Twilight Domain Cleric 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Clerics who want a bit of extra edge but don’t want to fully commit to the ultimate edgelord nonsense Death Domain offers can find exactly what they’re looking for thematically in Twilight Domain.

This domain has a somewhat notorious reputation as an absolutely busted, ban-worthy domain. That’s mainly due to the raw power Twilight Sanctuary has that can obliterate low-tier fights, and when there are only one or two per long rest, it can feel like it's trivializing most dangers. Beyond exactly that feature, this option lacks teeth. It has some fun utility baked into it with a flavorful, but fairly underwhelming Domain Spell list, and some darkness-centered features that aren’t as breakable as Devil’s Sight Warlocks can feel. If you want to play this archetype, I’d talk to your DM prior about Twilight Sanctuary and how it’ll affect some encounters. At most tables, especially past 7th level, this is an entirely reasonable domain.

1st Level: Domain Spells, Bonus Proficiencies, Eyes of Night, and Vigilant Blessing

Faerie Fire and Sleep start the option out with two area of effect control style spells, one of which empowers allied attacks, the other acting similarly to an area of effect execute when used strategically, or a non-lethal, inconspicuous means of getting a guard out of the way briefly. I’m a larger fan of Sleep than Faerie Fire, but both can come up as useful from time to time, Faerie Fire specifically when you’ve got allies making multiple attacks to take better advantage of the boon you’re offering.
Bonus Proficiencies stack this option with martial weapons and heavy armor for what to me feels like no reason. The option isn’t majorly geared at being a front-line tank, nor great at making attacks. The option is aimed at being a darkness based casting support, making these options odd inclusions to me. Still, both are great to have and will give you options for better weapon attacks early on than your cantrips offered you with a great, healthy AC you can get without needing to invest in Dexterity. Twilight Domain seems like an option that’ll often want to be sneaky, though, so you may be better off going with medium armor and a +2 Dex anyway.
Eyes of Night has a lot of text for what is a fairly low-impact feature. You get 300 ft. darkvision, which in most environments is about as good as 120 ft. darkvision, and can share this with creatures for an hour. It basically takes the prior meta-gamed information sharing and makes it mechanically occur without needing to speak. This not only is a niche effect that doesn’t affect the vast majority of environments (which tend to be lit by daylight, lights on the walls, or other mundane light sources) but even in situations where it does help, that extra boon isn’t likely going to have that high an impact when expressing what you see normally does the trick when exploring in the darkness. It's a fine ribbon, but nothing particularly powerful.
Vigilant Blessing closes out the four 1st-level features offered with a passive advantage to a single creature's initiative rolls. This pairs nicely with other archetypes like Gloom Stalker or Assassin, lining this option up to work as an ambush support. That role isn’t that well established beyond this from other domains, with War and Trickery being the best two options prior at enhancing that play style. Both still are likely a bit better, as I’d much rather have at will advantage on Stealth checks or a Channel Divinity for +10 to hit, but this passive in addition to Eyes of Night, reasonable Domain Spells and the martial proficiencies leave you feeling like you get a lot, even if none of it is all that exciting.

2nd Level: Twilight Sanctuary

Twilight Sanctuary may not read like it's a house of a feature, but there are some critical elements that make it feel backbreaking to deal with it at 2nd level. First, it provides 1d6+2 temporary hit points every round to EVERY creature, including you, within the area. This functionally will feel like you’re reducing all incoming damage every round by however many creatures would be damaged times a d6+2. When facing off against creatures who are only dealing 1 to 2d6+2 damage, this can mitigate most incoming damage every round. Monsters either have to immediately bash the Twilight Cleric down or need to focus down every creature individually with overwhelming force and coordination, something most low-tier monsters don’t really want to be doing. These temporary hit points also last until your next long rest or you get more temporary hit points, making it so not only is the current fight largely neutralized, the next fight you go into has to deal with the bonus d6+2 times party size hit points to reasonably threaten the group.
Nobody has to spend any action beyond the initial summoning of the sanctuary to benefit from it; they just need to be within 30 feet of the cleric.
On top of that, it also just incidentally shuts off charms, and more importantly, fears. Challenging the players with various conditions early usually results in using fears and charms, as those two are the least backbreaking effects to deal with. Paralysis and incapacitation are miserable; when your character is frightened, you just have disadvantage on some checks and can’t move in a specific direction. It isn’t the end of the world. You still get your turn to do stuff Twilight Sanctuary shuts off these effects at the end of every creature's turn, making these kinds of effects incredibly ineffective in addition to being backbreaking for most low-tier encounters by the sheer quantity of damage mitigation.
Past 2nd level, at tables playing with a wider quantity of encounters that deal larger chunks of damage, Twilight Sanctuary gets comparatively worse. Yes, the temporary hit points scale with your level, but damage will scale faster as creatures start to multiply their growing dice sizes with more attacks and larger area of effect abilities. Everyone grouped within 30 feet of the cleric sets up breath weapons and Circles of Death, which is reasonable upper-tier counterplay to this kind of tactic. More encounters should be a way to confront this feature, but a lot of tables don’t have time or desire to run more than a handful of encounters per long rest, opting instead for big, splashy set pieces. At those tables, this feature will always feel solid. Most tables will struggle to balance around it at 2nd level, with groups of five or more players in particular getting an enormous advantage from it.

