Shifter option for a Cleric

[DarkMoon250]

Working on a Shifter Cleric for my next campaign, because nothing sounds better to me right now than a werewolf mystic with the moon god on speed-dial. I'm having trouble settling on a shifting option, though, using the new rules in MotM. Beasthide would grant me more health and protection throughout the day, and I like the flavor of inheriting your lycanthrope ancestor's damage-resistant pelt, but I also like the more spiritual flavor of Wildhunt, and I'm going to have a high Wis anyway, so advantage on Wis checks for a few minutes everyday could wind up being fun in the long run.

Here's where another issue steps in. I've got this Channel Divinity from a homebrew subclass me and my DM found, and it goes a little something like this: "For 1 hour, the blessed creature’s speed increases by 10 feet, and it has advantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks involving smell or made to track a creature." This could be a great boost to my character in wilderness exploration and other situations (though I can also use it on my allies), but it could overlap at some points with Wildhunt's abilities if I go that way. I figured Beasthide would be the obvious choice after seeing that, but then my DM proposed a homebrew feat to let my shiftings last 10 minutes with each use, so that I could use Wildhunt more reliably if I'm wanting to make insight checks during an interaction... or use my perception for literally any other sense than smell.

I'm not sure what to do, but I figured this forum likely had some good ideas for how to make my final choice. Many thanks to anyone who responds!

[Psyren]

With the CD option lasting for up to 2 hours per short rest(!) you can practically have it active all day. Even limited to smell that's a lot of info you can give the party with your high Wisdom. So I would probably go Beasthide over Wildhunt myself. Even buffed to 10 minutes per shift, Wildhunt is still short for lengthy exploration or scouting scenes.

You didn't mention Swiftstride but that's a decent option too. The extra mobility is great on clerics since your positioning is important for things like Spirit Guardians, as is the reaction movement when things try to melee you.

[solidork]

Theres another minor edge case in that Wildhunt Shifting can help you make your checks to dispel things with Dispel Magic. Also, making it so things can't have advantage to you is significant - it's the primary way you benefit from the racial ability in combat - especially if your group uses flanking. Having the long channel divinity to help out with out of combat situations might let you reserve the racial for protecting yourself in dangerous situations.

Also, think about the fictional framing - whatever shifting ability your character has helped shape what they were like long before they became a cleric. If you've got any strong feelings about your character being the kind of person who has always been uncannily perceptive, or has always been tougher than most, that could help you decide.

[DarkMoon250]

With the CD option lasting for up to 2 hours per short rest(!) you can practically have it active all day.

...I completely forgot I get my CD's back on a short rest. That's definitely going to factor into my final decision.

[DarkMoon250]

Theres another minor edge case in that Wildhunt Shifting can help you make your checks to dispel things with Dispel Magic. Also, making it so things can't have advantage to you is significant - it's the primary way you benefit from the racial ability in combat - especially if your group uses flanking. Having the long channel divinity to help out with out of combat situations might let you reserve the racial for protecting yourself in dangerous situations.

Also, think about the fictional framing - whatever shifting ability your character has helped shape what they were like long before they became a cleric. If you've got any strong feelings about your character being the kind of person who has always been uncannily perceptive, or has always been tougher than most, that could help you decide.

As someone who hasn't managed to get past level 4 in a campaign before it fizzled out, how often will things that would need Dispel Magic probably come up? And how often does advantage against a PC come up in combat as time goes on?

Also, I hadn't considered how my shifter's specific shifting heritage would influence how he interacted with the world as he grew up, but that's something I'm glad you brought up. I think having heightened senses and a greater level of intuition is more in-line with how I see this character than being tough, unless there's a different way to frame beasthide.

[solidork]

As someone who hasn't managed to get past level 4 in a campaign before it fizzled out, how often will things that would need Dispel Magic probably come up?
Very unlikely, overall.


And how often does advantage against a PC come up in combat as time goes on?

If your DM uses the flanking rules (I personally advocate against this whenever I can), then it could come up every combat. It depends a lot on what you're facing, and how much you plan to get mixed up in melee. We had an arc where we fought nothing but Sahuagin and their shark pets and virtually every attack against us had advantage - Wildhunt would have been incredible there, compared to the +1 AC from Beasthide that I had.

Just between pack tactics, knocking prone, restraining and blinding there are something like 500+ monsters that can do something that will grant advantage to things attacking you. Some of those are duplicates, if they can do more than one of those things, but that's not touching stuff that can apply those effects with spells at all. Lots of animals have something like that, as well as some common humanoid statblocks like the Thug. So it comes up from time to time, but not usually.

[DarkMoon250]

If your DM uses the flanking rules (I personally advocate against this whenever I can), then it could come up every combat. It depends a lot on what you're facing, and how much you plan to get mixed up in melee.

I plan on staying within at least 30 ft of the rest of the group, but I'll be trying to stay behind them to focus on support and concentration spells. This subclass is geared towards a backlines style of Cleric. Maybe beasthide might be best in this case, or perhaps swiftstride like the other person mentioned.

One last question: how useful can Wis checks within combat be? I know stealthy enemies can be combated using Perception, but are there uses for the other ones in combat (or at the end of it, because I did manage to harvest a lot of monster materials using a Survival check, once)?

[Psyren]

I plan on staying within at least 30 ft of the rest of the group, but I'll be trying to stay behind them to focus on support and concentration spells. This subclass is geared towards a backlines style of Cleric. Maybe beasthide might be best in this case, or perhaps swiftstride like the other person mentioned.

One last question: how useful can Wis checks within combat be? I know stealthy enemies can be combated using Perception, but are there uses for the other ones in combat (or at the end of it, because I did manage to harvest a lot of monster materials using a Survival check, once)?

No one can really answer that except your GM, because they determine which ability checks you make, how often and what the effects are.

You hit on the main ones (Perception and Survival), though those tend to come up more often before and after combat than during.

[DarkMoon250]

Also, I confirmed with the DM that flanking rules will apply in this campaign. So maybe wildhunt won't be redundant in this adventure.

...But my subclass's ability to grant an ally Pack Tactics might be, though.

[DarkMoon250]

You didn't mention Swiftstride but that's a decent option too. The extra mobility is great on clerics since your positioning is important for things like Spirit Guardians, as is the reaction movement when things try to melee you.

I feel like I should ask, I don't plan on getting in range for stuff like Spirit Guardians, since this subclass really benefits players who focus on their support and domain spells, but could Swiftstride still have some usefulness for me?

[x3n0n]

I feel like I should ask, I don't plan on getting in range for stuff like Spirit Guardians, since this subclass really benefits players who focus on their support and domain spells, but could Swiftstride still have some usefulness for me?

IMO, given that you don't want to be in melee, Swiftstride looks like one of the better choices. If someone gets up in your face, you can use your reaction to get away (at the end of their turn), and your extra movement speed helps you get further away from them.

[solidork]

I feel like I should ask, I don't plan on getting in range for stuff like Spirit Guardians, since this subclass really benefits players who focus on their support and domain spells, but could Swiftstride still have some usefulness for me?

With the right terrain, move speed can be as useful for keeping out of reach of the enemy as it is for closing the distance. In my experience though, its not supper common that you get enough room to really pull off kiting strategies. There are some support spells where you need to be close enough to your ally to touch them, in which case the speed could also be of value - moving through allies is difficult terrain and that can quickly add up.

As for flanking and your channel divinity that grants pack tactics - I wouldn't worry too much about it not being useful as long as you've got someone who wants to shoot at range. You can even use it on yourself and let loose with Guiding Bolts in a pinch. It's going to compete with Faerie Fire a bit though.