Forge Cleric Build: D&D 5e 

Find familiar is particularly good on clerics because they actually have numerous useful touch spells like restoration, revivify, freedom of movement, etc.

Volume sounds good to me!

1) Blessing of the Forge - When I no long need it for party armor or weapons, I use it for barding. 2) Channel Divity - I tend to use it to convert scrap weaponry and armor into platinum or gold trade bars, or into silver trade bars for grinding into silver dust for use with the Ceremony spell *ritual) to make holy water. :) 3) Light cantrip - I always try to get this incase we need to fight shadows, of shadow creatures in dim light . . .

Something else that could make forge cleric's channel divinity useful. If you or your DM are the type to keep track of encumbrance, then using your spare uses of channel divinity at the end of the day to convert 100gp into light, valuable objects will save you on weight over time. It's kinda funny too. Imagine a party of adventurers lugging around sacks of coin, and the forge cleric is just casually strolling, covered in bling.

Gosh these non-multiclass build videos and your spell level analysis videos are my favourite! You've also made me real interested in D&D Beyond, the levelling process seems so smooth and intuitive. Everything is super clean, even the spell descriptions! Side note: Honestly never had an issue with the audio, even before you changed it...

New drinking game: take a shot every time Chris says ‘Spirit Guardians’.

Notably Spirit Guardians does NOT create difficult terrain - it halves the speed of the targets you designate as enemies - so the speed effect not only doesn’t effect your party, but it can be stacked by being in an area of difficult terrain!

Forge Cleric is a solid build, it seems! I like how you explained the choice between spirit guardians and animate objects. Personally, my favorite aspect of Forge is that at 17, you get immunity to fire and resistance to ordinary damage; I love the image of a single dwarf marching down into the Lonely Mountain and smashing Smaug to pieces bit by bit, unmoved by his fire breath and barely stirred by his claws. The build works even better if you come across one of a number of Strength-boosting items; those belts of giant strength or even gauntlets of ogre strength can let you bump up your wisdom guilt-free, and as a dwarf, it doesn’t matter if you should somehow lose the item; you’ve got the dwarf fortitude to wear the heavy armor and just switch to spells until your strength bumps up again.

Yay, I can hear you now on the bus/train! I was struggling to hear you over the noise of the bus in my headphones before. Thanks so much for addressing the volume. This half-deaf old man appreciates it.

Oh yeah volume increase. Sick. :3 AAAAAAnd the math has been put in the description. Yesssss.

Great thank you. Just made a dwarven, mature forge cleric as backup character - tough spots in CoS but I hope my main character (wizard) makes it, she has been with me long - but now I feel more ready for my cleric in whatever campaign, having heard your reasoning. Enjoy your videos and insights

Playing a forge cleric at the moment (only just got to level six) and stumbled across this. What a helpful, and knowledgeable piece, particularly on tactics and spell selection. Bravo sir.

I hear ya better now!! Also your Lighting is better. Keep on Forging ahead!!

Super helpful my fiend, concise and easy to understand! Thank you sir, great job as always!

Thanks a lot!! I feel like this was made just for me. Ha... Loved the video like always. Really helped with alot of my questions that would have come up at the table. Cant wait to dive into this class more. Waiting to see whats next.

We can lower the volume really easily on our end, but especially when watching on a phone its difficult to raise it above a certain point. I used to have to have volume set all the way up to hear you over background noises. A lot of youtube channels have similar issues. Of course, whenever an ad comes up it’s then comparatively very loud. So, I appreciate the change.

As a side note for players interested in non-PHB races, Firbolg and Envoy Warforged are excellent for Forge Clerics.

I can turn the volume down as much as I want. But I don't want. Keep up the good work- loud and proud!

Fantastic Videos! And now that I can hear them they make so much more sense!

Hey this is a really great video 👍 best explanation Ive seen anywhere on how to play the class / what spell options look like. Keep up the good stuff ☺️

Ended up building a Warforge Forge Domain cleric and sure I didn't have the warhammer/other martial weapons but jesus that AC was ridiculous. Very fun character and using inflict wounds was so fantastic.

