The Best Feats for a Cleric
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- This week in Treantmonk's Guide to Clerics we are discussing what feats are poor, good or great for your Cleric.
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I do love alert as a tempest cleric. Helps me get in before my allies are in range of my aoe spells. They arent huge fans of friendly fire
Thanks for the tip!
Metamagic adept is my new favorite cleric feat. Extend spell on aid and death ward and even aura of life is so so good.
Cleric is one of my favorite classes due to it's simplicity and strength. War caster and resilient at level 8 or 4 if you're human. cast spirit guardians and spiritual weapon and just DODGE. Running about with heavy armor and a shield doing big damage healing myself whenever i'm injured and just being a big ball of death..."Yes i will heal... the enemy... in the other direction"-murderous life cleric
Great idea! I'm thinking about ResCon even though my Con is 14. However I have a question: would you happen to know of a way to be effective while not attracting much attention? Our DM and 3/5 of the party are from the "us vs them" school and I'm afraid that as soon as I start doing Nova my (slightly sadistic) GM might have everybody and their zombie focus me. Seriously the guy relishes in seeing players getting recked and while we're mostly cool I would really prefer to empower my teammates in a way that his attention is a bit more divided. Thank you for your advice
@@destroyerinazuma96. Well the entire point Is to be as tanky as possible and use the Dodge action to survive so if the dm surrounds you and has all the creatures hit your high ac with disadvantage (,unless you're using flanking) it's the optimal scenario. But otherwise most you can try doing is turning off spirit guardians in favor of other spells like bless from time to time
@@98gabrius great idea, thanks. I also think Bless is often a godsend, especially if the party's aim isn't obliteration but let's say "seize and arrest"
You forgot sanctuary first then dodge
I think the other Halfling racial feat, Second Chance, is a good option as well. +1 Dex or Con, and once per encounter, you can reroll an attack that would otherwise hit you. It's another way to mitigate the number of constitution saves you have to make, and you can start with 17 Dexterity to get this plus an 18 at 4, or start with a 15 constitution to get this plus a 16 at 4 with a Ghostwise Halfling.
If there's no War Caster among the primary feats, I'll be shocked.
Me too!
@@robinstrand3555 you are one lucky boi, then.
Me? I prefer not to rely on rolled results.
@@robinstrand3555 And your DM probably ignore somatic components rules
Took War Caster as a variant human light cleric at level one. Haven’t failed a concentration saving throw yet and have even gotten to use the attack of opportunity feature. Extremely recommend.
@sum body Yeah - it's been a lot of fun and honestly quite a simple build that feels like it brings a lot to every single encounter
I've really enjoyed the cleric series Chris, great job. :)
I like Healer on a cleric to save my spell slots for doing things other than healing. Especially at lower levels where a use of a healer’s kit is basically equivalent to a first level healing spell.
Or a healing potion
@@juanpauloarcillas7600 a healers kit is cheaper early in the game, and easier to replenish.
@@johnkronz7562 what i mean is that it's as good as a healing potion. I know a healers kit is cheap, that's why it's so great.
Let someone else take it. It’s a cooperative game and unless you desire to carry the responsibility of all of the healing, someone else should take it to help out.
@@Gracklef1int Going on his other video about how to play a cleric, I would have spirit guardians up, using my bonus action for spiritual weapon which means I can heal with a healer's kit for my action without having to use a spell slot. This leaves my other party members free to use their actions to deal damage.
I heavily recommend Heavy Armor Master for any healing Cleric. Because most of the monsters in the game don't have magic attacks. Spells yes, attacks no. The less damage you take = the more you can heal, the easier it is to make concentration checks m/l. They'd have to do 25 nonmagical psb damage before it starts to really effect concentration checks.
I am human variant paladin with heavy armor master at levels 2 through 4 it has saved my life at least 6 times. I died with two characters previously, so I decided to take it.
When I first looked at War Caster I thought to myself "Wow, they made a feat specially for Clerics"! And that's before I realized how much fun Spirit Guardians can be. The only thing I like to add to a high level Cleric is a level or two of Divination Wizard: Now level 1 spell slots get used for Shield to keep me from losing a high level slot on Spirit Guardians, plus Banishment becomes a pretty good spell if you "know" the main BBEG will fail their save.
shmuckling you’d have to pray the BBEG has burned through its legendary resistances
@@jonathanshi9367 Very true.
A variant human cleric of arcana could benefit from the heavily armored feat. The Arcana Domain allows you to pick two wizard cantrips (booming blade and/or green-flame blade) and apply potent spellcasting to them. Therefore, taking the heavily armored feat as a variant human makes strength over dexterity a viable option.
Awesome video. Resilient (Con) has really helped my Cleric keep her Spirit Guardians up. I know it's not recommended, but I used the ASI at 4th for Wisdom and plan to do the same at 8th, but if she makes it to 12th then I'm taking Warcaster or Lucky.
I also love using Defensive Duelist. Will make that green. Sure I look silly standing before you with my dagger and shield, but the bonus to my AC is amazing. I mean it starts at 2 and grows to 6.
I think the Alert feat is fairly domain-dependent. Speaking personally, I'm planning to play a UA Twilight domain cleric soon; I know you don't look at Unearthed Arcana, but it has a lot of "setup spells" in its domain list such as Faerie Fire, Darkness, Aura of Vitality/Life, Greater Invisibility, and Circle of Power, as well as its Channel Divinity, that get a lot better if you can go first.
