I think WAR is one of the weakest Cleric domains.

[Mongobear]

They're both somewhat Wis based and Ranger is 1/2 caster, so it's the closest natural comparison from my point of view. Trying to assess other classes vs a Multi-Attack Cleric is going to be tougher. Monks are also based off Wis, and would fair worse because they're a weaker class. Yes, Barbs do more damage, but not really much of anything else. Fighters are going to be better at single target by 11th, but much like the Barb most of the subclasses don't have a lot going for them outside of combat; maybe an EK, being a 1/3 caster would be a decent comparison. So is EK that much better at single target damage to compensate for being a 1/3 caster vs full? I remain unconvinced. I did say "baring Paly" in my earlier post; I think that remains true. Paly's have Smite and Aura(s) that take them beyond other martials.

Sure there are classes, particularly some subclasses of Fighters and Barbs, that still do more sustained damage than a Multi-Attacking Cleric at tier 2, but those classes don't have much going for them beyond combat. To me Ranger is a fair comparison because, like the Cleric, they actually can perform out of combat and have decent single target damage.

I wasn't so much questioning their similarities, just that the measuring stick you settled on happened to not be a good representation of how the game is actually played--the metric you chose is one of the worst contenders for how 5e melee combat is actually done. Considering there are only 3x Wisdom based classes with spells in the entire game, one of which doesnt technically have a "Martial spec" (Moon Druid, while it does attack, it is nowhere near as similar to weapon based combatants). I would have just compared a "Melee Cleric" to the average range of damage output, or even find high Optimized charts and see how it ranks to those vs using one of the weaker options not many actually play.

[stoutstien]

How bout something like:
Domain spells
same as printed

Bonus proficiencies
same as printed.

War priest blessing
At 1st level, you gain the ability to inspire others with the will of your god. At the end of a long rest,you can use your action to touch a willing creature other than yourself to give them benefits of a one fighting style of your choice. This blessing last until the end of your next long rest

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.


Channel Divinity: War God's Guidance

At 2th level, when a creature within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll, you can use your reaction to grant that creature a +10 bonus to the roll, using your Channel Divinity. You make this choice after you see the roll, but before the DM says whether the attack hits or misses.

Call To Arms

Starting at level 6, you can further inspire other who stand with you in battle. When you take the attack action on your turn choose one ally within 39 that can see or hear you, that target gains temporarily hit points equal to 5 +half your cleric levels. If that target is also benefiting from your war priest blessing they gain advantage on the next attack roll they make before the start of your next turn. These temporary hit points vanish if the target starts thier turn more than 30 feet away from you or at the end of thier next short or long rest.

Divine Strike

At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when the target of your war priest blessing a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage of the same type dealt by the weapon to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.


Avatar of Battle- same as printed.

[Amnestic]

Looking at the big up the 'war leader' aspect instead of the 'martial' aspect:-

Keeping the proficiencies the same.

War Priest
From 1st level, your god delivers bolts of inspiration to you while you are engaged in battle. As a bonus action, you can command a willing creature you can see to strike. They may immediately use their reaction to move up to 30ft and make one weapon attack.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Channel Divinity: Guided Strike
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to strike with supernatural accuracy. When a friendly creature you can see makes an attack roll, you can use your reaction to use your Channel Divinity to add a +10 bonus to the roll. You make this choice after you see the roll, but before the DM says whether the attack hits or misses.

War God's Blessing
At 6th level, you no longer have a usage limit on War Priest. In addition, the creature you inspire adds your wisdom modifier to the damage roll.

Divine Strike
At 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when the creature you inspired with War Priest hits a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage of the same type dealt by the weapon to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8.

Avatar of Battle
At 17th level, you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.

In addition, when you use War Priest, you can choose to transfer this resistance from yourself to the target ally, which lasts until the start of your next turn.

While it's not quite the Warlord of yore, it does evoke some similar aspects of it, while still being on top of the cleric chassis.

[Psyren]

I don't think any such person exists, nor does my argument require such a person to exist.

Neither do I, which is why I think that fears like "one less reason to play a martial" and "there will be less of them" are unlikely to be realized in practice simply by letting certain caster subclasses access Extra Attack.

I agree that martials should have niches at high levels, which is why I'm advocating for things like tier 3/4 Barbarians getting the ability to sunder or disrupt magical effects etc.

