Like it. Consider Mtn dwarf to avoid needing anything in strength. Order is the best buffer, so focus on aid, bless, haste, prot evil as ways to trigger the off turn attack for the rogue or big Marshall. I did build this order 1, sorcerer for the rest, but any sort of hybrid can work. I felt the extra sorcery points for twin was worth more. Also took subtlety instead of heighten since ran everything off of charisma.
Mountain Dwarf is a great bring here and honestly there are several ways to combine these two subclasses to make them work well. Sorc definitely has plenty of good going for it as a main class
I like quicken and careful spell treeantmonk has a good build on it. Other spells that are fun with this include greater invisibility, polymorph, dimension door, thunder step, vortex warp, wither and bloom, holy weapon etc. I would look for a way to keep high AC and dip into stars druid chalice so you affect more creatures and therefore have more choice as to who gets to attack.🎉 Edit: AC maintaining in druid is easy with tortle😁
I have a few disagreements with is build. Firstly you listed dex twice and missed con, but whatever. Secondly, STR is far less use than CON. If you are going to be in melee and concentrating on spells, you can use the hit points and the bonus to concentration saves. STR only helps you with movement. You don’t *need* a STR of 15 to wear plate. If you don’t have a STR of 15 then wearing plate gives you a movement penalty. So you are trading STR for CON to avoid this movement penalty. However, is movement really that important to this build? Either just wear the heavy armor and take the movement penalty, or pick a race like dwarf, tabaxi or centaur where the movement penalty is mitigated. Whereas putting those points in CON will pay off. Secondly, if you manage to land the hold person you usually need to protect it. A 10 CON means you have a greater chance of losing concentration and then the whole strategy goes to trash. Unless you are fighting a single humanoid, in which case the encounter is basically over, I think you should prioritize protecting your concentration. Bonus action Hold Person, then dodge as an action. Lastly, investing in shillelagh seems a waste for that reason. Dodge is almost always going to be a better action. Thus I would probably just take guidance instead.
You make valid points! The reason I have movement on this is to be able to close the distance to get within melee faster to gain crits. But you're right that it can be ignored or overcome by taking a different race. Shileileigh is optional because you have spells to work in melee. It's really there if you're low on spell slots and don't want trash damage. Not really the primary strat.
@@DapperSnapperGaming Yeah this is a style choice for sure, and there is no "right way" but for my $0.02 I think you are trying to make your Order Cleric be the support/controller and the striker and this makes it just mediocre at both. While you are worried about spells to work in melee... I don't worry about that at all. Like... at all. Let me try and lay it out. SUPPORT: I play an Order Cleric and I have to say that landing a hold person is hard... the bad guys often make the save. When I do land one... I want to protect it at all costs so my party can benefit from the crits. Not me... my party. This is where you and I seem to differ. Standing there attacking is just asking to have your concentration broken. In my opinion, round 1 get a good concentration spell going and dodge. Round 2 spiritual weapon and dodge while the rest of your party benefits from the concentration spell. PROTECT CONCENTRATION: Given that I have this opinion, I wouldn't take magic initiate as I don't need ANY of those spells and the opportunity cost there is you could have gotten an ASI or war caster (to protect concentration) which is a huge loss. Also for this reason, the discussion at the end where you talk rogue multiclassing and Polearm Master... I see these as bad ideas. I honestly don't see the synergy. You would be a bad support caster and a melee striker. If you want to do rouge damage... focus on ways to proc Voice of Authority and let the party rogue get the extra sneak attack. Multiclassing into rogue makes you worse and your sneak attack will be paltry compared to a focused melee build. So that is my overall impression... you are trying to do too much with this build and not focused on what makes clerics great... they support the other players in the party. PLAY TEST: And this is from my experience, I am currently playing an Order Cleric/Clockwork Sorcerer. He is a dwarf with plate and STR of 8. As discussed above, I didn't waste a feat for magic initiate because I don't need any of those spells. *If* I can land a save or suck spell, and there are no other enemies, I just cast Flame Strike. This isn't even a bad strategy if you land Hold