@@pixelqube3274 No haha, Life domain is just _THE_ healer domain. But, it actually helps you in combat because you get all the super important spells automatically prepared and will have to use less healing spells because it’s so good at adding additional healings to your healing spells.
@@saintpoli6800 me when i play a life cleric:aight uh im just gonna do this. *proceeds to rip the souls out of every enemy and tortures there wailing souls then puts them back to there bodys* next time dont fuck with me
I have two Clerics but my favorite is a Grave Domain Kenku Cleric named Trick or Treat. He wears a little plague doctor costume and will often accept payment in candy.
Grave domain is so much freaking fun. Rolled my first cleric not too long ago and I basically just try to negate damage all the time while laying out massive damage.
@masquerade Plague Doctors are always cute. Trick or Treat is often just helping with notes at his church but upon request by a deceased persons will or their family he'll aid in growing something from the deads grave. Like a rose bush. The graveyard they help out with doubles also as just a pretty garden so that the grieving process is less depressing.
I always love the bird race. I've always wanted to build one with a quick to always perch on things and then poop. All while screaming " I have no control" squawk !
Ashley: "May the blessing of the everlight be with you" Me: *starts tearing up* It's been more than a year since we said goodbye to VM but I still miss them so much ;_;
3 years and counting, but then again i only really got into the vm campaign last year due to the pandemic. Still, i have a feeling that this won't ever fade away entirely
Preventing your allies from getting hurt saves you several rounds of being asked to heal them! Something to keep in mind if you don't like being boxed into *healing* , instead you can control the enemies and blast things.
The Sanctuary spell is truly godsent. I love it to pieces. Also hell yeah, crowd-controlling cleric! Hard to hit, hard to stop, and hard to keep control? Talk about a triple threat.
This, a thousand times this. I'm always trying to convince the players in my groups that the most efficient path is mitigation in battle, healing and recovery after.
If you want a more spell-focused cleric, CON is way more important than STR since a lot of spells require Concentration. Spirit Guardians can be the buzzsaw of a minion horde, but means nothing if a stray rock hitting your chest causes you to lose focus on the first round. For similar reasons, seriously consider picking up the War Caster feat, as you get advantage on concentration and can cast single target spells as opportunity attacks. Once an enemy tried to run away, figuring the cleric's mace couldn't do any serious damage. She instead used Hold Person. XD
You can also take the feat that allows you to add your proficiency modifier to the con save roll, Resilient, a feat that can be used more than once if you wish to become a damage and control blocking cleric, but then you are committing a lot. Saying that something like a gnome bear barbarian would get a lot of milage out of this sort of build (Mega tank)
My Death Cleric started with a level of Fighter for the Heavy Armor (also former Soldier, so it makes sense) I had Vampiric Touch going last fight, and thanks to the +5 on Con saves, I never dropped concentration, even as I was busy tanking it up and taking anywhere between 4 to 6 attacks per round. I plan on picking up War Caster at some point, for indeed the ability to cast something like Hold Person on an enemy that think they can flee from my wrath.
AAAAND that epic screech of fangirlish glee you just heard at 12:14 pm PST (10/17) was my niece who not only is a Vox Machina nerd but a Captain America/Avengers nerd....she hadn't realized "Pike" was the waitress that Cap saved in Avengers... I'm so proud. she now wants to be a cleric. Thanks guys
Awww, I looked this up after I saw this. I didn't realize Ashley had wayyy more parts that got deleted from the final movie :( I always thought the few waitress parts felt a bit disjointed. Oh well.. the deleted scenes are cool.
In all honesty I'd kinda wish she just made a new character when she eventually gets more time to actually play in the show,Yasha has just kinda been there as an NPC far more than as a PC so a lot of what kind of person yasha is comes from Matt and Ashley doesn't seem to know who the character is even when the campaign is about 40 episodes in. It might be easier to just reroll and establish a new character with an actual voice than try to keep the old one going.
A friend of mine didnt believe that clerics could be all about smashing face so I put together one. Not a single healing spell, but enough offense to make people feel the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the name of my warhammer.
So instead of using an action to do anything useful you want to stand in the thick of it wailing your hammer around pretending you can hit things? I see this work in only one instance: You said "Fuck all" and put all your Ability Score improvements into strength, wield a maul and GWM twice in a round. Thus doing absolutely nothing that your class was designed to do. You honestly do more damage per round with Spiritual Guardians, Dodge as your action and Spiritual Weapon as your bonus actions.
That’s where you’re wrong, Benjamin. Let them play the game however they want. “Your fun is wrong” is not a cool thing to say, man. Which might as well be what you’re saying
So if your idea of fun in a game is to stand by the side screaming "look at me, i'm a cleric using a warhammer to deal damage! How Cool is that!?" while doing little to nothing to actually help in a combat situation, because clerics are trash at hitting things hard, they ARE NOT MECHANICALLY BUILT FOR IT. You excuse that because "Well he's having fun." Do you know what is more FUN than trying to hit things and fail miserably? Actually hitting things. Why the fuck would you go out of your way to be create a character that is shit at what they're supposed to do because they rather be shit at something they are not supposed to do? Unless you go for a character that is, well... an idiot. That doesn't know better than be a terrible addition for a party.
