Everything you need to know about the new cleric for D&D 5e 2024 including rules and tactics
The cleric is getting a bit of a spruce up in the 2024 Player’s Handbook and I’ve pieced together everything that’s changing in the article below. You can expect to be able to build more specialised clerics that are either holy warriors or divine Spellcasters. You can also expect improvements to abilities that didn’t quite function at their best in the 2014 cleric like channel divinity and divine intervention while also getting upgraded subclasses and more.
If you want to see the original reveal, you can check out the video below:
Why are we getting changes to the cleric?
Mainly to make the cleric more fun and interesting to play. The 2014 cleric was a pretty strong class already, but much of this came from their spell list with several features failing to live up to expectations.
There were also challenges with subclasses pushing clerics down the path of the warrior or the path of the Spellcaster. This has now become more flexible allowing more spells focused war domain clerics and more combat focused life Domain clerics for example.
Mainly what we’re seeing in terms of improvements includes:
- Flexible ways to build your cleric into a warrior or Spellcaster
- More freedom to change spells
- More reliable intervention from the gods
- Better damage scaling
- More useful ways to use channel divinity
Below I’ve unpicked exactly what these changes are and how they work.
What changes have been made to the 2024 cleric?
Spellcasting – lv1
Spellcasting remains largely the same but one small change means that you’re no longer tied to options you pick when creating your character and can change as you grow in experience. You can now change a cantrip known whenever you level up. This has been a change for other spellcasting classes and is a useful one as often the tactics you employ at level 1 change at higher levels or as you evolve your play style.
Divine order – lv1
Previously, the 2014 cleric had subclasses that either honed in on the more martial elements of the class (through things like heavy armor proficiency) or a more spellcasting focus. The frustration for some players is that they wanted to play a specific domain but perhaps wanted to play with a more martial or spell focused approach, so you were a bit stuck.
Now at level 1, you can choose your tactical focus by choosing to either be a protector or a thaumaturge, mixing and matching approaches with any subclass. These options will give you one of the following benefits:
Protector: Proficiency with heavy armor and martial weapons.
Thaumaturge: An extra cantrip and a bonus to religion and arcana ability checks equal to your wisdom modifier (on top of your intelligence modifier).
Eagle-eyed readers might notice that this echoes the changes that have come into play for the druid who gets similar options in their class features.
Channel Divinity – lv2
One of the challenges with channel divinity is it was quite undead focused or relied on having a good option with your subclass. If you didn’t stumble on some undead (and some weak undead at that) the channel divinity would end up largely unused.
The 2024 cleric tackles this by providing a new way to use channel divinity and some changes to turn undead to make it useful against any undead (which comes more into play as you level up). You now hot level 2 with 2 channel divinity options:
Divine spark: You can use this to heal or harm by causing 1d8 + wisdom modifier of healing or damage to a target. This scales with your level reaching 4d8 at level 18. It also means that you can rely on channel divinity for healing rather than using spells if you choose.
Turn undead: This changes slightly causing affected undead to be frightened and incapacitated which prevents them from dashing away. This means they don’t disappear too far away to the wild corners of the battlemap while still becoming ineffective.
Sear Undead – lv5
At level 5, turn undead gets more powerful by causing damage to affected undead. Any undead affected by this channel divinity will take a number of d8 radiant damage equal to your wisdom modifier.
This replaces destroy undead which was only useful against weak undead. Sear Undead improves on this by making it a little less devastating against these weak undead, but more generally useful as it affects all undead. And in most cases, this will likely destroy most of the undead you’d have destroyed previously anyway.
Blessed Strikes – lv7
At level 7 you get another way to specialise as either a holy warrior or a divine spellcaster. You can pick from 1 of the 2 options below:
Divine strike: you can add d8 radiant or necrotic damage to a weapon attack you make once per turn.
Potent spellcasting: You can add your wisdom modifier to damage you deal with cantrips.
Like with other warrior or Spellcaster cleric options, these approaches were tied to subclasses rather than the main class. Now you have more flexibility with your cleric build. You can also mix and match with divine order approaches, so if you want enhanced cantrips and heavy armor proficiency, that’s an option too. You’re not tied down one path.
Divine Intervention – LV 10
For the 2014 cleric, divine intervention was fun, but relied too much on luck and interpretation from the DM. It also took a week to recharge! The 2024 cleric improves on this considerably by ensuring a consistent boon that can be used more regularly.
Now, divine intervention will allow you to call upon your god to cast any cleric spell of 5th level or lower once per long rest. This is perfect for those desperate moments when an ally needs revivifying or you urgently need to smite down your foe.
Improved blessed strike – lv 14
At level 14, you get to increase the potency of whichever blessed strike you chose at level 7 in the following ways:
Divine strike: This now causes 2d8 damage instead of 1d8.
Potent spellcasting: When you cause damage with a cantrip, you can now grant temporary hit points to yourself or an ally equal to double your wisdom modifier. This can potentially mean a whole lot of temporary hit points stacking up on your allies if you keep firing off cantrips!
Epic boon – lv19
Like all classes at lv19, you get an epic boon (kind of like a super feat). This will allow you to increase an ability score (even beyond the normal maximum of 20, allowing you to potentially go up to 30 in an ability score). You’ll also get an ability alongside that feat too.
To make things juicer, when you gain levels beyond lv20, you’ll get an epic boon each time making you even gnarlier (there are 12, presumably 1 geared towards each of the 12 classes, though any class can take any epic boon)!