Yes, it sounds like a good quality of life feat. Esp if like many Str Clerics one has 10 Dex or below.
I see this video is 3yrs old, cause telekinetic to round off your wisdom would definitely be up there, I think
I took inspiring leader on my warforged forge cleric. Haven't started playing yet, so idk if ill regret it later, but with a starting ac of 22 at lvl 4, i wanted to be able to give something to the rest of the group, and it seemed thematically appropriate. Start each morning with a sermon and a prayer to Moradin
Thanks a lot Treantmonk. The depth of your cleric guides is amazing and I really appreciate your work!
I am currently playing a Variant Human Life Cleric. War Caster at 1st level, of course ^^ I took Metamagic Adept at 4th level. Depending on playstyle, this is amazing, even with only 2 sorcery points. Subtle spell for out of combat things like command or charm Person drives my DM crazy regularly. Twinned spell is Great for Guiding bolt or doubling down on buffing/debuffing and healing. Once I had it, I never wanna leave Home without it anymore.
In case you still don't know, when you look up Holy Symbol in rules it says can be on shield making war caster less necessary
Hey treantmonk, i really like the info you gave in this vid. I was wondering if you'd ever do a feat vid about warlocks and what feats are best for them? They're my fav class and your analysis is some of the best out there. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Great video and I agree with your choices. I took Lucky at Lvl 1, then I chose to raise my WIS to 20 at Lvl 4 because I am more of a caster than a melee fighter. Will probably add War Caster at 8 to hold down Spirit Guardians. Lucky saved my life on a couple of occasions. But, if I had to do it over again, I would have chosen War Caster at 1, still raise my WIS at 4. Just too many things affected by a max Wisdom score (Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon Damage, Spell Attack bonus, DC Level, skill checks, etc.)
The Healer feat can be very useful in campaigns where long rests are not guaranteed. It also gives you more in-combat options for bringing back allies who are down. It enables the cleric to use it’s action to heal/stabilize a pc and still have a bonus action to cast a spell.
I've just taken Weapon Master and Great Weapon Master on my Forge Cleric. He's the party tank and is meant to hit like a truck while being built like a truck, so that combined with a Viscious magic Greataxe, he can hit hard and hit even harder if hits are more guaranteed.
All about that magic initiate goodberry! So many funny instances of goodberry being useful and my character uses it so much she has started making a goodberry recipe book
I made the unique decision to make a Centaur life cleric. Picked up War Caster, Moble and Fey Touched. Definitely helped the party from dying.
I actually prefer Resilient (Con) at level one on a Variant Human if you’re using point Buy. It might not be quite as good at War Caster at helping with concentration but the extra plus 1 Con can mean 2 more points to put somewhere else while still having a 16 con.
Last week I commented on making a firbolg grave domain cleric designed to sneak in and cast inflict wounds with eyes of the grave. What other feats might you recommend for that? I'm definitely liking the Lucky and War Caster feats. However I'm open to other options. I'm okay with flavor if I make him a PC or something meta if I make him a BBEG in my campaign.
You still have a lot of effectiveness without spirit guardian as a booming blade and a spiritual weapon attack can still hurt
Aberrant dragon mark completely replaces magic initiate because you can pick it up from the sorcerers spell list, plus it’s a half con feat
Hey there! I'm playing a melee-oriented Tempest Cleric and I'm trying to decide if I want both Res Con *and* Warcaster, when to take them? I am starting with 16 str, 14 con, 16 wisdom (hating myself for not setting up an odd con score!). Would you raise Wisdom before taking Res? Balancing making concentration saves vs raising my spell dc is a really hard call to me. I also wonder if Res Con might be better for me since our dm is asking for Con saves somewhat often during the more survival-oriented parts of our campaign. Oof! Thanks!
Thank you Nerdarchy! Great channel Monk!
Toughness… this shouldn’t be a question
I don’t know if it’s been said yet, but as of Tasha’s, booming blade + spell sniper doesn’t work as the range was changed to self
If you were able to play a bugbear twilight cleric, since they have long reach wouldn't polearm master and sentinel make sense?
about heavily armored.
How should a death domain cleric allocate stats?
Screw strenght and just go rapier+shield in medium armor?
If they want to use a greatsword, they are a bit screwed. For standard array dump cha, put 10 in int, but where does the 12 go?
One of the hardest thing about ranking the feats and how they should be used is evaluating the type of cleric. Magic initiate is good for any caster, but a war cleric and a trickery cleric would want this for very different reasons at very different effectiveness.
You mentioned using Booming Blade with a whip to get reach, but as I read Booming Blade it states "you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails." The spell range is defined as 5 feet, so I don't think you could use a whip at 10 feet per RAW.
You'd have to take the feat Spell Sniper with booming blade to increase the range to 10 feet
Aberrant dragonmark would also work to get booming blade.
Inspiring Leader is worth a look too. For the party healer to throw temporary HP on the party before the encounter starts is useful. Plus, it scales up!
@@gamecavalier3230 the lion share of the temp HP comes from your level, not the CHA bonus.
@@gamecavalier3230 You're entitled to your opinion, but remind me not to give you 22 temporary HP next time we play together.
