BG3 Honor Build: The Light Domain Cleric

Author: Majin Evelyn

Reliable damage in a wide area and impressive support, all in one package?! Bring the Light Domain Cleric to Baldur’s Gate 3’s Honor Mode!

The Light Domain Cleric provides their party reliable damage in a wide area, as well as some strong supporting effects! Spirit guardians works a little differently than it does in 5e, allowing the Cleric to run into enemies to trigger the damage, letting them be a little more aggressive. In combination with its Channel Divinity, Radiance of the Dawn, the Light Domain Cleric outputs very efficient damage in a wide area, which enemies can’t avoid completely. Items with the Radiating Orb effect also augment this build’s effectiveness, debuffing enemies’ to-hit whenever you do Radiant damage to them (which is the damage type of all of your relevant damage).

Races/Origins

There are various choices for your race/origin that fit in nicely for this build. Here are some race options which can optionally be combined with The Dark Urge Origin:

Drow – Gaining hand crossbow proficiency, superior darkvision, perception proficiency and one free cast of darkness per day is very valuable for this build.

Wood Elf – Extra movement speed is always nice, and having both Stealth and Perception proficiency is valuable for any build. Gale (Avatar only) – If you choose Gale at character creation (not as a later recruited companion), in Act 2 he can acquire a permanent buff that grants an extra 3rd level spell slot. In the same Act, he can also acquire a buff that grants advantage on Concentration checks until the next long rest.

Ability Scores

12 Str, 14 Dex, 14+2 Con, 8 Int, 15+1 Wis, 8 Cha
Wisdom and Constitution are the most important stats for this build, and will start with 16 of each. However, if your Cleric is a Drow, you can swap your Dex and Con scores to give your hand crossbows slightly higher performance in Act 1.

Skills

Skill proficiencies come from your Background, Class, and Race choices. It’s ultimately unimportant to plan for skill proficiencies in Honor Mode, especially if the character in question isn’t your Avatar (the one directly controlled and made by the player, who will usually be active in conversations and making ability checks). Since the Cleric won’t be investing in any Charisma, this build doesn’t have high priority for being your Avatar character, and therefore your skill choices are even less important. Origin characters will have their Background choices locked, but if you’re making a custom character, you have some freedom. By starting with Cleric you can choose History and Religion proficiency, in combination with either the Folk Hero or Outlander backgrounds, which both grant Survival proficiency. Survival sometimes comes up outside of dialogue in the open world, and there are occasionally situations where Religion checks are very obvious (there is a church/altar). If you select any (non-Half) Elf race, you’ll also get Perception proficiency, which is a very common skill check outside of dialogue.

Level Progression

Down below you can find a level progression that can be followed in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough. You may opt to respec less often or even more often to maximize your spell progression, though that is not necessary for this build to be very strong.

Baldur’s Gate 3 gives Light Domain Cleric a very strong toolbox of features, which are very strong early game. Once we get to two uses of Channel Divinity per short rest at level 6, though, we can freely respec to make our first level Sorcerer. This gives us Constitution saving throw proficiency to boost our Concentration saving throws for our best spell, spirit guardians. This also gives us two very strong spells in shield and enhance leap, as well as 30 feet of flight as a bonus action when we cast a spell.

Level 1: Cleric
Subclass – Light Domain

Level 2: Cleric (Cleric 2)
Level 3: Cleric (Cleric 3)
Level 4: Cleric (Cleric 4)
Feat – War Caster

Level 5: Cleric (Cleric 5)
Level 6: Cleric (Cleric 6)
Level 7: Sorcerer (Respec) (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 6)
Subclass – Storm Sorcery

Level 8: Cleric (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 7)
Level 9: Cleric (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 8)
Feat – Alert

Level 10: Cleric (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 9)
Level 11: Cleric (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 10)
Level 12: Cleric (Sorcerer 1/Cleric 11)

Key Spells

Cleric is a prepared spellcaster, which in Baldur’s Gate 3 means you can swap out spells at any time when you’re not in combat. This doesn’t apply to your Sorcerer spells (enhance leap and shield), but these two spells will remain useful for the entire game.

Cantrips: sacred flame
1. bless, command, create water, enhance leap, sanctuary, shield
2. aid, flaming sphere
3. spirit guardians
4. death ward
5. destructive wave, greater restoration, planar binding
6. heroes’ feast, planar ally (Djinn or Cambion)

Items

You always want to wear the best available medium armor and shield you can get your hands on. Early on, this will be Githyanki Half-Plate and a mundane shield.

