This is such an underrated channel, your online guides and videos have changed the way I view the mechanics of the game. My fellow players have seen me shift from playing barbarians and blasters to controlling the combats that we are in without overshadowing people Again thanks for the great content

Man. This is soooo good. I watched part one and had to see part two. I landed on trickery cleric for role playing reasons, and have been thrilled to find that I did not choose poorly.

I would be very curious to see an update to the Trickery Cleric with the current rules. Thanks for all you do.

a drow priestess of lloth makes the entire trickery domain make sense

Great job Chris really aprreciating your work here

I love this content, this is pure joy to watch. I think this is a true differential from previous youtube char builders that focus on entry-level decision for building A character. Instead, offering general wisdom people can apply in every character build is really what people need to correctly express their creativity. I mean, it's no big secret or revelation that one can play a suboptimal race, or focus more on exploration, etc. However I bet there are LOADS of rookies out there playing these deep original character concept hip clerics, who are having a hard time because they don't even know what they should be casting in combat. Especially dire is the situation for clerics, who are often restricted to healbot mentality. Call me a rules lawyer all you want (theoretical strawman I'm shaking my fist at), but before you make a trade-off like playing a melee healbot caster, you should know what it is you are trading off as a caster. *huff-puff* Nice video TM, good job, looking forward to Valor Bard!

It's awfully convenient that you go over the trickster cleric just as I start playing one for the first time :) Thanks for the advice!

This looks like a perfect gold getter. Walk into establishment as the owner (disguise/morph w persuasion.) Walk out with the cash register. Or disguise/morph as owner then cast illusion and sell the establishment to ur illusion (with witnesses) plus if u get the forgery skill.

Ah yes, Bob the Cleric. Reminds me of Bob the Fighter. An NPC hireling my group had back in 4e, who was actually a Wizard.

Treantmonk you're one of the best d&d content creators and you just started the channel. There are some things that you could do to look and feel more polished but honestly I don't care because the content is so good. I'm really into this channel along with webdm and zee bashew. Keep it up the community appreciates it.

You don't have to hide to use invoke duplicity to confuse your attackers per se. It is an illusion, so it can walk through you. Create it inside you and have it step out of you when you start moving, say you go left and your copy goes right. In the heat of combat, I'd say it's unlikely even an enemy who knows to look for illusions has much of a chance to spot which is which. Great guide tho, keep up the good work!

I found part 1 quite hard to follow, but this format is great! The level by level breakdown is a spectacular format for exploring the capabilities of a character within the lifespan of a game. And what luck! I’ve just rolled a Trickery Cleric for Dragon Heist! Thanks for the barrage of great content!

This channel has been so fkn helpful to me as a beginner player- great series, thanks!!

Congratulations Treantmonk, this is a very good video with a lot of information. It was easy to follow with the books at hand. To be honest, I like the idea of the trickery cleric and in my opinion, it suits a drow priestess of Lolth, still it requires more thoughs on the matter

I love how you explain why you pick things. You make great takes!

These guides are awesome. Loved the druid guides too.

Thank you so much for doing this as a cleric of Tymora. She is my favorite deity and I play a trickery domain following her.

Incredibly useful. Thank you!

A few notes: Guidance works on initiative in some cases, watch out for those. Charm person works on a hostile creature also and it doesn’t matter that they will be hostile to you in an hour.

Wow, great job! This helps me a lot in the choice process for spells and feats. Action economy or spell slot economy wasn't something I've considered before this video (I'm a DM and never played a PC). I hope you get to do more of these in the future, and of less often played classes/subclasses as well. I would be interested in seeing a build of the new Spore Druid from Ravnica if you are taking suggestions/votes

FYI the only creatures immune to necrotic damage are incorporeal undead, and they are pretty much all immune to it. Incorporeal undead typically also happen to be resistant to non magic weapon damage, so if you don't have sacred flame, just turn undead or rely on non-cantrips.

Late to your channel, enjoy your insights and format. Long break (3.5) just getting back to the game - find your ideas inspiring, thank you

I've watched this video a few times now, and have been playing a trickery cleric for a few months now. I'm currently a level 8 cleric/ rogue 1. My only complaint is the the order in which you choose spells. Sanctuary , freedom of movement and death ward are more commonly needed than I think you give credit for.

This comes up more with my divination mage and the portent ability, but you can use lucky for skill checks too. So those forged papers with a kenku get expertise and guidance and with lucky super advantage (the choice between three dice outcomes) top establish DC.

