How does a forge cleric typically fight level 4-7?

[Boci]

I have a 3rd level forge cleric in a game, soon-ish to level. They also have a magic item drop coming up, and for story reasons its meant to be relevant/destined, so I want to make it count. My current thoughts are something that increases weapon damage as a reaction 1/short rest, since that's how they currently fight, but I'm wondering if that will stay relevant, since they don't any bonuses to weapon attacks till level 8 beyond just up casting searing smite and maybe 20 strength at level 5? (plus elemental weapon at level 5, but that spells seems REAL awkward to use).

Worth noting, the players has a homebrewed non-magical short spear that deals +1d6 poison damage and they have 18 strength since these players like rolling for stats. So their attack is +7 for 2d6+5, which the option to then bonus action searing smite or healing word. Are they going to continue doing this, or are they going to do something else? Maybe start relying on leveled spells as they have more of them using their action to cast them in combat, maybe switch to a 2dx cantrip at level 5? Pretty sure they took sacred flame. And what if they lose their venomous weapon, since they won't be able to replace that? They have found a backup mace, which is a +1 weapon and has some minor fear and death related ability, but for now they value +1d6 poison on every attack over that.

What's your experience / intuition for how force domain cleric play in combat, as DMs or players? Will they keep weapon attack enough from level 4-7 to benefit from an item that boosts the damage 1/SR? And will they reliable use weapon attacks from level 8, or is the +1d8 damage not even worth it?

[kazaryu]

I have a 3rd level forge cleric in a game, soon-ish to level. They also have a magic item drop coming up, and for story reasons its meant to be relevant/destined, so I want to make it count. My current thoughts are something that increases weapon damage as a reaction 1/short rest, since that's how they currently fight, but I'm wondering if that will stay relevant, since they don't any bonuses to weapon attacks till level 8 beyond just up casting searing smite and maybe 20 strength at level 5? (plus elemental weapon at level 5, but that spells seems REAL awkward to use).

Worth noting, the players has a homebrewed non-magical short spear that deals +1d6 poison damage and they have 18 strength since these players like rolling for stats. So their attack is +7 for 2d6+5, which the option to then bonus action searing smite or healing word. Are they going to continue doing this, or are they going to do something else? Maybe start relying on leveled spells as they have more of them using their action to cast them in combat, maybe switch to a 2dx cantrip at level 5? Pretty sure they took sacred flame. And what if they lose their venomous weapon, since they won't be able to replace that? They have found a backup mace, which is a +1 weapon and has some minor fear and death related ability, but for now they value +1d6 poison on every attack over that.

What's your experience / intuition for how force domain cleric play in combat, as DMs or players? Will they keep weapon attack enough from level 4-7 to benefit from an item that boosts the damage 1/SR? And will they reliable use weapon attacks from level 8, or is the +1d8 damage not even worth it?

this would, imo, depend entirely on the player. how have they been playing thus far? have they made any indication as to how they want to continue to play?

without that context any advice the internet gives will be relatively arbitrary.

if you're worried about the attack action becoming irrelevant, do keep in mind that spells like do allow for clerics to spend their first turn casting a spell, then moving into melee range and just swinging a weapon (or possibly casting a cantrip, depending on whats most effective). so there's no guarantee that a weapon based magic item will become irrelevant.

Overall i'd talk to the player, try to get an idea for how they see their cleric developing. and hey, if you do end up going the weapon route, and the cleric ends up being more comfortable as a back rank caster, then you can always build in a contingency to have the magic item evolve, to bring it back into relevance.

[CTurbo]

My experience with a Forge Cleric is that hitting enemies with your weapon is rarely going to be the best use of your Action. By level 6, Forge Clerics could easily have a 22AC which makes them better than most domains at maintaining concentration on Bless, SG, or Wall of Fire. Not saying don't get a nice magic Mace and never use it. That's just not my go-to playstyle.

[LudicSavant]

My experience with a Forge Cleric is that hitting enemies with your weapon is rarely going to be the best use of your Action. By level 6, Forge Clerics could easily have a 22AC which makes them better than most domains at maintaining concentration on Bless, SG, or Wall of Fire. Not saying don't get a nice magic Mace and never use it. That's just not my go-to playstyle.