*Ding! Cracks me up everytime. I've been wanting to play a Cleric for some time. Might develop him/her already.. ready to pound on some divine healing when needed.
Cleric has quickly become one of my favorites. 3rd level Inflict Wounds for 5d10 is no joke! And it can crit ( a deagonborn cleric in my game did 74 damage with his 3rd level crit). But really it's about the spell flexibility. Change your spell list every time you wake up?? Yes plz!!
"The best part about playing a Cleric is that you have the responsibility of keeping the other members of your party alive." *Side-eyes early C2 Jester. Especially after her "I'm the Cleric?" Moment.*
Clerics dont need to be heal bots, it's so sad how they are treated if they didn't prepare their entire kit with healing spells for the first session when someone goes down. Everyone should play a cleric at least once.
Killing me I didn't think to take it with my Life Cleric. Mending just made so much more sense in an RP way, but the way my group rolls, oy vey, that sweet sweet Guidance would have been helpful. ;D But we've made it to 18 thus far, so at least it hasn't hurt us! ;D
You have to touch them though. Which is why my cleric takes magic initiate, just cast it through your cat familiar. Wait! Its dangerous to go alone! Take this.
This a great quick-guide, and I'd like to add a few other tips to it: 1)You do not need to worship a god to be a cleric. You can also be devoted to an ideal - yes this is not RAW. I liked the fact that Paladins no longer are tied to the gods, but ideals, and I see no reason why it couldn't also apply to clerics. If you like the mechanics of a cleric, but really don't want to be religious, you can work with your GM on it. 2)As several other peeps have pointed out, you do not need to prepare healing spells or be boxed in to it. There are some really interesting builds where you can do battlefield control, or area damage mitigation. I've played a Light Domain cleric, and I certainly wasn't healing people (at least, not during combat). Also, Jester and Clay :) Also, clerics get a lot of the juicy radiant and sunlight related spells.
I'm in a group of all new players and none of them have figured out that Clerics are more than just heal bots yet. In our next campaign I'm rolling in with a Cleric to show them what's up.
Hahaha, I was one of them, but after running a Tempest Domain cleric and using those Channel Divinity's to just wipe out enemies who grouped up soon taught me otherwise.
My first character was *clears throat and sings to TMNT tune* TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC! TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC! TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC! TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC! Teen in a chain mail - KNOWLEDGE POWER!
Ive gone through 12 characters and memorized the manuals cover to cover but the little bits of humor and creativity put into these videos make them so worth watching
A campaign I DM has a tempest cleric, can confirm they kick ass. Between the lightning/thunder flavor and upper-level flight ability, she's basically Thor.
My first cleric was named Wilhelm, he was my first character and had a knack for losing his warhammer then punching his enemies to death. He punched a hobgoblin, ogre, mind flayer, and adult dragon to death all BEFORE he eventually multiclassed into monk
This reminds me of a Cleric story I have. It was a one on on session with my brother and it was a big 'ol Blue Dragon fight. There was an npc in the fight with a revival amulet that was real tough to break and they had no idea what would happen if it did. Essentially, the death was kinda anticlimactic so I exposed the secret of the broken amulet. The dragon falls... onto that npc. I rolled a percentile and before the dragon even caused any damage to the npc, she was on her feet again. She decided "Screw it, if I die, they're coming with me." She flew high up and the only other flying character, the player flew up with it. Eventually the dragon stopped, she needed a power boost for her (homebrew) attack. My brother forgot blue dragons are lighting based and casts call thunder. Me: She willingly fails her dex save. Player: Yea- Wait what? The lighting crawled around the dragon, she curled up and dove to the earth, like a meteor. The player had one more spell he could cast. He cast guardian of faith and kills the dragon. It caught the dragon, ripped off it's wings and chokeslammed it into a nearby field. Safe to say, that was one of the smoothest Cleric recoveries I have ever seen.
I had a human Life Cleric for a season of AL called Kashfrey. She drank a half orc and two dwarves under a table and her spiritual weapon was party MVP. I would love to get back to her someday. Especially since I'd be roleplaying a pretty big personality shift after she failed to discern that one of the dwarves was dying (from poison, lol) while exploring a cave. And then death curse shenanigans. Kas was a ton of fun.
Hold person and Bane are also really good CC moves, while Bless is really good to help your allies actually hit stuff. All are Concentrations though, so choose wisely.
Currently playing a goblin rouge/ GRAVE cleric Okay; This May be long but I really love this class. I play a Goblin rouge named Gum-Gum who has died and been resurrected twice; and fell (jumped) into the swamp of lost things but escaped through some really good dice rolls after a few months in-game (about 3 sessions) so when there were new players wanting to join our gaming group and a few of the others were leaving ;my DM and I decided that because my character had died; she’d KNOW there was an afterlife. So she’d go on this sort of journey to become a grave cleric and sort of decompress from her time in the swamp of lost things (and run into the new characters and that’s be how the group would form) Also she’s a goblin but because she met the king of the storm giants (when she was just a rogue.) I thought it’d be great to have her be a cleric of the All-Father. So now I have a 4 foot tall Goblin arcane trickster rouge/ Grave cleric of the All father; whose “spiritual weapon” is a Giant Thor-Hammer. It’s really chaotic having this very small creature character worshiping a God usually worshiped by Giants; but it’s so, so much fun to play. Thanks for creating this video as I don’t own the book where this domain is explained. It makes me really excited for stuff coming up with that character in the next few levels. Although I will probably not be allowed to go past level 11 as a cleric. So Thanks for this video. The cantrips/spells from her arcane trickerster background balance out some of the “losses” that this cleric class doesn’t offer. Also, “Toll the dead” is my favorite cantrip from this class so far. Thanks for the video. Just discovered your channel tonight and just felt you’d appreciate the strangeness hearing of a Goblin Arcane Trickster Rouge/ Grave Cleric of the All-Father named Gum-Gum.
