Flagship Build: Twilight Domain Cleric

Author: Majin Evelyn / Tatersalad810

This D&D 5E build, the Flagship Cleric, is a spellcaster that can contribute by providing incredible offense, out of combat utility, flexibility, and sustainability to any party.

Our Flagship Cleric shares many traits with our Basic Build Cleric but has some notable differences. They do not have the same subclass but there is significant overlap in the playstyle with a focus on standout spells like bless, spirit guardians, and other powerful party-wide buffs accessible at higher levels. The Flagship Cleric is less inclined to play at range in combat than its Basic Build counterpart as it lacks access to fireball, and is instead incentivized to stay close to their allies by virtue of its Channel Divinity. Early in the game, we have a nice blend of buffing, healing, offense, and utility. In Tier 2, we will use the combination of spirit guardians and a dip in Sorcerer and Wizard in our main version and variant respectively to become a close combat shredder, capable of incredible damage with stellar defenses and sustained party-wide support all at the same time. The infamous Twilight Sanctuary will provide a wealth of temporary hit points to our allies, hugely increasing the survivability of the party. Our prepared spellcasting will allow for a great amount of flexibility, which we can leverage both out of combat and at the end of each adventuring day.

As with all Flagship Builds, we present a choice between two different variant options for your table. 

We will also be providing more in-depth strategies and spell selections for downtime days than the Basic Build did. A Cleric with a lot of spare time can accomplish wonders!

So before we move on, which version of the build would you like to see?

Class: Cleric

Skills – Insight, Persuasion. Cleric starting skills do not allow us to pick our three most important skills (Arcana, Stealth, and Perception), so we will have to look to our background and race to fill in gaps. From the available choices, both Insight and Persuasion are two more common skill checks, and Insight is nice to have on a Wisdom-based class.
Divine Domain – Twilight Domain. One of the most powerful kits offered by a subclass in the game thus far, with every one of its features being valuable. The main reason we are picking this up is because of its Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary, which we will be able to use to contribute significantly to the survivability of our party by providing them a fountain of refreshing temporary hit points or ending Charm or Frighten effects.
Bonus Proficiencies (Twilight Domain feature) – We gain proficiency in martial weapons (not useful), and heavy armor. 
Eyes of the Night (Twilight Domain feature) – We gain Darkvision up to a range of 300 feet. The 300 feet means that in combat you’re never going to be “out-distanced” by an enemy as far as Darkvision range goes. You can also share the Darkvision of this feature with willing creatures you can see within 10 feet of you, up to a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier. In Tier 1, that’ll be 3 creatures, and 4 at level 4 or later. It lasts for one hour, which might be tight for running through an entire dungeon, but could be enough to stealthily get through a good chunk of one without having to light up torches or lanterns. While in total darkness, you can use this difference in Darkvision range to gain advantage over your enemies, as monsters typically have more limited Darkvision, if any at all (30 feet, 60 feet, and uncommonly 90 feet).
You can also expend a spell slot of any level to do it again—which is probably not worthwhile early on, but might be later in the game if you have excess resources. 
Vigilant Blessing (Twilight Domain feature) – We can give advantage to initiative checks to one creature, which can include yourself. This only applies to one creature at a time, but otherwise can be used an unlimited number of times, which means you should always have it active on someone. Similar in impact to gift of alacrity, one of the best spells in the game, for one person in your party, in every combat. You can always swap who has this benefit before each encounter, but if you have a competent controller in your party, they will likely see the most benefit from receiving your Vigilant Blessing. Early in the game, this might even be you.

Spellcasting – The strongest feature in the game.

Bless – One of the best 1st level spells in the game. Adding 1d4 to attacks and saves may not sound like much, but if three people’s attack rolls go from having a 65% chance of hitting to having a 77.5% chance of hitting, that’s like adding over half a turn of attacks to your side every round; more against high AC enemies. For a concentrating caster with 14 Constitution who isn’t proficient in Constitution saves, this spell cuts the chance of failing a DC 10 save by about a third (from 35% to 22.5%). For a caster (like you) who is proficient in Constitution saves, the chance you fail a DC 10 roll is cut from 25% to 12.5%. If you like Kobolds, as you should, a particularly bright one spoke about bless here. 
Command – A nice non-concentration option that can disable a creature (later we will be able to upcast it to affect more than one) for a round, and potentially generate opportunity attacks from our melee allies in the process if we use the “flee” option. Generating multiple attacks of opportunity through the use of this spell can make for a strong nova round, especially when combined at later levels with summon spells such as conjure animals.
Faerie fire ^D – A domain spell. A decent buff to your allies, offering only one save to enemies in a 20 feet cube, and giving everyone advantage against them if they fail the Dexterity saving throw. It has some situational use for countering invisibility, but most of the time you’re likely better off using bless, which just works, no roll required.
Healing word – Use in emergencies to pick someone back up from 0 hit points. Leverage your Arcana proficiency to scribe scrolls of this during down time—since it’s a spell that we use reactively rather than proactively, having a stockpile of scrolls on hand will alleviate the need to always keep a spell slot in reserve for an emergency. If you have a person in the party that can consistently scribe them for you, or you can accumulate a sufficiently large stockpile, you could eventually swap this for something else (or swap this instead of something else) at higher levels.
Sanctuary – A bonus action casting time spell that forces any enemy that tries to target the affected creature with an attack or harmful spell to make a Wisdom save or redirect or lose the attack or spell. Certain encounters with choke points such as doorways can make good use of this cast on a Dodging party member, including yourself. 
Sleep ^D – Clerics at level 1 had a bit of a weakness where their strongest option was casting bless, which while effective was a fairly passive play that required party members to be making attack rolls. The Twilight Domain solves that by giving us a spell that can literally end encounters with a single casting at level 1 and 2.
Guidance – One of the most useful and versatile cantrips in the game. Concentrate on it whenever you’re not concentrating on anything else and you don’t need to be quiet, as the bonus also applies to initiative. 
Sacred flame – Taking two save-for-damage cantrips might seem like an awkward bit of overlap, but being able to bypass Undead Fortitude is a nice ability to have in the low levels. Also, as we go up in level, monsters tend to have better Wisdom saves, whereas their Dexterity saves tend to fall behind, so even though this does less damage on a failed save than toll the dead does in most cases, it can still be a better option sometimes.
Toll the dead – Your party should be focus firing on one enemy at a time, so you should usually be able to use this on a monster who’s missing hit points for the d12 version of the damage.

