What is your favorite cleric spell?
What is your favorite cleric spell?
I'm new to playing DnD 5e and I'm looking to find some fun spells I may have overlooked for my level 11 light domain cleric. Throwing out fireballs and summoning spririt weapons is a blast but I want to know what other beloved cleric spells I may be overlooking. So lemmy dnd players what are your favorite spells for our blunt weapon only casters?
I cannot recommend enough to cast Bless.
Bless is one of, if not the best defensive and offensive spell. It gets way better if you have party members making attack rolls.
Then as you approach level 12-20 saving throws become way more common, so the floating d4 on every save and attack roll becomes dead useful. I would even upcast this to cover you + the whole party. It seems like not a huge deal, but if you turn one weapon attack into a hit, and can save one party member from taking full damage from a spell, etc you have caused an extra ~10-30 damage, and protected your party from 10-30 damage (or from control spells!)
I’m also a big fan of Word of Recall, Death Ward, Holy Weapon, and Aura of Vitality.
Word of Recall can be very clutch. Especially if your party does not have a Wizard/Sorc with any fast travel spells.
Death Ward can protect squishies.
Holy Weapon can supercharge a fighter ( or monk of your DM let’s you cast this on their unarmed strikes). Definitely fun, and dead useful if someone else is already casting Bless.
Aura of Vitality is essentially ~70 HP you can dole out to your party. That’s basically a short rest at lower levels. I’d use this out of combat.
Check out a 3rd level spell called Spirit Guardians. It's pretty great.
Wow yeah that seems amazing for third level. I know I read it before but I didn't realize it moves with me...
It's the cleric equivalent of fireball. An almost overly strong spell that is basically a must-take and must-use as soon as it becomes available. It's almost always the best thing a cleric can concentrate on.
One of my favourite PCs ever was a light cleric who upcast Spirit Guardians and then strode around shooting off fireballs and warding flares.
Part of it depends on how you want to play. Personally, I love playing a CC/buffer/debuffer version of cleric. Outside of the spells mentioned by others, here are some of my favourites:
Sanctuary — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve saved an ally/myself from death because of this spell.
Shield of Faith— cast this on your melee meat shield and let them do what they do best.
Faerie Fire — IMO one of the most underrated spells in the game.
Guidance — One of the best cantrips for people who like to role-play in towns and villages. Cast it on yourself or your bard and make haggling with townsfolk a whole lot easier.
Those are all pretty low level spells. And FWIW If you’re a fan of buffing/debuffing/CC than Twilight Cleric is fucking incredible. It’s basically broken if you know what you’re doing.
Sanctuary is a super interesting spell. There's a trick with it on the artillerist artificer where you can keep it up on yourself while attacking with your turret/gun
Do you have any tips on the twilight cleric that a new player might miss at first? Having fun with mine so far we just hit Lv. 4 last session.
For sure. Just bear with me, this is gonna get a little long-winded. Like, too-long-to-fit-into-one-post-on-Kbin long ;p
A lot of it depends on party make-up and playstyle. I'm gonna assume your party is rocking with the usual set-up: two melees, a ranged character, and a healer/spellcaster (you).
First thing to remember is that, as cleric, you kinda sorta have more responsibility than anyone else in your party. For instance, all the barbarian has to do is rush the bandit and swing his axe. As cleric, you're gonna be expected to attack, heal, buff and debuff. To be a great cleric, you’re going to have to pay attention every round—see who needs healing or a spell to cure frightened/confused/what have you. Some people don’t like this responsibility but I absolutely love it.
Your position on the battlefield depends on playstyle and party. If your party is configured anything like the one I mentioned, then I think your best bet is to be between your melee and ranged allies. Basically, you want to be close enough so that your spirit guardians can really mess with your enemies but not so close they can fuck with your concentration.
SPELLS TO CONSIDER:
Other than the ones mentioned before, here's a few more…
Healing word: use it sparingly, mostly to bring your allies back to life. There's no point in wasting the slot if your ally just got nicked for 5hp. Save it for when they lose consciousness and are on the brink of making death saves.
Aid: Great for a majority of the game. Personally, I like using a third level slot to give my allies +10hp. Because the health from Aid ISN'T considered temporary, the extra temp. hp from Twilight Sanctuary stacks with the hp from Aid. So, with aid and TS, at low levels you can almost double your party's HP.
Spells gained through twilight domain: You gain access to some of the best spells IMO. Faerie Fire, Moonbeam, See Invisibility, Leomunds Tiny Hut, and Greater Invisibility are all great spells. Pair moonbeam with an ally who has booming blade and bosses (aka your DM) won't know where to go.
Put greater invisibility on your rogue (or druid) out of combat to steal anything you want.
Use LTH whenever your party needs a rest, and even as choke points to mess with your enemies (they can't go through the hut, neither can magic)....
"Passive" skills:
Eyes of Night: So much for having to worry about dark vision. Having this pretty much allows you, and everyone in your party, to pick a race that doesn't have access to dark vision. The game hasn't even started and you're already helping out your buddies.
Vigilant Blessing: Advantage on every initiative roll you–or anyone of your choosing–makes. This is huge. Just make sure you use it.
Twilight Sanctuary: This is what makes you god-like. In my opinion, it's the strongest skill in the game. Time it right and you'll mow through bosses. Pair it with spirit guardians and good luck getting the smell of dookie out of their pants.
Steps of Night: Useful at night and in dungeons. Aesthetically badass (imagine being a bandit and seeing a heavily armoured dude with wings slowly floating towards you with two kickass spheres ((TS and SG)) surrounding their party). Also great if you need to flee a battle.
Healing word. A bonus action. Throw out a toll of the dead and a healing word combined with a move and your maximizing that action economy
Spiritual Weapon. Bonus action, and not a concentration! Another great action economy spell
Am I misremembering that on a turn wherein your Action was used to Cast a spell that your Bonus Action cannot be used to Cast, as well?
(A downvote? For asking a genuine question regarding a canon rule? Mediocre. 🤣)
You can't cast two leveled spells. But you can cast a cantrip and a leveled spell I believe
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/49532/casting-multiple-spells-in-a-single-round#49533
That's how it works yes, but any rule can be vetoed by their DM if they prefer to play like that
Spirit Guardians, Blindness, Aid
I have definitely blinded a fair share of people (and goblins) haha. Didn't work so well when I tried to use it on a beholder and forgot the whole "anti-magic field" thing
Yeah it's a great spell. It scales well with upcasting. It also doesn't require concentration which is super helpful, especially for a Cleric
"Speak with the dead" is by far the most fun. Particularly when the party oopsie kills an NPC with important information for them.
As others have mentioned, those Spirit Guardians are phenomenal.
My personal honorable mentions are Silence to mess with enemy spellcasters, Beacon of Hope if you're in a tough fight and keep losing your front liners, and Spirit Shroud, if you are a melee Cleric
Create Food and Water.
Shatter
shatter is pretty op