@@gamecavalier3230 Not melee fighter, so STR is my dump. The CHA gives me more of an edge in the social skills. It also fits in RP where the character is trying to proselytize.
How about Fey touched with silvery barbs besides misty step?
Where would you put the new Tasha feats? If Silvery barbs is allowed I would put Fey Touched blue personally. Shadow Touched and Meta Magic adept Green. Then maybe some purple for Skill Expert.
I wonder how holy of a build you could make and still have something playable celestial warlock+ cleric+ holy bloodline sorcerer+ paladin I’m curious if you could make the most holy character ever lol
One thing I like to do is put a odd number in one ability score so at 4th level I can round it out with a feat
I particularly like to make the odd number an 18 so I don't really lose anything from the exchange though sometimes it is a 15 or 13
If you do a feat video again make sure to give +2 wisdom a rating too
Have you checked out the series he just released? ASI is weighted at 50 points.
If you decide to do a remix of the Trickery Cleric, I'd love to see a Ghostwise Halfling with Lucky and Bountiful Luck because fluff
Lucky (halfling), and lucky feat are at their weakest on a cleric who rarely if ever uses attack rolls for weapons or spells. The classes that use a d20 most often (like fighters and monks) will get the most benefit
I know that put shield master on red, but, I have a Tempest Cleric, my dex is low (I use the str for heavy armor) so when cast to me fireball, usually I receive the damage; I'm a new player, but this fate can save for this kind of spells, no?
I'm not gonna stop using shield, because y think play in the front line almost every battle, still not recommend this to my particular case?
DM question. I am thinking about variant possibilities for my trickster cleric that starts off as a rogue. I am considering a variant human with the magic initiate feat. My question for you is if I take one level of rogue to start, then does booming blade pair up with sneak attack damage since the spell requires a melee attack if the circumstances are right?
Yeah, booming blade works with sneak attack
I like the point made that you can wield a rapier with STR and thereby get to use defensive duelist. In fact I like it a lot!
Not to be the fun police but martial weapons proficiency is required, or at least rapier proficiency. I would still say it can work with a dagger if one's a cantrip caster anyway. Rules don't specify length or mass, just Finesse property.
@@destroyerinazuma96 That's right. If my trickery cleric gets far enough I'll probably take this feat at 12-16. He'll be using a dagger.
@@gamecavalier3230 indeed. War, Tempest, Death and I believe Order. Though the latter two don't get one heavy armor.
Clerics are fine with weapon and shield in hand for spell casting. Clerics can use their shield for their spell casting focus right? And then you can use somatic components in the same hand you are holding your focus, right? I think resilient con makes it a better feat because of this
Yes that is true but dnd rules are weird in that if a spell requires a somatic component but no material component, you won't be able to cast it with your hands full even if one of those items is a material component
In the table i'm playing SCAG cantrips aren't available, and i really don't want fight with a stick (so no Shillelagh). What's the best way to improve my melee damage? GWM?
So, to clarify, you want to use a club or a quarterstaff? It's not necessarily your optimal choice, but if you want to increase melee damage, you probably want to multiclass with paladin 2 to get smite then.
I was originally going Str over Dex Grave Cleric and was looking for Heavy Armored to get Chain Mail which would improve my Armor Class a lot.
Then I try to switch around Str and Dex and saw I would only get 1 AC more from Heavily armored so not worth it.
You can go with a mountain dwarf and have a low strength and low dex because if you get them heavily armoured they can wear heavy armor without meeting the strength requirement with no consequence
After 3 years, has your perspective changed? Would you change this list at all?
I'm playing a female drow light domain cleric in my DM's campaign. At level 4, I have chosen "Drow High Magic", which is niche for that character. The fact that having Dispel magic, Levitate and Detect Magic (at will!) always at my disposal saved my party more than once.
Healer is underrated. 10 uses for 5 gold, it scales, and each party member can benefit from it once per short rest? Way better than burning through your spell slots.
Healer is great for Blaster Clerics (e. g. Light) because you can use your slots to blast! :-)
So my DM usually let's us write a feat into our backstory if it makes sense. I'm going for an Indiana Jones light cleric who "appropriates" religious artifacts and sends them away. I'm thinking of magic initiate druid, vine whip, mold earth, and goodberry. If I pick varient human and grab war caster am I being too greedy? Should I just be a hill dwarf and wait till lvl 4 for the feat
Why not elemental adept fire as your human feat, that way you can ignore resistance with your fire cleric.
If you aren't playing a Variant Human, and you're playing a weapon cleric (of which I particularly mean one that gets 'Divine Strike' rather than 'Potent Spellcasting', doesn't this mean that the feat 'Spell Sniper' or 'Magic Initiate' are the ones you should absolutely grab at level 4 instead of 'War Caster', because otherwise how else are you supposed to get your hands on 'Booming Blade' or 'Green Flame Blade' (as a straight cleric)?
Question, a cleric [tempest] with 14 strength, low dex, currently in chain, is heavy armor mastery worth considering so I can bump up to plate and also reduce some damage eventually coming my way?
Heavy armor mastery isn't going to allow you to bypass Str requirements, so your tempest cleric can wear plate either way, but expect a speed reduction (unless you are a dwarf)
@@TreantmonksTemple would allow me to boost strength to 15 as heavy armor mastery gives a plus one to strength. This a 15 which is what I need for plate.