A dwarven forge domain cleric has been on my dream wish list for a while now. This video makes me want to play her even more.

Neat stuff! BTW, I always thought one of the first cleric domains you would cover would be the Arcana domain, due to how thematically similar it is to wizards, lol. Also, regarding the volume, no complaints here, besides, it's always easier to lower than to raise volume on our end.

I love this guide. Great way taking it step by step

Glad the volume is increased. Great videos!

Minor point: Guardian of Faith will deal 60 damage regardless of enemy saves, it just might take more hits to do it. I know you've mentioned this in past videos so I was surprised there wasn't correction-text over it. I think it can do 70 damage if the saves work out so it skips 50-->70, but that'd be up to the DM. The main way the damage is limited is combat not lasting long enough or the enemies avoiding it (which is battlefield control, at least).

Nice! I'm playing a Forge Cleric right now, only lvl 3 so far but I like it alot. I went with Mountain Dwarf and got lucky with my rolls. Started with str 20 con and wis at 17

Volume is now great. Before I had to max my volume on speakers and computer and can still had hard times hearing. I'd much rather have to turn down the volume. Many thanks.

been looking forward for this one :D

Good on volume and love your efforts. Thank you

just started a campaign as a forge Cleric. I went with warforged and acolyte background, i have him worship the broken god from the SCP lore. not sure how to build him yet so this was helpful.

Great video for my favorite class! Hope you do Arcana cleric one day, I’d like to hear your picks for Arcane Mastery.

This is very similar to one of my favorite builds. I like to start with 1 level of fighter for CON proficiency (To keep up spirit guardians) and a fighting style. Eventually building fighter as an EK for the extra attacks, spell slots / spells. Getting Booming Blade through Spell Sniper allows a lot of martial potential locking the opponent down with a Polearm and then moving on with Spirit Guardians without Opportunity Attacks. Couples well with Warcaster.

Like it. Became a beacon of hope fan after I realized it worked on potions too.

I like the higher audio, thank you.

I appreciate your new video practices

I would actually pick up EK as a subclass. You get another spellcasting level+shield+absorb elements.

I am the anvil. I am the hammer. I shall draw you out. Quote from a dnd green text I read.

if you have the time, you can use his channel divinity to condense 10,000 CP or 1,000 SP into a 100 GP object made of Platinum or Mithril or Adamantium. Granted, it isn't worth a lot of money, but it is much easier to carry! Also, the idea of a forge cleric making his own Mithril or Adamantium is awesome.

Main point of difference for me would be starting with 15 strength instead of 14 (one of our other ability scores goes from 10 to 8) and then at the point where we increase strength to 16, take a half feat instead- such as heavy armor master. The -3 damage from attacks combos really nicely with the 17th level ability that gives us resistance to those same attacks. With the options in Tasha’s, I would also take artificer initiate rather than magic initiate. This gives us access to booming blade as well as one 1st level artificer spell that we can cast multiple times. I would probably take either longstrider or absorb elements. This is partly because my table doesn’t allow the ‘familiar-grants-advantage-every-round’ cheese, but also it gives us something useful to do with our first level spell slots which gets tricky to do at high levels. The extra tool proficiency is thematic for the character and also expands the kinds of things we can create with the fabricate spell (definitely niche, but cool nonetheless, I think).

Good video as always. Don't love the red and yellow writing on top of the white webpage, but that might just be me.

About the hear metal affecting a spear, I wouldn't consider that at my table, but a sword is fine. Reason: The sword's actual handle is made of metal and it's only covered with a different material (wood, vines, straws) for anatomical purposes. The spear is made of wood, and only the tip is metal. I could even think of a creative use of the spell for a buff, using it at the tip of the spear or an arrow to give it a +1 or +2 fire dmg =)

Slight possible mistake with the guardian of faith spell. The spell fades when the guardian has dealt a total of 60 damage, not three attacks of 20 damage, save for half. Now you didn't say that it only deals three attacks, but when you spoke of the saves for halfsies and that it might only do thirty, that's the idea people might get. Theoretically, the spell might do no damage at all, so saying only thirty enhances that idea.

