Best Races for Cleric 5e
by Prince Phantom
With the amount of Cleric subclasses and the varied play styles and strategies provided by those domains, you can play a Cleric just about however you want. Want to sling powerful spells? Trickery has an amazing domain list to power that. Want to swing a weapon occasionally for big damage? Tempest, War, and Death all have you covered. Want to make sure your party literally never struggles with anything ever? Twilight and Peace do that well, arguably too well. This means that you can find some use out of just about any race for this class, but there are definitely some that stand out over others. Since there are so many ways to take a Cleric, we’ll break these recommendations down into the best races for Defense and Utility. There aren’t really any races that provide extra damage that synergize well with the Cleric’s spells and abilities, so we’ll exclude those for this list. As always, I exclude the two races that grant a feat at level one because they are good for everyone and you don’t need me to tell you that, and I exclude flying races because they are banned at many tables, though if they are allowed I would definitely recommend the Fairy.
Best Races for Defense
Githzerai: The Cleric already has great armor proficiencies, granting them between a 17-20 AC depending on what specific armor you have and whether or not you hold a shield (you probably should). Throwing the Shield spell on top of all that will make you feel nearly indestructible, especially at low levels, and continues to be impactful all the way to level 20. The other features of the race are also really nice, giving Detect Thoughts and a few other neat benefits. Though if all this race did was grant the Shield spell I’d still recommend it, especially since multiclassing into a class that grants it could be tough because of the ability score restrictions.
Earth Genasi: This race boosts our durability rather than our AC, granting us Blade Ward as a bonus action proficiency bonus times per long rest. Using this at the right time can make you feel as tough as the Barbarian, and hopefully you won’t need to use it more times than you can. We also get Pass Without Trace, a spell that normally only Trickery Domain gets, and it’s arguably the best 2nd level spell in the game. Immunity to most difficult terrain is also pretty nice, especially if you plan on engaging with Spirit Guardians.
Tortle: This is a great race for if you rolled really bad stats. Maxing out medium armor requires a 14 Dexterity, and the best heavy armor requires a 15 Strength or you’ll be slowed down, and the Cleric already wants a high Wisdom and Constitution. Tortle allows us to put our highest in Wisdom, second in Constitution, and then not really care about the rest as we automatically set our AC to 17, 19 with a shield.
Beasthide Shifter: Clerics have a great use for their bonus action thanks to Spirit Guardians plus Telekinetic, so you may find it hard to fit the bonus action transformation into your action economy. However, if you can I think there is a big benefit. Clerics don’t get a ton of HP, so adding this fairly substantial amount of temporary HP plus a +1 to AC will really help our survivability. Not my first choice, but if a werewolf priest sounds like a fun character to you, I think this will work very well.
Best Races for Utility
Harengon: This race gives a bonus to initiative checks, something Clerics love and normally are very bad at, along with bonuses to Dexterity saves and a free disengage. The disengage actually works really well with Spirit Guardians, as it allows us to back away from an enemy that managed to get into melee with us without suffering an opportunity attack.
Thri-Kreen: A bit of an odd choice, but Cleric is definitely a class that can take advantage of having two extra arms. In fact, most Clerics actually need the War Caster feat to cast many spells, as you can’t cast spells with somatic but not material components while your hands are full. Thri-Kreen removes this need, as we can hold a weapon and shield, and still have two hands free for casting spells or anything else we can think of. We also get advantage on many stealth checks, something Clerics traditionally struggle with.
Eladrin/Shadar-Kai: These two races both provide all the benefits of being an elf, along with granting a teleport with a special effect we can use proficiency times per long rest. Eladrin has various effects depending on your season, and Shadar-Kai grants resistance to all damage until our next turn after we teleport. Shadar-Kai also grants resistance to necrotic damage all the time, so I’d probably take it over the Eladrin, but they are very close in power. This teleport is especially useful on Clerics, as they don’t get Misty Step, and only Trickery Clerics get Dimension Door.
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