And now we have Tasha’s Feats.
When you say you’d take Thorn Whip via Wood Elf Magic I think it’s worth mentioning that you can use said cantrip to trigger Spirit Guardians when you drag a creature into your AOE.
He mentions this in his cleric tactics video
With clerics that get heavy armor, do you think it would be a waste to get heavy armor master?
I thought it would, (I did it anyway as I seemed to be overshadowing the other players) but it saved my character from death many times( tempest cleric ) but if you are getting up in the middle of the fight and especially if you are tempest, it does help more than you would think. Have only gotten that character to 6th level so far but it is nice to be able to get hit, reduce the damage taken then zap them with my electric reaction, and send them flying. Many times I ended up taking less damage than they did ha ha ha.
Man, you would hate my cleric build.
I'm surprised he doesn't recommend shillelagh for the wood elf magic feat. I would absolutely recommend it for a melee cleric. If you're choosing between booming blade and shillelagh, then I'd still pick booming blade. But getting both is great, such as a nature cleric with magic initiate/wizard or a high elf cleric with magic initiate/druid.
I go into the issues using Shillelagh with Clerics in my subclass video (skip to nature cleric where I discuss the issues)
I like wood elf magic and the arcana domain to get shillelagh, booming blade and green flame blade.
Looking forward to the multi-classing guide. I appreciated your knowledge cleric/diviner build but found generally that multi-classing with a cleric to be a bit harder to find builds that I loved versus just going single class cleric to 20. This is for me in part due to the RAW prohibition against druids wearing metal armor.
That druid restriction is so stupid. It's not even consistent; can't wear metal armour but can use a metal scimitar? Miss me with that nonsense.
1.) idk how much of that is "RAW" because it's more in the lore section than actual gameplay rules section.
2.) Animal scales aren't metal, there's plenty of ways to make heavy armor that's not metal. It shouldn't be much harder to find than platemail anyway
Junie B unfortunately, it’s current AL rules - the Druid text in the PHB says “will not wear etc etc”. I don’t agree with it but if you’re playing an AL-legal game, that’s the way it is.
adamkaris I’ve personally not ran into any other non-metallic armors other than dragonscale, which is a Very Rare and probably wouldn’t see until higher levels. Maybe that’s okay but it’s discouraging if you want to have a high AC. I think finding non-metallic options will be pretty challenging for most adventures unless your DM just gives it to you. For example, if you go to D&D Beyond and search for ankheg or umber in equipment or magic items, there’s no armor results indicating no one has put them in official sources yet despite armor from those being in prior editions
@@impretinent well yes, I get that it would be like that in AL; I was just saying it's a stupid thing to have in there at all.
All this is the reason why my favorite cleric is a hafling devine soul sourcerer 😁
Anyone do drow war domain soulknife? I’m trying to optimize that for character concept. Any on-site to make it work. 19 dex 19 charisma 16 wisdom.
I play a Light Cleric, and personally, I don't really see much value in Warcaster.
I'm a backrow fighter, so i rarely get hit, but that also means the OA Cantrips are kind of worthless to me. I'm a Cleric, sot he shield feature also doesn't mean a whole lot since I just use an Emblem as my Divine Focus.
Res Con is better in my case, but still mostly a nice to have. It at least gives me some extra HP.
Also, Warcaster is only useful in combat, where Res(con) has some use outside of combat, granted not as much as some other feats. I can see this for a War Domain or a Tempest maybe, but generally speaking I wouldn't recommend any Cleric focus on melee combat if they don't have to.
doesnt sentinel cripple BoomingBlade tho? Or at least that warcaster combo you were speaking of. You hit a BB, and sentinel makes sure teh secondary dmg doesnt trigger
That is true, at least in regards to opportunity attacks.
Treantmonk's Temple There really isn’t much synergy between Sentinel and Warcaster+Booming Blade. Like at all. The reaction attack granted by Sentinel isn’t an oppo attack so it doesn’t trigger Warcaster. For an actual oppo attack, if you use Warcaster to cast BB then it doesn’t interact with Sentinel at all (and the effect is functionally redundent).
Playing a VH Warcaster Forge Cleric in CoS. My Str is 15. Should I still be looking into Res Con at level 4? We're unlikely to go past tenth level. Thanks you! Edit Lucky is banned so it's not an option
Resilient Con is a good option, with a 15 Str I might even consider Heavy Armor Master at 4 alternatively.
@@TreantmonksTemple thank you, I could probably get some mileage out of it even though it's for a Curse of Strahd character and I don't know how much difference 3 hp per hit are going to make :-)
I disagree with the healer feet I think it was pretty good I once played a variant human life cleric and took the feat as my race option and never regretted it why is a spell slot if you don’t need to
Doesn't Sentinel clash with Booming Blade/War Caster because it prevents the secondary damage from happening?
I'd argue that you could use sentinel and still allow the foe to move away if he wants. But as with all things ask your DM
@@98gabrius Technically, Sentinel doesn't provide the option, but instead always reduces the opponent speed to 0, so it's true it could conflict. If I was your DM though, it makes sense to me that you could choose whether to impose the 0 speed restriction.
I don’t think Sentinel prevents BB damage. RAW Sentinel wouldn’t interact with Warcaster+BB at all, since you are replacing an oppo attack with a spell (and a spell is not an oppo attack). The main issue I see is the two abilities are functionally redundent in an AoO situation and has zero synergy.