Background (Custom)

Skills – Arcana, Stealth. Arcana proficiency is valuable on any full caster, including Cleric. Arcana proficiency can help us scribe spell scrolls during downtime, and if we play in a game that uses Xanathar’s Guide to Everything variant rules for spell identification, identify spells. Stealth is very handy for dungeon exploration and surprising monsters. The armor we will be wearing means disadvantage on Stealth checks, which makes it even more important to have a decent bonus. When everyone in a party has Stealth proficiency, pass without trace becomes a very reliable play.
Tools – Carpenter’s tools, mason’s tools. Carpenter’s tools can help you on History, Investigation, or Perception checks involving wooden buildings, and mason’s tools do the same for stone structures. Most structures are probably made of wood or stone, and being able to find traps better in most dungeons is a useful ability. If you expect another tool proficiency to be more useful for your campaign, feel free to select a different tool proficiency from our tools guide.
Feature – Adept Linguist. We’re taking this feature because we pick up command, which requires that the target understand the language you speak the command word in. This feature might help you learn the language your targets speak so that you can effectively cast the spell. This is a useful feature even if you don’t need to learn a language to use command, especially for campaigns that feature a lot of traveling to foreign lands. 
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW. Page 125 of the PHB states “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Adept Linguist feature. Like always, we do not include any information about character traits because we believe that flavor is free and that you should roleplay the character the way you feel about it.

Skills – Arcana, Stealth. Arcana proficiency is valuable on any full caster, including Cleric. Arcana proficiency can help us scribe spell scrolls during downtime, and if we play in a game that uses Xanathar’s Guide to Everything variant rules for spell identification, identify spells. Stealth is very handy for dungeon exploration and surprising monsters. The armor we will be wearing means disadvantage on Stealth checks, which makes it even more important to have a decent bonus. When everyone in a party has Stealth proficiency, pass without trace becomes a very reliable play.
Tools – Carpenter’s tools, mason’s tools. Carpenter’s tools can help you on History, Investigation, or Perception checks involving wooden buildings, and mason’s tools do the same for stone structures. Most structures are probably made of wood or stone, and being able to find traps better in most dungeons is a useful ability. We aren’t proficient with these skills, but we can still add our proficiency bonus to checks that use carpenter’s and mason’s tools. If you expect another tool proficiency to be more useful for your campaign, feel free to select a different tool proficiency from our tools guide. 
Feature – Adept Linguist. We’re taking this feature because we pick up command, which requires that the target understand the language you speak the command word in. This feature might help you learn the language your targets speak so that you can effectively cast the spell. This is a useful feature even if you don’t need to learn a language to use command, especially for campaigns that feature a lot of traveling to foreign lands. 
Creator’s Note– Making a custom background is RAW. Page 125 of the PHB states “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” Using this, we are making a custom background and using the Adept Linguist feature. Like always, we do not include any information about character traits because we believe that flavor is free and that you should roleplay the character the way you feel about it.

Level 1 Strategy

At this level, we’ll mostly be casting toll the dead, or sacred flame against undead. We should be aiming to commit to either bless or sleep in a difficult fight, while saving at least one spell slot for healing word in case a teammate goes down. It’s usually prudent to pick yourself as one of the targets of bless because it helps you maintain concentration on itself, but the other targets (at least at this level) should probably be whoever does the most damage with attacks.
Remember to designate the person with the strongest shut-down spell or ability as the target of your Vigilant Blessing before going into combat (quite possibly us at this level) and make sure your party members lacking in Darkvision have the shared benefit of Eyes of the Night. We will be wearing heavy armor for this build, starting with chain mail at this level. This will mean our base 35 feet movement speed will be reduced to 25 feet, but this is still manageable. Once we get access to mounts, this will be even more inconsequential. Scribe scrolls of bless, healing word, and sanctuary whenever you have downtime starting from this level. 

