Leave fate up to chance with this coin exchanging bargainer subclass from Eberron creator Keith Baker.
Clerics of the comerce domain place the value of wealth and economy above other pursuits. While some are greedy hoarders, others recognise that money keeps the world moving and that financial backing allows you to perform other endeavours (building orphanages, purchasing medical supplies etc).
Despite the commerce domain’s economical approach, it’s a high risk subclass that uses divine coins to buff itself, but must gain these at a price. Be aware, this is a fiddly subclass to play and is only for those that enjoy risky behaviour.
The commerce domain is a 3rd party subclass created by Keith Baker and Visionary Productions and Design for their 3rd party supplement; Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone. The book was released for D&D 5.5e on D&D Beyond and is also available on DM’s Guild.
At a glance
- Full spellcaster
- Primarily a healer that can also provide buffs and magical damage
- A risky subclass that tempts fate to acquire boosts elsewhere
2/5 – Sadly, the commerce domain falls flat for me. Too much risk with not enough reward causes you to end up debuffing or harming yourself to boost future abilities. The money spinner channel divinity is genuinely really good, but you must suffer to get to that point first. Not only that, but it’s also a very fiddly subclass. A hard pass from me for this one.
Commerce domain features
Commerce domain spells (Lv3) – 2/5
| Sorcerer Level | Prepared spells |
|---|---|
| 3 | Augury, charm person, comprehend languages, locate object |
| 5 | Glyph of warding, tongues |
| 7 | Divination, Leomund’s secret chest |
| 9 | Legend lore, Rary’s telepathic bond |
There’s a couple of fun information gathering spells in this list like augury and divination. Rary’s telepathic bond is a great communication spell for long distances. Most of the rest of the spells are quite situational and don’t necessarily solve big problems.
Charm person has a short duration and then the creature knows you charmed them which can be tricky to make work. Comprehend languages and tongues are quite situational and crossover so much that one becomes obsolete. Locate object and legend lore are just very situational and there’s usually other methods for gaining the knowledge you seek. Overall, a fairly uninspiring spell list, even if I get the flavour they went for here.
Divine wealth (Lv3) – 3/5
Acquiring coins is a bit risky, but at the very least, you have a few small boosts to saving throws. However, you’ll want to be acquiring divine coins both for getting boosts against magical effects later and for your money spinner feature so you can target more creatures.
There’s too much randomness of choice here for my taste. I’d have preferred if you could choose to use a coin after a dice roll. I guess the tactic is you choose to gain a coin against saving throws you feel confident of success on (or failure) or where the stakes are low (say if you’re getting pushed or knocked prone) and choose spend when the stakes are high and the odds are tight.
Money spinner (Lv3) – 4/5
It’s possible to charm or blind a whole load of creatures with this channel divinity, but it means amassing a large number of divine coins and not using them to boost saving throws. This trade off feels tricky as the feature itself is potentially very powerful (especially with no subsequent saving throw attempts during the minute) but requires debuffing yourself multiple times per adventuring day to properly maximise.
Divine bargain (Lv6) – 3/5
This could arguably be a better method for gaining divine coins, but again, you must lose your own HP to do so. I suppose if you sell, you do so to an ally who takes the healing which leaves the party at net zero for HP losses and gains, leaving you with a divine coin. You could then be using buy to hurt an enemy the next turn and heal yourself but losing the coin in the process.
Ultimately, that trade off means you’ve spent 2 bonus actions to heal an ally 4.5HP and harm an enemy 4.5HP (on average). That doesn’t feel like great action economy.
I’d be more inclined to just go about selling to fund your money spinner and divine wealth features. If you’ve got the HP to spare, I think that’s your best way of using this feature.
Open market (Lv17) – 3/5
This quickly gets a bit complicated, but I suppose you can do some trade offs of harm and healing to yourself allowing for some harm to enemies and spread about healing. It’ll need some nimble mathematics but there should be a net positive if you plan it right. You could also use this to gain a bunch of divine coins, but that’s going to be painful, especially with 2d8 damage now. This has its uses, but the size of the positive is disappointing considering the complexity and drawbacks of what you’re doing.
How good is the commerce domain subclass?
Personally, I don’t like it. This is a fiddly subclass with too many trade offs and not enough positives. You have to take risks with features that should largely be for your benefit but are stacked a little too evenly at times. Money spinner is great, but you kind of have to debuff yourself a few times beforehand to make it great. Open market is also really fiddly and the spells just aren’t great.
Not only do I think I wouldn’t enjoy playing this subclass, I also think that it’s less than the sum of its parts with certain features mostly being there to help boost your channel divinity option or boost other features that can be as much a problem as a positive. Sorry commerce domain, I’m just not a fan.
2/5
Building a commerce domain cleric
The commerce cleric can be built in a very similar way to other clerics. They still focus on spellcasting, healing and damage in much the same way as other clerics, just with a few other tricks up their sleeve.
For a full breakdown on how to build a cleric, you can check out my cleric guide. For this article, I’ll just recommend options available from Frontiers of Eberron that work well for the commerce cleric.
Species
Largely you’ll want a species that enhances your spellcasting. Extra resilience and evasiveness can be good for a cleric too. I’d say the following are your best options from Frontiers of Eberron:
- Gargoyle: If you want more resilience, then a gargoyle is a decent route to go. However, clerics probably won’t get much from the base AC of 13. They tend not to invest in dexterity heavily enough for this to be better than medium or heavy armor.
- Goblin: Some extra damage on some of your spells (fury of the small works with spells too). Most creatures will be larger than the small Goblin so this is easy to be applying. Disengage as a bonus action can be useful if you want to escape a creature’s reach.
- Harpy: Flight for evasiveness and a bunch of strong spells known expands your repertoire nicely. Not everything is useful for a cleric. They have little use for performance proficiency and already know charm person. Otherwise, this is a solid option.
- Tiefling: Extra spells to play with is handy for a cleric. A damage resistance is also good. All the variants can work nicely for a cleric.
- Warforged: The Warforged in this book is largely the same as the version in Forge of the Artificer. +1 AC and poison resilience will help you last even longer. Great if you want even more resilience.
Backgrounds
For a commerce cleric, you’ll want a background that enhances your wisdom, constitution and possibly your strength or dexterity. There’s only 1 background I’d recommend for a cleric from Frontiers of Eberron, and that’s the magewright.
| Name | Ability scores | Origin feat | Skill proficiencies | Tool proficiency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magewright | Constitution, intelligence, wisdom | Magic initiate (wizard) | Arcana and insight | One kind of artisan’s tools |
Feats
- Lesser dragonmark: Not all of these are going to be great on a cleric, but some grant great spells and handy skill improvements. I’d probably suggest the lesser dragonmarks of detection (for insight, guidance and see invisibility), healing (for spare the dying, cure wounds and lesser restoration) and sentinel (for insight, perception and shield).
- Shadow’s gift of stone: Quite a few extra spell castings as you progress in levels is going to be very useful for a cleric.
- Voice of the fury: This gives you a bunch of free spell castings each long rest and some of these spells are really good, like suggestion, enemies abound and dominate person.
- Wings of stone: Flight is always useful. If you want that and are a gargoyle, then this could be handy, especially for staying out of melee range.
More from Eberron
There are several 1st and 3rd party releases dedicated to Eberron, including Keith Baker’s Exploring Eberron and Frontiers of Eberron and the 1st party Forge of the Artificer. Check out all our coverage on these releases.
