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Ultimate Guide to Clerics in D&D 5e
Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
An oracle to a storm god perched atop their temple mid-hurricane, having brought about this storm to better connect to their lord to beseech aid, is a cleric. A righteous armored knight with a mace in one hand, shield in the other, light glowing from their cross necklace, also a cleric. Cleric may be the class's title, but it is a bit of a misnomer; clerics aren’t just robed priests waving around incense anymore and preaching from a book. They’ve come to represent any figure worshipping a deity, and take on aspects of said deity to look and feel wholly unique from one another. Of all the classes, Clerics are the most diverse in appearance among their subclasses.
Clerics have eternally earned the reputation of being the “dedicated healer”; let's start this guide off by dismissing this notion. Clerics are so much more than a health battery you strap to your front-line allies. They’re forces of divine magic with a huge amount of damage at their disposal with flexible positioning options, exceptional proficiencies for weapons and armor, and a massive pool of spell options with expanded options for each domain that sets most clerics up to be some absolute powerhouses at the table. You still might be relied on to keep somebody alive now and then, but most of your energy is likely best spent on taking proactive measures to stop incoming damage and engage with the world using your full-caster spell slots.
Sound good? Then let's dive in!
See Also: Best Races for Cleric
Using This Guide
If you want a full breakdown of everything cleric, this guide is for you. From what domain options are available to what spells are consistently great to prepare, you can find what you’re looking for here.
New Player: If this is going to be your first cleric, I’d focus primarily on the levels 1-3 sections with your proficiencies, action options in the early game, and baseline understanding of what 1st and 2nd level spells are going to give you the most bang for their buck.
Experienced Player: If you’re currently playing a cleric and are looking for ways to improve your current build, each section breaks down the various options available. Within each section are my recommendations; reading through for ideas can inspire changes to your regularly prepared spells, and shift some of your power around to better adapt to your situation. All domains aren’t made equally, too; if you’re struggling to get a domain to embody the fantasy you’re looking for, you might want to consider multiclassing or looking for resources outside of cleric for aid.
The Core of Cleric
Clerics differ from bards, sorcerers, druids, and wizards out of the gate with an expanded set of proficiencies. These, alongside often bonus proficiencies offered from your domain, set the class up to function basically in any position in a fight from taking frontline damage to comfortably sitting behind your allies. If you’re looking to play a “traditional” cleric with the mace, medium armor, and healing magic, you’ve still got two or three options. Unlike every other class in the game, it’ll literally be best to look at this class starting with their subclass, as it’s such a core element in determining how you’ll shape the rest of your decisions.
Ability Score Placements, Proficiencies, and AC
Most clerics will want about as high a Wisdom score as possible to enhance their spellcasting and get additional uses of core features. Agnostic of subclass, clerics have medium armor and shield proficiencies, making them easy characters to stick a +2 Dex on and have a starting AC of at least 17 should you be able to spare a hand for a shield. Additionally, as almost all clerics want to be somewhere close-ish to danger, a high Constitution can help maintain your concentration. Usually, it makes for an easy second or third-highest stat.
Your chosen Domain will establish where in the group you want to be positioned. This will usually be somewhere in the front or directly behind the frontline warriors to take advantage of the weapon and armor proficiencies the domains tend to offer.
These domains can be broken down into two groups based on their 8th-level feature, which is always either Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting. Death, Forge, Life, Nature, Order, Tempest, Twilight, Trickery, and War all get Divine Strike, with Arcana, Grave, Knowledge, Light, and Peace getting Potent Spellcasting.
Divine Strike Domains. Of the Divine Strike group, Death, Tempest, and War get martial weapon proficiencies, and Forge, Life, Nature, Order, Tempest, Twilight, and War get heavy armor proficiency. These two proficiencies open up Strength or Dexterity-focused builds depending on where you want your weapon damage and AC to come from.
Generally speaking, heavy armor proficiency encourages having a high Strength score. Starting with a 14 will open up Chain Mail to you for a base AC of 16. If you can make a 15 happen, you’ll have access to Splint and Plate as you get the gold for it for an even higher AC.
Without heavy armor proficiency, Dexterity is an easy secondary stat for the options wanting to be in the thick of it (namely Death and Trickery domain). These two can leverage finesse weapons with Medium armor to have a respectable base 17 AC once you can afford Halfplate. You can concede some AC for higher damage, though, if you’d prefer to use Death’s martial weapon proficiency to attack with 2d6 weapons like a maul or greatsword.
Potent Spellcasting Domains. These four tend to want to play a bit further back, but still be somewhat near allies to bolster them with support effects from a safe 20 to 30 feet. Dexterity is still a great secondary stat for AC, but investing in Charisma or Intelligence for multiclass options. Constitution probably is fine to let drop a bit compared to the other melee-ranged cleric domains, as Potent Spellcasting basically tells you to take advantage of ranged attacks away from danger.
Both of these subsequently can benefit from their shield proficiency, often setting Cleric AC to 17 or 18 at 1st level with no investments beyond knowing your armor proficiencies and spending some gold.
Starting Equipment
This section will be broken down with the context of domain in mind, as they heavily affect what starting weapons and armor you’re going to want.
Quickly to note: if you want to be both casting spells in combat and making weapon attacks, you’ll need at least one free hand should you lack the Warcaster feat. This hand can be used to grab a holy symbol you have around your next while also performing somatic components of spells, and often can occur on a “prep” round prior to drawing a shield or weapon. If you intend to attack and cast spells interchangeably round to round, wielding a shield is going to be a much taller order.
With this in mind, having a shield is a massive passive boon basically every cleric can take advantage of, especially in the mid to upper tiers. There will be many moments where you’ll find yourself with an empty hand where a weapon would be and your shield in the other, as you’re using one hand for spellcasting, and the other for +2 AC. Early on it's a bit more of a juggling act, but as you start spending more actions casting higher and higher level spells, a shield will start feeling and more more like a free passive +2 AC.
Simple Weapons. Without martial weapon proficiency, you’re left working with simple weapons. Maces work great for Strength-based characters that want to wield a shield, with Spears being a versatile option that can act as a two-handed d8 weapon or a one-handed d6 weapon to use alongside a shield. Spears also have the thrown property, making them basically the best Strength simple weapon by a wide margin. Light crossbows are notable for Trickery domain early and other Dexterity-based options that’d prefer attack rolls with a higher damage floor than cantrip damage; if you’ve got at least a +2 Dex, these make for great levels 1-3 attacks.
If you’re a frontline domain, typically working with a spear and shield will provide plenty of opportunity for weapon attacks alongside flexible casting.
Martial Weapons are available to a handful of domains, and most care about their Strength to go alongside heavy armor proficiency. Greatswords and mauls both hit for 2d6 damage. That’s a lot of damage, more than all of their competition, and is definitely my primary recommendation. If you want to use a shield, battleaxes and longswords are great versatile options that can be two-handed d10 weapons when you want an open hand for spellcasting, or d8 one-handed weapons when you want +2 AC from a shield. Dexterity options in melee range are rapiers or short-swords with the prior being a larger damage dice, but the latter opening up 1st level off-hand attacks should you want a 1d6, no mod extra attack for your bonus action.