They do clash a bit in that you never get the full benefit from both feats on an AoO. However, they both serve to further your position as a tank. I would argue that the primary benefit of Booming Blade's secondary effect is not the extra damage itself, but rather the threat of said damage that might convince your target to stay put instead of darting for your allies. By that logic, with only Booming Blade you give the enemy the choice to either stay put or take damage. From a tactical standpoint you should probably want him to choose to stay put in most cases, and if the damage is actually so major that you'd rather have him take it than having him standing still, he would probably choose to stand still himself since he probably feels that he really can't take the extra damage in that moment. Sentinel however, robs him of that choice and forces him to stay put. This effectively means that in the scenario's where you'd prefer him to stay put, he most certainly does, and in the scenario's where you'd rather have your target eat the extra damage, he probably wouldn't have done so either way 90% of the time. So the result with Sentinel is either better or equal.
Besides, Booming Blade with Warcaster still allows you to do the extra initial damage on your AoO, and both feats are strong enough by themselves that even with this redundancy it's certainly no waste to pick both.
The other day we had two ghouls close together and I killed both of them with green-flame blade.
Leadership! No, wait, wrong edition.
Yeah, that was always the answer when it was allowed.
@@TreantmonksTemple I'm curious as to what that was.
@@SmugLookingBarrel An optional feat from 3.5, it let you have a follower NPC.
Basically it gives you a second character 2 levels lower than you, and after a while also starts giving a bunch of low level flunkies who you can use for various things.
How is +2 AC added by the medium armor feat?
With 20 dex they get +3 instead of +2 (+1 total from the feat)
With 18 dex they get +3 instead of +2 (+1 total from the feat)
With 16 dex they get +3 instead of +2 (+1 total from the feat)
With 14 dex they get +2 (+0)
With 12 dex they get +1 (+0)
With 10 dex they get +0 (+0)
2ac is only for builds that were previously sacrificing ac to avoid disadvantage on stealth checks
Half plate gives disadvantage and 15+2ac
Breastplates doesn't give disadvantage and gives 14+2ac
So if you take Medium armor master you can gain 1 ac from equipping half plate and gain 1 ac from dex bonus without any downside
If you didnt care about stealth checks medium armor master would only give +1 because you'd already be using half plate
Is not having warcaster really that bad with a shield and weapon? Any of your spells that need material components, you can still cast since you're using your shield as a focus and you can do the somatic components. And even when you do cast a spell w/o a focus, just sheathe your weapon with your free action to cast it, and draw it the next turn. clerics have very few good reaction spells, so you should always be able to sheathe your weapon to cast that spell that doesn't use your focus. The only downside is you lose out on a potential opportunity attack if you are stuck w/o your weapon in your hand.
You can sheath your weapon and re-draw it, but be prepared that you will be unable to make opportunity attacks when you do so.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yup definitely. I'm making a melee dwarf nature cleric with 8 STR and DEX. My DM said I could use shillelagh and spirit guardians in the same turn since it's still 1 spell and 1 cantrip (even though technically its not legal). Do you think at level 4 I should prioritize magic initiate for the blade cantrips and find familiar, warcaster, or wisdom ASI?
Hi Chris, I do enjoy your guides and videos a lot, but I think the Healer Feat is not nearly as bad for Cleric as you suggest. I created of all the weird things a Light Cleric and had no idea what to do for his starting feat (he is variant human). This was Adventurer's League, so I had til lvl 5 to change the feat if I didn't like them, so I tried Healer because other players would expect me to heal - but as a light Cleric I wanted to blast - but I would be expected to heal - and I could see myself running low on slots fast if I'm nuking and healing. I figured a cleric normally paces out slot-burning in fights: spiritual weapon is one lvl 2 slot but lasts the whole fight - spirit guardians is one level 3 slot but might last the whole fight - then all other slot use can be heals or dispelling some nasty effect or w/e...except as a light cleric I'm wanting to fireball a lot.
Well, I didn't think Healer feat would be that great, but it was. We started Tomb of Annihilation and were warned by the DM that hardcovers were challenging, and he thought this one would be particularly tough. And it was. I didn't have my fireball yet, and we had very tough fights where two characters would drop to zero on the same round. And I was the only character capable of healing. Even though I wanted to use burning hands or some zap spell, I had to get the rogue and warlock back up - if they actually died there were no rezzes!!! So I was under a lot of pressure to perform, and perform I did. The one close to me I used an action and healed her w/ the kit - the other one I hit at range with healing word - and in one turn I brought two characters from zero health back into the fight. I thought that was pretty strong. We had fights where I had to use the kit again and again, so I could only bring them back to one health after the first use - or that was how we understood the feat. But that was like feeding them a goodberry, for the cost of a few silver - healing kits are pretty cheap. And I'm not burning my slots. It was like whack a mole for some monsters on our weak characters who would bounce back w/ 1 hp, but it was better than nothing - and I could blast or cantrip damage if no one was at zero - and if someone was at zero I'd save them - reminded me of the time I was asked to play catcher in little league baseball (the busiest player on the team) - I was really busy and active and important all the time, every round doing significant things.
