Cleric and Revised Species Breakdown: One D&D

[@SamFinklestein]

The old Divine Strike is "once on each *of your* turns", so it could not be used on opportunity attacks. However, if you do not use Blessed Strikes on your turn, it is available for use on an AoO. It simply procs "when a creature takes damage" and states that "you cannot use it again until the start of your next turn".

[@MonstersMulticlass]

This is a great point! Rogue says 'On a turn' so it allows for that oa stuff. Interesting. This may actually be better as most of the time clerics take an attack it's from the OA. We will have to mention this next time we have a ua episode. It's worth discussion

[@stephenlucas8836]

58:20 in addition to the end of turn save to escape grapples, it also ends if your now longer within thier reach. This means that your escape grapple action is replaced with the Push unarmed attack.

[@MonstersMulticlass]

That is actually a pretty big buff to martials. Grappling them is no where near as strong as grappling a spellcaster then. Great change

[@stephenlucas8836]

@@MonstersMulticlassmages can burn teleports (did you know teleports don’t provoke opportunity even in the original book) also have Guest or Thunderwave my be more useful. Grapples don’t impede non-range attack spellcasting that use material or somatic component in anyways. Should that stay the same or should spell disruption chances make a return (like make a easy concentration to cast while being disrupted) ?

[@MonstersMulticlass]

Those are useful but they use a spell slot and need a failed save (for thunderwave). I don't expect spell disruption from grappling to make a revival. I do think it would be good, but I think it would complicate things. But dang...I really do like the concept.

[@disembodiedvoicek]

Good discussion! I really liked the standardization of the levels where subclass features come up. It is easy to introduce it to new players. Jeremy Crawford mentioned that this was going to be standardized in the video they released. I am looking forward to how they are going to apply it to the Warlock. Guidance is a reaction spell for ability checks, Resistance is a reaction spell for saving throws. I am guessing that True Strike will be redone to make it a reaction spell for attacks. They made spiritual weapons a concentration spell but they increased the damage progression. I like the trade off.

[@andrewgutierrez9739]

Just want to say the 3 of you are my favorite long form dnd channel. Hands down!!

[@MonstersMulticlass]

Thank you so much! At the end of the day we're just a bunch of nerds who love TTRPGs. I am sure we don't offer the same "number crunch" that other channels do. But at the end of the day, how it feels to play is more important than the raw numbers, right?

[@andrewgutierrez9739]

@@MonstersMulticlass some lose the fun with pure number crunch and your chemistry is great keep it up 👍🏼

[@craigmerrick2507]

The way I read this is that the difference in turn undead is that it used to say they had to use their action to move as far away from you as possible. This new form just says they can only dash and they must finish their move further away from you. This means that a clever DM could make an undead dash in a circle aroudn you and finish their move 1 foot further away from you than they started, rather than using their full move to move as far away from you as possible.

[@MonstersMulticlass]

That to me is bad. There shouldn't be room for the dm to "rules lawyer" players

[@evilminion4989]

Aid is effectively castrated (It's a must have currently on some of my characters, there's too many ways to get temp hp to make it worthwhile as it's done in the UA), Banishment is now a spell i'd never pick as it's done in this UA (I'm not a fan of save or suck spells generally anyway, but Banishment was considered a decent pick of them). I never used "Lifeberry", and didn't like that interaction, so i don't care about that change overall, even if i'm glad they fixed the wording to make it work as intended. I'm still waiting for the mage/arcane UA to see how my Clockwork Soul Sorcerer/Celestrial Warlock (decent dps/support healing/utility) would potentially translate into this new version/edition of d&d... im with Will on this one... they better not fudge certain things up.

[@isaac_marcus]

Don't forget about the Healer 1st level feat from the first ODnD UA, which lets you reroll 1s on spell heals, so that's something for a Life Cleric who really wanna heals. Also some small changes to Life Cleric stuff: 1. The 3rd, 10th, and 14th level features now require you to use a Spell Slot, so no using spells gained from Race or a Feat or w/e 2. 3rd level is now "on the turn you cast the Spell". So no more Very Good Berries or multi-turn heals 3. 6th level changed to be usable on Undead and Constructs. Only thing I really caught there

[@MonstersMulticlass]

I am very happy with #2 haha Great things to point out!

[@TMRyan]

Two thoughts on the spell changes: The UA Prayer of Healing seems to be a different take on the Catnap spell, with getting a short rest for the party. I like the change to Spiritual Weapon, but I think one additional change I would like to see is by giving the weapon different actions like Bigby’s Hand. But you are locked into a specific weapon when you conjure it, and that weapon has one function that can Push,Restrain, Pull etc. For example if the cleric summoned a spiritual whip, they could use it to either attack or restrain based on Spell save DC.

[@TMRyan]

Yeah, Catnap is currently excluded from the Cleric Spell list, and this version of Prayer of healing seems to be effectively the same aside from giving 2d8 healing as well as potentially more targets.