There aren’t a ton of reasons to consider using martial ranged weapons, but if you want to build a ranged War Domain cleric, longbows hit for a d8, and don’t need manually reloaded the way heavy crossbows do for your bonus action attacks.
1st Level: Domain and Spellcasting
Clerics are one of the most “front-loaded” classes in the game, meaning they get a ton of features at 1st level compared to the other classes. Full-casting is all wizards and druids really get at 1st level. Clerics get that and a domain, which usually includes excellent weapon or armor proficiencies or two or more excellent abilities and expanded spell lists.
Domain
Domains majorly define what any given cleric is going to be about, as you’ve already seen with how it determines your base ability score distribution. Each dramatically shifts your play style, letting the class range from full-caster blaster backline to dedicated team support to front-line martial menace. This selection will majorly impact every decision you make from this point forward, as you’ll automatically have Domain Spells, bonus proficiencies, and features that encourage a specific play pattern to base the rest of your choices around.
Arcana domain plays well at tables with lots of spellcasters as a counteractive measure to persistent debuffs. They get a bonus Arcana proficiency, upper-tier wizard spells, and a bunch of utility options from the wizard class in cantrips and domain spells. As they’re dedicated entirely to spellcasting with no features supplementing other avenues of play, all you really need is as high a Wisdom as you can get. Intelligence can be a consideration for your second highest score, as Arcana is given for free and thematically fits the concept, but by no means is necessary to function.
Death is all about murder. It's built around Reaper, a sweet cantrip doubling effect that lets you Toll the Dead and Chill Touch two enemies at once. It gets undead summons, boons to weapon attacks, and plays as a full-damage cleric dedicated to killing stuff. It brings martial weapon proficiency with a big Channel Divinity for bonus damage alongside a robust spell-empowering toolkit that is a blast to mix with sorcerer for spreading death everywhere.
Forge builds you as an armored tank who priortizes AC over all else. You get a bit of fire magic to mingle with the Blessing of the Forge AC boon, and some underwhelming creation options that tend to feel like ordering something on Amazon instead of actually making it yourself. If you like the idea of being a cleric with an AC of 26, Forge will help you get there.
Grave acts as a supportive ally that keeps its teammates alive effectively. It has features that set allies up for massive damage moments, and a reaction to mitigate crits down the road, but does have some holes in it that can leave it feeling lackluster at some tables.
Knowledge supposedly opens up cleric to be a skill-based class like bard or rogue, but does so in unsatisfying ways. It has two somewhat interesting abilities that’ll reasonably expand what you can do, but they come at 6th and 17th level, making this option kind of a slog to get to come together.
Life is healing overkill. Every cleric can take Healing Word, and that’s usually enough healing to get groups through to 5th level and beyond. Their 2nd level Channel Divinity is useful at particularly lethal tables, but beyond that, you’re not going to regularly find the bonus +3 to healing spells to be worth your domain features.
Light presents clerics as explosive righteous blasters with protective blinding flares. This is the option for clerics that want to do the splashy, full-caster damage effects while also assisting their team with defensive bursts and supportive base cleric effects.
Nature likely is the worst of the lot. It’s a reskinned druid lacking all of the flavor and power druids offer, instead getting a beast and plant specific charm that’s easily replicable with low-level spells and heavy armor proficiency. Nature domain really isn’t a great fit for any character, as it doesn’t offer a unique enough take on “nature full-caster” to differentiate it from druid in a meaningful way.
Order plays as a frontline leader that pays off cheap buff spells with allied reaction attacks. It is somewhat party dependent, but so long as you’ve got a rogue, paladin, fighter, barbarian, or ranger ally, this option will turn some mediocre spells into interesting tactical options and open up a world of team-based play that can make the group feel like a strike force.
Peace manages to stick the landing where Life fails as a purely supportive cleric providing meaningful assistance to the team. Its base feature being a duplicate, concentration-less Bless is exceptional. While I wouldn’t recommend going full pacifist in D&D, Peace Domain can give you the support-iest support feeling you could ask for.
Tempest evokes images of Thor and other legendary lightning-based demigods. On its own, there are some holes that leave it feeling a bit disjointed, but there is enough fun stuff to do here that most people can have a blast rebuking enemies with lightning and calling it down from the skies.
Trickery delivers on the prankster element in a robust domain spell list with some fun, if a bit ineffective, features. Having one in a group passively makes the group better at sneaking all the time thanks to Blessing of the Trickster, and while Invoke Duplicity isn’t all that powerful, it is a fun effect to mess around with. If you’re into the fantasy of a devotee of a trickster god, you’ll get that fantasy fulfilled well enough with Trickery domain.
Twilight revolves around its 2nd level Channel Divinity, Twilight Sanctuary. The passive hit points it gives out every round can decimate low-tier encounter balance by making the entire group feel unkillable. Beyond that, the option is pretty light on cool stuff to do. If the fantasy appeals to you it offers just enough toys to play with that you can get the fantasy you want out of it, but I’d recommend talking to your DM prior about Twilight Sanctuary.
War is the main martial option that comes with a bonus action Extra Attack at 1st level. This almost sets your starting ability scores as highest wisdom (for more attacks per long rest) followed by Strength to enable multiple powerful greatsword attacks that can smash through low-tier fights. It scales great into the mid and upper tiers with features that shift its focus from empowering you’re attacking to enhancing everyone's attacks. It's an option that starts out insanely strong, and scales as well as a full-caster.
See Also: Cleric Subclasses Ranked
Spellcasting
Clerics are prepared casters and prepare a number of 1st level or higher spells of which they have slots for equal to their cleric level + their Wisdom modifier. This is on top of the two free domain spells that are automatically prepared every other level, giving you a massive pool of prepared options at all stages of the game. Plus you get cantrips! What’s not to love?
Cantrip Recommendations
Clerics know three cantrips to start with, which is middle of the pack when compared to bards, sorcerers, and wizards.
Guidance has a somewhat infamous reputation as a passive d4 buff to all out-of-combat ability checks. I personally like the dynamic, as it encourages the whole group to work together on more activities, but some DMs are less excited by it. Its value will vary a bit from table to table, but you’ll typically find Guidance, at its worst, is still a great boon for your character sheet in improving at least your own out-of-combat skill checks.
After picking up Guidance, the list of cantrips is kind of ugly mainly in that it lacks utility. Clerics don’t get a ton of tools to interface with the world in a way akin to the power of something like Mage Hand or Minor Illusion, instead having to settle for cosmetic effects like Thaumaturgy.
Toll the Dead is the best damage option clerics get from their cantrips (which shines brightest when copied with Death Domain’s Reaper ability). Beyond Toll the Dead, Sacred Flame is the bread and butter d8 ranged damaging cantrip with almost no upside. Clerics tend to fall back on weapon attacks for this reason. If you’re playing a cleric with Potent Spellcasting, either of these spells probably will serve you well enough.
Word of Radiance offers frontline clerics a solid area of effect damage alternative to attacking, which is an easy third cantrip to pick up. It isn’t going to be better than a weapon attack on those characters in most fights, but when you’ve got three shrub blights on you, Word of Radiance is a bit of an upgrade.