Level 2: Cleric

Channel Divinity (1/Rest) – Like all Clerics, we can use our Channel Divinity to Turn Undead, forcing all Undead within 30 feet who can see or hear us to make a Wisdom saving throw or have to use their action each turn for ten rounds to get as far away from us as possible. This most often takes things out of the fight completely, as long as your allies know not to do damage to turned enemies. Your party should be able to deal with everything else in the fight in a few rounds, and then focus fire or hunt down any turned enemies that are still around one at a time. With every ally taking a readied action (triggering on the signal of whichever ally goes after the target in initiative, naturally) and a full turn, few things will survive long enough to act at this level.
Twilight Sanctuary (Twilight Domain feature) – As an action, create an extremely strong buff for your party. Grant allies in a generous radius temporary hit points (with no set duration, which by default will last until the next long rest) that scale better than the Artillerist’s Protector Cannon or casually end some of the most debilitating effects in the game like vampire Charms, enemy hypnotic patterns, a dragon’s Frightful Presence, etc. Beyond the initial action, there’s no action economy cost to apply or reapply the buffs. There are some interesting interactions from this, like removing the darkness created by the darkness spell (it’s magical light, so it can illuminate the darkness, and it’s not created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, so the light isn’t dispelled) or accidentally removing the darkness a Gloomstalker Ranger is relying on to be invisible. Did we mention that it’s non-concentration? Activating this while concentrating on a spell if the encounter warrants it is a very potent option. For now, we’re limited to one per rest, so save it for tougher fights.

Harness Divine Power (Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Optional feature) – Bonus action to regain an expended spell slot, the level of which can’t be higher than half your proficiency bonus rounded up. For many other domains, this feature is one that gives Clerics some more resources back on a short rest, as some domains don’t have powerful Channel Divinity options. Not so for us, as the regained spell slot would typically be better off used on activating Twilight Sanctuary before the rest and giving everyone a nice bit of temporary hit points if they don’t already have any. If your party needs to short rest and you have multiple Channel Divinity uses left (which might happen starting at Cleric 6), use one to give everyone their temporary hit points then convert the remaining use(s) to get your slots back. 
Spell Changes: +detect magic.

Detect magic – This is just a handy ritual that every party needs. If you have a Wizard in the party, they could grab the spell instead to open up a preparation for you down the road.

Level 2 Strategy

The biggest change from Level 1 is that now we have Turn Undead and Twilight Sanctuary. Our decision flowchart for the first round of important fights is now, “Are we fighting undead? If so, turn them. If not, is this encounter likely going to have a lot of attack rolls? If so, use Twilight Sanctuary. Otherwise, cast bless or sleep.” You might consider casting sanctuary on yourself immediately afterward taking the Dodge action to clog up a doorway, which is another good option. Additionally, after a long rest, you can use Twilight Sanctuary and follow it up with a short rest before adventuring to start the party off with a nice temporary hit point buffer.

Level 3: Cleric 

Spell Changes: +aid, +locate object, +moonbeam ^D, +see invisibility ^D, –detect magic.

Spell Changes: +aid, +moonbeam ^D, +pass without trace, +see invisibility ^D, –detect magic.

Aid – Increases both maximum and current hit points of three friendly creatures (which can include ourselves) by 5 for 8 hours. You should be looking to rest cast this whenever you end the day with a 2nd level spell slot (or higher, until we get access to better rest casts), and to use it in combat if multiple allies go down.

Locate object – A useful thing to have available in dungeons, particularly if your DM treats “magic item” as a kind of object. Use it after you’ve cleared the parts of the dungeon that you know about to try to find areas and loot you might not know about. “Door” should be an uncontroversial use for helping find secret ones. Check out our Spell Spotlight on Locate Object for more information and other applications.

Moonbeam ^D – Moonbeam is… well, it’s okay. It’s a situational spell to help out against werewolves, vampires, and other shapechangers. We usually won’t be casting this except maybe against the above enemies.

Pass without trace – This is one of the best spells in the game and a primary reason the Mark of Passage Human made the cut for the variant build. Going by the Rules as Written Stealth and Surprise rules, pass without trace is your premier 2nd level spell and one of the best spells in the game in general. Use its hour-long duration to cast well ahead of time in any environment with places to hide, watch the +10 bonus completely blitz past the majority of monsters’ passive Perception scores, and either easily surprise most enemies or sometimes avoid an undesirable fight entirely. To make this even more guaranteed, your party members should pick up Stealth proficiency, even if they have a low Dexterity score. 

See invisibility ^D – Another minor piece of utility that can sometimes come up. Second level domain spells are definitely not the reason we chose this subclass.

Level 3 Strategy

Level 4: Cleric 

Level 5: Cleric

Destroy Undead (CR ½) – If we use Channel Divinity: Turn Undead and any CR ½ or lower undead fail the save, they are instantly destroyed instead of being turned. Usually not a big difference in the end, but saves some cleanup.
Spell Changes: +aura of vitality ^D, +Leomund’s tiny hut ^D, +revivify, +spirit guardians, -sanctuary.