Yeah. Personally I pretty much always see Blessed Strikes on Forge Clerics.

[Sigreid]

By level 5 your cantrip will most likely be more effective than your weapon in most situations. That doesn't mean that one of our group's clerics doesn't enjoy shouting that he casts "MACE" and roll an attack.

[Boci]

My experience with a Forge Cleric is that hitting enemies with your weapon is rarely going to be the best use of your Action. By level 6, Forge Clerics could easily have a 22AC which makes them better than most domains at maintaining concentration on Bless, SG, or Wall of Fire. Not saying don't get a nice magic Mace and never use it. That's just not my go-to playstyle.

Okay, but you're only casting 1 concentration spell per combat, and combat last 2-3 rounds no? So what do you do on the following turns? Another levelled spell? Dodge, cantrip?


Yeah. Personally I pretty much always see Blessed Strikes on Forge Clerics.

Because they're never attacking with their weapon, or using both weapon and cantrip? Would they prefer Potent Spellcasting if it was an option?


By level 5 your cantrip will most likely be more effective than your weapon in most situations. That doesn't mean that one of our group's clerics doesn't enjoy shouting that he casts "MACE" and roll an attack.

Yeah, I understand it will also be player dependant. What I'm thinking of will basically be "1/short rest, as a reaction you may give a creature who just took thunder damage vulnerability to the next instance of bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage they take from a weapon before the start of your turn". They can activate this since they have a racial ability to do thunder damage as a bonus action 1/SR, but this way they can also pass the vulnerability off to a party member, and can even trigger it off another party member inflicting thunder damage.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

With your current weapon, damage is better than cantrips until level 11, and you have the Str score to make it work. You also have the Smite Spell to augment it as necessary. So if you're liking the way it plays, I'm not sure why you're considering changing. I'd actually be thinking about getting a blade-trip to tack on more damage.

[RogueJK]

My experience with a Forge Cleric is that hitting enemies with your weapon is rarely going to be the best use of your Action.

Which is basically true of all Clerics outside of Tier 1, even the ones that appear to be overtly weapon-focused.

Not only will you usually have better options for your Action than making a single weapon attack, but investing ASIs in scaling your STR in an attempt to keep your weapon attacks competitive lessens the effectiveness of your spells and Clerical abilities since you're then not raising WIS (or boosting Concentration).


With your current weapon, damage is better than cantrips until level 11, and you have the Str score to make it work.

Only if you invest ASIs in boosting your STR instead of your WIS, or you had some crazy stat rolls and started with super high STR and WIS.

Otherwise, if you're investing your stat bumps into WIS as a WIS-based full caster ought to, your cantrips will be more likely to land their damage than your weapon attacks as your WIS bonus surpasses your STR bonus.

A Forge Cleric doesn't need more than a 15ish STR, and can even make do with less than a 15 STR if you don't want to wear Heavy Armor and/or you aren't affected by - or don't care about - the movement speed decrease.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Which is basically true of all Clerics outside of Tier 1, even the ones that appear to be overtly weapon-focused.

Not only will you usually have better options for your Action than making a single weapon attack, but investing ASIs in scaling your STR in an attempt to keep your weapon attacks competitive lessens the effectiveness of your spells and Clerical abilities since you're then not raising WIS.



Only if you invest ASIs in boosting your STR instead of your WIS, or you had some crazy stat rolls and started with super high STR and WIS.

Otherwise, if you're investing your stat bumps into WIS as a WIS-based full caster ought to, your cantrips will be more likely to land their damage than your weapon attacks as your WIS bonus outstrips your STR bonus.

A Forge Cleric doesn't need more than a 15ish STR, and can even make do with less than a 15 STR if you don't want to wear Heavy Armor and/or you aren't affected by - or don't care about - the movement speed decrease.

The OP says he has a rolled STR score of 18.

[CTurbo]

Giving a Cleric a fancy magic weapon that adds additional damage would obviously make attacking with it a more attractive action. Starting with 18Str helps too.