Beyond combat, Mending and the aforementioned Thaumaturgy are my remaining recommendations. Light is also somewhat useful, but not so much I’d ever be excited to put it on my sheet.
While I personally don’t find much need for Spare the Dying, it does add a level of certainty to the party when keeping allies alive. If you want to feel comfortable in being able to always save a downed ally, you can pick this up. DC 10 Medicine checks aren’t that hard to pass, though, especially with multiple allies making them, making this feel a bit unnecessary. Once you’ve got a few extra 1st level slots laying around, Healing Word makes Spare the Dying near obsolete.
Cantrips to Avoid
Resistance looks like Guidance but is far, far less useful. It requires your concentration, which is normally something you want to dedicate to a buff prior to a fight that has a higher impact. It's uncastable in combat. Out of combat, you can keep slapping your barbarian on the back hoping they stumble into a trap, but this use case isn’t nearly strong enough to justify taking it.
1st Level Spells of Note
Clercis critically are ritual casters. This means you can cast ritual spells without spending spell slots on them with 10 minutes of prep. If you want to expand your total pool of options, this is a really easy way to give your character more stuff to do.
When preparing your 1st level spells, knowing what your domain spells do and planning accordingly can improve your character's flexibility. These make ritual spells a lot better. If you can fall back on consistent effects like Light’s Burning Hands or Trickery’s Charm Person for your early-tier spell casts, Detect Magic and other cheap ritual effects become even better to prepare.
The cleric spell list is a bit smaller than the other full-caster selections because of how domain spells expand out their toolbox by default. This can make it feel like there are a handful of staple spells each level most clerics tend to lean on, as they tend to be clearly the strongest options available.
General Recommendations
Healing Word is the only healing spell I recommend clerics regularly prepare prior to 5th level. It's a cheap, bonus action d4 ranged heal that functions to get an ally off of 0 and back into the fight safely. You can use it alongside making weapon attacks, taking the help action, or casting cantrips. Its flexible, cheap, and efficient, all things your should prioritize in your healing spells
Bless usually takes up my level 1 cleric’s concentration if a domain spell isn’t. +1d4 to attacks and saves is a huge boost to the group. You’ll definitely want this most in longer fights where you can keep it up to get the most from it, making it a bit better on the backline clerics who intend to take some damage, but if you can convert two or more misses to hits or failed saves to passes with Bless its worth the cast in the low tiers.
Detect Magic, as mentioned above, is a ritual spell that opens you up to being the magic sleuth. You can use it for a slot in a pinch to quickly identify magical threats, or cast it as a ritual over a longer investigation of a scene to suss out shady magical effects and get hints as to what’s going on. It’s great at detecting illusions, enchantments, and other magical abilities, and majorly contributes to spellcasters' contributions to early game exploration.
Ceremony is the exact kind of low-tier magic I’ve been wanting clerics to have since 5th edition was released. You get a ton of little ritual effects that do magical cleric stuff; at the cost of 25 gold, you can make holy water, give a 24-hour one-time d4 ability check or saving throw boost, protect a corpse of undeath, or get a group hitched for some bonus AC for a week! I love the minigame of figuring out when to give each party member their 24-hour ability check or saving throw boost, and hey, why not embrace polygamy and get the whole party married prior to a big boss fight for a +2 AC while everyone sticks together?
Damaging Spells
Inflict Wounds deals 3d10 damage at close range. At 1st and 2nd level, 3d10 is a huge chunk of damage. You can easily do more than 20 damage with it, which can outright kill some 1st and 2nd level-player characters, no death saves rolled. If you want an option to spend a spell slot at a chance to slap something with a blast of necrotic damage, Inflict Wounds will serve you well.
Guiding Bolt is the ranged damaging support option, offering 4d6 radiant damage on hit with a boost to the next allie’s attack roll. It's a natural fit for Peace and Light domains, but still fits great on the melee clerics who want a longer-ranged engagement tool to set up their rogue or ranger ally.
Other Supporting Buffs
Protection from Evil and Good I have found to be regularly castable at some point in most adventures, in and situations where it’s going to have an effect, that effect is enormous for its cost. This is definitely a spell you want to keep in mind, even if you’re not preparing it daily.
Shield of Faith is a cheap place to put your concentration when a longer duration higher impact effect goes down. It can contribute to stacking a giant pile of AC on somebody, making you or your other heavily armored, shielded ally nigh untouchable.
1st Level Spells to Avoid
Cure Wounds is an action to cast, requires touch, and is only healing a few more points on average than Healing Word. You’re not going to often want the up-cast benefit, ever really. If you want a healing spell, Healing Word is the only one should consider.
Bane looks like Bless, but is so far from the consistency Bless offers it can be difficult to get meaningful advantages out of it. Bless already needs a lot of rolls to happen to justify its action cost in a fight, and out of one, you’ll still want at least one or two misses to hits converted for the cost. Bane doesn’t always hamper enemies, as they can save out of it, and gives your team no agency in making it effective. It's clunky, awkward, and difficult to consistently get value out of compared to its buff counterpart.
Detect Poison and Disease and Purify Food and Drink are so niche that you’ll consider preparing either less than once a campaign. The vast majority of encounters aren’t focused on poisoned dishes. These spells could have been entwined and I’d still steer people away from preparing them.
Sanctuary might be the biggest trap spell, in that it just doesn’t contribute meaningfully to how D&D combat functions. In the rare case you’re in a fight that isn’t kill or be killed where you’re protecting an innocent passerby, sure, it can be fine, but beyond that it becomes next to impossible to use on a team member and have that team member continue contributing to winning the encounter without dispelling it. If you want to play a protector, the other supportive effects like Bless, Protection from Evil and Good, and Shield of Faith will nearly always do more than this.
2nd Level: Channel Divinities
Cleric’s second “core feature” beyond spellcasting is Channel Divinity, and I put it in quotes because you’re getting one or two uses per long rest. Most of the time, your Channel Divinity is dedicated to whatever option your domain offers you as it typically is regularly used in a wide variety of environments.
You start with one per short rest upgraded to two per short rest at 6th level and three per short rest at 18th level.
If you need something else to do than use your domain’s 2nd level divinity, Turn Undead can be backbreaking for the DM in undead-heavy encounters, and Harness Divine Power gives you a way to turn it into more spells should that be what you need in the moment.
Turn Undead
First, small nitpick: Turned should be a condition. Every 2nd level cleric is going to be seeing that word, many on multiple different forms.
Beyond the logistics, turned creatures are basically super-feared. They have to sprint away from you until they can’t get any further away at which point they start dodging.
Some undead are turn resistant, making this shine brightest in the lower tiers, but taking twelve approaching zombies and getting eight or nine to start sprinting the other way has a massive impact on a fight, often trivializing entire encounters.
Keep Turn Undead in mind while adventuring; it's a useful tool against a specific enemy type, and while not going to pop up every adventure, the ones where it’ll work will have a massive impact.
