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The war domain for clerics in fifth editionDungeons & Dragonsis thematically versatile: You can be a righteous crusader, a tyrannical conqueror, or a neutral overseer seeing that rules of war are carried out by all sides. There is no ‘wrong’ way to worship war.
The play style for a war cleric can differ from other domains such as light and life as the war clerics are granted several features that make them better as melee fighters than the class’s caster toolkit would suggest. Bringing the two together can create a high-endurance combatant with versatile spellcasting and healing abilities.
What Are The Best Ability Scores For A War Domain Cleric?
TheWar Domain leans more towards meleethan the priestly types of cleric. This means you’ll want the ability scores to survive a close-range battle, raising the need forstrength and constitution.
Wisdom
1st
Wisdom is the fount from which all your spellcasting modifiers flow. A high wisdom will let youheal more and cause your spells to hit harder and more often.You’ll be able to prepare more spells daily to increase your versatility and use features such as War Priest more frequently as they havecharges equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Strength
2nd
Heavy armour penalises the movement of anyone without a high strength, so you should aim forat least 15 points.If you plan to use melee weapons often more will be desirable, although you can also takethe druid initiate feat, for the cantrip shillelagh.This lets you substitute your strength with your wisdom score while using certain melee weapons.
Constitution
3rd
There are very few legendary war clerics with a constitution below ten and that is because most of them die young.Constitution gives you more hit points, greater resistance against trenchfoot and a hardy stomach to subsist on war rations.
Dexterity
4th
A dexterity below ten will penalise your armour class, even in heavy plate.If you plan for your war cleric to make more use of ranged weapons such as crossbows a higher dex is favourable, but this can otherwise be neglected.
Charisma
5th
It makes sense for clerics to be personable people with good speaking skills. Unfortunately, charisma doesn’t impact any of your class features so is easily left by the wayside.If you plan to multiclass with paladin or another class you will want to have at least 13 points of charisma.
Intelligence
6th
Intelligence saving throws are primarily tied to mindflayers, which are normally brought up in the list of content warnings during a session zero.If you need a higher intelligence your GM is liable to warn you ahead of time.
What Are The Best Spells For A War Domain Cleric?
The War Cleric’s access to heavy armour allows them to make a much more aggressive use of the cleric’s spell list than other members of the class. Spells with short-range are strongest when the caster can safely close the distance and maintain concentration, which your high AC and Constitution will allow you to excel at.
Inflict Wounds
This spell deals a tremendous amount of damage for a first level spell slot, but is rarely used as few casters are willing to get close enough to cast it.
Silence
The main limiting factor of this spell is that enemies can attempt to move out of it. With careful planning and positioning between your team you can fence in enemy casters to stop them leaving the area of effect.
Spirit Guardians
Spirit Guardians does a lot, dealing damage across an area, every turn, while slowing and it doesn’t harm allies. Its big weakness is that it is centred on the caster and therefore requires a cleric willing to dive into the middle of an enemy group. Furtherimproving your concentration saves with a feat such as Warcasterwill make this spell even stronger.
Freedom Of Movement
As spell levels go up it becomes harder to find spells that don’t require concentration. Freedom of Movement is an incredibly useful exception to this: If you have enough spell slots, you’re able to cast it on the entire party andgrant them immunity to grapples, webs, or other forms of paralysis such as hold person.
Contagion
Contagion inflicts downright debilitating debuffs that can single-handedly win fights but requires a touch attack. The strongest debuff it can inflict isSlimy Doom, which causes an enemy to become stunned whenever they take damage. A duration of seven days and no need for concentration mean that even if the enemy escapes, you’ll have an easier time defeating them in the future.
What Are The Best Teams For A War Domain Cleric?
At level six a war cleric canuse their channel divinity as a reaction to give an ally +10 to hit on a single attack. When paired with a class that relies heavily on landing key abilities, such asan assassin rogue,this feature becomes tremendously valuable.
Their Assassinate ability turns any attacks on a surprised enemy into critical hits, meaning the ability to guarantee their attack lands in that first round of combat will massively help them. A war cleric is also able to use their heavy armour to position themselves around enemies toenable a rogue’s sneak attack feature to activate from the flanking bonus.
A particularly cunning enemy will prioritise their attacks at the least armoured member of the team, typically the casters. A team where all members have access to good armour or abilities to improve their AC can shut this down effectively. A party containing a War Cleric, a Bladesinger, and an Armorer Artificer will be hard to find weakpoints in.
Spellssuch asShield of Faithcan be used toimprove the protectionof anyteammatewho isespecially vulnerable.
The War Cleric is also a good target for buffing spells from other casters.A War Cleric concentrating on Spirit Guardians can have Greater Invisibility, Haste, or Fly cast on themto make them difficult to evade or break the concentration of.
The War Domain is also one of theeasiest domains to justify for a cleric playing in an evil-aligned party. If your session zero turns up the idea of people playing mastermind rogues, oathbreakers paladins, and shadow monks then a cleric of war will feel right at home among them.
What Are The Best Feats For A War Cleric?
Feats are an effective way of customising a class to your taste, either sanding down their rough edges or doubling down on their specialties. The War Cleric can do either with the following selection of feats:
War Caster
Advantage on concentration saving throws
Warcasters spend more time in melee combat so will face contests to their concentration more often.War Caster additionally lets you cast spells with both hands full, which a war cleric is liable to do while wielding a melee weapon and carrying a shield.
Magic Initiate (druid)
Shillelagh cantrip
The shillelagh cantrip allows you to use your wisdom modifier when using a club or staff in melee.This frees up your ability scores, allowing you to invest less in strength while still hitting people reliably in melee.
Magic Initiate (wizard)
Find Familiar spell
Touch-range spells can be cast through your familiar using your familiar’s reaction.This allows you to land powerful melee spells such as contagion using the expanded mobility of your familiar. The owl is a good choice for a familiar as itsflyby ability lets it evade attacks of opportunity, and it also has a bonus to perception checks. You can also choose a subtle familiar such as a rodent that won’t be targeted in combat until after you have used it to cast a spell.
Shield Master
Improves your dexterity saves by your shield modifier
Halve or negate the damage of spells and effects that require a dexterity throws.
Shield Master is a useful feat for any heavily armoured character. Applying your shield’s armour class to your dexterity saving throwsmakes up for the lower dexterity favoured by heavy armours.The comparable class feature, evasion, requires seven levels in either rogue or monk making it difficult to gain this benefit from another source.
How To Roleplay A War Domain Cleric
The War Domain offers a lot of flexible options for how your character approaches social situations, and they will be heavily influenced by how your Cleric interacts with their domain and deity.
A conquering deity such as Bane or Maglubiyet is liable to have clerics who stoke bloodlust in fellow worshipers.These warhawk preachers might hold positions of leadership in a culture that idolises combat.Backgrounds such as soldier and outlander work well for such militaristic characters.
A more chivalrous relation with the war domain can be taken by clerics of deities such as Tyr. A more lawful war deity is liable to place emphasis on just causes and appropriate responses instead of calling for escalation. They might havea background that is drilled in honourable ideals, such as a cloistered acolyte or a dutiful noble.
A thematically interesting idea to explore is War Clerics who do not freely accept their deity but are forced to by circumstance. Some examples could be as follows.
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