Probably better to have slightly higher audio, people can always lower the volume easier.

Volume Is good thanks for a good video!

With Tasha's allowing custom ability score increases from race, the best option to take is probably the high half-elf. You can get Booming Blade from the start, and then take Magic Initiate: Druid instead for Shillelagh to attack with your Wisdom instead of Strength.

Channel divinity can turn weapons into gold. Rapiers and scimitars are the default weapons for lots of rogues. For full plate, I think making it peice by piece should work.

With Tasha's coming up, you could also go for a high elf, who can get booming blade as a racial, and relocate your +2 into wisdom and your +1 into either strength or con. You lose out on a +1 in that same stat, you need a strength of 15 for plate, no warhammer proficiency and a little bit less health and no poison resistance.. However, you do get perception proficiency and you don't have to burn an ASI for magic initiate, which is huge.

Sound is perfect

So I am a big fan of the Trickery cleric and having a caster cleric, full props for that video. I would also like to point out a couple things. First as a Human Variant, you can choose Healer as a feat, which if you are focused on end game con checks, is a sub optimal choice but at levels 1-5 having a 1d6+4 +1 per hd heal/ per character/ per rest is great and saves spell slots. It also performs as an action, so that can leave you to use healing word as a bonus action. You can get two characters back into the fight.... level 1 or 20. a good option for a free feat.

Great build as usual.

The sound is way better Chris! It’s always better to be too Loud than too quiet as we can always turn the volume down.

Thanks for this. I do actually listen to most things on RU-vid instead if watching.

The volume was great, I listen to your videos on the way to work sometimes and it had been difficult to hear sometimes.

if you're using xanathar's skill rules, mason's tools helps you damage buildings.

Volume seems good, thanks

I think High Elf is a surprisingly good option for this build idea if you're wanting the Dex route. You unfortunately don't get proficiency with the rapier but do get the shortsword and the longbow. The free cantrip lets you immediately take booming blade and the +2 Dex makes the attacking stat work. It's biggest weakness is the lack of a Wisdom boost but its surprisingly robust and Human doesn't really let you take the Dex route.

On Aid: First it’s underrated. Remember you get more then 5 HP as you can refill that pool through healing or rest. Second, it’s a great scroll spell. If you have any downtime just make a scroll of it at highest level you can. It only costs money, which should be taken from the group pool. Third, if you tell your DM that “I am taking the blood of troll to make ink for Aid spell scroll, your DM will see you are involved in the campaign and appreciate it. Fourth, if you are asked by some in-game group to do some task for some reward, ask for a scroll of Aid spells. It’s a cheap ask in the negotiations, certainly affordable for any person of power.

Masterful!

volume is spot on

I have a Vedalken forge cleric that I just took into Conjuration wizard. Plan on being Cleric 3 / Wizard 17 by the end. Won't get the immunity to fire, but bypasses some of the more subpar spells later on.

This domain is great to dip into if you've got a lot of levels in a martial class with a moderate wis-score. Loads of features are independent of a high wis score like heat-metal that has no save if you target armour. Martial classes need lots of different items that contain a bit of metal like ranged weapon ammo or a particular type of martial weapon they didn't think to bring. I like the idea of a fighter6/cleric2 being thrown in jail with nothing but his breeches to hide his dignity. As long as the jailers didn't find the platinum coins hidden "somewhere" on his person then within a few short rests he will have back his armour, rapier, buckler, crossbow and thieves tools to break out of his jail cell. Also may be able to arm other prisoners in a daring jail break.

I made a firbolg forge cleric. Solid stuff

Your videos are always a blessing to watch, if I could make any recommendation for a build video I would say divination wizard, just because I’m currently playing my favorite character “Levinia Bella” a fortune-telling diviner.

thank you!!

