Forge Domain Cleric 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Something about a Dwarf Cleric is iconic in D&D; they’re garbed in ornate armor hand-crafted, destined to pursue artisanal perfection in the name of a glorious deity that shaped the clan they come from. Forge Domain has long been overdue for that fantasy; the Xanathar’s Guide to Everything offering gives you basically exactly what you’d expect from the archetype and nothing more.

1st Level: Domain Spells, Bonus Proficiencies, and Blessing of the Forge

Identify and Searing Smite are the two 1st level domain spells forge clerics get, each showcasing what this domain wants to do out of combat and where it wants to be in combat. Identify is a handy ritual that fits beautifully in this domain, taking normally the wizard's job of magic identification and shifting that to you with your innate connection to objects and the craft that goes into their production. It works perfectly. Searing Smite, then, brings the forge’s flames out in your attacks. I don’t love any of the smite spells, but on non-paladins who have a large pool of resources, a bonus action for 1-3d6 more fire damage on hit is entirely fine in the first few levels. It still probably isn’t worth the cast over stronger individual spells, but it will assist in the feeling of being a cleric of the forge weaponizing the fires of creation to burn your foes.
Bonus Proficiencies double down on getting you into the frontline, as they give you free heavy armor and smith’s tools proficiencies. This makes Dexterity entirely optional for you and pushes you toward a Strength build instead, which I’m always a fan of.
Blessing of the Forge makes you an enchanter of sorts similar to Artificer. You pick non-magical armor or a weapon and make it a +1 version of that armor or weapon until your next long rest.
Magic Weapon isn’t a spell I adore, nor do I love the Defense fighting style. This is kind of both together as a 1st level feature. This alongside full-casting, though, makes your 1st level still feel great with a +1 weapon or armor being the cherry on top of all cantrips and 1st-level spells you get to play with immediately.

All three of these features together paint a clear picture: you’re a frontline warmage kind of character that wants to be attacking with strength and defending with bolstered armor and a shield.

2nd Level: Artisan’s Blessing

Artisan’s Blessing asks the question “What if Fabricate was a lot cheaper?” An hour-long ritual that also costs you a channel divinity for a single 100 gold or less item, to me, is like bringing a traveling merchant with you. Its access to the equipment section of the Player’s Handbook with an hour-long commune. Cloning items is neat, and it codifies you as a craftsman, but I don’t think this is a feature most Forge Domain clerics will regularly find great uses for. It doesn’t even save you gold to make the stuff yourself, which always has bugged me about these kinds of effects. If this was instantaneous we’d have a different conversation on our hands, but needing an hour to do this effect makes it far too niche to really excite me.

3rd Level: 2nd Level Domain Spells

Heat Metal and Magic Weapon are the two 2nd-level forge domain spells.

Magic Weapon continues the theme of improving weapons, but this time it costs you your concentration and a 2nd level spell slot. Having it always prepared makes its use case against enemies with non-magical weapon resistance nice, but outside that specific circumstance, I don’t want to be casting this.
Heat Metal, on the other hand, is a niche effect I’m eager to use. 2d8 unavoidable damage for wearing heavy armor is brutal, and this flexibly can also act as a metal weapon disarm spell. It fits beautifully, once again, with the fantasy of the cleric of the forge. A great choice for the domain.

5th Level: 3rd Level Domain Spells

Elemental Weapon and Protection from Energy both have middling effectiveness.

Like Magic Weapon, I’m thoroughly disappointed if I need to spend my concentration on Elemental Weapon, as a +1 to hit weapon with a d4 bonus elemental damage isn’t anywhere close to where I want to be for my 3rd-level spell slots.
Protection from Energy at least defines the defensive enchanter fantasy better, as it’s a silver bullet to a lot of heavy damage-type focused encounters. There aren’t going to be a ton of those, but never having to prepare it makes the moments it’ll be surprisingly important feel great. That’s something I often want from my domain spells: niche effects I don’t want to have to prepare, but am glad I’ve got on hand when I need them.

