War Domain Cleric 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Extra Attack is a feature gated to most characters at 5th level or higher. War Domain cleric says “screw that, I want my Extra Attack NOW!” It’s probably the most front-loaded option in the game, offering an absolutely ludicrous level 1, then promptly falls off massively as the game progresses. Still, you can get a lot of mileage out of that first level, and seeing as clerics are full-casters, your upper levels are going to feel great basically regardless of what features this domain gives you, making War feel great throughout every tier of play.

1st Level: Domain Spells, Bonus Proficiency, War Priest

Divine Favor and Shield of Faith both tell you to do the same thing: be in melee combat. As Domain Spells, these two are pretty reasonable early on, and Shield of Faith is still a cheap, reasonable place to put your concentration should yours drop on a higher level effect mid fight. What sells me most on both is their cost: a 1st level bonus action cost is just so efficient they’ll easily act as ways to fill out turns when you’re Spiritual Weapon is down and your concentration gets broken. I’m a fan.
Bonus Proficiencies are where this option starts to get a ton of juice. Martial weapon proficiency and heavy armor proficiency make this domain have the same starting proficiencies as the martial classes, making all of the classic martial weapons that deal big damage available out the gate. This includes the Greatsword and Maul, both two-handed weapons that make spells with somatic and material components easy to cast alongside using as you can have a free hand when you want to cast them simply by wearing your holy symbol around your neck. Sword and shield builds have a bit of a harder time, as you need an open hand to use somatic and material components, but if no somatic components are required, you at least can use that shield as the material component, which is neat.
War Priest is the really busted option available at 1st level that opens up 1st level clerics to Extra Attack. You’re limited to a number equal to your Wisdom modifier and need to spend your bonus action performing them, but at 1st level with full-caster spell slots and two attacks a turn with a martial weapon you’ll feel like a god compared to other 1st level characters. Three extra attacks per long rest will dwarf the single extra attack Action Surge provides your fighter companion. With a great sword and Divine Favor, you’re looking at a 1st level character that deals 2d6+1d4+2 damage in the first round of combat, and double that every subsequent round if they want. That’s so much damage and leaves a spell slot laying around for later use. You're not even giving up much utility for this, as your cantrips aren’t going anywhere, often acting as ranged attack options or big utility boost with Guidance and Thaumaturgy.
War Priest is outrageous at most tables at 1st level. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level it falls off a tiny bit as you start to get two to three fights between rests and by 5th level, assuming there is more than one encounter between rests, it’ll start to feel fair. By that point, though, you’re getting Spiritual Weapon to make up the difference in missing attacks, and other 2nd and 3rd level spells to do the heavy lifting. There won’t be windows you’ll ever feel underpowered compared to the vast majority of existing subclasses.

2nd Level: Guided Strike

Guided Strike is War Domain’s Channel Divinity that further pushes the frontloaded nature of the option by giving them a +10 to hit with a bad roll. This takes no action to use, making it OUTRAGEOUSLY efficient, and drops the total amount of turns where you’ll do little to nothing. With Wis still likely being your primary stat so you can have as many extra attacks as possible, with a +2 Strength, you’re able to turn 2s from 6 total to 16. That’s going to make basically any low result rolled in the low tiers from a miss to a hit, and when you’re hitting for 2d6+2, that’s a massive boon.
At higher levels, like War Priest, it becomes less pervasive of an effect, especially as your other martial companions start making two or three attacks every turn. Still, having this in your back pocket for your eventual Divine Striked attack will come in handy from time to time.

3rd Level: 2nd Level Domain Spells

Magic Weapon and Spiritual Weapon make up your 2nd level Domain Spells, and while I don’t have much love for Magic Weapon, Spiritual Weapon is a core pillar cleric leans on for most of the early to mid-game. It, alongside War Priest, will give you the feeling of always having a bonus action attack option. Alongside a 2d6+2 Maul or Greatsword is going to feel like you’ve got Extra Attack at 3rd level. Magic Weapon can stack on top of that, and against specific enemies with non-magical resistance it can make a huge impact, but for most fights against mundane enemies or just enemies without non-magical resistance, +1 to hit and damage doesn’t really do it for me for its cost.