“The best part about playing a cleric is that you have the responsibility to keep your fellow players’ characters alive.” Laura’s just off camera blinking and looking away awkwardly.
I miss seeing Ashley, I always forget how much I like her when she is out of the spot light for a while. She seems like a down to earth goodhearted person that is loving enough to take care of her friends but wise enough to know not take take shit and kick some ass.
Sacred flame sucks compared to Toll The Dead. Its a Dex save which monsters are more likely to save versus Wis for Toll The Dead. Flame only does D8, but Toll does D8 when full HP and a massive D12 when hurt... So at level 5, your cantrip is doing 2D12 damage necro damage which few mobs are resistant too.
Same damage as a light crossbow, and bad save type. Does ignore cover and has a good damage type against undeads. So it's good if you are in a campaign of undeads that hides behind cover. No? I'd look elsewhere for ranged attacks, it just plain sucks. (Toll The Dead is buffed by the Death domain, so you hit two targets instead of one. It sucks against undeads though.)
I just started my first ever Campaign, I love always playing a more supportive character so I went with a Cleric. Definitely having insane amounts of fun with this game!
This is a very late post, but I just wanted to chime in, that Grave Domain Clerics are amazing. Giving an ally an automatic crit, and canceling an enemy crit, are HUGE. So happy Ashley (Pike) did the Cleric video. 🙂 💪
You could do a whole party of various clerics (or clerics & druids). You might be a little slow out of the gate, but it would be a total bitch for monsters to knock you down. It would give a whole new angle on storytelling & world connections, with the vast spectrum of harmonies of eternity to draw from. I'd love to see that campaign, or even run it. These are meaty characters with a lot of depths to explore.
My first cleric, a little fairy named Nyx who is a devoted cleric of Sarenrae and has accidentally killed goblin children, stolen a pirate ship, and assisted in an interrogation by reviving a suspect everytime the anti-paladin punches him to death
My friends and me just started d&d and I- who of course wanted to be everything I like at once- made a tiefling life domain cleric and I'm not exactly sure how but my charisma was just busted from the start and now I'm called a bard-cleric mix. (also I so do NOT have a plan as to what I'm doing so.... im practically a better bard then a damn cleric) long story short everything: thank you, every damn tip I am finnaly able to understand helps a LOT
People seriously need to understand that clerics being tank and healer is just a stereotypes because in reality Clerics, thanks to their insane amount domains and their spell prepping style gets to customize themselves to whatever their party need them to be.
Helpful tip... Spirit Guardians (pg.278 PHB) is one of the MOST USEFUL spells you can get. It's a 3rd level concentration spell that lasts for up to 10min. It will allow you to dish out that damage while still using your turn to heal and take care of your group. My players have affectionately nicknamed it the Holy Blender!
I've been watching this as I'm working on my 1st cleric. I've been playing for over 20 years and i've been so scared to play cleric, but my love of Pike makes me wanna make one.
Another way you can get some extra "boom" on your cleric is to take the Arcana domain, which lets you pick two cantrips from the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list and cast them with Wisdom. If you really want to keep the "Mighty-Smitey" feel, Greenflame Blade and Booming Blade are excellent choices from the Swords Coast Adventurer Guide. If you want more healing, a really powerful combo is to combine the Life Domain with a few levels of Druid or Ranger to add Goodberry to your spell list, normally 10 berries for 1HP each, and becomes 3 HP/berry thanks to Disciple of Life. 30 HP that can be distributed in multiples of 3 for a single 1st level slot will make you the most popular member of your party during a short rest.
I had the exact same idea (your math tho, good berries heal 1 and it's a 1st level spell so that's actually 40 hp) and GM banned it. If you read Life carefully it says, Starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level. (3 additional for a first level spell, 4 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd ect.) You don't use the spell Goodberry to heal creatures, you use the spell Goodberry to instantly create up to 10 berries. Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one berry. Eating a berry restores 1 hit point, and the berry provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day. A creature uses it's action to eat the berry, meaning you didn't use a spell, that creature used an action. Another creature can't use one of your spells as an action so Goodberry can't benefit from Disciple of Life. Now if you wanted to stretch out a Druid's healing you could dip into life cleric and use that benifit for some of the druid heal spells like Healing Spirit. (Healing Spirit restores 1d6 each time it heals and it can heal possibly 10 times, even to different creatures so that'd be 10d6+40 instead)
@@joemama114 Whoops, yeah I incorrectly recalled the effects, thanks for catching that math error. However, Jeremy Crawford has said on Sage Advice that Goodberry and Disciple of Life combine, at least as he'd rule it. But there's wiggle room both ways. :)
Clerics are great for undercover campaigns. EVERYONE trusts the doctor. With their high wisdom and the trickery domain, they make great undercover agents if you want to try something different for the class.