3rd Level: 2nd Level Domain Spells

Moonbeam and See Invisibility are the 2nd level Domain Spells offered by Twilight Domain. Moonbeam is going to regularly feel like a worse Spiritual Weapon but does have some flavor wins for it making it feel at home on this kind of character. See Invisibility is almost a non-spell 99% of the time, and the 1% of the time it works it’ll feel like a worse Dispel Magic or Detect Magic. I don’t love either of these, but at least they’re serving the flavor of the option.

5th Level: 3rd Level Domain Spells

Aura of Vitality may look like Twilight Shroud, but is nowhere close to it. It requires bonus actions round after round for 2d6 healing, not temporary hit points. It takes an action to cast, and costs you action based resources you’d rather spend moving around your Moonbeam or striking with a Spiritual Weapon. The cost of casting it and to use on subsequent turns is just too high for it to be worth it over a well timed Healing Word for a third of the cost and no action requirement.
Tiny Hut, on the other hand, has a decent amount of utility and can be troublesome for some tables to manage. An at-will safety bunker has some fine utility in ensuring safe rests, and without preparation and laying traps, can give players the ability to feel like they can rest wherever, whenever, with no consequences. Playing around Tiny Hut can be a bit of a chore, but it does provide a decent sanctuary option to the group.

6th Level: Steps of Night

Steps of Night is a semi at will Fly that is conditional on being in dim light or darkness. Cute! Your proficiency bonus uses per long rest with the flight time lasting a minute basically limits this at most tables to a few times a night. The use cap is far less restrictive than the circumstance restriction, and flight at 6th level is pretty fair given Fly is available and plenty of races now offer fly speeds. It still offers all the utility flight offers but in a neat conditional way. It might be a bit too restrictive, but I’d still be excited to pick this up and play around with it.

7th Level: 4th Level Domain Spells

Greater Invisibility turns you or a friend invisible for a minute, no questions asked. Being invisible offers advantage on all your attack rolls, while making attack rolls against you all have disadvantage. It's a superb support effect that can enhance your multi-attacking allies massively while also empowering you out of combat, especially in groups lacking regular Invisibility.
Aura of Life, on the other hand, is horrendous. Resistance to necrotic damage and getting 1 hit point when at zero for an action isn’t regularly going to be worth the cast. Mass Healing Word gets a bunch of people up at a longer range with a lower spell level and just for a bonus action, and that’s the bulk of what you want out of Aura of Life, as resistance to necrotic damage isn’t exactly that commonly practical. Most undead don’t even deal necrotic damage. Max hit point reduction matters so few environments I can’t believe that they included the effect in this game at all, let alone make a feature that mitigates it. Greater Invisibility definitely carries the Domain Spells at this level.

8th Level: Divine Strike

Beyond working with your martial weapons, Divine Strike has basically no other synergy in this option. You don’t really want to be turning yourself invisible with Greater Invisibility, and 1d8 damage isn’t anywhere close to as impactful as Extra Attack. You’re regularly going to want to be spending spell slots in combat. If you have to attack, this makes it moderately stronger.

9th Level: 5th Level Domain Spells

Circle of Power and Mislead finish out the Domain Spells.

Circle of Power in particular is noteworthy as prior it was just a Paladin exclusive they’d get at 17th level; as a Twilight Domain cleric, you get it at 9th. It won’t be right for most encounters, but in save heavy encounters, it can save lives. Advantage on all saves against spells and magical effects and the Evasion feature stapled together for a 5th-level slot with a 10-minute duration is a lot of defense. Against debilitating mass save creatures like Beholders or Dragons, Circle of Power can be great to have access to.
Mislead is also somewhat niche, but seeing as clerics don’t have a lot of other effects that mimic what it does, it shines particularly brightly here. Other characters can use Major Image and Silent Image to get illusions to do stuff with. Mislead is one of the few options you get as a Twilight Cleric, making it default the best illusory duplicate spell you have access to. Illusory duplicates have all kinds of utility in social navigation and world exploration. Like Circle of Power, it's not something I’d expect to cast every session, but there will definitely be moments in most games where you’ll have opportunities to pull of some wild plans thanks to Mislead.

17th Level: Twilight Shroud

17th-level is really late to enhance your 2nd level feature, but +2 AC inside your 1d6+16 temporary hit point bubble is a meaningful upgrade. It won’t be breaking encounters in half, but does make it miserable for creatures to hit you and other heavily armored and shielded allies, especially ones backed up by Shield and other defensive spells like Shield of Faith or Haste.

All Together

The bulk of the power Twilight Domain is notorious for is tied to Twilight Sanctuary, and within that, mainly the 1d6+ Cleric level temp HP every round, no actions required. More encounters per long rest diminish the value the option brings to the table, as it's majorly dependent on Twilight Sanctuary to contribute meaningful support options to the group. There are enough new toys here to differentiate Twilight Domain from the other cleric domains to justify trying it out of you like the thematics and Domain Spells. Eyes of Night and Vigilant Blessing aren’t revolutionary tools that I find to be that effective, and Steps of Night will give you a nice bump in utility at level 6. Divine Strike and the bonus proficiencies still feel wrong to me, but given that they’re here, they contribute to the problems Twilight Sanctuary has mainly by giving you heavy armor to allow for Strength and Dexterity based builds to get a high enough AC to make turning off Twilight Sanctuary by dropping the cleric feel like a monumental task.

Preparing encounters that are intended to be hard to lethal can feel trivialized by Twilight Sanctuary. If this option appeals to you, I’d recommend talking with your DM prior about what Twilight Sanctuary can do. Beyond that, if the flavor doesn’t match what you want, I don’t think there is a lot of engaging stuff here to lead me to recommend it.

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