You can build a play a weapon focused Cleric and it would work just fine even if it's not the most optimized style of play. I've done it a couple times. I was a Tempest Cleric that used a Maul and Booming Blade most rounds, and I've also played a PAM/Sentinel Tempest Cleric and both were a lot of fun. Sometimes the Spirit Guardians + Spiritual Weapon + ______ combo can get boring and repetitive, but I've found that it's definitely the most effective way to Cleric.

Forge doesn't get martial weapons so you're stuck using a mace unless you can get warhammer prof from Dwarf. All the stars would have to align to make weapon focused Cleric worthwhile. High rolled stats and magic weapons at the very least. We always roll for stats.

I prefer big concentration spells on my usual Clerics so I'm more concerned with maintaining that concentration than anything else. Especially if I've upcasted one of them. If I'm knee deep in melee, I'll choose Dodge over Weapon Attack most of the time. If I'm not literally down on the front line, cantrips are usually better than moving into melee and using a weapon. Of course there are always times when the best answer is to smash the enemy in the face with a hammer lol

[solidork]

If I was playing a Forge cleric and was going to get a bespoke magic item, I'd want something that could pull enemies into my Spirit Guardians/push them into my Wall of Fire. That is a very specific and somewhat complicated way to approach combat though, and might not be interesting to your player.

[LudicSavant]

Because they're never attacking with their weapon, or using both weapon and cantrip? Would they prefer Potent Spellcasting if it was an option?

I've seen cases of both, though in either case Cantrips were more favored than weaponry.

Weapons are generally for OAs (if no warcaster) or for enemies resistant to saves (for those with no attack roll cantrips) in my personal experience with Forge Clerics.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

If I was playing a Forge cleric and was going to get a bespoke magic item, I'd want something that could pull enemies into my Spirit Guardians/push them into my Wall of Fire. That is a very specific and somewhat complicated way to approach combat though, and might not be interesting to your player.

Fully agree with this one. If you had something that acted a bit like thorn whip... rubbing my hands together.

[Skrum]

I actually just made a forge cleric "armor tower" build. Warforged fighter 1 forge cleric 6 w/ a ring of protection for an AC of 25. Took war caster to boost my concentration checks. He just wades into battle and uses spirit guardians. Throws in spiritual weapon and cantrip attacks, if the combat calls for all that.

Not to say you should follow that build, especially with an 18 Str, but those are the kind of things that forge clerics are naturally good at. If you have 18 Str and can secure a +d6 weapon, spirit guardians and weapon attacks is essentially the same thing as SG + cantrips.

I would recommend grabbing war caster though. Spirit guardians, wall of fire; they don't need your spell save DC to be uber-maxed to be effective, but having advantage on concentration checks is *really good.* Even with high AC, you're going to get hit if you spend time near the front line.

[da newt]

If you are homebrewing all this maybe ask for your spear to magically gain the returning property and when thrown and it hits a foe it drags them to you - similar to thorn whip. Or a shield of lighting lure - as a BA you can cast LL with your shield. These would both be very powerful magic items that pair w/ SG.

Alternate - a Belt of Giant ST would let you concentrate ASIs on WIS and still hit like a truck (and grapple).


As others have said, for most clerics weapon attacks don't scale well so they become less optimal at higher levels, but if the player wants to lean into the 'I hit stuff with my stick' theme you can build around that.

[Boci]

Okay, so based on the feedback here, I think I have a solution that should cover all bases. Asking what the player wants works, but also then undermines the mystic of finding an item custom made for you I feel. The item will have a thunder theme, that is locked in, and I also don't want it to be a weapon, since they've alkready found a few of those.

They are currently level 3, and will reach level 4 as they find the treasure. Now they will probably ant to ID the treasure at the end of the session, but I could ask hopw they will level, or be sneaky and have the box holding the items be locked long enough that they only get to open it at the start of enxt session.

As for the item, if the player takes +2 strength, the thunder belt will allow them to 1/SR use their reaction to impose vulnerability to the next B/P/S weapon attack a creature who just took thunder damage recieves before the start on their next turn. If however they choose to boost wisdom, or take Warcaster, it add 1d8 thunder damage to Sacred Flame, and on a fail save allow them to push the target 5ft.

In either case the item will evolve with them, gaining new abilities as they level (likely tied to proficiency bonus).