Aura of vitality ^D  – This is best used as a strong heal outside of combat (20d6 total, divided how you choose), but in a fight where a party member keeps falling unconscious, you can use this to bring them back from 0 repeatedly and keep them in the fight. Harness Divine Power lets you have more resources to spend on this spell, but for this level it is still competing with your concentration and spell slot for spirit guardians.
Leomund’s tiny hut ^D – Create a dome of force that your allies can pass through freely, but outsiders can’t, as a ritual. Resting has never been easier. If you’re wary of the potential threat of dispel magic per the healthy paranoia principles, you can defend against this as well by casting the spell multiple times, creating multiple nested domes which would require several castings of dispel magic to get through. A very nice ritual to get for free from our domain, potentially freeing up a known spell for another caster in the party.
Revivify – Parties shouldn’t expect Clerics to cast a lot of healing spells, but expecting them to have this spell prepped once it’s available is legitimate. Make sure to keep diamonds on you to ensure you can cast this when you need it. As another reactive, situational spell, you can start scribing scrolls of revivify during downtime from here.
Spirit guardians – This spell damages enemies when they come within 15 feet of you, and also halves their speed while within the radius. Many DMs treat the area of the spell as equivalent to difficult terrain, but as written, enemies who enter the area have their speed halved, which means that if they’ve already spent half their original speed to get there, they are stopped in their tracks, which is better than difficult terrain. On the flip side, if an enemy starts 5 feet from you and spends 15 feet of movement to leave the area, their speed is restored to normal, having spent only 15 feet (not 30 feet as if they had been walking through difficult terrain). So when the effect of spirit guardians functions as written (versus difficult terrain), it’s harder for enemies to get to you, but easier for them to leave. Additionally, this speed reduction works in tandem with difficult terrain to make it nearly impossible for melee monsters to reach you and your party. Work with the other casters in your party to combine difficult terrain spells like web, entangle, plant growth (a slightly different movement mechanic but still stacks), and grease with the speed reduction and repeating damage from your own spirit guardians. Make sure to cast this just before the start of combat, as the long 10 minute duration gives you a lot of leeway. It can even last multiple combat encounters, provided they are close together!

Level 5 Strategy

Level 6: Cleric 

Steps of Night (Twilight Domain feature) – When in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can grant yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute, up to a proficiency bonus number of times per long rest. Depending on the type of campaign you are in, the activation conditions for this ability could range from “almost always” to “rarely ever,” but flight speed is always powerful. As we mentioned at level 2, Twilight Sanctuary may provide the dim light necessary to activate Steps of Night. Outside of that though, just as you would in parties with other subclasses that interact with low light level, it may be beneficial for your party to travel during the night in order to take advantage of Steps of Night. Give friendly Variant Humans Darkvision from Eyes of Night and be good to go! Remember that Twilight Sanctuary and spirit guardians emanate from you in every direction, so you can still maneuver to have creatures end their turn in each respective zone even if you are flying. Since this is a magical form of flight holding us aloft, we can also go prone in the air. This reduces your speed to zero, so you must stay in place until you use half your speed to stand again. You still make ranged attacks hit you with disadvantage, while not having to worry about the melee downside, as long as you are flying safely out of range.
Channel Divinity (2/Rest) – Twice as many uses of Twilight Sanctuary. If you can pace a six encounter adventuring day to have 2 encounters per rest (short rest, short rest, long rest), you will have 100% uptime. Don’t be overly cautious about using your signature feature; this is a very large part of why we consider this build a Flagship!

Level 8: Cleric (Cleric 7/Sorcerer 1)

Level 8: Cleric (Cleric 7/Wizard 1)

Level 9: Cleric (Cleric 8/Sorcerer 1)

Level 9: Cleric (Cleric 8/Wizard 1)

Level 10: Cleric (Cleric 9/Sorcerer 1)

Level 10: Cleric (Cleric 9/Wizard 1)

Circle of power ^D – This gives the entire party advantage on saves against spells, and if the saves are successful, they take no damage from them. Being able to effectively nullify an encounter with enemy casters is excellent if it comes up, and damaging spells tend to be commonplace at higher levels. This will be more situational on a Twilight Cleric because of the numerous powerful tools we already have available, but it’s still a good spell to have in our back pocket against spellcasters specifically.

Commune – A ritual that lets you ask your deity three yes or no questions and get correct answers for each one, unless the DM decides the questions are beyond your deity’s knowledge. Like divination, the DM has an “out” if they don’t want to answer your question, this time in the form of saying your deity doesn’t know (as opposed to giving a cryptic response). Feel free to stick with divination, if you prefer it.

Greater restoration – This is useful for somebody in the party to have on hand. A lot of the debuffs this clears are things that could be dealt with the next day, by prepping this when you know you need it, but there are some pretty nasty effects imposed by specific monster abilities that petrify their target, and having this available if one of those sticks could really turn a dire situation into a manageable one. The spell consumes 100gp of diamond dust, so make sure to have some on hand.
Mislead ^D – An illusion-based scouting spell with unlimited range. Need to talk to someone who might try to stab you during the conversation? Cast mislead instead of walking in yourself. As your illusory double is an illusion, it may very well be able to pass through solid objects as well, but ask your DM before doing so with this spell.