Harness Divine Power
Added in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Harness Divine Power works in a similar way to wizard’s Arcane Recovery, but instead of needing to take a short rest to get some spell slots back, you just need to spend a bonus action. What Harness Divine Power offers is flexibility and a bit of protection against expending too many of your resources; if you’re burning through spells like crazy, having a short rest recharge for a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level slot can come in clutch every once in awhile, especially on domains that have less potent Channel Divinities like Nature.
3rd Level: 2nd Level Spells
Like their 1st level options, Clerics have a bit of a smaller selection of 2nd level spells, many of which I’m not crazy about, but some are worth considering in most adventuring days.
General Recommendations
Clerics' entire early and mid-tier performance post 2nd level revolves around Spiritual Weapon. It's a fundamental pillar of the class and majorly empowers in most tiers of play. The bonus action cost does come into play as a bit of extra work for some options like Order, but if you take anything away from this section, take away that Spiritual Weapon is nuts. It doesn’t take concentration and gives you a mobile ranged bonus action attack that has a great damage floor. It's a house of a spell, crazy efficient to cast alongside a weapon attack or cantrip cast, and will make a lot of the party stop and stare as you take center stage as a damage machine.
Silence has fewer moments where it’s clearly absurd, but still has a massive swath of moments to shine. It particularly engages with spellcasting in a way few other spells can, being a tool you can use alongside movement impairments to shut off enemy verbal spell casting. Paired then with its utility in breaking into places discretely or sneaking out without making a sound you will find Silence is regularly something you’ll be glad you prepared.
Suggestion routinely shows up on my character sheets. It is routinely excellent. It can remove an enemy combatant seconds before a fight begins or compel a person to cover your bar tab for the night. In any environment you’re presented with, if there is a non-party member character in the vicinity that can understand you, Suggestion will have options to engage that space in few other spells offer. It's flexible, powerful, and routinely something I’d recommend bards consider.
Support Options
Hold Person can be debilitating. If it ever lands, paralysis means every attack that hits is a crit. If you want a save or die, literally, this is functionally a humanoid death sentence on a failed Wis save.
Calm Emotions is an effect that’s job tends to be to stop a fight before it starts and is great at delivering on that. Some fights you didn’t mean to start. Sometimes your barbarian just wins a bet against some people he really shouldn’t have wagered against. While you don’t necessarily have the bard’s social abilities to talk a group out of a conflict as easily, instead leveraging your wisdom to help level heads come to a reasonable middle ground can be a route to navigate around fights that might not work out for your team.
Spells to Avoid
Borrowed Knowledge not only is going to be ghoulish overkill, it’s not giving you much of value for the cast. Spending a 2nd level spell to get access to a skill just isn’t that good. You’re already sitting on at least four of your own with a party rocking four each, meaning most, if not all, skills will be on somebody’s sheet. You taking over the Insight checks because you have a higher Wisdom score than the rogue takes something they built their character to do and rips it away from them, all for a +1 or +2 more on the check.
Enhance Ability can easily be replaced by some well-placed Help actions, which anyone can take. You usually don’t need, nor want, this to take one of your few known spells.
Gentle Repose barely functions. If you can’t immediately get to a body, reposing it isn’t going to do much even with access to Revivify but no 3rd level spell slots. In the exact situation where you’re preparing Gentle Repose instead of Revivify with the intention of banking a 2nd level slot to repose somebody instead of a 3rd level Revivify slot is… awkward. Better yet, just spend the slot on a Healing Word to get somebody up and prevent their death altogether. There aren’t many real situations where Gentle Repose is going to justify being prepared.
Find Traps competes with some true trash for the title of Worst Spell in the Game. It, at best, confirms suspicions. At its worst, it fails to confirm suspicions and still leads somebody to walk face-first into danger. This spell should have never been printed in this state.
4th Level: Feat and Cantrip Versatility
Like all characters, 4th level offers a choice (should you be playing the feats): Improve one of your ability scores, or take a feat. Additionally, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added the Cantrip Versatility mechanic to allow for flexible swapping around your cantrips selections you’re unhappy with.
Feat Considerations
Clerics suffer a bit from wanting high scores in a variety of stats, making feats feel like they cost a bit more. You want a 20 Wisdom for your spell save DC and spell attack rolls. Many want as high a Strength or Dexterity as possible for their weapon attacks they mix with their spellcasting in the front of a fight, and those same characters tend to want as high a Constituion score as possible to bolster their concentration saves and pad out their hit points.
Still, some feats can absolutely be worth it over an Ability Score increase, especially if it gives you a +1 to a meaningful Ability Score alongside new stuff to do.
Many domains also care more or less about different feats.
General Recommendations
Every cleric that can start with an odd Wis, specifically a 17 if possible, will benefit massively from the +1 Wis feats. Even when they tend to shine brightest in certain domains,
War Caster helps defend your concentration, and on frontline clerics, lets you entirely ignore holding weapons and shields when needing to cast spells with somatic and material components. What this typically means is you don’t need to worry about spellcasting in combat ever again with free hands. You do need your shield to be your spellcasting focus, though, as you need to be holding the focus for material components still, but that’s easy enough to make happen. Of all the classes that can take advantage of this feat’s final bullet point, cleric is top of that list with Inflict Wounds easily being one of, if not the best spell-based opportunity attack you’ve got access to early on. Almost every cleric will majorly benefit from the concentration protection, and the majority of frontline clerics care about the other two elements. This feat is a no-brainer for most clerics.
Chef is cute. You get a +1 Wis or Con, both of which enhance basically every cleric, and their bonus healing and temp HP treats are a fine enough addition that if you like the flavor behind the option and can make the +1 mod valuable, this can be a reasonable addition.
Telekinetic can be a little bit clunky, as the bonus action shove competes with Spiritual Weapon for your bonus action, but does give you an improved Mage Hand with a Wis bump at minimum. If you want some out-of combat enhancement, Telekinetic can be a great choice.
Ritual Caster and Magic Initiate fit similar roles to Telekinetic, usually acting as a way to open up your utility further with Find Familiar and other excellent non-cleric ritual spells. If you want a pet that empowers you in a dozen different ways, both of these are access to one alongside some other decent features. Magic Initiate gets some bonus points for giving Light Domain access to Fire Bolt should they want a fire-damaging cantrip to play around with.
Domain Specific Feats
Shadow Touched pairs beautifully with Death, Twilight, and Trickery domains as an expansion of darkness-like magic. On top of getting Invisibility access, something both options badly want, you get a 1st level spell from illusion or necromancy, get a free slot to cast each with once a long rest, and get a +1 Wisdom. It's a top-tier option for these domains, and a solid option for most other domains.
Fey Touched similarly pairs well with Death and Trickery, but also works incredibly well on the frontline clerics including Forge, Order, and War. It, too, adds +1 Wisdom, but in place of Invisibility, you get Misty Step, and in place of a 1st-level necromancy or illusion spell you get a 1st-level divination or enchantment spell. Being able to teleport as a bonus action out of or into danger is excellent for characters wanting to make weapon attacks.
Observant goes easily onto Twilight domain sheets who want to be the most perceptive creatures on the planet, doubling down on their initiative boon with a +5 passive Perception and Investigation bonus alongside a +1 Wis. Alert can fit a similar niche for characters that want to always go first in combat.