My current favorite character I've done (who I really hope to port into a game where I can actually make use of him rather than random oneshots) is a Very Smol Wood Elf Grave Cleric named Carothann. He's also a Dex-heavy build, which works...scarily well, actually.
Life Domain, aka,
“So I’ll cast cure wounds at 1st level aaaaand that’s 900 hp restored”
Just made one myself. Is it that drastic?
@@pixelqube3274
No haha, Life domain is just _THE_ healer domain. But, it actually helps you in combat because you get all the super important spells automatically prepared and will have to use less healing spells because it’s so good at adding additional healings to your healing spells.
@@saintpoli6800 hmm interesting
@@saintpoli6800
me when i play a life cleric:aight uh im just gonna do this.
*proceeds to rip the souls out of every enemy and tortures there wailing souls then puts them back to there bodys*
next time dont fuck with me
We put more healing in your healing so you get more heal per heal
I have two Clerics but my favorite is a Grave Domain Kenku Cleric named Trick or Treat. He wears a little plague doctor costume and will often accept payment in candy.
Grave domain is so much freaking fun. Rolled my first cleric not too long ago and I basically just try to negate damage all the time while laying out massive damage.
@david white Aw thank you.
That is absolutely adorable! (I have a grave domain cleric that’s a plague doctor as well. She’s just not as cute and more...unsettling.)
@masquerade Plague Doctors are always cute. Trick or Treat is often just helping with notes at his church but upon request by a deceased persons will or their family he'll aid in growing something from the deads grave. Like a rose bush. The graveyard they help out with doubles also as just a pretty garden so that the grieving process is less depressing.
I always love the bird race. I've always wanted to build one with a quick to always perch on things and then poop. All while screaming " I have no control" squawk !
Ashley Johnson, Mother of VM, MONSTAH, and the best MUTHER FUKIN GNOME CLERIC you’ll ever meet. Sarenrae help us all.
A New Madman Praise Sarenbae
As much as I loved the character pike.. saying she was a good cleric is a stretch...
Ashley: "May the blessing of the everlight be with you"
Me: *starts tearing up*
It's been more than a year since we said goodbye to VM but I still miss them so much ;_;
I'm really glad I'm not the only one who almost cried at that
SAAAAAAMEEEEE
@@theanyktos 2 years after I made this comment and I still tear up thinking about VM I-
3 years and counting, but then again i only really got into the vm campaign last year due to the pandemic. Still, i have a feeling that this won't ever fade away entirely
@@sillyjellyfish2421 I don’t think it does, every few weeks I watch some type of VM highlight video, I miss them everyday
Preventing your allies from getting hurt saves you several rounds of being asked to heal them! Something to keep in mind if you don't like being boxed into *healing* , instead you can control the enemies and blast things.
evertime123 Light domain is great for that. I had a human light cleric who was scared of the dark so he worshipped a deity of Light to keep him safe.
The Sanctuary spell is truly godsent. I love it to pieces. Also hell yeah, crowd-controlling cleric! Hard to hit, hard to stop, and hard to keep control? Talk about a triple threat.
@Parkstop I love him immediately.
I really like the Grave Domain special.
People at 0 HP receive full healing from your spells
This, a thousand times this. I'm always trying to convince the players in my groups that the most efficient path is mitigation in battle, healing and recovery after.
I'll always remember my first cleric. His name was Gary. R.I.P. Gary :.(
f
F
F
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If you want a more spell-focused cleric, CON is way more important than STR since a lot of spells require Concentration. Spirit Guardians can be the buzzsaw of a minion horde, but means nothing if a stray rock hitting your chest causes you to lose focus on the first round.
For similar reasons, seriously consider picking up the War Caster feat, as you get advantage on concentration and can cast single target spells as opportunity attacks. Once an enemy tried to run away, figuring the cleric's mace couldn't do any serious damage. She instead used Hold Person. XD
This is good advice thanks
It’s more for heavy armour when applicable
You can also take the feat that allows you to add your proficiency modifier to the con save roll, Resilient, a feat that can be used more than once if you wish to become a damage and control blocking cleric, but then you are committing a lot. Saying that something like a gnome bear barbarian would get a lot of milage out of this sort of build (Mega tank)
The Gnome racial is powerful this edition, advantage on wisdom, intelligence and charisma saves vs magic, basically a middle finger to spell casters.
My Death Cleric started with a level of Fighter for the Heavy Armor (also former Soldier, so it makes sense)
I had Vampiric Touch going last fight, and thanks to the +5 on Con saves, I never dropped concentration, even as I was busy tanking it up and taking anywhere between 4 to 6 attacks per round.
I plan on picking up War Caster at some point, for indeed the ability to cast something like Hold Person on an enemy that think they can flee from my wrath.