Level 10 Strategy

Spirit guardians remains your staple concentration spell, and upcasting it is often going to be the best use of your 4th and 5th level slots. If you have a tough fight against a small number of enemies who are powerful but don’t have Legendary Resistance, you may want to use your 4th or 5th level slot on banishment. Bless is still a solid option for concentration if you don’t want to use a higher level slot and/or your other spells don’t fit the situation, since it’s pretty much always useful. Command is still a go-to non-concentration option that can be cast at any level. Keep in mind though that spell slots you can avoid spending in combat can be used to rest cast aid. Consider preparing both commune and divination on downtime/recovery days and use both rituals to gather information about upcoming adventures. The following spells are also worth considering during downtime:

Spirit guardians and pass without trace remain your staple concentration spells. Upcasting spirit guardians is often going to be the best use of your 4th and 5th level slots. If you have a tough fight against a small number of enemies who are powerful but don’t have Legendary Resistance, you may want to use your 5th level slot on an upcast banishment. Bless is still a solid option for concentration if you don’t want to use a higher level slot and/or your other spells don’t fit the situation, since it’s pretty much always good. Command is still a go-to non-concentration option that can be cast at any level. Keep in mind though that spell slots you can avoid spending in combat can be used to rest cast aid. Consider preparing both commune and divination on downtime/recovery days and use both rituals to gather information about upcoming adventures. The following spells are also worth considering during downtime:

Level 11: Cleric (Cleric 10/Sorcerer 1)

Level 11: Cleric (Cleric 10/Wizard 1)

Divine Intervention – You have a 1 in 10 chance of getting your deity to offer their assistance in a dire situation (well, it doesn’t have to be a dire situation, but since you can’t use this again for 7 days if it works, so you probably don’t want to use it for a free sandwich). The odds of success aren’t high, so even if the impact would be great this is probably not something you want to use an action on in combat very often. However, you get the most mileage out of this feature if the party has big goals out of combat that would be difficult to accomplish otherwise (things like true resurrections of targets who’ve been dead too long to bring up with spells you have access to), and you can afford to try again each day until you succeed. Of course, if the party is about to die, this can be your “Hail Mary.”

Dawn – One of the few shortcomings of this build is a paucity of ranged options. We take this spell to fill this gap. This spell is mainly going to be used to flush enemies out of a fortified or entrenched position when you’re much too far away to close the distance and use spirit guardians. A 30 foot radius cylinder is large, and will take up a significant chunk of the map. Combine this with other movement restricting effects from your ally, forced movement to push enemies back in, or simply an insufficiently spacious room, and enemies will have a hard time finding their footing without getting burned. Bear in mind the height of the cylinder allows you to target a point above a wall and then have the spell descend down from your point of origin to hit your targets. No, we do not expect this to be a staple spell used regularly, but when it is warranted it is surprisingly good, especially when you consider the limited availability of viable ranged offense in the Cleric spell list. The light is also sunlight which can interact with certain enemies in your favor.

Animate dead – Most spells that give you extra creatures to control require concentration; this is one of the few exceptions. Having a few skeleton archers follow us around is a nice little bit of extra damage without a big resource commitment: just a 3rd level slot each time you want to animate a new one, and then a single 3rd level slot each day to maintain control over up to four of them. We are at a point now where we can afford to commit a 4th or 5th level spell slot to either spirit guardians or banishment in any important fight, making it more likely you’ll have some spare 3rd level slots at the end of a day. If so, this is a cheap ongoing offensive boost by transforming leftover slots today into power tomorrow. The skeletons are fragile, but Twilight Sanctuary will more than double their hit points at this point. If they do die, you can just reanimate their bones again after they’re killed (see the techbox below). 

Animate dead – Most spells that give you extra creatures to control require concentration; this is one of the few exceptions. Having a few skeleton archers follow us around is a nice little bit of extra damage without a big resource commitment: just a 3rd level slot each time you want to animate a new one, and then a single 3rd level slot each day to maintain control over up to four of them. We are at a point now where we can afford to commit a 4th or 5th level spell slot to either spirit guardians or banishment in any important fight, making it more likely you’ll have some spare 3rd level slots at the end of a day. If so, this is a cheap ongoing offensive boost by transforming leftover slots today into power tomorrow. The skeletons are fragile, but Twilight Sanctuary will more than double their hit points at this point. If they do die, you can just reanimate their bones again after they’re killed (see the techbox below). If your table isn’t amenable to having a horde of skeleton minions, keep bless. Remember: your unspent 3rd level spell slot from yesterday does 0 damage and takes 0 hit for you, animate dead changes that. Also note: the larger your undead horde grows, the more likely one of the pile of bones is going to scuff your pass without trace enabled surprise with a low Stealth roll.

Thaumaturgy – This is mostly something to enhance your ability to roleplay a powerful being with a link to the divine, as it doesn’t have defined mechanical benefits, but DM-willing you might be able to use it to make yourself more intimidating, create distractions, or trick people.

Level 11 Strategy

This level gains us some powerful options to cover some gaps in our spell list, in dawn and animate dead. Dawn covers encounters where spirit guardians will not provide us significant value, and animate dead prepared daily gives us an avenue to maintain a small skeleton army with any unused slots. If someone else is preparing locate object daily, and you won’t see any additional value from having another caster of these spells in your party, keeping lesser restoration prepared may be a better choice.