Luminous Armor, Luminous Gloves, and Coruscation Ring apply the condition Radiating Orb each time you do Radiant damage (from spirit guardians, Radiance of the Dawn, sacred flame, etc.) which reduces the affected target’s chance to hit based on how many turns it has remaining. This was nerfed in Patch 5, but is still very strong on Clerics, especially with Light Domain’s Channel Divinity. These three items will be extremely important for this build’s power and should certainly be obtained as soon as possible. Aside from Radiating Orb items, the Cleric benefits greatly from stacking items that increase their Armor Class.

The most impactful items (which will often optimally be equipped for the rest of the game once you acquire them) will be underlined.

Helmets

Holy Lance Helm (Act 1) – Every time an enemy misses you, they have a chance (on a Dexterity saving throw) to take Radiant damage, which triggers your Luminous Armor and Luminous Gloves to inflict the Radiating Orb condition.
Helm of Balduran (Act 3) – This is obtained quite late in the game, and provides some very nice personal survivability with regeneration (2 hit points at the start of your turn), as well as +1 to Armor Class and Saving Throws. If you don’t have any melee martials in your party, this will likely be better than Holy Lance Helm for you once you acquire it.

Amulets

Amulet of Misty Step (Act 1)
Amulet of the Harpers (Act 2) – Advantage on Wisdom saves are good in general, but especially so when you give up Wisdom saving throw proficiency for Constitution saving throw proficiency upon respeccing at level 7. A free cast of shield is also quite nice.

Armor

Luminous Armor (Act 1) – Any time you deal Radiant damage, spell or not, you cause a shockwave that inflicts Radiating Orb. This will most commonly apply to your spirit guardians and Radiance of the Dawn, but also to sacred flame casts and Holy Lance Helm triggers.
Helldusk Armor (Act 3) – This armor lacks Radiating Orb triggers, but the increase in Armor Class is quite valuable, being the highest Armor Class item in this slot.

Handwear

Luminous Gloves (Act 2) – Similar to Luminous Armor, this inflicts Radiating Orb to the damaged target, stacking with other sources of the debuff.

Footwear

Disintegrating Night Walkers (Act 1) – Very useful for mobility, provides a lot of generically useful benefits.
Evasive Shoes (Act 2) – +1 to Armor Class

Rings

Crusher’s Ring (Act 1) – Adds 10 feet to your movement speed, which stacks with longstrider and further enhances your mobility when used with enhance leap.
Ring of Protection (Act 1) – +1 to Armor Class and saving throws.
Callous Glow Ring (Act 2) – Makes your spells do a little bit extra damage to illuminated targets, which will easily be all of yours. Probably better on a different caster like Wizard or Warlock, but if you didn’t meet the story requirements for the Ring of Protection, you could consider this ring for your Cleric.
Coruscation Ring (Act 2) – This only applies to your spells, but all of them will apply another instance of Radiating Orb.

Cloak

Cloak of Protection (Act 2) – +1 to Armor Class and saving throws.
Cloak of Displacement (Act 3) – You already get Warding Flare which gives attacks disadvantage to hit you when it matters, so this likely isn’t better than Cloak of Protection, but it is still very good.

Ranged Weapons

Bow of Awareness (Act 1) – Just here for the +1 bonus to Initiative, not to attack with.
Hand Crossbow (Act 1) – Available very early, this and the below Hand Crossbows will provide you with a bonus action attack when dual wielded with another hand crossbow, without the need to attack with the main hand. Especially useful if your Cleric is a Drow, as they have innate hand crossbow proficiency. While this attack doesn’t do a lot of damage, it can also be used to hit objects such as barrels and potions next to allies, essentially turning the option to throw a potion from an action into a bonus action (as placing items onto the ground costs no actions).
Hand Crossbow +1 (Act 1)
Hellfire Hand Crossbow (Act 2)
Hand Crossbow +2 (Act 3)
Hellrider Longbow (Act 3) – Upgrades the Bow of Awareness’ +1 bonus to Initiative to a +3.

