Trickery Domain Cleric 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

There is something deeply compelling to me about gods of mischief. They’re just little guys wanting to play some pranks and get some giggles, usually not resulting in any upsetting deaths. What’s not to love?

Trickery Domain offers clerics a route toward this fantasy. It doesn’t 100% stick the landing but does have a bunch of fun tools to play with alongside a robust Domain Spell list that will easily carry any character with it into greatness through the mid-game.

1st Level: Domain Spells, Blessing of the Trickster

Charm Person and Disguise Self open up this domain to do one thing well: social subterfuge. You always have access to charms and alternate appearances, making your default setting when confronting creatures favor deception. I’m a huge fan of both effects in the early game, and Charm Person is still a great, cheap charm in the upper tiers.
Blessing of the Trickster does add a boon to your party, but given that clerics don’t get Stealth on their own class list, you’ll have to seek out proficiency through your race or background if you want to be nearly as stealthy as the allies you give your Blessing. Trickery Domain stands out from a lot of what rogue and other stealth-based classes are doing as it’s a support for stealthy groups. It makes everyone better at sneaking around, and Blessing of the Trickster functionally defines them as this.
It certainly isn’t particularly exciting, as it’s a glorified long-duration Help action to one character’s stealth checks that you can move around. Still, having it at the table to mitigate the clanky paladin armor or make your ranger basically invisible can feel meaningful.

2nd Level: Invoke Duplicity

Where most domains compel me with their first-level feature, Invoke Duplicity calls to me from Trickery Domain far more than Blessing of the Trickster. Getting a minute clone of yourself you can cast spells through and control with just a bonus action has a ton of potential in and out of combat, but because of its action cost to use, will nearly always require a round of setup for it to flourish in a fight.
The largest strike against the feature is it’s a Channel Divinity that costs your concentration, which hampers the potential it offers dramatically. Not being able to concentrate on higher impact higher-level effects shoves this into the realm of short duration out of combat illusions, of which there are dozens that’ll do this effect for longer and at a cheaper or similar cost in other classes. In the early tiers, though, this duplicate is a blast to play with, especially if you can pick up Extra Attack to get more out of the advantage it offers.

3rd Level: 2nd Level Domain Spells

Mirror Image and Pass without Trace are the 2nd level Domain Spells.

Mirror Image doubles down on the illusory duplicate fantasy, giving you another tool to make copies of yourself. It notably doesn’t cost your concentration either, meaning if you want four illusory duplicates of yourself in a fight and have two rounds to spend doing nothing proactive, you can get it here! In practice, the defensive boon it offers isn’t worth the action requirement.
Pass without Trace follows the path set forth by Blessing of the Trickster, offering the entire squad +10 to their Stealth checks. It's pretty well known that is spell slaps, especially within the context of a system that prides itself on keeping the numbers lower. It is a natural fit on Cleric whose core identity is tied to supportive buffs; this is a mass supportive buff for stealth. A homerun option to have.

5th Level: 3rd Level Domain Spells

Blink has similar problems to Mirror Image but costs you a higher-level slot. Sometimes you don’t want to blink out of existence either, and there aren’t any ways to control the randomness of this. It reads interesting, but in practice, it has next to no major impact in the vast majority of encounters.
Dispel Magic, though, is an all-star. It's a spell I want access to regularly at spellcasting flush tables. Getting it as a Domain Spell has a ton of value, as it isn’t something you always need, but when you need to deal with an 8th-level mind-breaking effect, having this auto-prepared will come in clutch.

6th Level: Cloak of Shadows

Cloak of Shadows directly competes with Invoke Duplicity, costs an action, and is nowhere close to the power of normal Invisibility. It's a single turn of Invisibility at 6th level. A 3 level dip into most other spellcasting classes lets you spend as many 2nd level or higher slots as you’d like on becoming invisible, all without contesting your more unique features offered. If you’re dedicated to playing all cleric, and nobody else is using Invisibility in the group, any invisibility access can still feel decent, even if it’s majorly outclassed by most other means of turning invisible in this game.

7th Level: 4th Level Domain Spells

Dimension Door and Polymorph are Trickery Domain’s 4th-level Domain Spells.

Polymorph is a backbreaking save or die with tons of fun applications beyond transforming the most threatening force you’re facing into a squirrel. It’s a tool that can shake encounter balance at its core.
Dimension Door is a fairly expensive teleport that lets you bring a friend, but covers such a massive distance and has such few limitations it’s regularly going to be a contributing factor in a mission’s success. It saves lives, offers easy infiltration, and gets you out of a jam instantaneously. Both of these are superb.

8th Level: Divine Strike

Divine Strike adds a d8 damage to your weapon attacks. Beyond Invoke Duplicity, there aren’t a lot of compelling reasons to be making attack rolls in this option, especially given that Invoke Duplicity also lets you cast spells from its position, tugging you in two different directions. With how potent most of your Domain Spells are, spending actions making one mace attack for 1d6+1d8+2 just isn’t going to cut it when you have so many better actions at the ready.

9th Level: 5th Level Domain Spells

Dominate Person and Modify Memory finish off the Domain Spell list for Trickery Domain with a bang. Both not only are deeply flavorful, but they’re also a blast to play with and have a ton of power baked into them that thrive in various situations.

Dominate Person takes any humanoid fight and steals all of the actions of one creature for your own team, which can be absolutely devastating. On top of that, in a pinch out of combat, it can give you a small window of finite control over an individual to get them to literally say and do things as you need them to, which is just… ah, so perfectly fitting. It’s delightful. It's the Trickster fantasy at its core.
What’s more, Modify Memory follows directly after it, giving you a tool to literally change reality for a creature by augmenting what it remembers. Alongside Dominate Person you’ve got a toolkit to take control over somebody, make them do things, then change their memories to make them think those actions were their idea in the first place.

17th Level: Improved Duplicity

Improved Duplicity sounds awesome, but in practice, is pretty mediocre. Turns out by 17th level, with all the new concentration effects that have power crept out a lot of cleric’s older stuff, dedicating your concentration on four copies of yourself instead of a Summoned Celestial isn’t ideal. On top of that, this doesn’t improve any of the core problems the option has. Sure, it might eat an extra attack or two, but you still have to prep this prior to a fight to feel good about its cost, you still only get a minute duration to make use of these duplicates, can’t send them beyond 120 feet of you, and are only are making one attack with advantage from at least one of them being within 5 feet of you. You kind of get some niche advantages in having up to four places to cast spells from, but normally two positions are plenty.

All Together

The Domain Spells on their own will result in a character that is great at doing the trickery thing. It's a bit light on illusions, but Trickery Domain offers a ton of other tools for messing with people with magic. Blessing of the Trickster is a great passive party boon, even if its a bit boring, and while Invoke Duplicity has some issues, it is a pretty fun tool to play around with for a few levels. The upper-tier features are all majorly underwhelming. Trickery Domain makes for a great rogue or ranger multiclass, both of which can use the Invoke Duplicity much better than the base option can.

You can definitely be satisfied with this option by just embracing your spell list as your core features, but if you want to get the most out of its unique abilities, you’ll probably want to be reaching outside of cleric for help.

I’d love to see a revised version of this domain where Invoke Duplicity did just a bit more. If it helped nearby allies, Improved Duplicity suddenly has a ton more potential. As is, if you’re okay with playing an option that isn’t overtly powerful and will require a lot of creative thinking to get the most out of it, Trickery Domain can be the domain for you.

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