The martial feats are all bit awkward on even the weapon-attacking domains, including war, as only empowering one to two attacks at most a round isn’t necessarily all that worth it. If you are War Domain specifically and want a massive 4th-level power spike, Great Weapon Master will give you +10 damage for a -5 to hit, which can be majorly mitigated by your Channel Divinity. At 4th level (or 1st with Variant Human), you’ll do gross amounts of damage compared to your friends. Extra Attack at 5th level does immediately reduce the comparative power, though, making it something you accept won’t really scale well if you stick with cleric for the long term.
Heavy Armor Master comes with a +1 Strength bump, making starting with a 15 in Strength feel great, and reduces incoming damage on Life, War, Tempest, and the other heavily armored domains that want to be taking damage in the front lines. Again, it doesn’t scale great as the reduction doesn’t go up with you as you level and enemy attacks deal proportionally more and more damage, but you’ll definitely feel like a brick wall in the early tiers with this.
Metamagic Adept can be a clean way to maximize the effectiveness of Tempest Domain’s Destructive Wrath when paired with Transmute Spell. Twice per long rest, one per sorcery point, you can transmute area of effect damage into lightning damage, which, for your Channel Divinity, does max damage instead of rolling. Turning a Fire Storm into a Lightning Storm lets it deal 70 damage instead of 7d10 damage. Even spells like Insect Plague can be massively empowered round after round with multiple uses, giving you 1 sorcery point for a spell that now deals lightning damage every round for opportunities to Destructive Wrath whenever you’d like for a big impact. Additionally, your Thunderous Strike now can have all damaging spells you cast optionally push creatures damaged 10 feet away from you. It's the first feat I want on my non-multiclassed Tempest Domain clerics.
Cantrip Versatility
Clerics don’t have the most riveting cantrip list, and given you’ve learned four from the list at this point, you’re probably getting all of the value you could ever care to gain from them. Still, if you’re sick of Mending not being useful enough at your table, you can swap it out here.
5th Level: Destroy Undead, 3rd Level Spells
5th level provides two new things: Destroy Undead, an upgrade for your Turn Undead Channel Divinity, and 3rd-level spells.
Destroy Undead
Destroy Undead is a cute expansion on Turn Undead that kind of functions as an upper-tier quality-of-life upgrade to let DMs through a bunch of fodder undead into fights to up the stakes without slowing things down.
3rd-Level Spells of Note
3rd level spells dictate the shift from early-tier adventuring to the mid-tiers. They’re big, splashy effects that dwarf most 2nd level spells and fundamentally change elements of gameplay from here on out. Clerics bring resurrection magic and group healing to this tier, making death far easier to mitigate, alongside some powerful area control tools, supportive buffs, and damage expansions.
Revivify takes recently dead allies and brings them back to life. More than anything else, Revivify acts as a safety valve for when the DM accidentally crit kills somebody from full. Its a useful way to prevent cheap death, and is something I regularly plan on preparing. Its something that clerics bring to the table that changes the game in a similar fashion to Fireball and other iconic 3rd-level spells, albeit in a way that’s not necessarily happening every adventure.
Dispel Magic stands out to me as a spell I want on any character that can get it. It interfaces with magic in a way few other spells do and can be a cheap, 3rd-level solution to huge 9th-level spell problems. I consider Dispel Magic and Detect Magic “hygiene” spells that will regularly be powerful and useful at mitigating magic nonsense.
Mass Healing Word, like its single-use lower tier form, does a ranged, powerful, useful thing: it brings multiple allies up from 0 while giving out a few bonus hit points to people still standing. Sometimes the only way to turn the tide of a fight is to bring up three creatures at once, and when that’s the case you’ll need something like Mass Healing Word. This is an effect I’m probably not jumping to prepare at 5th level, but around 7th or 8th level it’ll probably start showing up alongside Revivify.
Animate Dead definitely finds a home more on netural and evil domain lists, but if flavor isn’t an issue for you, having a tool to turn your unused spell slots into a battalion of skeleton archers is great. You can regularly set this up over a few long rests to give you one 3rd level slot for four backline skeletons shooting arrows freely from fight to fight. Death Domain auto-prepares it; outside of that, I think it pairs great with other frontline options that can keep their skeleton friends alive like War and Tempest domains.
Spells to Avoid
As prepared casters, many of cleric’s 3rd level spells are fine existing for when you’d want to prepare them for their niche situations they’re helpful in. There are some still that don’t have nearly enough, often any, usable situations where you’ll be happy spending a slot on them.
Beacon of Hope is the primary example. It takes an action to set up, and primarily doubles healing effects, which is usually just worse than casting a single healing spell like Mass Healing Word. It takes two turns of 1st level or higher slots to get any bonus healing out of it, and with the other boon it grants being advantage on Wisdom saving throws and death saving throws, I can’t think of any encounters where I want to devote my concentration and a 3rd level slot for this.
While I love Feign Death, it rarely accomplishes anything a mundane disguise couldn’t. It has no business being a 3rd level spell, even as a ritual.
Aura of Vitality has nearly the exact same issues as Beacon of Hope. It’s an action to cast and requires subsequent bonus actions to give out any amount of healing. A single cast of Mass Healing Word heals creatures at a larger range a similar amount of hit points all up front while leaving your action free. It competes with Spiritual Weapon for your bonus action and isn’t providing a meaningful enough amount of hit points over its duration for me to be happy with the cast.
6th Level and Beyond
Past 5th level, Clerics only major selections and features left are in spellcasting, or offered through their domain. 6th level gives you an extra short rest Channel Divinity and a domain feature. For more on those specific abilities, you can check out the in-depth review of each domain linked above in the Domain section.
At 10th level, you get your last “new” cleric feature: Divine Intervention, which improves at 20th level. The CR of undead destroyed by your Destroy Undead also will scale up past this point, but on the whole, your 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are going to be the most exciting stuff you get outside of your domain.
4th Level Spell Recommendations
There are a total of eleven preparable 4th-level cleric spells, and most aren’t all that compelling. Still, knowing some exist can be helpful. Two stand out above the rest for big boons at 7th level.
Banishment takes a threatening force in a fight and temporarily removes it. This kind of save or die can halve the danger of fights centered around one or two large threats with groups of smaller ones, and devastate any semblance of encounter balance in doing so. It can do nothing but has the potential to trivialize some fights while being regularly castable in every encounter should you want a powerful place to stick your 4th-level spells.
Guardian of Faith is the other option I’m most excited to pick up here. It is an area defense force that deals 60 damage to creatures that come into range or start next to it, and once it deals 60 damage, pops out of existence. What sells me most on Guardian of Faith is its damage consistency and lack of concentration; sitting it on top of three creatures normally gets most of the damage out of the effect in a single round should they need to move to function, often acting like an approximation of Fireball. Against larger threats, you can keep moving about, 60 damage to a single target over four to five turns is a big chunk of damage for a single spell. While you have to work a bit to get the most out of it, Guardian of Faith does offer a lot for its level in some encounters.