[Mongobear]

Neither do I, which is why I think that fears like "one less reason to play a martial" and "there will be less of them" are unlikely to be realized in practice simply by letting certain caster subclasses access Extra Attack.

I agree that martials should have niches at high levels, which is why I'm advocating for things like tier 3/4 Barbarians getting the ability to sunder or disrupt magical effects etc.

Tbh, Barbarian likely needs the least amount of help out of all the Martial only classes. (the ones that, in my opinion, are in the most need are non-Archery Ranger and Monks).

Barb has insane survivability and on-demand Advantage.

Fighters has weight of Dice and Action Surges, plus extra Feats/ASIs so they can grab those extra utility options of diversify their combat abilities.

Rogues can just one shot a lot of things, or at worst, make sure their single attack REALLY hurts. and have Cunning Action to always where they need to be.

Paladin is just Paladin, for every merit Barbarian has going for it's survivability, Paladin matches in offensive output, plus they have their Save aura.

Ranger has Archery going for it, but a well built Fighter or Rogue can match their output, if not surpass it, depending on level.

Monks though... yeesh. hits like a wet noodle, pretty lackluster archetypes, and just genuinely has never felt impressive, and I almost always have that 5th-6th party member show up as one 'trying to make it work with this cool build idea' and they just devolves in a shove/stun bot with almost meaningless damage output. Like, I know not everything can be the best, but there should at least be options that can get close in some way.

[Psyren]

Monk needs help, no question. Ranger... based on the playtests I think the base class is in a solid spot. The capstone needs to be buffed sure, and Tireless has crappy scaling, but the rest is a big step up from 2014 and that plus their spells (especially now that they're prepared) give them plenty of scaling to high levels imo.

[Theodoxus]

If monk is seen not as the big damage boom guy (we have plenty of those), but rather as the 'kill stealing, never going to overkill anything' guy, then build towards that, it would be a pretty unique place in the game.

I've been looking at options, and so far, the one I like the most is to grant Monks 'flurry of blows' dice like Rogue's sneak attack. A rogue gets 1d6 sneak every odd level, and a Monk should get 1d6 Flurry attack every odd level. Sure, they could go all '100 hands' on the boss, trying to get every attack to land; but the ideal is to spread the love around the battlefield. Tapping out baddies who've been softened up by the rest of the team.

Martial Arts would still scale in die size, but I'm not sure the Monk's flurry die should necessarily. On the one hand, if every attack hit, and Flurry was dealing a d10, then Rogues would be sad. OTOH, because not every attack is guaranteed to hit, the extra few points of damage offset that... so, I'm open to the idea - just didn't want to get flamed down with "OMG, at 20th, a Monk is dealing like 10d10 a round! That's too OP!"

[Kane0]

Monks are pretty great finishers, yeah.

[CTurbo]

I don't want to derail this thread too much talking about Monks, but I think they are better than most people seem to think. There are a few small tweaks I'd make, but I don't think they're in need of a major overhaul. If somebody wants to make a thread about Monks I'll happily join in.


After reading through peoples' thoughts on the War Cleric, I've decided that the War Cleric probably should not have a full time unrestricted Extra Attack at least not without making some other changes. I do think that the Cleric's defensive capabilities as well as the Paladin's existence is the reason why no Cleric domain was granted a full Extra Attack. However, I do still think War Priest needs to be better than Wis mod per long rest. Like I think I said in the first or post, we've long houseruled that War Priest's extra attack is now a part of the Attack Action instead of the Bonus Action, and this has been a pretty good success for us, BUT I don't think this idea would work 'officially' because it's too strong a feature when multiclassing is taken into consideration. I already think War is a decent 1 level dip for every martial class, but if the extra attack was attacked to the Attack Action, unless specifically worded to not combine with the normal Extra Attack, then War Cleric would become an amazing dip for Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, and even Barbs. I don't play with anybody that would exploit it so it's not a concern at my tables.

I was surprised to see so many votes in the poll thread for the extra attack. I'm actually leaning towards War Priest becoming a Short Rest resource.

[Amnestic]

Could crib from D&DOne and make it an LR resource that gets a partial recharge on an SR, whether that be 1 use or 1/2 wismod uses, or something similar.

Though at that point perhaps just making it an SR resource would work too, idk.