The healing feat heal is pretty big. So anyone who was hurt, after the fight I'd zap them with the kit first - we ended up buying dozens of kits. We'd short rest but if they were still hurt, I could zap them again - the rest had refreshed them. So they could get two decent heals before and after the hour rest and be topped off on health - or have a lot more health than if I hadn't had the feat.
Would I have done better with Warcaster? Absolutely not. No way. I find this surprising, because warcaster is a great feat - but I didn't have that many concentration spells burning. I tended not to use spirit guardians because I wanted to nuke things w/ fireballs instead. Maybe that was dumb, but the fireballs - with range - did key damage in big fights, damage that spirit guardians would not have done. Also not relying on spirit guardians for damage allowed me to remain a back rank caster, away from most meleeing enemies - so I was rarely at risk and could focus on either area-damage to hurt things or healing party members - and sometimes removing nasty effects. Had I been using warcaster and spir guardians I would have needed to have been on the front line - I would have been hurt more - I didn't have heavy armor - and it would have been harder for me to heal with the kit. So I didn't have to roll many concentration checks, not like a spirt guardian reliant cleric. Light Clerics are kind of weird and exceptional.
When you add up the points I healed w/ spells but mostly the kits - and we abused the crud out of that feat and kits - and all the damage I did with nuke spells and spiritual weapon (if it was a big fight I'd do spiritual weapon), it was quite a bit. Was this the best way to do this? Heck I dunno. But that healer feat and the kits really made life a heck of a lot easier for us. The downtime heals were amazing from the feat, especially because you could double them - which meant you couldn't do a solid feat-heal in the next fight, but you could feat-heal back to one health.
It wasn't even remotely redundant, almost never was, because my main go to heal spell was healing word - a b.a. caster - which again let me use the feat and kit with my action. Healing two downed characters back to consciousness in one turn is powerful. Gosh, once we got in the Tomb itself it was CRAZY. Again I was so glad I had the healer feat because rests were hard to come by until we finally found a spot where it was possible (and the DM relaxed, realizing we'd never finish if he never let us rest).
Light cleric was also strangely effective. Radiance of the Dawn was a decent zap of area damage, especially when I rolled well. Being able to turn undead was amazing - we'd have been in so much trouble without it in a couple of really awful fights, which I made easy by turning most of the ghouls - and I was the only one in the party who could do it. Because I was expected to heal by the other players - because the hardcover was so challenging - because I wanted to heal (needed to heal - we were TPK if I didn't) and nuke not having to burn slots to heal was SO NICE - and being able to lay down fireballs when it made sense to do so - or radiance of the dawn - wow. The area damage was very nice. And a hp buff I put on the warlock saved him from being disintegrated by two hitpoints! Anyway, I loved the healer feat and would say that in some campaigns it can truly shine for a cleric - it did for my light cleric in TOA.
I agree I'm taking the healer feat cause I'm a war cleric and while I'm lucky our group also has a life cleric in the tyranny of the dragon campaign we are using it to craft potions in addition to the healers kit. We started at level one and there are no shops to buy potions. Being able to make spell scrolls or potions is huge for me since it frees up the two healers and if we go down they have the ability to save us. For role play of making bandages and medicine it's worth it. To make things you cannot buy it's irreplaceable. Even in the other campaign where I play a tempest cleric I made sure to be proficient with the healers kit for the same reason.
@@melissawardjohns220 sounds great! I think you are allowed to do more w/ your healer feat than is in the phb, which is awesome. I loved this feat.
@@melissawardjohns220 and if I'm missing something about the feat, please fill me in! The other stuff sounds very cool.
@@johneubank8543 it gives you the items you need to craft so that you can make your own potions. As there are no shops this means you can make them with a reasonable recipe. One that doesn't expend a spell slot to enchant it like a scroll of cure woulda would. Plus for gold you can refresh the healers kit. With a good dm you can make the bandages and herbs it would have in it. As a war cleric I blow through spell slots as bad as a wizard even if the party is doing fine. So having something that works like a cantrip for just gold pieces to replenish with supplies much more available is a god send for anyone not just the cleric. My party is already working out who is studying what so we can make what we need instead of buying most of it. With mending we can repair non magic stuff so having stuff to do on down time is better than just I sleep for a short rest and it only takes a few days to a few hours to work on stuff depending on what your making. So for short rest you can herbal collect nearby or carve up a beaten monster for useful spell parts that prices would otherwise be rediculous.
@@johneubank8543 not sure exactly where in the rules as written it's required for crafting but it is listed as a requirement just like arcana knowledge for spell scrolls along with materials and the spell has to be known and the spell slot unused. It burns a spell slot to enchant the scroll then next long rest you get the spell slot back.
I kind of disagree on Healer. I don't think it's a great feat for clerics or anything, but I don't think it's bad either, since it lets you provide some of the hp support other players tend to expect of a cleric *without* spending spell slots to do so, which then frees up those spells for actually useful combat spells.
Again, not a great feat, not one I'd necessarily reccomend, and much better on other characters, but I wouldn't call it a mistake on a cleric.
If you can get it at level 1, I think it has to be considered. At this point you have two spell slots for an entire day. With a Healer feat you can apply heals better than cure wounds, in our out of combat and without using those precious spell slots. Yes, it's once per character per short rest but there isn't a short rest limit, so you can keep a party going all day in those painful early levels. (CoS Death House, I'm lookin at you here.)