Death Ward gets a mention for its upper-tier potential. When 4th-level slots feel less pricey because you’ve got 5th and 6th slots or higher, spending one or two 4th-level slots for an insurance policy to keep you and another character with healing access up can be reasonable. I don’t love it at 7th level, as the cost is at its highest, but in the upper tiers it's a good spell to be aware of.
4th Level Spells to Avoid
Most of the other spells are niche. You can prepare them ahead of time when you know you’re going against something that they’re aimed at defeating. Aura of Purity, for example, is something to prepare against an adult green dragon to empower the team against its fear, poison damage, and other conditional effects in its lair. Beyond that, you’ll probably not want it on your sheet. Two effects are so niche I don’t think there are really any cases I’d prepare them.
Aura of Life brings allies up off of zero, grants resistance to necrotic damage, and prevents max HP reduction. A Mass Healing Word will cost you less and have a much bigger impact, and given that this eats your concentration, I can’t fathom wanting it in any encounter where necrotic damage isn’t the center of the fight.
Locate Creature has almost no meaningful effects. Its range is pitiful for what it's supposed to do, is arbitrarily blocked running water, and requires you already go through the hassle of finding and meeting the creature you want to locate before it can even work. Any number of other divination effects do this better, at as cheap or cheaper a rate, with more consistency and less hoops to jump through.
Blessed Strikes
Where most new features in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything I recommend using, Blessed Strikes isn’t worth it. Ever. Potent Spellcasting adds +4/+5 to your cantrip damage, something that’s bad because of how infrequently cantrips are going to be cast in the mid to upper tiers, and Divine Strike gives your weapon attacks the d8 of damage, but themes it with your domain, and scales it up to 2d8 later. This is a strict downgrade. You don’t want Blessed Strikes over either option, making it a bad patch-like optional feature that wasted book space in getting printed.
5th Level Spell Recommendations
Summon Celestial is the first summon effect clerics get access to, and like all the summon spells from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, it's ludicrously powerful. A multi-attacking ranged ally or frontline HP bulwark (that also has Extra Attack) is insane for a single spell slot, and definitely a place a lot of mid to upper-tier clerics are pleased to put their concentration. You’re happy up-casting this, especially seeing as cleric’s 6th and 8th level slots don’t offer a ton of raw, consistent power, and one to two additional attacks is excellent. Bonus points you’re a War or Order domain cleric who can empower the summoned melee celestial while taking advantage of its temporary hit points!
Holy Weapon can be a more manageable damage expansion if summoned creatures aren’t for you. You rarely will be happy concentrating on this when you’re putting it on your weapon, as typically you aren’t making two or more attacks a round with it. Sticking it on a paladin, ranger, or fighter for 4d8 bonus radiant damage a round is great, though, and when it only costs a bonus action to setup, will be a great addition to supportive clerics wanting to shine a spotlight on their multi-attacking allies. The explosion at the end is gravy, adding a flexible 4d8 burst of blindness should things go south for the Holy Weapon wielder.
Knowing Raise Dead exists and having a few diamonds set aside for it can make it so you can safely cast all of your upper-level spells without fearing permanent character death. No longer do you need to keep a Revivfy at the ready if you want to stave off death, as now you just need eight hours within 10 days of death to get the character back in action. I hate the penalty it imposes, but it does add an extra layer of security if your group wants to avoid character death at all costs.
5th Level Spells to Avoid
Contagion’s possible upsides might sound sweet, but the vast majority of the time, the best-case scenario of this spell is a few rounds of the poisoned condition. If you miss your melee spell attack, this does nothing, putting it in a camp similar to the all-stars Polymorph and Banishment, yet instead of entirely removing the threat for a lower-level spell, you just poison it.
Legend Lore will always just be a library. Go to a library instead. You don’t need this. It isn’t worth the costs, and certainly not worth the spell known.
Mass Cure Wounds is going to feel like a sidegrade to an up-cast Mass Healing Word, but can’t be used at a lower level. You probably don’t want both, and because Mass Healing Word does this spell’s job so much better I can’t recommend it.
Divine Intervention
10th level introduces the cleric hail-mary: Divine Intervention. You get a once-a-week beseech to your deity for aid with a 10 to 19% chance of success, usually involving a cleric or domain spell-like effect happening to aid you.
At 20th level the aid just happens, making it feel more like a Wish light once a week, which I love. It's a perfect fit for a capstone feature; it expands on the fantasy of clerics being entities worshipping a power so great they may not hear or recognize them up until the point they can rival them, or at least can no longer be ignored.
Divine Intervention is a D&D feature that makes me love D&D; it's flexible and isn’t likely to work more than once in a campaign, but that once-in-a-campaign moment where it does succeed will make the whole group remember that moment for years. Top-notch, concise game design executed superbly well with the mindset of “the DM will figure it out”.
6th Level Spell Recommendations
Blade Barrier, or as I like to call it, the Meat Grinder, is a like Wall of Fire, but instead of tickling the creatures with warmth, it eviscerates them in a swirling mass of swords. 6d10 slashing damage is a ton of damage, and the damage trigger occurring the first time on each turn a creature enters the space plays beautifully with features like Temepst Domain’s Thunderous Strike and other knockbacks, enabling your party to pop monsters around in and out of the blades for a little minigame that racks up higher and higher amounts of slashing damage. Without the movement stuff its still fine, as a giant area of 6d10 damage creatures have to respect is solid, but it shines brightest when built towards, or at least is considered by other party members during combat.
I’m normally not a massive fan of action costed high-level healing but Heal giving 70 hit points and ending some conditions does make it something that can be action positive in a fight by keeping a character up for two or three rounds beyond what a single target Healing Word would. This is particularly notable when paired with resistances, and because this doesn’t take concentration, I can see it being a reasonable addition to prepare on supportive clerics looking for powerful options for their slots without shutting down Summon Celestial or Holy Weapon.
Harm fits a similar role to me, and while never something I’m thrilled having to use, 14d6 single target damage for a 6th-level slot isn’t the end of the world. It not being able to kill is quite bad, though.
Sunbeam can be a blast of a top-end fantasy for Light Domain clerics to play with. You basically turn your actions for a minute into 6d8 radiant Lightning Bolts. 12-18d6 damage to a group over three rounds for a 6th level slot is fairly inefficient, though, making it only particularly notable at tables where your resources are spread fairly thin with ample fights between rests.
Create Undead has all the same notes Animate Dead does, as it works great as a summon option for more evil clerics. Where it shines brightest is in creating wights, who in turn create zombies, helping you succeed on the undead overlord fantasy in the highest tiers of play. I’m a big fan of it for Death Domain clerics or other evil-aligned options.
6th Level Spells to Avoid
Find the Path is up there with Find Traps as one of the worst spells ever conceived of. It’s a 6th level spell for a Google Maps that doesn’t even give you a safe route, nor account for literally any hazards or obstacles between you and a point. D&D doesn’t normally make finding the place the adventure is happening at that hard, and when it is hard, rarely will you have objects from said place to even have Find the Path contribute to getting there. This spell was a mistake that is so over costed I can’t fathom anyone has ever cast it and been satisfied with the outcome.