AAAAND that epic screech of fangirlish glee you just heard at 12:14 pm PST (10/17) was my niece who not only is a Vox Machina nerd but a Captain America/Avengers nerd....she hadn't realized "Pike" was the waitress that Cap saved in Avengers... I'm so proud. she now wants to be a cleric. Thanks guys
Good, we always need more clerics.
Awww, I looked this up after I saw this. I didn't realize Ashley had wayyy more parts that got deleted from the final movie :( I always thought the few waitress parts felt a bit disjointed. Oh well.. the deleted scenes are cool.
She's also Ellie from Last of Us.
what can I say my niece is unique...
I really miss her on the show. Yasha hasn't even really had the chance to become one of the team yet.
Yeah, I'm like, oh yeah this is the girl whose character I wish they'd kill off because she's never there.
@@derykschudy837 I feel like in the first campaign she was there more often, and sometimes she at least Skyped in.
Unfortunately, that’s just life. People still gotta make a living, even if they want to sit down and play D&D with their friends every Thursday.
damn job making her move
In all honesty I'd kinda wish she just made a new character when she eventually gets more time to actually play in the show,Yasha has just kinda been there as an NPC far more than as a PC so a lot of what kind of person yasha is comes from Matt and Ashley doesn't seem to know who the character is even when the campaign is about 40 episodes in. It might be easier to just reroll and establish a new character with an actual voice than try to keep the old one going.
A friend of mine didnt believe that clerics could be all about smashing face so I put together one. Not a single healing spell, but enough offense to make people feel the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the name of my warhammer.
Your friend was right.
They can't.
Barbarian, Paladin; Fighter, Hexblade. Any of those four can out-smash a cleric even with disadvantage and unarmed.
@@benjaminjane93 Its a support DPS. You get up in stuffs face while your friends who are also up in its face can benefit from you being close.
So instead of using an action to do anything useful you want to stand in the thick of it wailing your hammer around pretending you can hit things?
I see this work in only one instance:
You said "Fuck all" and put all your Ability Score improvements into strength, wield a maul and GWM twice in a round. Thus doing absolutely nothing that your class was designed to do.
You honestly do more damage per round with Spiritual Guardians, Dodge as your action and Spiritual Weapon as your bonus actions.
That’s where you’re wrong, Benjamin. Let them play the game however they want. “Your fun is wrong” is not a cool thing to say, man. Which might as well be what you’re saying
So if your idea of fun in a game is to stand by the side screaming "look at me, i'm a cleric using a warhammer to deal damage! How Cool is that!?" while doing little to nothing to actually help in a combat situation, because clerics are trash at hitting things hard, they ARE NOT MECHANICALLY BUILT FOR IT. You excuse that because "Well he's having fun."
Do you know what is more FUN than trying to hit things and fail miserably?
Actually hitting things.
Why the fuck would you go out of your way to be create a character that is shit at what they're supposed to do because they rather be shit at something they are not supposed to do?
Unless you go for a character that is, well... an idiot. That doesn't know better than be a terrible addition for a party.
*Ding!
Cracks me up everytime.
I've been wanting to play a Cleric for some time. Might develop him/her already.. ready to pound on some divine healing when needed.
Maarten Lunenborg so worth it. I've actually killed a lot of monsters with inflict wounds and spiritual weapon
Cleric has quickly become one of my favorites. 3rd level Inflict Wounds for 5d10 is no joke! And it can crit ( a deagonborn cleric in my game did 74 damage with his 3rd level crit).
But really it's about the spell flexibility. Change your spell list every time you wake up?? Yes plz!!
Maarten Lunenborg *them :) gender neutral ftw
"The best part about playing a Cleric is that you have the responsibility of keeping the other members of your party alive."
*Side-eyes early C2 Jester. Especially after her "I'm the Cleric?" Moment.*
Clerics dont need to be heal bots, it's so sad how they are treated if they didn't prepare their entire kit with healing spells for the first session when someone goes down. Everyone should play a cleric at least once.
Sorry, I prefer casting fireballs.
*[laughs in Light Cleric]*
How about that sweet sweet cantrip Guidance? It is great especially at lower levels and let's you RP those "holier-than-thou" cleric types.
Killing me I didn't think to take it with my Life Cleric. Mending just made so much more sense in an RP way, but the way my group rolls, oy vey, that sweet sweet Guidance would have been helpful. ;D But we've made it to 18 thus far, so at least it hasn't hurt us! ;D
You have to touch them though. Which is why my cleric takes magic initiate, just cast it through your cat familiar. Wait! Its dangerous to go alone! Take this.
Celestial Warlocks can get it too. A player in my campaign has his invisible imp tag along with the rogue and spams guidance 😑
So, he's like a little devil on his shoulder? Constantly whispering advice in his ear.
Need more Ashley on the stream.
If this is Blindspot's last season, hopefully she'll be back for good in Spring 2019?
Kaihu #CancelBlindspot?
I love how she can go from all fired up to embarrassed and innocent in like 5 seconds
This a great quick-guide, and I'd like to add a few other tips to it:
1)You do not need to worship a god to be a cleric. You can also be devoted to an ideal - yes this is not RAW. I liked the fact that Paladins no longer are tied to the gods, but ideals, and I see no reason why it couldn't also apply to clerics. If you like the mechanics of a cleric, but really don't want to be religious, you can work with your GM on it.