These heals cost 5sp each and are nearly twice as good as a healing potion for 25gp.
Admittedly, it doesn't age well. I'm about to start a CoS campaign where we were granted a bonus feat for a comprehensive backstory. With that cherry I'm going to try Healer and Lucky. Lucky for concentration, but also for some of the horrible things that can happen in that place. Wish me luck!
17:37 "But what if we want to continue using a weapon, we don't want to switch to using cantrips"...?
Use a different cantrip (BB or GFB). :-) Oh well. When it's better, it's just plain better.
Kidding aside, great guide Mr. Treantmonk!
18:40 If you are a weapon focused cleric and don't mind waiting a couple levels, you can take war caster at 4th level, then 1 level dip into warlock at 6th level, and grab 1 spell per short rest, weapon cantrips, and say hexblade's curse and martial weapon proficiency if you go hexblade. If you are in a midlevel campaign and aren't worried about max levels, you can extend that dip to 3rd for 2 level 2 spells per short rest, a pact boon, and invocations.
One just has to watch out for the Cha requirement. Though I've heard or a DM waiving for warlock cause who's gonna stop that cosmic being from forming contract with whoever it wants to.
Lucky is resin
Polearm master works well with warcaster. Allowing you to get an additional attack with a cantrip like toll of the dead.
That's a good point
Using Polearm Master's extended reach opportunity attack paired with Warcaster's spell for opportunity attack replacement, for things other than a weapon based cantrip, is RAW shenanigans. Also the melee cantrips you would be using for this (booming blade) have a range of 5ft. RAI these two feats were not supposed to work together. Unless you have spell sniper.
@@ASUbuckaroo15 I wasn't suggesting using a reach weapon as none of the spellcasting staffs are reach and therefore you wouldn't be able to benefit from them.
It is merely a way to deal extra damage and only based on the enemy coming within 5 feet.
@@moto2442 Just so i understand your view with this, you are wielding a quarterstaff and when enemy gets within 5ft of you, you are using your saving throw based cantrips? Enemy dowsing rod of sorts? lol.
@@ASUbuckaroo15 Obviously the combo is much better for warlocks who can knock enemies back as well but if you are a cleric which got a bonus to damage with cantrips it is more than red as you are getting a reasonable amount of extra damage and making it less likely melee enemies will come close because not only is their movement halved from spirit guardians they have to worry about an extra 4d12+5 (31) damage if they want to attack you. Obviously this isn't a first choice feat but if you have max wisdom and you have already taken resilient and warcaster this is a perfectly viable feat and in my opinion is between purple and green.
I have to physically restrain myself from taking magic initiate for hex and Eldritch blast no matter what I make.
Healer feat - no offense but I don't think you get the point of taking the healer feat on a cleric. You take it on a healer so you can use spells for things OTHER than healing. And because it lets you effectively mass healing word/twin healing word to get 2 people up at the cost of a single level 1 spell slot. It gives you a resource that is not dependent upon spell slots to do things with, and resources can be pretty tight on a cleric, especially if your group has slanted heavy arcane/martial with few other divine casters. Moreover, it gives you an unending means of bouncing allies up, so you can save level 1 spell slots for things you might much rather use them on - like shield or absorb elements spells if you've gotten access.
Its a feat to effectively give everyone in your party the fighter's second wind at full level bonus. AND it is one of the *ONLY* ways to effectively "combat heal" an ally up to where they don't get immediately murdered by what downed them the previous turn short of 5th or 6th level spells - since you can burn an action to healer's kit them and then a bonus action spell to healing word, effectively double-healing them into "livable" range.
Having played both a combat medic fighter with the healer feat, and a cleric with the healer feat, the feat itself is just underrated as both were very effective.
Why use these silly colors? Just call them "bad" instead of "red".
First time player here. I created a Hill Dwarf Forge Cleric . Blessed begginers luck on the stat dice throw, I took...
STR 13, DEX 13, CON 18, INT 12, WIS 18, CHA 12
im wearing chainmail armor, have a shield with holy symbol on it and a warhammer (+3 atk bonus; 1d8+1) in my other hand.
I took Guidance, Toll the Dead and Thaumaturgy as my cantrips.
Now if someone can give me some advice on how should I play my character, I can't decide if I would hit with my hammer or just use cantrips. I'm also curious on what feat should I take and
what to focus on to get the best out of my character. Any advice from experienced players? :)
Edit: im also playing in group with a bard, ranger, and wizard...So i'm apparently the tank of the group...i'm guessing that this is very important for my characters gameplay :)
In general, healing in combat isn't usually a great idea (you just aren't gonna outheal the damage being dealt) so focus on doing damage/buffing/debuffing. That said, always have Healing Word prepared because being able to pick up an ally at 0 hit points while at range and w/just a bonus action is pretty great. Out of combat, use Guidance constantly, your group should be good at skill checks anyway, but that'll make them even better
To me, your stats push you towards casting, while the Forge Domain pushes you towards swinging a hammer. If you focus on casting, use Toll the Dead when not casting a spell (which is gonna be often at low lvls), use Spiritual Weapon, use your Forge bonus to put a +1 AC on your armor so you're even harder to hit. As good as Bless is, in such a caster heavy group, imo you could get a lot of mileage out of the spell Bane. Grab War Caster at 4 to help keep your concentration, along with Sacred Flame as your cantrip pick so you have a different damage option in case something resists or is immune to Toll the Dead. Then enjoy Spirit Guardians at lvl 5. If you go this route, I'd ask your DM about letting you swap Divine Strike at lvl 8 (which requires a weapon attack) to let you add your Wisdom Mod to your cantrip damage like some other domains do.