Planar Ally summons an extraplanar mercenary who may or may not help you. It's a mercenary for hire phone call that costs you a 6th-level slot to make, and a bunch of gold to fulfill. You might get told “Nah, I don’t do that” and get turned away. Alternatively, you could just go and actually contract out this job by roleplaying and meeting with the entities, no spell required, and in a much more narratively satisfying way. It doesn’t gell with many tables, and while it does have some niche potential, isn’t something I’d push onto a DM, and can be incredibly frustrating to work with from both sides of the table.
7th Level Spell Recommendations
Conjure Celestial basically reads as “Conjure Couatl”, as its currently the best option you’ve got (granted, the competition isn’t particularly stark). Couatls have 90 ft. fly speeds, an AC of 19, 97 hit points, immunity to non-magical weapons and psychic damage, three at-will detection spells, three times a day casts of Bless, Create Food and Water, Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration, Protection from Poison, Sanctuary, and Shield (for some reason). Additionally, the get a cast of Dream, Greater Restoration, and Scrying, leading them to be a massive pool of extra resources with just their innate spellcasting. They have a bite that knocks things unconscious, a restraining 2d6+3 constrict, and Change Shape to fit into a wide variety of environments with ease. They make excellent allies, and while they probably don’t match an up-cast Summon Celestial in combat, out of combat, or in terms of providing supportive utility, Couatls are a fantastic creature to summon.
Etherealness opens up the world to you in terms of infiltration, exploration, and scouting. Invisibly and intangibly moving through a dungeon to get perfect information about its interior over a long duration can be miserable for some DMs to deal with, and when up-cast, you can bring some friends with you. This is a fun tool to play with, and a big shift in upper-tier dungeon delving starts to happen because it exists.
Plane Shift, like Etherealness, shifts the form in which D&D can be played at this tier, as it opens up extraplanar exploration. Now, the group can go anywhere; dive straight into the Abyss to confront demon overlords sending their minions running rampant over the material, or the elemental planes to beseech their genie overlords for aid. The entire game’s scope shifts with access to Plane Shift; no longer are you bound to one world, but instead have a tool to travel across infinite others.
7th Level Spells to Avoid
Temple of the Gods may have some flavor you want in that you kind of get to bring your church with you, but in practice, my god is this spell bad. You have to bank a 7th-level spell slot for a glorified Tiny Hut that is WAY more apparent. It can be a fine world building tool, but otherwise has no business being on an adventurer’s prepared spell list.
8th Level Spell Recommendations
There are only five total preparable 8th-level cleric spells. This makes Summon Celestial by default one of the best 8th-level cleric spells, as the summoned ally gets to make four attacks. If that doesn’t speak to you, there are a pair of spells I’m pretty happy preparing, and others I’d prepare only in specific environments.
Antimagic Field has a unique effect that is a catch-all to magic BS. It is symmetrical, though, making you have to accept shutting off all of your magic in exchange for shutting off all enemy magic as well. This kind of tool can be a solution to endless upper-tier problems, but only in a selective range, and at a steep cost. I find it's a blast to play with, as all the nuances of it make for interesting and engaging decisions.
Sunburst takes a 7th-level Fireball, and adds a blind to it for an 8th-level slot. Clerics typically lack that kind of effect, making it a reasonable pickup here.
Holy Aura gets a mention in that it has some niche applications in groups where staying grouped up has value. Mass disadvantage on attack rolls is fine for an 8th-level slot, and I won’t regularly want this over a proactive effect like Holy Weapon or Summon Celestial, but it does act as a meaningful mass defensive boon if that’s what you’re in the market for.
8th Level Spells to Avoid
Control Weather has lost most of its utility since Teleport and Plane Shift have become available. Dealing with environmental hazards is a low to mid-tier problem that upper-tier parties tend to have way better means of mitigating. Even in circ*mstances where it is applicable, it takes a while to come to fruition. I wouldn’t recommend it.
9th Level Spell Recommendations
The 9th-level cleric offerings are real sad.
Mass Heal hits the needed bar of being enough hit points to earn action advantage. It feels like a 9th level spell for a full party heal. While it isn’t something I’m personally excited to take, it can reverse multiple rounds of damage away with the snap of your fingers, saving allies from death and wildly swinging the tide of a fight from certain defeat to near victory.
Beyond that, the rest are pretty terrible.
9th Level Spells to Avoid
Power Word Heal is ghoulish overkill. Heal restores 70 hit points; that’s usually enough and is a 6th-level spell. Spending your 9th-level spell for any number of hit points can be 200 or more HP all at once, but all of that damage could have been mitigated if you had simply used a 9th-level spell to proactively engage with a fight instead. Mass Healing Word and Healing Word are still probably the only healing effects you’re going to need. Mass Heal makes this spell obsolete.
Astral Projection makes the DM come up with an Astral Sea adventure where everyone can instantaneously die in exchange for an effect worse than Plane Shift. There are few spells in the game this out there, and while some of the wild, wacky magical effects are a blast to play with, this one misses the mark majorly.
Multiclassing Cleric
Multiclassing is a “variant” mechanic in the same way feats tend to be; the vast majority of tables allow it. It adds a level of customization and depth to the mid-tier of play the game desperately lacks, giving you new choices and fun abilities all throughout the game.
Clerics want wildly varied multiclass builds depending on their domain. What a War Domain cleric looks for isn’t anywhere near Death or Light Domains, as examples, and while I won’t break down every domain’s best multiclass options, I’ll highlight some easy options that are great fits for some of the domains.
A quick note: there are mixed interpretations of how clerics who multiclass with other full-caster classes get to prepare their spells. How I interpret the rules as written, as do many others, clerics can prepare spells for any spell slots they have available. Conversely, many argue that they shouldn’t based off other specific phrases used in some other spots in the rules, but it by no means is clear cut. Because they get higher-level spell slots from multiclassing spellcasting classes, they can prepare upper-tier cleric spells without actually needing to be a cleric of the level you’d normally access them. For example, a Sorcerer 4/Cleric 3 could prepare 4th-level cleric spells, despite only having 3 levels in cleric. The rules aren’t particularly clear on this, so before you build with this mechanic in mind, talk with your DM, and consult the multiclassing rules and internet for further guidance.
Weapon Attack Upgrades
Any of the domains that use Divine Strike are tooled somewhat to care about making melee weapon attacks. Paladin is an obvious fit for these archetypes for thematic overlap alongside a great way to use your full-caster slots efficiently with your weapon attacks in the form of Divine Smite.
Fighter similarly offers you a lot, with the bulk of its boons coming in the form of Action Surge and its archetype. Action Surge lets you cast two spells in the same round that take 1st level or higher slots so long as neither costs a bonus action. It mixes quite well with the hybrid fantasy of melee and caster the weapon-focused domains tend to care about.
Trickery and Twilight Domains feel like natural fits for a rogue or ranger mutliclass to double up on your sneaky potential while expanding your attack rolls to hit harder. What I like about rogue is a three level dip provides a ton of stuff, with 2d6 Sneak Attack, Cunning Action, Expertise, and a subclass. Ranger offers Extra Attack for five levels and provides magical stealth enhancements with a version of expertise in their new Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything feature, Canny.