The recommended epic boon for a cleric is called boon of fate and it allows you to add or subtract 2d8 to a d20 roll once per long rest, either making sure your party succeeds or your enemy fails at a crucial moment. This could be a very powerful ability and feels a lot like the divination wizard’s own powerful abilities to manipulate die rolls.
Greater Divine Intervention – lv20
At level 20, clerics can now use their divine intervention to cast the wish spell. This shows the obvious favour your god has for such a powerful servant.
This is a powerful spell though so it can only be cast once every 2d4 days.
Cleric 2024 subclasses
Subclasses for the 2024 cleric get a big change, coming in at level 3 (like with all 2024 classes now) rather than level 1 as they did previously. The 2014 PHB had an abundance of cleric subclasses with 7 in total! The 2024 PHB works to balance subclasses between the classes leaving you with a more modest total of 4 options. These are the domains of life, light, trickery and war. This means that the domains of knowledge, nature and tempest don’t make the cut, nor do several others from other source books.
While clerics no longer gets their subclass until level 3, this doesn’t mean that they have not yet devoted themselves to a deity or a domain. Instead, it means they simply have not received the unique capabilities of that domain until level 3. Prior to this, you are able to show devotion to your god and roleplay your affiliation while bringing mechanical balance to the classes (especially when it comes to multiclassing).
Alternatively, you can choose to get familiar with your cleric before you decide on a route for your subclass, as you might with other classes.
Mostly the cleric domains remain the same with only minor tweaks. The 2 major changes you’ll notice are that certain options found under divine order in the main class features are no longer part of the subclass features. You’ll also find that the spell lists for each subclass have changed too.
Below I’ve outlined the changes coming to each subclass:
Life Domain
Disciple of life and preserve life have both been moved to level 3. Blessed strike is now part of the main class allowing you to hone in on being a spellcasting or a warrior life cleric. Aid has also been added to your spell list.
One interesting change is that healing spells will now work on undead and constructs (including preserve life). However, certain monsters may still have stipulated on their entry in the monster manuals that healing spells harm them, but this will become the exception rather than the rule. This is because this approach previously caused problems with healing allies that had become undead, or healing summons like a warlock’s skeletal familiar so they wanted the flexibility for this to work across the board.
Light Domain
The design philosophy for the light Domain has changed a bit with the flavour become less about lots of fire, and more about illumination. Fire remains a strong part of this cleric (so fireball remains one of their spells) but it’s more focused around illuminating now.
Warding flare and radiance of the dawn have both been moved to be level 3 features. Warding flare has also been improved, allowing you to use on yourself and allies right from level 3 and improves by granting temporary hit points as you increase in levels.
You also get see invisibility as part of your spell list (every party should have an ability like this so a great option) as well as the likes of scrying and arcane eye and a few other spells that illuminate in mind and vision.
Trickery Domain
Blessing of the trickster and invoke duplicity both come into play at level 3 now. Invoke duplicity also gets a big upgrade with it using just a bonus action instead of an action to initiate and not requiring concentration to maintain meaning you aren’t prevented from using lots of other great cleric spells when using your keystone feature. Mirror image has now been replaced with the more powerful (and trickster-ish) spell of invisibility.
At level 6, you can now use your bonus action to swap places with your illusion while creating or moving it. Finally, at level 17, your illusion grants advantage to allies when attacking creatures within 5ft of it. You can also dispel your illusion to grant healing equal to your cleric level to a creature within 5ft of it.
War Domain
You now get guiding bolt and steel wind strike added to your spell list. War God’s blessing has now been changed. Instead of granting a single use attack roll bonus, it now lets you make a casting of shield of faith or spiritual weapon by using your channel divinity instead of a spell slot. When done this way, it doesn’t require concentration.
This feels like a big improvement as rather than maybe a handful of uses at most, you can create an effect that either defends or enhances attacks. This means you can now wade into combat with the extra protection of shield of faith while letting spirit guardians (or another concentration spell) do its work.
Finally, at level 17, you still get avatar of battle, but this now gives you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage whether the attack is magical or not.
Tactics
Below are a few interesting, new ways you can approach playing as a cleric with the 2024 update:
Holy warrior: It’s now much easier to fashion yourself to one functionality or another. If your party needs a tanky martial cleric, then you can take the likes of protector and divine strike to enhance your defence and attack. Consider taking spells that will enhance you in the thick of combat. The likes of shield of faith for even more protection, or spirit guardians for greater damage, are good options. You’ll want to make sure you maintain your concentration when in the thick of combat, so investing in constitution is important (especially as you’ll want the extra hit points too) or taking a feat like warcaster. Strength is likely to be your friend too as you combine weapon attacks with your spellcasting.
Alternatively, you can go heavier on the spellcasting with more cantrip options and more powerful cantrips. You’ll want to make sure you take at least one damage dealing cantrip. Toll the dead is a strong option and will allow you to deal out extra damage. You’ll want to ensure you have spells that can be made at distance (though you’re not precluded from jumping into combat if needed).
Divine gifts: Divine intervention gives you the chance to perform last ditch acts in desperate moments. Consider what powerful spells you might need access to in challenging moments. Revivify is great for recovering a fallen ally. Greater restoration works well if you need to bring an ally back to full capacity, summon celestial is great if you need someone extra for a difficult combat and scrying is a good option if you need information.
So there you have it. Everything changing for the cleric in the 2024 PHB. It’s not a huge amount, but the changes do feel like well worked upgrades on the existing cleric that make their features a little more fun and useful. I feel like they make them more flexible and able to be fashioned a little more how you want your cleric to be built.
What do you think of the changes to the cleric? Let me know in the comments below.
Spotlight on the D&D 2024 revision
All the latest updates on what’s changing with the 2024 rules revision.