This level gains us some powerful options to cover some gaps in our spell list, in dawn and animate dead. Dawn covers encounters where spirit guardians will not provide us significant value, and animate dead prepared daily gives us an avenue to maintain a small skeleton army with any unused slots. These additions to our spell list justify taking bless off of our daily prepared list. By now, you likely have some bless scrolls lying around anyway, in the off chance that it will still net you some value. If someone else is preparing locate object and/or phantom steed daily, and you won’t see any additional value from having another caster of these spells in your party, keeping bless prepared may be a better choice.

Level 12: Cleric (Cleric 11/Sorcerer 1)

Level 12: Cleric (Cleric 11/Wizard 1)

Destroy Undead (CR 2) – Now featuring ghasts, minotaur skeletons, poltergeists, and will-o’-wisps, among other things.

Spell Changes: +forbiddance, +heal, -commune.

Spell Changes: +forbiddance, +heal, +death ward, -healing word, -locate object.

Forbiddance – This spell is a ritual, and an exceptionally strong one at that. Pack Tactics goes into detail about the spell here. Cast as a ritual, this will take 20 minutes (and won’t consume the material components), which you could do while inside a leomund’s tiny hut that you cast beforehand. The huge area will likely kill and/or prevent celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead from teleporting away once it is set. We expect that many adventures will run headfirst into at least one of these creature types frequently, so it is very reasonable to prepare it on the average adventuring day. If for some reason you know you won’t encounter any of these creatures on a given day though, feel free to prepare a different spell instead.

Heal – This one’s pretty straightforward: you heal yourself or an ally for 70 hit points. A control spell or spirit guardians may prevent more incoming damage, but this spell gets relatively better compared to control options the stronger your party’s defenses are. In terms of total hit points healed, an upcast aid provides slightly more, but if the enemies are focusing their damage, it’s useful to be able to concentrate the healing in one place. Besides, you could just upcast aid the night before and then use heal in the thick of things when warranted.

Death ward – Like aid, this is an 8 hour duration spell that can be rest cast with any 4th or 5th level slots you have at the end of your long rest. Using your highest level slot on aid is still likely the first priority for rest casting, but you may as well use this on as many allies as you can with other remaining slots.

Level 12 Strategy

It’s probably worth being a bit stingy with your 6th level spell slot in case you find yourself needing to cast heal. However, you probably have enough 4th and 5th level slots to use one in any fight if you need to, which means you can basically always be upcasting spirit guardians to 4th or 5th level or upcasting banishment to 5th level, which frees your lower level slots for non-concentration things like command, silvery barbs, or dispel magic. We stop preparing commune at this level to make room for forbiddance, but remember that during downtime there is little cost to taking both divination and commune to gather information for upcoming adventuring days.

It’s probably worth being a bit stingy with your 6th level spell slot in case you find yourself needing to cast heal. However, you probably have enough 4th and 5th level slots to use one in any fight if you need to, which means you can basically always be upcasting spirit guardians to 4th or 5th or upcasting banishment to 5th, which frees your lower level slots for non-concentration things like command, silvery barbs, or dispel magic. At this level, healing word sometimes isn’t enough to keep someone from going down again instantly, so it has been dropped in favor of death ward and heal. By this point, you probably have some healing word  scrolls lying around anyway, and aid is still an option to bring up allies from 0 hit points. If you run out of healing word scrolls, you or someone else can prepare it during downtime to stock back up. Locate object is also dropped here in favor of the other spells available at this level, but if you notice that your party critically needs locate object, feel free to pick it back up. Take note of any other party members with access to greater restoration, death ward, dimension door, phantom steed, or pass without trace as these may be worth dropping in favor of locate object.

Level 13: Cleric (Cleric 12/Sorcerer 1)

Level 13: Cleric (Cleric 12/Wizard 1)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. This gives us a way to reroll failed saves. These might be important concentration saves when taking large amounts of damage, saves against particularly debilitating effects, especially Intelligence saving throws, which are a bit of an Achilles heel for us. 

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. Most of our Flagship builds take War Caster later and Lucky earlier. Twilight Cleric is an exception, by virtue of spirit guardians requiring us to be close to the enemies. Even when taking the Dodge action and having the shield spell available for 20-25 AC, getting hit is an inevitability. Therefore, making frequent concentration saves on our very important, and long lasting, spirit guardians is likely. Lucky can prevent three failed saves, but War Caster improves all of them. Up until this point, we were keeping our main hand free to be able to fulfill all spell components. With this feat, we now have the option to hold a magic item such as a staff of power in our main hand without any of the usual issues with components.

Spell Changes: +heroes’ feast.

Heroes’ feast – In this tier of play where gold flows more comfortably, stock up on gem-encrusted bowls (the material component for this spell) and cast it every night before the party goes to bed if you haven’t used your 6th level slot. Or, provided nobody is secretly a Mogwai, cast it into the rest to give everyone a midnight (or 5 A.M.) feast, powering them through the next night’s rest. Advantage on Wisdom saves, immunity to poison and the frightened condition, and an increase to everyone’s maximum hit points (which stacks with those from aid, as, unlike with temporary hit points, there is no rule preventing this type of hit point buff from stacking) is a very nice package indeed. If gold is scarcer in your game you might not be able to do this every night, but if you know you’re facing a green dragon the next day, this is an instant win button. It’s well worth it if you expect to face any kind of big enemy that packs more than attack rolls and damage spells—Wisdom saves are by far the most common of the mental saves after all. 
If you find yourself unable to reliably cast this spell because of the cost, check out our Complete Guide to Tools for some methods of gold generation. On the short term, consider blade barrier, which provides ¾ cover, or -5 to enemy attack rolls which an ally with Sharpshooter can ignore entirely; this is a potent debuff to enemy ranged attacks that should leave your ranged ally or allies unhindered. Place it in front of your party and not in front of enemy ranged attackers to prevent them from simply walking through it to avoid the debuff. Holy weapon also accomplishes something similar in that it buffs the damage of an ally with ranged weaponry, but bless might be better if the encounter involves saving throws.