Melee Weapons

Defender Flail (Act 1) – +1 Armour Class.
Phalar Aluve (Act 1) – Once per short rest, this sword lets you activate a helpful (bless-like effect) or harmful aura. The helpful aura stacks with the bless spell for even more attack and saving throw bonus, making it very powerful for someone to have in the party. Late game, the bane aura can also add more damage to another party member’s magic missile nova options. As we mentioned in our Wizard build, it would be better for someone other than the Wizard to activate Phalar Aluve’s bane effect, and the Cleric is a prime candidate for that.
Staff of Arcane Blessing (Act 1) – Makes your bless boost the to-hit for your and your party members’ cantrips even further than normal. The description is a bit deceptive, but the extra 1d4 only applies to spell attacks for a total of 2d4.
The Blood of Lathander (Act 1) – Provides a death ward-like effect, sunbeam once per long rest, and a blinding aura against fiends and undead, which is quite useful in Act 2.
Story Spoiler Name (Act 3) – Provides advantage on saving throws against spells, which in certain fights can be quite useful.

Shields

Adamantine Shield (Act 1) – Same AC bonus as a normal shield, but this gives enemies that miss you a further -1 attack penalty. This will come up often between your Radiating Orb debuff and stacking AC bonus items.
Shield +1 (Act 2) – The highest AC you’ll get out of this slot.
Story Spoiler Name (Act 3) – Gives the same AC bonus as a Shield +1, but also provides advantage on saving throws against spells, along with a variety of other smaller bonuses.

Consumables

Elixir of Heroism (Act 1-3) – This elixir is generically useful, in that it provides the effects of the bless spell to you for the entire long rest. After level 5, you’ll likely not be concentrating on bless, and having this will improve your saving throws to maintain Concentration or resist enemy spells.
Elixir of Peerless Focus (Act 1-3) – Provides advantage on concentration saving throws, in addition to some other minor effects. This essentially replaces the War Caster feat at the cost of your Elixir for the day, which could be useful, especially on days where you don’t want to expend the powerful but more limited Elixirs of Battlemage’s Power in Act 2.
Elixir of Vigilance (Act 1-3) – Similar to the previous elixir, this is basically the Alert feat in elixir form. You can choose one or the other, depending on which feat you don’t have at your particular point in progression.
Potion of Speed (Act 1-3) – Drink as a bonus action to grant all the good benefits from haste for 3 turns, but without the need for concentration. Many encounters can be ended within this time frame. Can be purchased and found frequently from very early on in the game.

Strategy

For your first four levels (which doesn’t last very many combats), your best spells to cast will be bless, command, and sacred flame. If you’re a Drow, you can equip two hand crossbows and use these to increase your at will damage output slightly over just using cantrips. Sanctuary is another useful spell available early, but you likely won’t get much use out of it. If your party has at least one party member casting ray of frost, create water is another useful spell to cast early, as in combination with ray of frost it will create an ice surface and cause the wet condition on enemies. From level 2 and on, your Channel Divinity, Radiance of Dawn, will consistently provide significant damage in a wide area. Enemies take half damage on a save, so on average the damage done remains very strong for the whole game, and you even get a second charge of your Channel Divinity at level 6.

From level 5 onward, your main concentration spell will be spirit guardians, which does damage when you run it into enemies or when they walk into the aura. With high mobility from the enhance leap and longstrider spells, flight from Storm Sorcery’s effect, and possibly the dash action you can easily get the damage to trigger onto most of if not all enemies in combat. You can also use it similarly to 5e’s spirit guardians, by positioning it between the enemies and your allies, so that melee enemies are forced to enter the aura. Keep in mind, the duration in this game is only 10 rounds instead of 10 minutes, so in effect this is usually just the duration of one combat. The dodge action is not available in Baldur’s Gate 3, but with your effective AC from magic items, Radiating Orb, and the unlimited use Warding Flare, you won’t notice the difference. Instead, casting sacred flame to trigger more Radiating Orb stacks, the dash action, or perhaps an upcasted command if you need it are good options for your action while concentrating on spirit guardians.

Just like 5e, upcasting spirit guardians is going to frequently be an excellent choice at higher levels as well. However, you might want to hold on to 5th and 6th level slots for destructive wave and planar ally respectively. These are both non-concentration options, but destructive wave can be used for additional nova after concentrating on spirit guardians. Planar ally summons a creature of your choice until your next long rest, of which the djinn and cambion are very powerful. The djinn has a very powerful at-will control effect, while the cambion offers more damage.