[@lordvectra7821]

Overall great conversation. Was waiting for you guys to post this lol. There is some things I feel you guys may have overlooked: Spiritual Weapon has a better upcasting. It scales every level instead of every 2 levels which I think completely evens it out in a more balanced spot. Someone said it's now more akin to things like Fire Sphere (I think that's the name). I do agree Scholar is the 9th level, but considering it scales on Wisdom modifier (in a way) and Proficiency bonus (in a way), it will always be best at 9th level regardless on what they do to it. I would argue Thaumturge gets weaker in higher levels because in lower levels, regaining 1 of your 2 Divinities is amazing. Once you're walking around with 4+ uses, getting an additional use might not be that big of a deal. Lastly, I been playing around with stats and a Cleric that is proficient in Persuasion, presumably will have +5 Wisdom eventually, and having just +1 Charisma would make them more Persuasive than a +5 Persuasion-Proficient Bard excluding Expertise ofc. Should a Cleric get it, they become the face entirely with just a single +1 in CHA. I think what Scholar could use is give the Cleric expertise once you reach a Certain Cleric Level. So maybe it gives you Expertise at 5th level if you picked it at 2nd level and obviously works retroactively should you pick it later at 9th level. I would also like it if you could pick ANY skill, except maybe the physical skills like Athletics, Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth, but allow you to pick skills like Medicine (especially), Performance, Deception, etc. EDIT: Standardization of the Subclasses makes HBing Clerics soooo much easier. Before, Lv 1 couldnt be too good bc lv 1. Lv 2 HAD to be Channel Divinity and also not too good bc lv 2. Lv 8 HAD to be Divine Strike/Potent Spellcasting. Lv 17 was super late. You ONLY had lv 6 to work with when HBing Cleric Subclasses.

[@MonstersMulticlass]

I thought we mentioned the up casting? Maybe it got overshadowed in my mind by the rest of the changes. But yeah that is quite a strong persuasion, but committing 12 points to charisma as a cleric feels like a lot. Doesn't bother me that if they put in that much that they're good at it.

[@lordvectra7821]

@@MonstersMulticlass I rewatched that part to make sure, but ye, I don't think it was mentioned unless I missed it. As for Scholar, I kind of agree. Kind of why I think Scholar should give Expertise later in levels. I only say "Kind of" because unless you're going 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8, you should be able to get to 12 using: 15, 14, 14, 12, 8, 8. Something I didn't think about is MAYBE WOTC expected Clerics to use this with Guidance and didn't want Clerics to outperform Bards/Rogues as the face easily since we all agree here that Clerics are super strong, but guidance can just be used on said Bard/Rogue, so idk. I'm still liking my Expertise idea.

[@isaac_marcus]

On the Ardling, there's some speculation that it is an attempt to get Trademark/copyright on another race. They tried to do so with Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi in the past, but supposedly only Genasi got it. So theory is this is another attempt to get something proprietary

[@camclemons]

Regarding the Boon of Fate, I don't think it steps on the toes of Bardic Inspiration by mere virtue that, from my understanding, you can stack it with Bardic Inspiration to affect the same roll. I can see players saving it for those critical moments, waiting for the d20 test, then if it fails, waiting for the bard to grant inspiration (esp if it's a d12), then if that fails, using the boon. Doesn't even use your reaction, so you could throw your own Guidance on top.

[@MonstersMulticlass]

Great points!

[@Shindashi]

Spiritual Weapon requiring both concentration and a BA makes it much worse than Summon Beast or Animate Dead, and a waste of a concentration investment if you use Healing Word and want to use your subclass Channel Divinity instead of Divine Spark. With how uneven the Divine Spell list is and with how much utility it lost (eg Sending, one of my favorite cleric spells), I feel like the best way to play a 5e Cleric is to play an OD&D Bard with the armor feat.

[@kwaksea]

Even though subclass has moved to 3rd lv (which is rather confusing nareatively: what or who those Clerics were praying to for 2 lvs?) I think Cleric is still good candidate for 1 or 2 lv of multiclass dip

[@hedinnII]

I love making characters that do not have proficiency in Perception, especially if I am paying Dwarf or Wizard that are just not paying to their surroundings. So I generally hope that all classes will not have good Perception skills. Failing a Perception skill roll is so much more fun if you are not playing, scout, ranger, rogue type.

[@MonstersMulticlass]

That's fair. Fwiw with Pathfinder you CAN still be bad at it. Some classes and other benefits make you much better. It just is such a frequent check that it feels like you're deliberately shooting yourself in the foot by not taking it. It doesn't feel like a benefit to take it, it feels like a detriment to NOT take it. I don't like that style of choice. Like a wizard not taking shield or mage armor just to go against the grain. It's so suboptimal.

[@isaac_marcus]

Okay I promise this is my last comment: Does y'all's PDF have Dazed in the Change Log? Because mine doesn't even though it's new Also Turn Undead applying Dazed but only allowing Dash feels weird, because Dash is a Move, so it's just Move or Move Also new Barkskin feels a bit too close to Heroism for me