Level 14: Cleric (Cleric 13/Sorcerer 1)

Level 14: Cleric (Cleric 13/Wizard 1)

Spell Changes: +conjure celestial.

Conjure celestial – This spell really ought to just be called “conjure couatl,” since that’s what you’re using it for. Listed at a mere CR 4, the couatl punches well above its weight, featuring a number of handy spells, a high AC that gets higher with the benefit of its 3/day shield spell, immunity to nonmagical physical damage from attacks, a 90 feet flying speed, and a bite attack that can render enemies who aren’t immune to poison unconscious if they fail a DC 13 Constitution save. Most interestingly, its Change Shape feature gives it the ability to assume the form of any humanoid or beast of CR 4 or below. We further detail the spell in our Wish Spell Spotlight with some more advanced uses of the couatl’s Change Shape feature, which can potentially provide you and your fellow Lawful Good party members with lycanthropy-based benefits.  

Level 15: Cleric (Cleric 14/Sorcerer 1)

Level 15: Cleric (Cleric 14/Wizard 1)

Destroy Undead (CR 3) – Mummies, wights, and sword wraith warriors, among many other setting and adventure-specific undead, join the club of creatures that are instantly dusted for the crime of not rolling high enough on their Wisdom save.
Spell Changes: +divine word.

Divine word – All of the power of this spell is in the last sentence. The hit point-gated status effects are pretty underwhelming, since at this level of play, by the time an enemy has hit points that low, they can likely be killed with at-will attacks or much lower level area-of-effect spells. But in a situation where you’re facing celestials, elementals, fey or fiends, a bonus action multi-target banishment that doesn’t require concentration is well worth the spell slot. In a sense, this can be considered one of the best novas in the game, as anything that fails the saving throw is removed from the encounter and isn’t coming back.

Level 16: Cleric (Cleric 15/Sorcerer 1)

Level 16: Cleric (Cleric 15/Wizard 1)

Spell Changes: +antimagic field.

Antimagic field – Most of the biggest threats at high levels are magical in one way or another, and this can nullify them, provided you can get within 10’. Of course, it also nullifies your party’s ability to affect the area with magic, including magic weapons, so you’ll need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits. One option you might have when facing a powerful enemy who depends on magic is to Ready movement to get within 10’ of them right before they act, and then use movement on your turn to move away (or vice versa, depending on the initiative order). That way your allies can still target them with magic when they’re not in the field, but they are hampered on their turns.

Level 17: Cleric (Cleric 16/Sorcerer 1)

Level 17: Cleric (Cleric 16/Wizard 1)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Alert. Initiative tends to be underrated. Many of our spells are not heavily dependent on having a high DC, so boosting our spellcasting ability score doesn’t offer as much value as it would on, say, a Bard or Warlock. A +5 initiative bonus makes the difference between having our round 1 spell up when a given enemy acts for the first time and not having it up about a quarter of the time. Many of our spells can prevent enemies from harming the party: banishment and divine word remove them from the battlefield, having holy aura up when a dragon breathes can prevent significant damage, and even spirit guardians can prevent attacks by slowing movement. But if the enemies have already made their big round 1 moves before we’ve had a chance to act, the effectiveness of those spells is greatly diminished. If you have another character in your party that regularly summons creatures in the middle of combat, you may wish to skip Alert to deconflict that strategy with your spirit guardians. We recommend +2 Wis for that case.

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. This gives us a way to reroll failed saves. These might be important concentration saves when taking large amounts of damage, saves against particularly debilitating effects, especially Intelligence saving throws, which are a bit of an Achilles heel for us. 

Spell Changes: +holy aura.

Holy aura – There are some fights where you don’t want to get close enough to the enemy to use spirit guardians if you can help it, and where banishment is less effective because of Legendary Resistances. Fights this tough are what this spell is made for. It imposes disadvantage on all attacks against all of your allies and gives them advantage on all saves, provided they are within 30 feet of you. It has an extra effect against undead and fiends, who can be blinded if they manage to hit with attacks anyway. At this level, threats that merit an 8th level spell slot can probably hit most PCs with attacks even with disadvantage (though all but removing the risk of critical hits is valuable), but giving them advantage on saves can be a big deal, especially if there’s also a Paladin giving them a +5. This has a 1000gp material component, though it’s not consumed. 
Having said all that, this is more situational than it is on other Clerics because we have circle of power as a domain spell. Circle of power lasts longer, has a degree of overlap with respect to saving throw buffs, mitigates magical damage tied to saving throws, and uses a much lower slot…so consider saving your 8th level spell slot. The time you’d want to use holy aura is when you’re fighting monsters that have strong multi-attacks and non-magical saving throws. For that situation it works wonders, but keep in mind that circle of power may be more useful and cost-effective for other encounters. The Constitution saving throw tied to holy aura is likely not going to significantly affect most encounters, as we expect most fiends and undead we fight at this stage in the game to have strong bonuses to these saving throws. 