6th Level: Soul of the Forge

Soul of the Forge serves exactly one purpose well: AC stacking. It’s a flat +1 bonus to your AC while in heavy armor. Paired with a dozen other effects and magic items and you can use this as a way to get ACs easily past 30. Otherwise, the damage resistance is fine, but not going to matter in the majority of fights, and with nothing else coming in at this level I’m left feeling underwhelmed.

7th Level: 4th Level Domain Spells

Fabricate and Wall of Fire continues the trend of one banger and one bad spell obtained with the domain spells.

Fabricate lets you spend 10 minutes and a 4th-level spell slot to create non-magical stuff. Non-magical stuff in a game full of magic just isn’t that impactful or is readily on hand anyway. Most problems Fabricate contributes to solving are solved easier with a dozen other spells at lower levels, and in an option that already can create things, this is ghoulish overkill.
Wall of Fire, on the other hand, is a fine area-of-effect damage spell that rewards solid positioning, environmental awareness, and knockback effects. Your fire resistance with Soul of the Forge can justify you wading into your own wall of fire to drag people into the damage zone should that be the style of character you want to play, which is a pretty spicy looking fantasy.

8th Level: Divine Strike

Like the other melee-focused domains, Forge gets Divine Strike. Divine Strike isn’t a good replacement for Extra Attack and shouldn’t be considered as such; it's a tool to make turns where you want to take the attack action without Extra Attack a bit better. Forge’s only real payoff is Searing Smite, which isn’t exactly a compelling way to spend your turns past 5th level. Forge domain doesn’t use Divine Strike all that effectively- usually, casting spells is going to be a ton higher impact.

9th Level: 5th Level Domain Spells

Animate Objects and Creation are the final two domain spells, and magically one is terrible, the other insane.

Creation, like Fabricate and Artisan’s Blessing, is an expensive magical way to get a mundane object. Adamantine and Mithral can’t even be used effectively because if you were to make armor from them, you literally can’t don them fast enough to benefit from wearing them. The entire spell effect reads like it has unlimited potential, but there are major barriers in place when mundanity is the limiting factor of an object’s creation.
Animate Objects, on the other hand, is bonkers. A minute duration concentration with a bonus action command for TEN tiny attacking +8 to hit forks or other objects each round is ludicrous. Each has 20 HP and an AC of 18, making area of effect damage the only great tool to mitigate this effect, and short of that, enemies will need to chew through 200 hit points of objects or face 10d4+40 bonus damage a round. For just your bonus action. Gross.
This is an easy point to mention having a high Constitution to pair with your naturally high AC from heavy armor, Soul of the Forge, shield, and Blessing of the Forge will make it incredibly difficult for enemies to break your concentration, making summon effects like this a nightmare to handle.

17th Level: Saint of the Forge

Saint of the Forge closes out the domain with immunity to fire damage and resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage. At 17th level, the damage I’m least worried about is non-magical damage, making this a non-feature in a lot of upper-tier challenging fights. Still, the resistance and immunity do help protect your concentration, and make it easy to chill out in massive fiery zones. There is a powerful feeling in being entirely unaffected by the exploding Fireballs the Pit Fiend hurls at you.

All Together

Forge domain, to me, is powerful, yet kind of bland. The option is leaning heavily on passive AC bonuses to build an “unhittable” character that’s aim is to be in the frontline, soaking attacks, and leaning on their prepared list and Animate Objects to kill everything. Access to the Shield spell breaks this option in half, giving you easy access to ACs from 27-29 regularly, and even without it, just a Shield of Faith stacked on top of your Soul of the Forge, Blessing of the Forge, AC 18 armor, and shield will set your AC to 24. That’s no problem for a 6th level character with no other context needed beyond being able to afford the plate.

If you want to be a bulwark of a frontline cleric and aren’t looking to your domain for a robust suite of new ways to engage with the game, Forge is exactly that.

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