

Lets compare Death vs Tempest.

Bonus proficiencies
Tempest - heavy armor and martial weapons
Death - martial weapons

This character wouldn't wear heavy armor anyway so this is a push. This character will always wear breastplate.

1st level feature
Tempest - Wrath of the Storm - deal 2d8 damage with reaction Wis mod times per day
Death - Reaper - 1 bonus Necrotic cantrip and can be cast on 2 targets next to each other

This is close. I like both, but I think the extra cantrip wins here. The multiple target option is just icing on the cake. Keep in mind that Wrath of the Storm would definitely deal cold damage which I do like.

Channel Divinity
Tempest - Destructive Wrath - Max damage on cold or necrotic spells with CD
Death - Touch of Death - deal an extra 5+twice level damage on a melee hit.

Ok this is an easy win for Tempest here because Destructive Wrath is just awesome, but Touch of Death is not bad per say, and it does fit in with the wanting to hit pretty hard with a sword at times.

6th level feature
Tempest - Thunderous Strike - push 10 ft with Lightning(cold) damage
Death - Inescapable Destruction - ignore necrotic damage resistance

I think Death wins this one. Ignoring resistance is very useful. Pushing enemies 10ft with cold or necrotic damage doesn't even make sense. This Tempest feature would need to be completely re-worked.

Divine Strike would be the same both deal extra cold damage so it's a tie.

Domain spells can be altered to fit the narrative so I guess they don't matter.

No point in really comparing 17th level features.

Verdict? I don't know. Death really fits into the character being an undead. Tempest is better but seems to require more altering to fit. If I'm already homebrewing so much, I may as well as the DM if I can mix and match features between the two. Spells will be the same in the end anyway. Give me Death with Destructive Wrath and I'm good haha

I appreciate the replies.

[Kane0]

6th level feature
Tempest - Thunderous Strike - push 10 ft with Lightning(cold) damage
Death - Inescapable Destruction - ignore necrotic damage resistance

I think Death wins this one. Ignoring resistance is very useful. Pushing enemies 10ft with cold or necrotic damage doesn't even make sense. This Tempest feature would need to be completely re-worked.

Sounds like it would work fine with Frostbite/Ray of Frost, Binding Ice, Snowball Swarm and Cone of Cold, i'm not seeing the issue here?
You can get Elemental Adept to ignore Cold resistance too.

[Khrysaes]

Reborn as mentioned would fill an undead race. From Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

There is also the Hollow One boon from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, which adds some undead like features to any race. Notably, most of them don't overlap with Reborn so you could technically use both.

Ageless. You don’t age, and effects that would cause you to age don’t work on you.

Cling to Life. When you make a death saving throw and roll 16 or higher, you regain 1 hit point.

Revenance. You retain your creature type, yet you register as undead to spells and other effects that detect the presence of the undead creature type.

Unsettling Presence. As an action, you can unsettle a creature you can see within 15 feet of you. The target has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes within the next minute. Constructs, undead, and creatures that can’t be frightened are immune to this feature. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

[RogueJK]

Channel Divinity
Tempest - Destructive Wrath - Max damage on cold or necrotic spells with CD
Death - Touch of Death - deal an extra 5+twice level damage on a melee hit.

Ok this is an easy win for Tempest here because Destructive Wrath is just awesome, but Touch of Death is not bad per say

Touch of Death is better than merely "not bad". See Ludic's post in the "Ranking Cleric Domains" thread for a discussion of how Touch of Death is more than comparable to Paladin Smite (generally accepted as one of the best abilities in the game): https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25377905&postcount=45

It gets even more utility if the Death Cleric has additional means of applying the Touch of Death, like access to additional melee attack spells/cantrips from altered domain spells or a feat like Magic Initiate.

[Keravath]

I'd also suggest the Divine Soul sorcerer with the Transmute meta-magic. Transmute lets you change the damage type to whatever you like at the cost of 1sp. So fireball becomes coldball. For cantrips, she could pick up Ray of Frost or Frostbite for example. The biggest issue with this choice is the limited number of spells known. You could see if the DM is willing to give the class a couple of class spells/spell level like the newer sorcerer classes. It wouldn't break the game and would give the character more spell choices. If you want to go into the healing and cold focus all of these spells could be healing or cold related.

As for your custom revenant race - it seems a bit powerful.