If you go melee, that's a bit harder because there are a bunch of ways to do things. With a +1 Str Mod, you're gonna lag a little bit there. To deal with taht, I'd say get the wizard to let his familiar help you to give you advantage on your attack, put your +1 Forge bonus on your weapon, if you find yourself missing often keep Bless up to further increase your chance to land your attack. Still use Spiritual Weapon when you get it. At lvl 4, War Caster or Resilient Con are still solid, but you might take Magic Initiate to get Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, or you could do +1Str/+1Dex to get them to 14s, take Heavy Armor Master for the +1 Str and a little damage reduction, or as a Dwarf you could grab Squat Nimbleness to get +1 Str/+5 ft movement speed/and athletics proficiency (iirc correctly). Mainly, at lvls 4 and 8, I'd say you want to boost Strength, get Booming Blade, boost your concentration checks with either War Caster or Resilient Constitution, accomplish 2 of those things at those levels.
@@chriscarter8371 thank you Simon for taking the time to give me this advice! :)
Great list
My favorite cleric feat is divine soul sorcerer
Are you guys aware that these kinds of games have Graphics now so that you don't have to struggle to stay awake after 1 hour of playing?
Great video. Thx Chris.
Be aware that booming blade says "As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell’s range, otherwise the spell fails." The spell's range is 5 ft, so RAW, a reach weapon cannot be used to extend the spell range to 10 ft. Most DMs will house rule it to be OK, but that isn't guaranteed.
I specifically talk about this being the reason spell sniper is a good choice, as it increases the range of booming blade to 10 feet, allowing it to be used with a reach weapon.
I think that was the reason spell sniper was recommended. Increases spell range to 10ft.
Edit: everyone responding at the same time. :p
The "be aware" part is aimed at the video's consumers, not the producer. :) A lot of folks get as much from the comments as the video (which may be watched in the background while multi-tasking).
We can discuss whether 2 feats are a reasonable price to be able to booming blade/GFB at 10 feet. At that point, I'd rather just roll a char that specializes in pole arm master and leave the holy spellcasting to some other player. Or I'd stick to what clerics do best... Gripe about the edge lord rogue being Chaotic Stupid.
@@migueldelmazo5244 It is a single feat, spell sniper lets you pick BB or GFB.
heavy armor master?
Please don't
@@Nos2113 bro it's been 3 years
@@vittoriodicredico5985 and I hope you're doing well!
For a Light Cleric, Elemental Adept Fire is almost a no brainer.
I would still expect the majority of damage from a light cleric to be Radiant, not fire.
Elemental Master: Fire is Orange, **, at best for Light Clerics only.
Simon Burling agreed. Even for the Light domain you have better spells than fireball. I’d say unless you really want to lean into fire damage from a role playing perspective, it’s too situational for me.
@@jaredpuwalski8545 Agreed, but I think that removing fire resistance is better than the damage boost. Pity it didn't allow you to downgrade Immunity to selected damage type to resistance as an option.
Great weapon master with war cleric is almost guaranteed damage.
Note: the Aberrant (ABB-ur-ent) Dragonmark feat (edit) DOES NOT WORK for the dragonmarked races, like the Mark of Sentinel or Mark of Passage human (both good cleric picks)
Not to be rude, but I think you have it backwards, aberrant mark specifically only works if you have no other dragonmark.
Zachary Entenman Errm, you are correct. How did I get that wrong?
Wow.. You completely ignored the 3rd feature of shield master which, argueably is the main REASON for taking shield master, especially in conjunction with the second. There's a lot of aoe effects in DnD. Being a cleric you will probably use a shield, and it will probably eventually be magical, with a +1 2 or 3.. giving an additional 3 4 or 5 to your Dex save.. That's A LOT!!. On top of that, if you make your save on an aoe (dragon fire, fire ball, etc) you take nothing.. zero. Shield Master is a must have mandatory feat for anyone using a shield. Even if you have crap for Dex. Throw on top of that, that most people will still get at least a +2 dex mod, or even resilient Dex to gain proficiency + shield master.. and you basically negate aoe damage for one feat. No multiclassing deep into rogue or monk for evasion.. just one feat. MANDATORY!! And you didn't even read it aloud.. I kinda wonder if I should bother with the rest of this video and I'm only 6 m in...
Please pin a content warning... this seems to be some sort of second edition rubbish. Not real pathfinder (1st edition).
Dude, this is 5e. Almost all his content is about 5e.
@@Nos2113 .... why?
@@dasgregorian Why...is this 5th edition DnD content?
Dude Treant please stop explaining over and over again that your feat ratings are only your opinions; like an accumulated 5 minutes of this feels like you're trying to spare the feelings of people who like the feats you didn't give a blue rating to. People watch this specifically FOR your opinions, so all you need is one sentence at the beginning where you say "These are my educated opinions on how useful these feats/spells/ whatever are, and your mileage may vary depending on your game." That's it.
Great video otherwise.