Hey Chris, thanks for the video. Very useful and enjoyable as all of your videos. One feat I would like to have on a spy sort of character, even more so on a cleric spy, is observant. It's a good feat for clerics in general, but (not so) strangely enough I personally love it for its third benefit, that is reading lips. I know I would want it from the get go, but I guess someone more patient than me could delay it. In your build, given that you end up with an odd con score (due to standard array and due to resilient), you could swap a wisdom bump with observant, and then swap one of the other feats (tough or alert) for a +1wis & +1 con. That means you play with one less wis mod for 4 levels, but c'mon, being able to read lips is pretty cool (and adding a bonus to passive perception and investigation doesn't hurt either; and by rounding up your con score, means that you are getting half the benefit of the tough feat anyway, along with a +1 to con saves of course). For that reason, I would also prefer the background that would give me extra languages instead of tools. Cause I want to be able to bring lip reading into play as often as I can (and unfortunately the tongues spell does not synergize). Though I am making this decision from a safe space since I would probably pick a knowledge cleric instead of a trickery one (no polymorph or dimension door, but they get some good spells themselves; trickery and knowledge were my favourite choices actually for the oldest UA version of favoured soul), so I could use my CD for tool/skill proficiency when necessary, so I wouldn't mind getting more languages instead of more tools. So maybe tools is the better choice for you, but I would still aim for observant on a trickery cleric spy. Oh, btw, and you probably know that, death ward would be very handy for your halfling cleric, given how your DM has monsters attack fallen allies. Clairvoyance is another spell I like, though I can understand it has some pretty steep competition for a place in your prepared list. Same with stone shape, but I will stop cause there is not much point in mentioning all the spells that I like and which may not necessarily be the best choices. Nice points on contagion, never really paid much attention to this spell, and you mentioning its benefits and how it can be used effectively was really helpful. Anyway, thanks again for the video, and I hope you keep them coming.

Great job. Well done

My trickery Cleric rolled amazing for stats, letting me use Studded Leather and be a genuine light-rogue we were allowed a level 1 feat and I was a Deep Gnome so I got Svirfneblin magic for a free cast of disguise self, blur, and Blindness/Deafness. Took rogue at level 1 for skills, still had magic from my feat so the idea of a magic trickster stayed intact. because I rolled so well, Blindness/Deafness from my feat still has a decent DC and my Charisma was good too, took expertise in Deception so I could lie very well. At character level 3 I get an additional free casting of Disguise Self from my race. At Cleric 4 (Character 5) I took Shadow Touched for Invisibility and another free Disguise Self. One of my favorite characters, his name is Nail and his patron was created during an encounter with some Kuo-Toa in his past. They personified his philosophy and coping mechanism he used to stay "human" as an assassin, which is his profession. His philosophy is too complex for a KZfaq comment but it was fun coming up with a Neutral patron deity of assassins and how killing for money could be done without being evil.

Awesome content! Thank you!!!

Hi Chris, 2 points, 1 your spell count for druid is for circle of the moon, circle of the land would be equal to the cleric. 2 At first level I would replace the mace with a dagger, lighter and more effective.

Great guide. Although one change I'd make is replacing Bless with Bane. Getting that saving throw debuff in there for a build that relies so heavilly on saves is pretty significant. It also pairs well with alot of other class abilities, and spells, such as stunning strike, or even dropping it down before a Turn.

Thank you, sensei!

This is always what i thought d and d is. First time adult player . looks incredibly fun and creative!

An excellent video! Good choices, all well-explained; I liked that you used DnD beyond for this, it’s ideally suited for these kinds of vids. One choice I was curious why you didn’t make; Clerics don’t have a lot of choices for eighth level spells, but why pick Antimagic field over Holy Aura? As you said, AF is a good nuke spell, but you’re not going to use it every day. Holy Aura is a great spell, sort of the ultimate defensive spell, and if you look at the wording, creatures only need to be in range WHEN THE SPELL IS CAST, which means you can cast it, then dimension door outta there. It’s good enough I’ve been using it with my sorcerer’s Wish to protect my high level party in encounters where failing a save could mean death. Good for any combat, even better against fiends and undead, which you’ll probably be facing frequently at this level.

Detect poison and disease can also be useful for detecting poison based traps or diseased vermin.

I have an idea for a trickery cleric that is a town guard, she basically is your typical corrupt Skyrim guard. “I’ll look the other way this time” type thing, but she tends to help thrives and criminals get out of trouble with the law by either giving them the tools to not get caught, or by “taking them in” and giving them the tools to escape. Their is good money to be made and people to be influenced through favors. Haven’t decided what exactly her deity is yet. But I liked the idea of basically a town guard walking around who has a specialty in commuting crimes, cause she knows the law as well as one can.