Person. At 5ft range against an incapacitated target, flames strike has both advantage and disadvantage so that cancels, probably worth it for the crit chance. But to be honest, either there are no other threats... in which case this is a won battle no matter what... or there is another threat... so dodge is better. Another point is that casting spells on your enemies, they can save... and often do. So Hold Person isn't going to land as often as you would hope... when you do land it, you need to protect it. Twinning a hold person is a great idea that I don't think you mentioned. It is great for two reasons, firstly because you get double the chance to land it on at least one humanoid, and secondly if you can actually land both it is bonkers crazy powerful. In that case, again, the battle is either won (so you doing melee damage is not even necessary), or you need to protect that concentration *at all cost.* HARD TO HIT: How do I protect concentration? Plate Armor and a Shield, dodge action and the shield spell. I rarely get hit even though I stand in the middle of combat. Thus, I don't find Armor of Agathys (which I did take) pays off. I rarely even bother to cast it, I save the spell slot for shield. I have finished long adventuring days where the party took a beating and I have more hit points than when we started (thank you Aid.) Aid pre-combat is always a good idea, but even mid combat it heals 3 targets and procs Voice of Authority which could potentially enable a sneak attack or divine smite... absolutely better than casting Armor of Agathys on myself because I am so hard to hit I only rarely proc the damage it seems. VOICE OF AUTHORITY ROCKS: Last observation, from my experience, I get a LOT of mileage out of Voice of Authority. I know you rated it 7/10, but I find it is pretty awesome if you plan for it. It is more effective for me to give an attack to a rogue or a paladin than it is to try and attack myself. Nothing to do this round with my bonus action: healing word just turned into a Divine Smite for 30 damage... holy cow! If there are no humanoids for hold person, casting bless on round 1 gives your rogue an extra chance for sneak attack and gives them an extra d4 to hit on that attack... that is pretty strong (not to mention that others get the buff too.) While there are melee builds that want to save their reactions (eg EK's saving for counterspell or shield spell) I find most melee builds are just hoping for opportunity attacks. So chances are you have a party member where a guaranteed VoA attack is better than a maybe OA. Because I like VoA more than you I value buffs that target team members over spells that target enemies. Bless and Aid are great to cast in battle now because not only do they do their job, which is awesome, they can actually indirectly cause damage. Silvery Barbs is also worth mentioning here... you can help out a team member and give them an extra attack. However, I would only spend my reaction on Silvery Barbs if I'm not concentrating on something important, because then the shield spell is more valuable to me. A silly strategy that is deceptively strong if you are up against a mob of creatures with crappy ranged attacks: cast Levitate on your Archer. It procs VoA and now they are save above the fray reigning down hell. I have even twinned Levitate on my archer and warlock (who has a crappy AC)... so now they are both safe above the battle. I am down in the pit with the barbarian, but I am so dang hard to hit it doesn't really matter.
@@RobertBarry1969 Wow what an essay!!, but I'm with you, he severly undervalues VoA. I love teleportation spells with this for when ranged get caught in melee or the melee need to get in there. Quickened spell and careful speĺl are awesome here. Carefull spell faerie fire and your ally in the area gets to make an attack as well.😊 Even wither and bloom becomes usable since it does damage, heals (stars druid chalice😉😉) and procs VoA.
Generally kewl, but not sure why this build went with Str 15 instead of going Medium armor with Dex 14. +2 to Inititive is small but it does more than Str 15. Not to mention, as Challenge lv goes up, so does number of opponents either resistant or immune from Charm or Fear status.
Important to note that there is another option... dump both DEX and STR. I went with STR 8 and DEX 10 and use plate mail and a shield. I instead focused on CON, WIS and CHA. I went Hill Dwarf to avoid the movement penalty and to get the extra hit points. However, with the shield spell and using dodge to protect concentration, I get hit so rarely, I am not convinced I need all these hit points. I think if I built it again, I would go Satyr for the magic resistance and end up with the same movement. (edit: the only downside to wearing plate with STR < 15 is you lose movement... except if you are a dwarf and then there is no downside at all.)
