Project Black Flag Cleric

[Kane0]

For those of you keeping tabs on it, the Cleric playtest has been released.

The shortnotes:

- They're still going with common spell lists at this stage
- Rituals are separate from regular spell preps now, like cantrips
- Turn/Destroy undead also applies to fiends
- Subclass levels at 3/7/11/15, Cleric 'order' from OneD&D is present at level 1. You get either armor/weapon profs and prof bonus to weapon damage once per turn, or an extra cantrip and prof bonus to cantrip damage
- Divine intervention is a d20+ Prof bonus vs DC20 to get any divine or domain spell that's an action to cast, or your DM can propose an alternative. If it's a spell beyond what you can cast there's a check to pull it off (casting stat vs 10+spell level)
- Level 10 you get choice between disease+poisoned immunity and radiant/necrotic resistance with the ability to swap any spell damage to the type you choose to resist
- Life domain at level 11 can clear conditions with the channel power, otherwise is mostly the same
- War domain sees some significant changes. Domain spells are changed, their extra attack is part of the attack action and prof bonus times per long rest, their channel is a bonus action mark on a target providing advantage on the first attack everyone makes against it until your next turn, level 7 allows rerolling of spell damage, level 11 lets you change the channel mark to a new target if they die before your turn comes around and level 15 you can turn a weapon hit into a crit once per turn (attack action only).

[Skrum]

- Turn/Destroy undead also applies to fiends


Not crazy about this one. Having a cleric in the party makes undead encounters a big yawn, most of the time. Extending that to fiends as well? That's a lot of potential enemies.

[Kane0]

To be honest it all looks like power creep to me, and straight up unfair next to their fighter changes (read: nerfs). That said, its interesting to read over and for someone like me worthwhile to mine for homebrew ideas.

[animewatcha]

For those of you keeping tabs on it, the Cleric playtest has been released.



Do you mean Playtest UA 6 or is there a new one that haven't been posted on the normal dndbeyond tab yet?

[Kane0]

Do you mean Playtest UA 6 or is there a new one that haven't been posted on the normal dndbeyond tab yet?

Project Black Flag, not OneD&D. Currently branded as Tales of the Valiant. You're forgiven for being unaware, its 3rd party and something of a clone.
https://www.talesofthevaliant.com/

[Brookshw]

To be honest it all looks like power creep to me, and straight up unfair next to their fighter changes (read: nerfs). That said, its interesting to read over and for someone like me worthwhile to mine for homebrew ideas.

I'm not following BF anymore, but in fairness, turning fiends was something you could do as a high level cleric pre-WoTC, and Wolfgang Baur, Kobold's head, is a pre-WoTC D&D designer.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm not following BF anymore, but in fairness, turning fiends was something you could do as a high level cleric pre-WoTC, and Wolfgang Baur, Kobold's head, is a pre-WoTC D&D designer. FWIW, it's a feature that 5e should have had IMO.

[Oramac]

For those of you keeping tabs on it, the Cleric playtest has been released.

Of note, for backers the Bard/Mechanist/Warlock/Orc playtest packet was released as well.


To be honest it all looks like power creep to me

They're buffing the monsters a good bit too. It could be called power creep, but near as I can tell, it's fairly even on both sides of the DM screen.

[Kane0]

Of note, for backers the Bard/Mechanist/Warlock/Orc playtest packet was released as well.

Oh neat! Im not a backer though, anything you can share?



They're buffing the monsters a good bit too. It could be called power creep, but near as I can tell, it's fairly even on both sides of the DM screen.
Looking at the fighter in the first packet im inclined to disagree, unless that has since been revised?

[Oramac]

Oh neat! Im not a backer though, anything you can share?

Still reading through it. So far it seems pretty good, imo. Each class only goes to 8th level at the moment.

I'm not really an artificer person, so the mechanist holds little interest to me. I'll refrain from commenting on that.

The bard gained a thing called Bardic Performance that's similar-ish to channel divinity, and Lore got a non-combat feature that helps them with arcana/history/nature/religion checks. Overall, I like it.

The warlock is still a half-caster, which I love, but I know others disagree. Eldritch Blast is a class feature, and is interestingly called out as very specifically not a spell (and thus not affected by counterspell and the like), which I kinda like. Loads of other QoL changes to invocations and stuff too. I like it, but I liked the half-caster warlock when WOTC tried it too, so I'm probably biased.


Looking at the fighter in the first packet im inclined to disagree, unless that has since been revised?

I don't think there's been a revised fighter yet, so I can't really say. Wouldn't surprise me if it got a decent buff though.

[JackPhoenix]

FWIW, it's a feature that 5e should have had IMO.

I disagree, and I'd argue cleric shouldn't have turn undead as a default feature either. It made sense back in the day when PC cleric was a vampire hunter, but these days, there's a chance the PC cleric may be pro-undead and turning/destroying them doesn't make sense for everyone. 3.x did it better with turn/rebuke. There should be a choice of channel divinity options even on a base cleric, separate from the stuff you get from domain.

[Brookshw]

FWIW, it's a feature that 5e should have had IMO.

No argument here, though I'd be fine with limiting it to having to have at least one opposite on the alignment axis (and neutrals getting nothing).

[PhoenixPhyre]

No argument here, though I'd be fine with limiting it to having to have at least one opposite on the alignment axis (and neutrals getting nothing).

I'm kinda more partial to PF 1e's Channel [Positive|Negative] Energy design. Tacking on a "undead must save or flee" rider to positive energy or a "can take control of undead" rider (to negative energy) seems like something a subclass or class option could do pretty easily when it's not so hyper-specialized.