Ghostwise is the best

Word of Recall can also be used on a different plane and most overlook that point.

Very good guide, i would also take a look at bestow curse for this domain. You can cast it as a 5th lvl slot through your duplicate and it can increase all your spell damage by 1d8 for 8 hrs with no concentration, this would increase your spirit weapon damage, spirit guardian damage plus whatever else you cast on your turn for an additional d8 damage. Basically an extra 3d8 per turn. Or you can force a creature to make a wis save or do nothing, i think it is a better way to force legendary resistance than contagion, due to if it doesnt burn a resistance it loses its action.

Dominate Person as a joke spell in town could be a blast.

It’s great that you point out ritual usage. FAR too many cleric builds take “active” spells even if they lack slots to cast them. For example at 4th level you should be casting Divination at the start of every day minimum. You get a free truthful answer from your DM. It’s a ritual, so it only costs 10 minutes.

Finally part 2!

Dimension door... best use. teleport you and your nastiest martial buddy to the back line enemy casters or partial covered archers... bamf... reek havoc.

I've been following your guides since you've been making them. This video, along with part 1, is fantastic content. As other commenters have mentioned, it's a little long, but honestly I don't even know what you'd cut. It's all gold. I like that in part 1 you made a compelling case to play a trickery cleric, and if people want to go ahead and make one, then watching a 1.5 hour video (sped up of course), is something they'd probably be ok with doing. I don't think I'd split this video up into smaller parts, but maybe I'd make some links so people could easily navigate to level ranges.

My trickery cleric is a half-elf guild artisan, and we're about to hit level 7 in the next month. We rolled for stats and I got to start off with an 18 wisdom, which is nice, and I already boosted that to 20 at level 4. I'm considering taking War Caster at level 8, and maybe Resilient or Magic Initiate at 12. I'm also interested in the racial feat Prodigy since I'm not sure about there being any other way to gain expertise in a skill other than multi-classing into rogue for one level, but I'd like to avoid that. If you know of any rules or ways of gaining expertise outside of feats or class abilities, I'd love to know! That would make a good video. Thank you for this guide! Trickery is so under-appreciated. I'm having a lot of fun with it, especially in social situations. This video has given me some good tips and leveling choices to keep in mind!

Is it bad that I didn’t realize you could manage your spells from the class screen? 😂 I thought you had to do it from the character sheet. Probably not what you meant to teach with this video, but I appreciate it regardless!

Vortex Warp has made Dimension Door a purple spell. A much better choice to get players out of danger at 2nd level.

I cast Polymorph on our Rogue when he was getting ready to go down and complained to the point of asking to never do that again. So I traded it out at level up (Sorcerer) for Telekinesis.

i would love if there were time stamps for each level so i can fin the part i need as i go up in levels

Thnx treantmonk I’ve listened your two parts and i am curious on how you would handle the next thing. I am fascinated with the story of playing a drow vhaurean priest, neutral evil, wanting to increase influence outside the underground. Storywise this has a lot of rp hooks were you can place even an evil character inside a group and let it work togheter. Now as I intuitively feel and as you told in your guide beyond level 9 every cleric is becoming more generic. And soloing on cleric with this idea seems counter intuitive. Even playing a drow wouldn’t be synchronized (albeit fluff-full). Would you multiclass at level 9 and do you prefer thief or bard for building up the church outside the underground? I’m interested in your view

Great job in general, I think you could have abbreviated the part I video, by establishing a "cleric video" first. Watch times for me can run to high, but average is 20-30min. I think focus on comparison is good, especially for classes that compete with the class your speaking about... so for clerics I would compare druids, bards and other clerics when discussing features. I would also add racial, background, and feat suggestions which you picked up in video 2.

Backstory: Total Omin Dran fangirl.

In my Trickster, my dexterity ended up higher than my wisdom at first level. a crossbow with dexterity 16 is very effective at level 1.

Great guide. I'd be curious to know what you think this Cleric does in combat at the higher levels.

I am a newer player and I find your videos great and very informative. Though I know it may not have fit this particular build, what about the Observant feat? Is this something that you find useful for a cleric build (particularly, a trickery build)? What do you think? Please let me know.

Just started getting into the game and am trying to figure out the best way to run a cleric of leira who is basically going to be undercover under the guise of someone else the entire time

Kind of surprised you didn't call out Protector Aasimar. +1 Wis, a once a day flight that comes with a slight but unrolled increase in damage, darkvision, a free heal that can shore up a small bit after one combat a day, and a thematic damage resistance to two different damage sources. Possibly not the best fit RP wise with Trickery, but the Angel often gives a lot of RP if the DM is up for it. The +2 being charisma isn't the best thing, but it helps the deception and potentially makes getting persuasion or something similar more enticing.