You're good with presentation! This volume increase is a blessing and helps you project your voice. This is very helpful for me because I'm a bit hard of hearing

This build is nearly identical to my own. However, I went full Cleric and had a more generous stat allocation. It makes no sense to me to dilute the Cleric with Fighter levels. On aaverage you get 3 extra hit points from this build. You miss a 3rd channel divinity usage, an ASI/Feat and a 100% chance for Divine Involvement. You miss out a 7th and 6th spell slot. Now, the Fighter's Action Surge, Fighting Style and techniques are worth the swap for the spells and channel divinity, but missing out on an +2 to max out Wis or add to Con and a 100% chance for divine help? Nope.

Just rewatching this a year later... thinking about the options offered here, it would seem that this basic build would be essentially the same for any Cleric that wanted to be melee centered. That got me thinking about the different spell lists and CD options that other domains offer, and how this same build would look with a different domain. While Tempest and War seem obvious, I don't necessarily think they're the best options. I think that Light would be interesting, given that the CD would be used much more regularly. Arcana might give an interesting spin, since you could get your BB without a feat, meaning you could use that feat right away for something you'd have had to wait on. Order domain could be interesting, if you tend toward the party leader role. One thing that occurred to me is that using BB as a primary attack means that you get to add the level 8 feature, regardless of whether it benefits melee or cantrips -even if your table isn't using the new Tasha's rules.

Very helpful. I'm about to hit 6 on mine. My plan is to multi into 3 levels of Eldritch Knight to cap off the build. For ability increase/feats my path is going to be: War Caster > Wisdom Increase > Heavy Armor Master > Squat Nimbleness. This way I end up with +2 Strength, +2 Wisdom, 6 damage reduction to b/p/s, + 1 AC from Fighting style. Protector fighting style is tempting since we have an ancestral barbarian that it would create a nice closed loop with.

For heat metal on a spear or arrow, I like to think of it dealing damage to the weapon so it’s unusable. If the tip of your spear becomes red hot it’s going to catch the wood on fire and likely fall apart pretty quickly. So maybe the creature doesn’t take damage but the attack roll still has disadvantage as the weapon will likely break on impact or before it can even be used

On the subject of silver and Animate Objects, you can technically make ammunition that is adamantine AND silvered and have it work. That does cost 600 gp on top of the cost of the ammunition to buy it (500 gp to be made of Adamantine, 100 gp to be Silvered), or +300 gp to the cost of raw materials if you're crafting it yourself, such as through Fabricate. Individually that's 60 gp added to the market price for an individual piece of ammunition, +30 gp for making a single piece of ammunition. Conveniently, the cost to make ammunition Adamantine or Silver it covers 10 pieces of ammunition, the exact maximum number of objects you can animate with Animate Objects! It's 4 copper pieces for 20 sling bullets, so 10 sling bullets are 2 copper pieces, the individual cost of a sling bullet would be something like 0.2 or 1/5th of a copper piece. Arrows work out to be 5 cp per arrow or 5 sp for group of 10 arrows based upon their 1 gp = 20 arrows price, and the same goes for Crossbow Bolts. So for 300 gold and either 25 or 2 copper pieces you can Fabricate up a way to make Animate Objects more effective against a hefty chunk of foes. You can even use Artisan's Blessing to turn things you were going to sell for half price into 60 gp 5 cp Silvered and Adamantine Arrows or Crossbow Bolts OR 60 gp Silvered and Adamantine Sling Bullets to use with Animate Objects. Just one at a time. Even if the silver coins trick works, you could still use this in conjunction with adamantine ammunition to be able to put the hurt on if you're up against a solo golem.

word of radiance is preety good for forge cleric as you wade in and get surrounded :P

you can use artisans blessing to make large ladders (with metal nails etc)

I sort of built the same thing (melee Cleric) but using Tempest. It was highly worth taking SOR at first level then Cleric from there to get CON saves and then the spells you need. Shocking grasp becomes better with Tempest chassis.