Spellcaster Empowerment
Sorcerer has access to Metamagic, which gives you access to Quicken Spell (which plays extremely well in Death Domain with their Reaper feature) and Transmute Spell (which plays beautifully alongside Tempest Domain’s Destructive Wrath and Thunderous Strike). Tempest Domain also massively benefits from expanded spells like Lightning Bolt making it an easy route to explore post 6th level should you mainly care about the lightning stuff, and less so about weapon attacks.
The arcane casters (bards, wizards, sorcerers) all also expand access to powerful reaction spells, namely Shield and Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs is already backbreaking levels of power that warps the game around it, but in combination with Order Domain’s Voice of Authority, you can now offer people reaction attacks as a reaction. It's stupidly powerful, and an easy reason to get a level or two in bard or wizard. Shield similarly well set up frontline tank options like Forge with an insurmountable AC very early on which can be a huge problem for many tables to manage.
Warlocks round out my multiclass recommendations mainly in their bonus utility and build options. Light and Peace Domains pair beautifully with eldritch blaster options you can get with just two to three levels of warlock while also empowering your out-of-combat utility with familiars or additional cantrips and a patron for further magical effects. If you want to be casting a lot of bonus action spells, having a scaling, powerful attack option like Eldritch Blast empowered by Agonizing Blast will keep your damage numbers high while simultaneously supporting your group with Order’s Voice of Authority or Peace’s defensive options.
Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try
Because of how frontloaded cleric is with their domain and Channel Divinity being at 1st and 2nd level, you can quickly and easily assemble characters that are ludicrous compared to their counterparts of the same level. Beyond specifically 1st and 2nd level domain features, cleric’s munchkin potential tends to feel a bit more “tame”. There aren’t amazing abusable spells like Animal Shapes, Create Undead, or Simulacrum here, making it amazing at early-tier power gaming, but a bit lackluster for upper-tier builds outside of abusing its domain abilities like Destructive Wrath.
Twilight Shroud, Destructive Wrath, and Other Busted Domain Features
You don’t have to work particularly hard to maximize the effectiveness of Twilight Shroud, but if you want to push it a bit further, any defensive boons like Shield of Faith, Shield, or even the Protection or Interception Fighting Styles will further prevent enemies from feeling like they can do anything to your party within the early tiers.
Destructive Wrath in Tempest Domain is available once per short rest at 2nd level, and twice at 6th. As mentioned prior, paired with Transmute Spell (obtained via the Metamagic Initiate feat or with a three level sorcerer dip) will enable you to maximize the damage on any damaging spell you cast. This notably functions worse on spells that split their damage, but turning Fireballs from 8d6 to a flat 48 damage has a huge impact on the game. You can’t augment spells that don’t deal damage immediately after casting, like Summon Celestial or Crown of Stars, but every other damaging option out there you’re free to transmute and Destructive Wrath. Maximizing even just half of Meteor Swarm sets you up for a 50% damage bump on an already ludicrous damaging spell.
Voice of Authority, as mentioned in the multiclass section, has a stupid interaction with Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs target both the allied and enemy creature, which turns on Voice of Authority. Now, for just a 1st level spell slot potentially twice every round you can give your rogue, paladin, barbarian, monk, fighter, ranger, or any other attacking character a free swing with advantage from the Silvery Barbs. The total cost? One level in cleric, or one level in a class with Silvery Barbs, and a 1st level spell slot. Gross!
Grave Domain’s Path to the Grave is mainly gated by its action cost, but when the effect is making a creature vulnerable to all subsequent damage, you can justify it taking an action surge for some truly ludicrous damage numbers on a single attack. It obviously overlaps with Assassin rogues, but not as much as the paladin builds which is a fun distinction as they want to make a lot of attacks, and Path to the Grave wants as big of a single attack as possible. You still would want two levels of paladin for Divine Smite so your spell slots can crit smite for quadruple their normal damage, but don’t necessarily lean into making seven or more attacks at once..
An easy mid-tier example would like Assassin Rogue 3, Paladin 2, Grave Domain Cleric 2; on crit with a d8 rapier, you’re dealing 4d6 (Sneak Attack) +6d8 (2nd level Divine Smite) + 2d8 (rapier) doubled, for an average of 103 damage (including +3 Dex mod).
Pushing War Domain to its Maximum (In 1 Level)
War Domain’s War Priest ability is an extra attack two to three times at 1st level. With that in mind, we can construct a 1st level character that hits like a truck, squeezing every inch of the sheet to improve our odds of success.
Obviously, we’re a 1st level War Domain Cleric. To maximize this build's round-to-round effectiveness, we’re going to want a +3 Wisdom and a +3 Strength. With a 27 point buy, we literally min/max for a 15 Str and Wis, a 14 Con, a 10 Dex, and an 8 Int and Cha.
Variant Human ups two scores of our choice by one, giving us a 16 Str and 16 Wis for +3 to hit with our strength weapons, three uses of War Priest, a +2 to Concentration saves, and no penalty to Dex saves. Most importantly, it starts us off with a feat, and we’re going to take Great Weapon Master.
This means our weapon of choice, as you’d expect, is going to be a greatsword for 2d6+3 damage per hit to start with.
Prepared Spells. We can prepare 4 1st level spells, and have Divine Favor and Shield of Faith automatically prepared. This selection has some flexibility, but none impact our damage round to round more than Divine Favor. Command is a critical additional option to have, though (which we’ll showcase shortly). We’ll go with Healing Word, Guiding Bolt (for setting our own attacks up at a range beyond 60 feet while dealing damage), Detect Magic, and Command/
Prep. With this selection in mind, we can do some clever tricks to “nova”. With prep, a Divine Favor adds a d4 to the two attacks a round we’re making over three rounds. A second round of prep has us ready an action to cast Command immediately after a creature’s turn count in initiative prior to a fight breaking out, with the Command we give being “grovel”. This adds advantage to both of our attacks when we engage, making the penalty Great Weapon Master have even less of an impact on our chances to hit.
Damage. In a single round, we can deal a potential 4d6+2d4+26 damage or 45 average damage at level one. Trading off 2d4 damage per round for an extra instance of advantage can absolutely be worth it in practice to enable Great Weapon Master empowered attacks to hit more consistently after a prep round. Guiding Bolt plays well on this sheet as well as a ranged engagement tool to set up the 2d6+13 hit. This build isn’t all nova; at 1st level tables, you have a massive impact that will blow most other character’s out of the water in every form of the word in day-to-day adventuring with these options.
Clerics Aren’t Just Healers
Clerics on the surface might seem like responsible supports dedicated to team assistance, and they can be that if it's what you want from them. They also can be death dealers leveling armies or god-powered warriors reigning magical justice alongside their weapon strikes. They represent a massive quantity of fantasies from cultures all around the globe. If you want a character dedicated to an ideal, an object, or worship of anything beyond a cult status symbol, Cleric can give you that fantasy in a powerful way.
Its early game is crazy strong, and its late game is held up by full-casting. While it doesn’t get the same crazy tools wizards get, you’ll still reshape the world with your magic should you get there. Clerics are a stellar class I’d recommend to basically anyone wanting to play a character devoted to an ideology or deity.
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