Harvest Domain Cleric: Crooked Moon D&D 5e Optimisation Guide

Adapt with the different powers of the harvest to aid allies and hamper enemies.

Harvest domain clerics are worshippers of the gods of farming and cultivation. They draw upon different aspects of this process at different times, from sowing, to growing, then reaping.

As a result, these clerics can use different powers at different times. Much of their powers revolve around healing, protection and buffing rather than actively harming enemies, but the reaping aspect does provide some more aggressive spells.

I picked up the 2024 version of Legends of Avantris’ Crooked Moon supplement for D&D 5e. In this article, I’m taking a deep dive into how good this 3rd party subclass is, and how you can optimise for it.

At a glance

Full Spellcaster adept at healing and protection
More resilient spellcasters that can handle a bit more danger
Support subclass that’s adept at buffing and healing
Changeable abilities allow some amount of adaptation depending on what abilities you need

3/5 – The harvest domain attempts to be an adaptable subclass, but instead, ends up as more of a subclass that relies on whether you were lucky enough to pick the right option for what occurs. I feel this makes it mechanically frustrating even if every aspect is mostly well balanced and solid enough mechanically.

Harvest domain features

Community almanac (Lv3) – 1/5

Proficiency with a herbalism kit and nature or survival isn’t really that great. Healing spells like healing word are just always better than using a herbalism kit and survival and nature tend to only come up occasionally and not usually in crucial circumstances. It’s a ribbon feature so this is fine, but not a strong option.

Harvest domain spells (Lv3) – 3/5

Cleric Level	Sowing	Growing	Reaping
3	Druidcraft, goodberry, lesser restoration	Guidance, entangle, summer winds	Chill touch, inflict wounds, hold person
5	Harvest moonglow	Plant growth	Culling sickle
7	Death ward	Sanctum of the shepherd	Consuming pyre
9	Awaken	Mass cure wounds	Field of reaping

I always find changeable spell lists tricky, especially if they don’t have a really clear use case behind them. The problem here is you sacrifice the 2nd spell most cleric subclasses get at each level so you’re always left short-changed.

The other issue is that one spell list is just better than the others. Growing has consistently good to excellent spell options across the board. Sowing is lumped with druidcraft and awaken which aren’t great while reaping has options like chill touch and inflict wounds which require touch distance without being better than ranged options. There’s also consuming pyre which is basically a slow scorching ray that might end up weaker and uses your concentration.

There’s nothing about the other 2 spell lists that makes me feel like you really need those spells (grab lesser restoration through your class) so I’d just stick to growing must of the time if you can and suffer with fewer known spells. Of course, other features will affect that which spell list you have available.

Cornucopia (Lv3) – 3/5

Boosted healing during one short rest per long rest is solid to preserve hit dice and help the party survive longer. It scales quickly with levels too. Better for adventures using longer adventuring days.

Bountiful harvest (Lv3) – 4/5

The heroic inspiration is solid here and you can be using it at least once per short rest if you’re not using your other channel divinity options. The extra options depend on the harvest aspect you’re embodying. Sowing is the most reliably useful as those temporary hit points will always be a benefit. Reaping I feel is weakest, especially if some characters won’t be causing damage that turn (as spellcasters might or someone that misses with their attack) and the damage is small. Growing I feel gets stronger from level 5 when a lot of classes gain extra attack and will affect both these attacks rolls.

You can choose whichever option you want, but beware, it is will change the spells you have access to which could be a problem.

Blessing of the seasons (Lv6) – 3/5

Reaction reroll of a failed saving throw is quite good with healing to go with it. The challenge is that different ability scores are more useful than others and the ability scores you aid depends on the spell list you have. Frustratingly, growing gets intelligence which is the least common saving throw with wisdom under reaping which I think is the weakest harvest aspect. I guess this is to help balance the different harvest aspects, but I feel like it’s a frustrating trade off, even if constitution saving throws are reasonably common.