Holy crap I never even thought of using polymorph on an aly. At CR 7 you can literally turn them into a young dragon

Another really good video. I do contend that variant human is not the best race overall. I think it's the most viable to making a feat-dependent build, but in a lot of styles of character it evens out for other races in the second tier, and it would be nice to have the wider range of other racial abilities that no ASI/feat is going to give you.

I might do Inspiring Leader instead of Toughness for a feat. Especially if my goal is to avoid melee myself. It would depend on whether someone else in the party already had it and the campaign style though - if we're taking tons of damage in encounters regularly and/or getting few short rests, then toughness would be better. If not then those temporary hit points would be better, since you can give it to (probably) the whole party. Yes this isn't the "best" character to have it since this character has a mediocre CHA. But if nobody else in the party takes it, then by the level you're taking it (fairly high level) CHA matters less. It would be a close call though, it's more a matter of style. I just think that overall Inspiring Leader will be of more value to the party if you're doing your darndest to stay away from melee and let other party members take that on.

Out of combat use of dominate person, cast on an inferior humanoid, and have them bare false witness on your political enemy. Or have an enemy officer, order his men to break ranks or in some way ruin an enemy battle plan. Pick morons that can't or won't save.

In my experience, people tend to worry too much about the costly components of Cleric spells. I have a party of five, and even Hero's Feast is only 200 GP each for an amazing buff when you know you are going into a tough opponent/situation. Revivify in Chris' example is what 35-50 GP each to buy the component. Come on it will bring your character back to life and that is as much as a crappy heal potion that every character gobbles up when the DM says they are available. Split the cost of these party spells and they are well worth the cost.

Really awesome. How about Rogue Assassin?

That was for sure harder to follow than your google doc cleric guide

an hour and 30 minutes might be a little much to watch in one sitting for some people, it might be a good idea to break the future videos up into different tiers of play or by some other criteria.

If ASIs aren't an issue, and wisdom only needs 1 poimt to max out, are observant and medium armor expert a good combo? My thought is, I get an extra point of AC, lose the stealth disadvantage, max out wisdom, and get that passive perception bonus by level 4 (dm gave every race a feat at level 1 so there arent a bunch of variant humans running around). I'm going to play a little rogueish with trap disarms and stealth without actually dipping into rogue. Does this all sound feasible alongside this build?

Did you know that Clerics make the best Trickery Clerics?

Wondering about your plans for druid subclasses. Moon druid especially I think is wildly misunderstood. Often played as a pure tank burning slots in wild shape for sustain.

What happens if you use Disguise Self before Charm Person? Is the creature hostile to you or the person you were disguised as?

Would lowering the level you get potent spell casting and divine smite make them more worthwhile? I think yes, but then what level? I was thinking 3rd or 5th.

Good content. I can't help but feel like there is a more concise way to represent it to the audience though.

can a trickery cleric teleport yourself and a creature not in your reach but the duplicate's reach with dimension door?

Chris, I wish you would have stressed how great the dodge action is with many enemies in your Spirit Guradian's radius. With an 18 or 19 armor class and the dodge, you will be very hard to hit. Limits concentration saving throws and damage taken. It is better than crappy cantrip damage in my opinion unless you are down to one or two opponents then I would change, maybe.

Hey, first of all really enjoying the videos but had some disagreements in some of your decisions here just from an optimization point of view (which I understand isn't always the top priority). I really think that taking resilience (Con) + war caster should be higher priority than either lucky or the wisdom ASI. Frequent use of spirit guardians is going to make you such a high priority target for your DM, frustrated with how easily you mow down waves of enemies. Although lucky is the undisputed king when it comes to passing a few very important checks, if you rely on spirit guardians you are likely to have to make quite a lot of concentration checks and will run out of luck points very quickly. Also you get relatively little benefit from wisdom on spirit guardians and cleric spells in general compared to someone like a wizard. Spirit guardians still does its full slow effect and half damage on a successful save so getting the most out of it is more about getting it to last as long as possible (up to 10 minutes) rather than improving the save DC to slightly increase damage per round. A lot of other spells such as buffs receive no benefit at all from wisdom and there are always choices for offensive spells which can be effective with 16 wisdom even at high levels (the most obvious being spirit guardians at a higher level spell slot). I've been playing a cleric (forge admittedly, not trickery) recently which I made with the basic objective in combat being to stay alive as long as possible with spirit guardians active to annoy and whittle down enemies while keeping allies from deaths door using healing word/sanctuary. If combat goes badly and characters start going unconscious you want the cleric to stay awake to prevent outright deaths which means prioritising defensiveness is a good idea. In most combat situations which pose significant threat, my actions are something like 1st turn is cast spirit guardians, 2nd turn and onward is dodge action with spirit weapon/healing word/sanctuary as appropriate. Focusing all out on defense is totally viable with spirit guardians active since the added offense of some measly cantrip damage is generally not worth the increased vulnerability from not dodging. Once you are combining high con saves, war caster, high AC, dodging and and high HP you really get spirit guardians to shine even with a mediocre wisdom score. In my party there is also a squishy lore bard with high charisma and spirit guardians and the difference in overall effectiveness between them is night and day, his never lasts longer than 2 rounds and often winds up with him going unconscious while mine keeps on going with the damage stacking up for round after round after round. Also I think Hill Dwarf beats variant human from level 4 onwards. Get 16 wis and 17 con at 1st level (18 con at 8th level when you take resilient). Lots more HP and you aren't slowed by heavy armor with some nice other perks.