2)As several other peeps have pointed out, you do not need to prepare healing spells or be boxed in to it. There are some really interesting builds where you can do battlefield control, or area damage mitigation. I've played a Light Domain cleric, and I certainly wasn't healing people (at least, not during combat). Also, Jester and Clay :) Also, clerics get a lot of the juicy radiant and sunlight related spells.
May the blessing of the ever light be with you.
I'm in a group of all new players and none of them have figured out that Clerics are more than just heal bots yet. In our next campaign I'm rolling in with a Cleric to show them what's up.
Roll an Light Cleric and blast shit to cinders or War/Forge/Tempest and bash some skulls. That should teach them lol
I thought that way too when I first started, but after I took a closer looks at some of the Domain's changed that thinking real quick!
Wait... there's an entire group of players who think Clerics actually *heal????*
Hahaha, I was one of them, but after running a Tempest Domain cleric and using those Channel Divinity's to just wipe out enemies who grouped up soon taught me otherwise.
Ashley and Taliesin know them, Laura doesn't.
My first character was
*clears throat and sings to TMNT tune*
TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC!
TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC!
TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC!
TEENAGE HIGH ELF KNOWLEDGE CLERIC!
Teen in a chain mail - KNOWLEDGE POWER!
did your character have 3 brothers?
And live in a sewer with a big ole rat?
Not a Teenage Knowledge Cleric Tortle?!
Oh, man, my second character was a half-elf priesty cleric in a 3-people campaing, it was _not_ a good time for me
...knoledge clerics don't get proficiency with heavy armor.
Aww I like the blessing part at the end. That was a nice touch.
Ive gone through 12 characters and memorized the manuals cover to cover but the little bits of humor and creativity put into these videos make them so worth watching
Can I stop getting emotionnal at these, please?
"May the blessing of the Everlight be with you"
Ashley is the reason I’m rolling a cleric in my first ever Campaign!
1:48 Since I've heard her blessing, I had all of my clerics bless whoever they part ways with that way.
Fighter: Dying
Life Domain Cleric: Heals
Also Life Domain Cleric: "You can't die yet, you still owe me 20 gold."
That "May the blessing of the Everlight be with you" at the end.
Thank you so much CR for all the amazing content as always! Bidet from Lebanon
Ayyy im also from Lebanon
Arab Critters represent
Beepbeep
Bidet :)
"BIDET!"
Cleric: “I kick arse for the LORD!”
MONSTAH!!
I've been thinking about making a Temptest Cleric for a while now. I like lightning based powers, and that's right up my alley.
A campaign I DM has a tempest cleric, can confirm they kick ass. Between the lightning/thunder flavor and upper-level flight ability, she's basically Thor.
Have a Water Genasi Tempest Cleric I have played in several short campaigns... LOVE it!
Water Genasi Temptest Cleric sounds amazing. Like, I can imagine one being born during a storm or something.
Best domain yet. Never played it as tanker/frontliner, mainly as a long distance spellcaster, and it is bloody awesome
My first cleric was named Wilhelm, he was my first character and had a knack for losing his warhammer then punching his enemies to death. He punched a hobgoblin, ogre, mind flayer, and adult dragon to death all BEFORE he eventually multiclassed into monk
I've literally been working on my first Cleric since yesterday, this is such perfect timing.
This reminds me of a Cleric story I have.
It was a one on on session with my brother and it was a big 'ol Blue Dragon fight. There was an npc in the fight with a revival amulet that was real tough to break and they had no idea what would happen if it did. Essentially, the death was kinda anticlimactic so I exposed the secret of the broken amulet.
The dragon falls... onto that npc. I rolled a percentile and before the dragon even caused any damage to the npc, she was on her feet again. She decided "Screw it, if I die, they're coming with me."
She flew high up and the only other flying character, the player flew up with it. Eventually the dragon stopped, she needed a power boost for her (homebrew) attack. My brother forgot blue dragons are lighting based and casts call thunder.
Me: She willingly fails her dex save.
Player: Yea- Wait what?
The lighting crawled around the dragon, she curled up and dove to the earth, like a meteor. The player had one more spell he could cast.
He cast guardian of faith and kills the dragon. It caught the dragon, ripped off it's wings and chokeslammed it into a nearby field. Safe to say, that was one of the smoothest Cleric recoveries I have ever seen.
Ashley is a national treasure.
It's a delight to see Ashley.
I had a human Life Cleric for a season of AL called Kashfrey. She drank a half orc and two dwarves under a table and her spiritual weapon was party MVP. I would love to get back to her someday. Especially since I'd be roleplaying a pretty big personality shift after she failed to discern that one of the dwarves was dying (from poison, lol) while exploring a cave. And then death curse shenanigans. Kas was a ton of fun.
I can't look at Ashley in her overalls without thinking of Michael Jackson's closet now. Thanks Sam.
1:30 "you control life, and therefore indirectly control death"
I can't hear Ashley without hearing Ellie.
Yeah same
Am I the only person who immediately thought Ashley has a gretchen grundler look with those round glasses?
not surprised this one got the most views the fastest. Love ya ashley!!