Oh thank goodness I can hear you

I'm in a game where the whole party has to play as fighters for the first three levels. My eventual build will be almost the same as yours (Hill Dwarf Fighter 3 Forge Cleric X) except I took Eldritch knight instead of Battlemaster at level 3 with Shield, Absorb Elements and Longstrider, plus mending (RP) and Booming Blade. This means I have proficiency in Constitution (and Concentration) saves and will not need the magic initiate feat that you took and can get Wisdom to 20 instead. I just hit level 4 now and will probably feel a little underpowered from level 5 to 7 but Booming blade gearing up will help. I didn't need find familiar as two other players already took that. Dodge tanking has actually been helpful for the party full of fighters with lower AC.

I like Artisan's Blessing during low level play as a way for easier "looting". Take all the shitty metal equipment that the orcs you just fought have, turn it into a small piece of Platinum (trade goods ratio between iron and platinum is 1:5000), which can also be turned into iron later if you want to forge/fabricate something later on.

Coming back to the forge cleric 2 years later in a post-Tasha world where I'm going to be joining a game that allows all the Tasha race customization and a free starting feat, and I cannot wait to try a High Elf Forge Cleric with Booming Blade and the Crusher feat with racial stat bonuses that wont hinder me. I can't wait for all the CC shenanigans....

with a large hp pool I'd advocate for taking warding bond (2nd lvl). Your sorcerer/bard/rogue/wizard will love it and it lasts for an hour with no concentration

If you go three levels into giant soul sorcerer for extended and quicken metamagic, and flexible casting, and also getting armor of agathys by frost giant lineage, you can add in some of the cockroach tactics to beef up considerably without losing any spell slots. Also, sorcerer gets so few spells known that it would be easy to avoid ones with a charisma based DC

I think Shillelagh is a huge addition to a build like this, it allows us to use Wisdom instead of strength for our attack rolls, eliminates the need for a martial weapon, and because we're often casting Spirit Guardians or Animate Objects on the first round, we have the time to use a bonus action to set it up. The problem is that no class gets both Shillelagh and Booming Blade, so here are some options to get it: 1. Dip Druid: You're setting your class progression behind 1 level, but druid is another class with full spellcasting, so you'll still eventually get all of your spell slots. 2. Be a wood elf and take the Wood elf Magic feat. This feat gives you, among other things, the Shillelagh spell. As a wood elf, you have 35 base speed, so even with the heavy armor speed penalty you're moving at the same speed as a dwarf in plate mail. 3. Be a Half-elf of high elf descent, take Booming Blade as your wizard cantrip, and Magic initiate (druid) for Shillelagh. Half-elves can get +1 Strength to allow them to more easily wear heavy armor, though you might be stuck with splint mail in this case.

I would either stick with Cleric until 20 or multiclass way earlier. The build really comes together at 9th level. You have Booming Blade + Find Familiar + Divine Strike for your melee swings. You have Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and Animate Objects for very solid damage spells. This is when I would probably think about multiclassing. But if you get all the way to 17th level I think your best bet is FOR SURE to get to 20th level so that your Divine Interventions have a 100% success chance rather than 3 levels of Fighter or some other class. Unless your DM hates you there is no way some Battlemaster maneuvers are better than Divine Intervention.

Are silver pieces tiny or are they diminutive? In previous editions or at least in 3.5 the cutoff was something like three apples in height. It's not looking like diminutive or fine is even mentioned in the core books.

Sound is fine, thank you for this video!

Would you just use a short sword if you went variant human? I was thinking you could also go with high elf or high half-elf for the cantrip. Both would be very viable now with customize your origin, but they don't get access to the Warhammer. Any help would be much appreciated

I think now that Tasha's is out, you could make the case for a half high elf since you can move the charisma bonus to wisdom and take booming blade from the start. Spirit shroud arguably would be another go-to single target combat spell for boss battles at the very least until you pick up animate objects. It pairs well with spiritual weapon so even at its base you're getting two more d8s of damage. I'm not sure if its worth switching out the divine strike with blessed strike or not. I'm leaning toward yes. I'd also change from the battle Master dip to a eldritch knight to get find familiar, shield, and absorb elements, as well as prestidigitation. You can pick up a battle Master maneuver as the fighting style instead of defense. I figure a +5 reaction to ac and some spell progression with a pinch of battlemaster beats the alternative but that's just my opinion

Volume is good!