what happens if you use spirit guardians from the point of view of the dupe? does it last for only one round or until the duplicate dies?

I'm confused about the Contagion spell, he mentioned a Dragon but aren't most if not all Dragon's immune to poison? Therefore the spell wouldn't work at all? There are 37 pages of creatures that are immune to the poison condition, so wouldn't that make the Contagion spell pretty poor?

I would rather play a flightless Aarakocra than a Kenku. Having to speak in a dozen different voices is a lot to ask of a roleplayer!

I'm Surprised that you didn't highlight Half Elf. Darkvision, fey ancestry, 2 free skills, 2 in Cha and 1 in any two others, and an extra language.

Do you think Invoke Duplicity and the bonus spells would be a good enough reason to dip 2 or 3 levels into Trickery Cleric for a character like an Enchantment wizard?

How would you change this for an order cleric?

I'm trying to make a bard/paladin with 2-6 levels in paladin and the rest in bard. Now, in order to both reduce my stat requirements and to use a wooden ladle as my weapon, I plan to take Shillelagh with my bardic secrets. However, I am having difficulty deciding how to optimize beyond that. Devotion paladin could give me a super spoon, but I lose 9th level spells for going above 2 levels in paladin for the smites, and wish is both amazing and has flavor with this character. On top of that, I'm not sure which class to start with or which bard subclass I should take. Becoming a skill monkey is nice, but MAD multiclass requirements are not so great. However, I plan to take expertise in athletics, perception, intimidation, and maybe stealth, so I might fulfill those on the way. As for subclass, Valor and Swords look pretty good, and both have amazing capstones, however, if I wanted level 6 paladin, Lore Bard is suddenly very appealing, helping by making up for my ridiculous usage of shillelagh. Not sure what is optimal for smiting while retaining the ability to be a bard spellcaster. Also torn between human variant and half-elf, because half elf gives high base stats and proficiencies at the cost of a feat. Lastly, this character will start around level 13, because we are very far into my friend's campaign. If you read this, your guidance would be greatly appreciated.

While your forehead is quite sexy, I’m a huge fan of the new format with the screen to help visualize the build

Love the content, and I'll always give the thumbs up for how well thought out everything is. But... This was too long. The content in this video could have been pared down to an hour or maybe a bit under, and if it had focused specifically on the subclass differences, even less. I sat through the whole thing, specifically so that I could give it a fair rating, and I genuinely enjoyed it. But it was long. Please don't take this as discouragement. I really enjoy your presentations, and look forward to your next post.

Lucky is a good choice, but Healer is another good choice... if you consider 1d6+ wis mod + HD of healed target a good choice, and a free spare the dying effect.

I like these, but I still prefer the text guides.

GOOD: the whole vid. Thanks for the thoroughness! BAD: don't see anything. UGLY: Seriously, guy, Zoom In!! Most KZfaqrs seem to have this problem. You create on an 18"+ screen, but people watch on monitors to phones. I can't see what you're referencing on my 5" S7 screen. Look at 10:30. The whole text box is 1.1" across. Letters are 1 MILLIMETER high! You have 1.25" Empty Space around what you describe that is just wasted. Please Consider when making vids in the future. Thanks for reading this rant.

I have a selfish ask. Rogue Mastermind build? A quick and dirty guide as there are few guides for rogue mastermind. Set up this video to listen to while I walk, worth the data used.

Thank you for this. I still maintain that Clerics are terrible characters in modern D&D due to losing their old niches and now being forced into this sort of generalist playstyle, but this does help me put Clerics in a different perspective.