Hold person and Bane are also really good CC moves, while Bless is really good to help your allies actually hit stuff. All are Concentrations though, so choose wisely.
And don’t forget guidance is a cantrip! A CANTRIP
Ashley Johnson, the blessing of the Everlight in the flesh!
also, Clerics rock!
I swear I can picture Ellie from TLOU narrating this
She’s throwing shade at both Jester and my Death Cleric this enter time
Currently playing a goblin rouge/ GRAVE cleric
Okay; This May be long but I really love this class.
I play a Goblin rouge named Gum-Gum who has died and been resurrected twice; and fell (jumped) into the swamp of lost things but escaped through some really good dice rolls after a few months in-game (about 3 sessions) so when there were new players wanting to join our gaming group and a few of the others were leaving ;my DM and I decided that because my character had died; she’d KNOW there was an afterlife.
So she’d go on this sort of journey to become a grave cleric and sort of decompress from her time in the swamp of lost things (and run into the new characters and that’s be how the group would form)
Also she’s a goblin but because she met the king of the storm giants (when she was just a rogue.) I thought it’d be great to have her be a cleric of the All-Father.
So now I have a 4 foot tall Goblin arcane trickster rouge/ Grave cleric of the All father; whose “spiritual weapon” is a Giant Thor-Hammer.
It’s really chaotic having this very small creature character worshiping a God usually worshiped by Giants; but it’s so, so much fun to play.
Thanks for creating this video as I don’t own the book where this domain is explained. It makes me really excited for stuff coming up with that character in the next few levels. Although I will probably not be allowed to go past level 11 as a cleric.
So Thanks for this video. The cantrips/spells from her arcane trickerster background balance out some of the “losses” that this cleric class doesn’t offer.
Also, “Toll the dead” is my favorite cantrip from this class so far.
Thanks for the video. Just discovered your channel tonight and just felt you’d appreciate the strangeness hearing of a Goblin Arcane Trickster Rouge/ Grave Cleric of the All-Father named Gum-Gum.
I've had an idea for a Grave Cleric who is a inquisitor. Goes to house to house asking about undead.
“The best part about playing a cleric is that you have the responsibility to keep your fellow players’ characters alive.” Laura’s just off camera blinking and looking away awkwardly.
Grave domain clerics from Xanathar's Guide to Everything let you cast spare the dying as a reaction and at a range of 30 ft instead of touch.
I would never imagined that Ellie would convicing me to play cleric
much love Ashley.
"May be the blessing of the Everlight be with you" hits different after we saw Ashley embody her in Downfall :')
First step, choose tempest cleric... thats it
I'm playing a cleric in my first campaign soon and I still haven't finished my character but I'm HYPED I'm gonna be a monstah
Grave Cleric: Yes, I can save him...but how do you know he WANTS to be saved?
all of these Handbooker Helper videos are delicious to watch
I'm a fan of the Light Domain myself, purify everything by righteous fire lol
Having been experimenting with war clerics... holy crap baskets. They are amazing.
I miss seeing Ashley, I always forget how much I like her when she is out of the spot light for a while. She seems like a down to earth goodhearted person that is loving enough to take care of her friends but wise enough to know not take take shit and kick some ass.
"You may not always be the hero who gets to deal the final blow"
...
"Lucien doesn't deserve you!"
Sacred flame sucks compared to Toll The Dead. Its a Dex save which monsters are more likely to save versus Wis for Toll The Dead. Flame only does D8, but Toll does D8 when full HP and a massive D12 when hurt... So at level 5, your cantrip is doing 2D12 damage necro damage which few mobs are resistant too.
Same damage as a light crossbow, and bad save type.
Does ignore cover and has a good damage type against undeads. So it's good if you are in a campaign of undeads that hides behind cover.
No?
I'd look elsewhere for ranged attacks, it just plain sucks.
(Toll The Dead is buffed by the Death domain, so you hit two targets instead of one. It sucks against undeads though.)
Are they gonna get Joe to do the Paladin Quick Build???? :O
JOCKS MACHINA!!!
That could work, also, Liam multi classed Vax to Paladin, so it might be him.
@@Hawkwinter01 but Jocks Machina though Bro! XD
Best one so far guys!
They should of put a picture of Laura (or jester) up at the end with the words "not like this".
I just started my first ever Campaign, I love always playing a more supportive character so I went with a Cleric. Definitely having insane amounts of fun with this game!
This is a very late post, but I just wanted to chime in, that Grave Domain Clerics are amazing. Giving an ally an automatic crit, and canceling an enemy crit, are HUGE. So happy Ashley (Pike) did the Cleric video. 🙂 💪
You could do a whole party of various clerics (or clerics & druids). You might be a little slow out of the gate, but it would be a total bitch for monsters to knock you down. It would give a whole new angle on storytelling & world connections, with the vast spectrum of harmonies of eternity to draw from. I'd love to see that campaign, or even run it. These are meaty characters with a lot of depths to explore.
0:10 For some reason I feel like Laura did not ask herself that question...
I love ashley so much and clerics are usually my go to for d&d anyway
I love her dorky glasses. I love her.