5th Level: 3rd Level Domain Spells

Crusader’s Mantle was designed as a paladin exclusive 3rd level spell they’d unlock at 9th level because they’re half-casters. War Domain automatically prepares it 4 levels earlier. It can be a house of a spell, offering a d4 per hit to every allied attack made. You can produce two of these attacks round after round, making this at minimum an action-costed 3rd level Divine Favor, which isn’t amazing on its own. If you’ve got one allied melee character making extra attacks, it's reasonable; two or more starts to get ludicrous. Characters like monks, whose unarmed strikes count as melee weapon attacks, can get 4d4 bonus damage every round with this up. Crusader’s Mantle sets War Domain clerics up to be the central figure your team plays around in the mid-tiers. It’s not going to be a great fit at every party, but in groups with multiple frontline characters, my lord does this spell hit like a truck.
Spirit Guardians, too, is an exceptional effect that fits a much wider variety of tables. If you can get 6d8 damage out of this on two or three creatures, it’ll feel like it was worth the cast, and that bar isn’t particularly high. War Domain has shown its aptitude for dealing large amounts of single-target damage. Spirit Guardians is an area-damaging option that requires wading into the thick of it to juice it for all its worth, offering a high-risk, high-reward option. It plays great on this kind of character.

6th Level: War God’s Blessing

War God’s Blessing functionally empowers Guided Strike to work on any ally, which is a HUGE improvement. Now, you can use your Channel Divinity as a reaction on other people’s turns to turn their misses into hits. Your rogue will thank you when you turn their 3 into a 13, making them hit for 4d6+3 damage as opposed to none at all. It may not be the most potent Channel Divinity, but its efficiency can’t be undersold. When you’ve got a dozen different action options, having other abilities use different, unused resources is an easy way to expand the total power a character has from moment to moment. War God’s Blessing fits that description perfectly.

7th Level: 4th Level Domain Spells

Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin aren’t spells I’m regularly that excited to cast.

Stoneskin at least has the benefit of coming in when it is needed against huge quantities of attacks dealing non-magical bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage.
Freedom of Movement is so niche in all my time DMing I’ve literally never seen it cast, and that’s probably for good reason. Everything else happening in this option has enough power that it's pretty easy to overlook these lackluster additions.

8th Level: Divine Strike

Out of all the domains, Divine Strike fits cleanest on War Domain. It definitely isn’t Extra Attack, and you’ll really wish it was Extra Attack, as a bonus 1d8 damage isn’t anywhere close to as good as a second attack, but empowering one of your two attacks a round you want to be making anyways is great. It empowers something you’ve been doing since 1st level while rewarding newer features like Crusader’s Mantle further.

9th Level: 5th Level Domain Spells

Flame Strike comes out of nowhere to suddenly have a massive, ranged, area-damaging effect to shore up whatever damage coverage War lacked up to this point. It's no Fireball, but it does a close enough approximation you’ll be eagerly casting it against moderately sized groups.
Hold Monster is the other Domain Spell, and in a domain that’s focused on empowering attack rolls, is the cherry on top. Now, should it land, every attack against the monster will crit. Paralysis is a death sentence in 5e; if this ability ever lands, and your party gets a single round to attack the held creature, it isn’t going to last much longer after that.

17th Level: Avatar of Battle

It turns out by 17th level, Avatar of Battle will just feel like an always on Stoneskin, which isn’t actually that great. A lot of threatening creatures aren’t dealing non-magical damage anymore. You want resistance against the big damage effects and attacks, not the 4d6+4 kobold attacks that usually miss anyway. You’re still a 17th-level full-caster, though, so your 7th through 9th-level spells will do plenty of heavy lifting to make this mediocre capstone not feel too bad.

All Together

War Domain comes out the gate swinging (literally). War Priest plus Guided Strike early will make every martial character at the table ask what the point of their class is, as you’re doing their thing better than them and have full-caster spells and cantrips. The mid-tiers expand out from being the force of nature that curb stomps anything in its path to a more supportive roll to bolster your own and allied weapon attacks effectively through War God’s Blessing and Crusader’s Mantle. Access to Spiritual Weapon, Flame Strike, and Hold Monster will give you powerful spells all the time that’ll be effective in basically every encounter, diminishing the issues that War Priest faces in dwindling utility. The entire option comes together beautifully; if you want to play a front-line cleric, War Domain absolutely will deliver on that fantasy basically from levels 1 to 20.

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