Level 18: Cleric (Cleric 17/Sorcerer 1)

Level 18: Cleric (Cleric 17/Wizard 1)

Destroy Undead (CR 4) – Banshees, bone nagas, flameskulls, and ghosts are among the undead who join the destructible club at this level. 
Twilight Shroud (Twilight Domain feature) – Your Twilight Sanctuary now gives half cover on top of its other benefits, providing a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws to you and your allies. A welcome buff to an already incredible Channel Divinity.
Spell Changes: +mass heal.

Mass heal – Being able to divide 700 hit points of healing however you want, and considering that even the bulkiest PCs like high level Barbarians only have 200 or so hit points, this spell will almost always translate to “heal everybody in the party, and probably any summons too, to full.” Hopefully you cast aid and maybe heroes’ feast the night before, since both provide heal-able increases to allies’ health pools.

Level 18 Strategy

In combat you’re likely using spirit guardians or banishment if it’s a “normal” fight, conjure celestial cast before a stretch of tough fights when you have prep time (if your couatl isn’t bound with planar binding already), circle of power or holy aura in especially tough fights, and possibly the occasional antimagic field in niche situations. Once concentrating, your go-to options are still upcasting command (when it applies), responding to the situation with a well placed dispel magic, silvery barbs, as well as the occasional heal. If things have really gone south and the party has taken lots of damage, you now have the ability to wipe the slate clean with mass heal. Out of combat you still have divination rituals and locate object, and you have night-time buffs like heroes’ feast, death ward, and your old stand-by, aid.

In combat you’re likely using spirit guardians or banishment if it’s a “normal” fight, conjure celestial cast before a stretch of tough fights when you have prep time (if your couatl isn’t bound with planar binding already), circle of power or holy aura in especially tough fights, and possibly the occasional antimagic field in niche situations. Once concentrating, your go-to options are still upcasting command (when it applies), responding to the situation with a well placed dispel magic, silvery barbs, as well as the occasional heal or dimension door. If things have really gone south and the party has taken lots of damage, you now have the ability to wipe the slate clean with mass heal. Out of combat you still have locate object, and you have night-time buffs like heroes’ feast, death ward, as well as your old stand-by, aid. Don’t forget to change your prepared spells during downtime days to account for your needs, taking divination spells as well as summons such as planar ally and planar binding.

Level 19: Cleric (Cleric 18/Sorcerer 1)

Level 19: Cleric (Cleric 18/Wizard 1)

Channel Divinity (3/Rest) – If you weren’t already achieving 100% uptime for Twilight Sanctuary, you should be able to meet that now, even with 6-8 encounter days. If you have any leftover Channel Divinity uses before a short or long rest, don’t forget to use Harness Divine Power to get some extra spell slots. Two casts of aura of vitality is a cheap way to get some healing in if the party needs it.
Spell Changes: +planar ally.

Planar ally – This spell has a lot of flexibility, both on the player side and the DM side. You can ask a creature to help you in or out of combat as long as you pay them for their services, and at this level the suggested gold costs of the payment should not be a major barrier in most campaigns. That said, the DM can decide that the creature you are trying to hire will turn down your request, so this is another spell that you might want to discuss with the DM before you try to use it, to get a sense what kinds of services they are comfortable with you asking for. If you can afford to enlist the services of a deva, planetar, solar, etc at level 11 with a favorable ruling then this suddenly becomes an absurdly good spell and you should use it every day. Bonus points if you combo it with planar binding and have your angel friend hang out all day. If your solar ally happens to die, you are left with a very cool longbow. 

Conclusion

To conclude, the Flagship Cleric has shown to be a “clerical terror” at all levels, and in a variety of important ways. Unlike any other spellcaster, the Cleric is incentivized to actually get close to the monsters and use the Dodge action in conjunction with spirit guardians. We find that the Flagship Cleric is the most effective Cleric build at performing this function and many others. Our Tier 1 progression is carried by strong domain spells such as sleep, and from Tier 2 onward we contribute to combats primarily through maintaining concentration on spirit guardians. This is complemented by the defensive suite offered by a single level in Lunar Sorcery Sorcerer or Wizard at an opportune level, as well as Twilight Sanctuary. In tandem with other control spells that reduce speed or create difficult terrain, spirit guardians on such a survivable Cleric is an absolute blender of a character in most encounters.

In and out of combat, we bring unique utility to the party with spells such as revivify, locate objects, greater restoration, as well as information gathering spells like divination and commune. Due to Cleric being a prepared caster, and being likely to have slots left over at the end of the day because of spirit guardian’s long duration, we are quite efficient at making use of downtime and spare slots. With spare downtime, or spell slots at the end of a day, we can begin to grow an angelic army through a combination of summon celestial, conjure celestial, and planar ally with the planar binding spell that will carry our late game relevance far above the average character. We can get started early on in amassing stored power, through the use of glyph of warding and animate dead.

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