My first cleric, a little fairy named Nyx who is a devoted cleric of Sarenrae and has accidentally killed goblin children, stolen a pirate ship, and assisted in an interrogation by reviving a suspect everytime the anti-paladin punches him to death
My friends and me just started d&d and I- who of course wanted to be everything I like at once- made a tiefling life domain cleric and I'm not exactly sure how but my charisma was just busted from the start and now I'm called a bard-cleric mix.
(also I so do NOT have a plan as to what I'm doing so.... im practically a better bard then a damn cleric)
long story short everything:
thank you, every damn tip I am finnaly able to understand helps a LOT
These are such high quality, good job guys
Every tutorial I go to forgets the Tempest Domain and IDK why
I don't think any of my Clerics have ever been a healer. Only had the capacity to heal.
“And go be a monstah!” When Mama Pike says go be a monstah Cleric, by sweet Serenreye, get up off your ass and be that monstah cleric!
OMG PATTERSON!!!!
I struggle SSOOOO much with understanding a Cleric and the fact that PATTERSON GETS TO TEACH ME!
OMFG I AM GUSHING AND BLUSHING!!!!
People seriously need to understand that clerics being tank and healer is just a stereotypes because in reality Clerics, thanks to their insane amount domains and their spell prepping style gets to customize themselves to whatever their party need them to be.
I love the addition of spell recommendations.
Gag me with a spoon, Mrs Henderson!
Helpful tip... Spirit Guardians (pg.278 PHB) is one of the MOST USEFUL spells you can get. It's a 3rd level concentration spell that lasts for up to 10min. It will allow you to dish out that damage while still using your turn to heal and take care of your group.
My players have affectionately nicknamed it the Holy Blender!
Wooo that was a good quick build for Cleric, which I always find one of the most daunting classes for new players :) Thanks Ash
I've been watching this as I'm working on my 1st cleric. I've been playing for over 20 years and i've been so scared to play cleric, but my love of Pike makes me wanna make one.
I'm like, a quarter of the way through C2 and hearing Ashley talk about the Everlight made me almost tear up bc I miss VM so much.
God I forget how much I love Ashley. Blindspot needs to start taping in cali.
That jingle brings me joy every week.
Ashley The Johnson 😍😍😍
you can't keep Sam Riegel's Bard guide away from us forever
Another way you can get some extra "boom" on your cleric is to take the Arcana domain, which lets you pick two cantrips from the Wizard/Sorcerer spell list and cast them with Wisdom. If you really want to keep the "Mighty-Smitey" feel, Greenflame Blade and Booming Blade are excellent choices from the Swords Coast Adventurer Guide. If you want more healing, a really powerful combo is to combine the Life Domain with a few levels of Druid or Ranger to add Goodberry to your spell list, normally 10 berries for 1HP each, and becomes 3 HP/berry thanks to Disciple of Life. 30 HP that can be distributed in multiples of 3 for a single 1st level slot will make you the most popular member of your party during a short rest.
I had the exact same idea (your math tho, good berries heal 1 and it's a 1st level spell so that's actually 40 hp) and GM banned it. If you read Life carefully it says,
Starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell’s level. (3 additional for a first level spell, 4 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd ect.)
You don't use the spell Goodberry to heal creatures, you use the spell Goodberry to instantly create up to 10 berries.
Up to ten berries appear in your hand and are infused with magic for the duration. A creature can use its action to eat one berry. Eating a berry restores 1 hit point, and the berry provides enough nourishment to sustain a creature for one day.
A creature uses it's action to eat the berry, meaning you didn't use a spell, that creature used an action. Another creature can't use one of your spells as an action so Goodberry can't
benefit from Disciple of Life. Now if you wanted to stretch out a Druid's healing you could dip into life cleric and use that benifit for some of the druid heal spells like Healing Spirit.
(Healing Spirit restores 1d6 each time it heals and it can heal possibly 10 times, even to different creatures so that'd be 10d6+40 instead)
@@joemama114 Whoops, yeah I incorrectly recalled the effects, thanks for catching that math error. However, Jeremy Crawford has said on Sage Advice that Goodberry and Disciple of Life combine, at least as he'd rule it. But there's wiggle room both ways. :)
@@joemama114 Sauce for my reasoning:
www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/11/discipline-of-goodberry/amp/
Ashley "I'M A MONSTAH!" Johnson!!!
Clerics are great for undercover campaigns. EVERYONE trusts the doctor. With their high wisdom and the trickery domain, they make great undercover agents if you want to try something different for the class.
Weaponizing your action, bonus action, and concentration. Clerics can mess stuff up when they decide to.
Clerics can be sick nasty combatants
My current favorite character I've done (who I really hope to port into a game where I can actually make use of him rather than random oneshots) is a Very Smol Wood Elf Grave Cleric named Carothann. He's also a Dex-heavy build, which works...scarily well, actually.
I remember my first cleric. His name was Grüpensnooper the Obese. Died in a car accident. R.I.P. 😔🙏💯
I'm doing my first ever proper campaign and am doing a Minotaur Tempest Cleric! Damn pumped
Teaching the players a way to play the god-botherers? Excellent!
Ashley Johnson!! Definitely need to see her more on critical role. Pike was my FAV from the first campaign.