Clerics are battle leaders who are invested with divine power. They blast foes with magical prayers, bolster and heal companions, and lead the way to victory with a mace in one hand and a holy symbol in the other. Clerics run the gamut from humble servants of the common folk to ruthless enforcers of evil gods.
As a cleric, the deity (or deities) you choose to revere goes a long way toward defining you, or at least how other people in the world see you. You could be a platinum-garbed envoy of Bahamut seeking justice throughout the land, a shadowy follower of Selûne with a roguish streak, a burly disciple of Tempus who believes the virtue of strength is sufficient for all challenges, or a dwarf cleric of Moradin bringing honor to the denizens of your mountain home.
Will you protect what is sacred to your god, quest for legendary holy artifacts, pursue a life of evangelical adventuring, or attempt all these deeds and more?
Class Traits
Role: Leader. You lead by shielding allies with your prayers, healing, and using powers that improve your allies' attacks. Power Source: Divine. You have been invested with the authority to wield divine power on behalf of a deity, faith, or philosophy. Key Abilities: Wisdom, Strength, Charisma Armor Proficiencies: Leather, hide, chainmail, cloth. Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution Score. Trained Skills: Religion. From the class skills list below, choose 3 more trained skills at 1st level. Build Options: Battle Cleric, Devoted Cleric. |
Creating a Cleric
The cleric has two basic builds to start: the battle cleric and the devoted cleric. Clerics rely on Strength for their melee attacks and Wisdom for their healing and non-melee prayers. Charisma also aids their abilities.
Battle Cleric
If you choose to concentrate on melee, you find a good assortment of strikes to your liking. To achieve this build, make Strength your primary score. Make Wisdom your secondary score and assign Charisma as your tertiary score. Make sure to concentrate on powers that work with melee attacks, since these play to your key ability scores.
Feat: Weapon Focus (Human feat: Action Surge)
Skills: Diplomacy, Heal, Insight, Religion
At-Will Powers: righteous brand, priest’s shield
Encounter Power: wrathful thunder
Daily Power: avenging flame
Devoted Cleric
With this build, you choose to stand back and concentrate your abilities on keeping your fellow adventurers healthy and optimized. To this end, choose powers that grant bonuses and healing, such as divine glow and beacon of hope. Assign your highest ability score to Wisdom, with Charisma secondary and Strength tertiary. Make sure to concentrate on powers that use Wisdom for attacks, since this is your highest ability score.
Feat: Channel Divinity feat associated with your deity (Human feat: Human Perseverance)
Skills: Arcana, Heal, History, Religion
At-Will Powers: lance of faith, sacred flame
Encounter Power: divine glow
Daily Power: beacon of hope
Cleric Class Features
Clerics are capable combatants who wield simple weapons in battle—maces and similar weapons have long been symbols of divine authority. In addition, all clerics have the class features described below.
Channel Divinity
Once per encounter you can invoke divine power, filling yourself with the might of your patron deity. With the divine might you invoke you can wield special powers. You can also learn other uses for this feature; for instance, the divinity feats in Chapter 6 grant characters with access to the Channel Divinity class feature the ability to use additional special powers.
Regardless of how many different uses for Channel Divinity you know, you can use only one such ability per encounter. The special ability or power you invoke works just like your other powers.
Healer's Lore
Your study of healing allows you to make the most of your healing prayers. When you grant healing with one of your cleric powers that has the healing keyword, add your Wisdom modifier to the hit points the recipient regains.
Healing Word
Using the healing word power, clerics can grant their comrades additional resilience with nothing more than a short prayer.
Ritual Caster
You gain the Ritual Caster feat as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals.
Ritual Book
You possess a ritual book, and it contains two rituals you have mastered: the Gentle Repose ritual and one other 1st-level ritual of your choice.
Clerics and Deities
All clerics choose a specific faith to which they devote themselves. Usually this faith is the worship of a specific patron deity—for example, Moradin, Amaunator, or Oghma. Sometimes clerics are devoted to churches that venerate groups of deities or even philosophies.
As a cleric, your deity does not directly grant you powers. Instead, your ordination or investiture as a cleric grants you the ability to wield divine powers. Clerics are usually formally ordained by existing clerics who perform a special ritual to do so, but on rare occasions a deity moves to directly ordain a worthy worshiper without any sort of priestly hierarchy involved. What you do with your powers once you are ordained is up to you, although if you flagrantly and openly defy your deity’s tenets, you quickly earn the enmity of the faithful.
You must choose a deity compatible with your alignment: Good clerics serve good deities, lawful good clerics serve lawful good deities, and so on. If a deity is unaligned, your alignment doesn’t matter—so a deity such as Melora has good, lawful good, evil, chaotic evil, and unaligned clerics in her service. Similarly, if you’re unaligned, you can serve any god. For example, Pelor is served by both good clerics and unaligned clerics, but never by evil, chaotic evil, or lawful good clerics.
For most games, you should choose a good, lawful good, or unaligned deity for your cleric. Ask your Dungeon Master before you select an evil or chaotic evil deity.
Implements
Clerics make use of holy symbols to help channel and direct their divine powers. A cleric wearing or holding a magic holy symbol can add its enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls to powers with the implement keyword. Without a holy symbol, a cleric can still use these powers, but he or she doesn’t gain the bonus provided by the magic implement.
Character Classes |
Player's Handbook | Cleric ✦ Fighter ✦ Paladin ✦ Ranger ✦ Rogue ✦ Warlock ✦ Warlord ✦ Wizard |
Player's Handbook 2 | Avenger ✦ Barbarian ✦ Bard ✦ Druid ✦ Invoker ✦ Shaman ✦ Sorcerer ✦ Warden |
Player's Handbook 3 | Ardent ✦ Battlemind ✦ Monk ✦ Psion ✦ Runepriest ✦ Seeker |
Setting-Specific | Artificer (Eberron Player's Guide) ✦ Swordmage (Forgotten Realms Player's Guide) |
Character Classes |