+2 to two stats is not typical (the UA revenant is +1 con and +1 to two stats if you are based on a human)

You have significantly enhanced the regeneration ability - the UA version is +1hp/turn up to half and no more - this also has the issue of implicit yo-yo healing. Such a creature can heal at zero hit points every turn and pop back up. It makes the character almost impossible to stop or kill. The DM will likely have to resort to hitting the character when they are at zero hit points in order to inflict automatic death saves to keep them down and then rely on the revenant ability to reform after 24 hours to get the character back in play. This play style just won't work with most parties and might not be much fun to play.

The vulnerabilities are a bad idea. Vulnerability to fire will likely result in the character self-immolating when hit with the first effectively 16d6 fireball. (8d6 x 2 to be exact - average 54 damage - could be significantly higher - A level 5 d8 class with 14 con has typically 38 - so they will likely poof and be quite unhappy at that point)

I'd go for a race that is a bit more balanced. Also, if the DM is noping the vengeful aspect then perhaps something based on Revenant isn't the right choice. A Revenant has a singular goal and when they complete it, they die. On the other hand, maybe that aspect fits the character concept because they don't plan to be around for long.

-----

However, as others have suggested, you may want to consider the lineages presented in Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft - Dhampir or Reborn (Hexblood doesn't really fit). The Reborn is likely the best choice of these for something like an undead.

"Reborn
Ability Scores: Choose one of: +2 to one, +1 to another OR +1 to three
Size: Small/Medium (choose)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ancestral Legacy.
If you replace a race with this lineage, you can keep the following elements of that race: any skill proficiencies you gained from it and any climbing, flying, or swimming speed you gained from it. If you don't keep any of those elements or you choose this lineage at character creation, you gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.

Deathless Nature.
You have escaped death, a fact represented by the following benefits:

- You have advantage on saving throws against disease and being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
- You have advantage on death saving throws.
- You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe.
- You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.

Knowledge from a Past Life.

You temporarily remember glimpses of the past, perhaps faded memories from ages ago or a previous life. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Languages.
You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character."

If having a purpose as a creature which has experienced death is important to the character back story then you can use the Knowledge of a Past Life trait to drive the storyline without the revenge aspect of being a Revenant.

Otherwise, the character gains most of the benefits of being undead without being undead. The character is a humanoid so healing spells will work on them. This makes the character work much better in a party. Having to rely on regeneration and the issues mentioned above with it probably isn't a good idea.

Anyway, just some thoughts ...

P.S. If the character is a Reborn elf they would gain long sword proficiency and the other elf abilities which would satisfy the desire to wield a sword.

[CTurbo]

Ok some good stuff here

1. I know Divine Soul would work, but she's currently playing a Sorceress so I wanted to go in a different direction. She also wants this character to be really tough. Also, the low amount of spells known is a mild deterrent. Still, if would work. I'll talk it over with her to see if she wants this other character to have a similar style or different.

2. Good call out on Touch of Death. I was thinking it was a long rest resource, but yeah CD is a short rest resource. It's better than I thought. Still, I'd give the nod to being able to maximize cold/necrotic damage. Even if Touch of Death deals more damage at higher levels, which I haven't compared the two, being able to maximize damage is more FUN for sure.

3. Reborn + the Hollow One boon would definitely work. I'm not familiar with boons in 5e so how do they work and where/when are they applied?

4. I wanted the Revenant race here to be a bit powerful, while also having the big negatives of the vulnerabilities. I agree it could be toned down though. I upped the regen a bit since it would be a long term character as opposed to the Revenant typically being a temp character that serves a single purpose and then is gone. I can see dropping the vulnerabilities and dialing back the regen to just 1hp again. The playstyle of this character is she'll be right in the thick of things, but other than the fact she wears breastplate, she would not be concerned about taking damage. She can't feel pain, and just regens anyway. She would auto-fail any Dex saves because she wouldn't even try to dodge. (good call out on a double damage fireball being a bad idea). Her Dex will be 10 I think. No shield. I want her to have high hit points and slow regen. I don't want her to be too OP of course so maybe regen really is too much. Perhaps I should make her with 10 Dex and no armor for 10AC. That would counterbalance the regen some. I see her being down a lot. That would have her missing turns at the very least.

Appreciate the replies. More things to think about.

[Teaguethebean]

Death cleric with any damage type works great for the idea. Just replace necrotic damage stuff with being cold damage.