Built a Silver dragonborn forge cleric. The dual resistances is dope, and the +1 magic weapon is amazing at level 1 for AL. My standard AC at 1 is 18, shield of faith to 20. You do not need war caster because the focus is the patron insignia or holy symbol, correct? If not that the only downside You're not maxing str/wis, but you can get there. I hang out near the squishier players and can protect them from the inevitable difficulties that arise, so I'm thinking of taking a few levels of fighter as well but not sure when. Maybe after 6 and I get the dual resistances

One use for the channel divinity is to gather all the metal weapons and armour off the corpses of your foes that would normally be left behind and use them as the sacrifice to create a gold ring or other valuable item.

To be clear on Guardian of the Faith, the movement that triggers its damage does not need to voluntary. You can move people into it, which is highly recommended. It doesn’t trigger if a creature starts its turn there, so only on movement. The area is a 5 x 5 squares, so its pretty big and should be easy to get that 60 damage in.

One thing you can do with Artisan's Blessing to potentially increase your wealth is to convert the weapons and armor of your foes from equipment into solid gold or silver or copper that you could then sell as an art object or use as a trade good as currency in place of coin. So instead of being able to sell a pile of 6 enemy longswords for 45 gp, you can instead turn it into 90 gp worth of gold(1.8 lb), silver(18 lb), or copper(180 lb) or an art object made from metal that's worth 90 gp and can be sold for 90 gp. With downtime you could then take an extra step and goldsmith 90 gp of gold bullion into 180 gp of golden tableware or what have you, at a cost of either 36 crafter-days (PHB) or 3.6 work-weeks or 18 days of work (Xanathar's Guide). Or cast Fabricate to do it in 10 minutes. So you can double and then eventually quadruple how much you make off of "vendor trash." Gets murkier when you run into monster weapons and armor that aren't in condition to be sold, though. (You could also do an infinite loop where you use Fabricate to make a metal item worth 100 gp and then Artisan's Blessing to turn it into bullion worth 100 gp and then divide it in half and rinse and repeat, enriching yourself by 50 gp each time you loop, but that way lies madness, and there's only so many basic potions of healing that you'd need/could carry or so nice of a guild hall or castle that you'd want for a home base anyway.)

A Warforged Forge domain is the perfect combo. Lich: How do you know you have a soul construct? Warforged cleric: *branding smite* just a feeling.

Love the video. One thing I noticed is the build is not AL legal. Forge is from Xanathar’s and Booming Blade (or my choice Green Flame Blade) is from SCAG. But not important in Homebrew campaigns. Keeps the videos coming!

I was thinking of doing a mechanicus character (warhammer 40k) i was thinking a War forged forge cleric/artificer. What do you guys think?

Considering the Addition of Tasha's Rules, are there things you would change about this build now? For instance going Warforged for even more AC, Half Orc for Crits and Endurance, etc?

My only major thought here is you're taking three levels of fighter but also taking a feat to get Booming Blade. You could take those three levels in Eldritch Knight and get them anyway, possibly at levels 6, 7, and 8 once you have Spirit Guardians - or at levels 9, 10, and 11 just as Booming Blade is getting its second damage die and you have your first level of Divine Strike. Either of these will hurt your spellcasting progression, though, so maybe take the idea with a grain of salt.

So if you went, variant human instead of dwarf, would you take war caster at level 1, magic initiate at level 4, and then WIS +2 at level 8? I know I am way late to the party, but an advneturing group I am playing with has a module where everyone has to be single class clerics.

I'd love to see an Artificer build in the future. It's such an interesting class with many options. I know is UA for now but its gonna be published soon, any opinion about?

At some point, I’d like to see a Divine Sorcerer build just to see what kind of spell selection you’d make if you had both Sorcerer and Cleric spell lists available.

you can use blessing of the forge to enchant a suit of adamantine full plate though