Eternal wheel (Lv17) – 5/5

One of your channel divinity (bountiful harvest) uses gets buffed once per long rest. The buff depends on your harvest aspect and they’re all pretty good.

Sowing I think needs some explanation as there’s initial healing to all the targets of your channel divinity and then they’re healed each by 1HP. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it means that if you are knocked down to 0HP, then you’ll be getting right back up again on your turn. And this affects the whole party. It means enemies will actually have to kill you to stop party members getting straight backup which is a huge boon.

There is some confusion here as growing is treated as concentrating on a spell but sowing just says it ends if you lose concentration but doesn’t specify you’re concentrating like on a spell. I can’t decide whether this is on purpose to imply you can concentrate on other things (because regenerate isn’t a concentration spell) but it has a potential early end, or if this is an omission and it should be treated as the only effect you can concentrate on. I’m inclined to go with option 1, but speak to your DM about that one as I think it’s unclear.

How good is the harvest domain subclass?

The harvest domain is alright. The buffs, protection and healing it provides are all decent and some aspects are really quite good, but it’s hampered by changeable options that feel more like luck whether you’re using the right option rather than strategy and with everything shifting with your harvest aspect, you feel like you have to sacrifice in certain areas to benefit from others.

No harvest aspect is bad, though different ones have different weaknesses and strengths. If this sounds alright, then you may enjoy the harvest domain. I don’t think it’s for me personally though, but mechanically it’s about average, even if I think it would be a little frustrating to play.

3/5

Building a harvest domain cleric

Largely, a harvest cleric can be optimised in the same ways as other clerics, with a strong emphasis on spellcasting and buffing/healing. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my cleric optimisation guide.

As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this cleric subclass.

Species/race

I’d consider the following species from Crooked Moon for the harvest domain:

Azureborn: Gain flight to help you stay safe and even scout a bit (as a wisdom class, you should have a decent perception). A couple of spells and enhanced initiative are good too.
Harvestborn: A healing word alternative can help you preserve your spell slots. The damage boost is occasional, but that’s fine for a build that will not always be causing damage (and it works with spells).
Stoneborn: Flight will keep you a bit safer from melee attacks. Bonus action bless is quite a nice buff and you can repeat cast it. Grab perception proficiency to enhance your scouting and a bit of resilience is nice for anyone.

Backgrounds

Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a harvest cleric:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Crimson aspirant	Any	Crimson ritualist	Arcana, medicine	Herbalism kit
Crossroads gambler	Any	Fate gambler	Deception, insight	One kind of gaming set
Cultist	Any	Cult initiate	Arcana and one other	Calligrapher’s tools
Druskenvald dweller	Any	Any	Survival and one other	Choose one
Rest warden	Any	Grave keeper	Religion, survival	Mason’s tools
Wicker weaver	Any	Charm twister	Insight, nature	Weaver’s tools

Feats

Not many of the Crooked Moon feats work well for a harvest cleric, but a few options I’d recommend include:

Charm twister: Bless is a good buff and you can repeat cast it. Twisted hex is a good debuff, but only in the right place (the creature’s home) so only useful sometimes. Getting a creature to carry it is a much bigger challenge though.
Crimson ritualist: The healing boost in combat may be quite useful, especially as you can hand it to allies that will take more of a beating than you. 2-6d8 healing as a bonus action is decent and enough to keep someone on their feet for another hit or 2. Blood bolt is decent as a ranged option, especially as it’ll grant you some temporary hit points too.
Cult initiate: Grab eldritch blast for the ultimate damage dealing cantrip. Plus you get a couple more warlock spells.
Fate gambler: More heroic inspiration and causing saving throws should be quite frequent for a harvest cleric. The temporary hit points will be useful for helping you survive longer, especially if you intend to be closer to the action (perhaps for healing or spirit guardians).
Grave keeper: Preventing turning undead is niche, but an extra channel divinity use is strong on a cleric, especially as you may want to be using it a lot for bountiful harvest.