I cast suggestion on a bandit leader when we were 5th level. We could have beaten the bandits easily, but we suggested that the leader “Go turn his life around and be a better person.” We were an hour outside of town, so he spent 7 hours applying to be a guard and helping people with random tasks along the way. We saw the bandit several levels later outside the town gate having stuck to being a better person.
Has some real obiwan vibes. “You wanna buy some death sticks?” “You don’t want to sell me any death sticks.” “I don’t wanna sell you any death sticks” “You want to go home and rethink your life.” “I wanna go home and rethink my life.”
I had my party turn random pick pocket encounter into a session of changing a poor thief into a charcoal business man. Including helping him get a wife and invest into his business and get workers.
Fun fact: When Obi-Wan did the mind trick on Death Sticks Guy in Attack of the Clones, Death Sticks Guy actually did go home and re-think his life. He helped educate people on the dangers of drug abuse, such as death sticks.
Colby: because as casters, the best use of our action and concentration would be to cast wall of force Colby, as well: *proceeds to stay as far away as possible from 5th level spells
Something I was thinking about the other day. I find it funny that Wizards don't select their Subclass until second level bc they're in like Wizard College and the first year they haven't selected a major yet. I always imagine someone asking them "So what kinda Wizard are you" The Wizard:" Oh I'm a general studies Wizard I havent selected my major yet" Idk makes me laugh lol
True story: When I was first getting into dnd, I wanted to play cleric and I literally practiced quotes for my character to say when casting Toll the Dead lol "The bell tolls for you, creature." "The grave is calling." "This ring is the herald of death." "Hear me and despair." "Your time has come."
I envisioned this character as a single parent that went back to wizard college after taking years off. All they learned were the cantrips and some control spells that they use primarily to corall rowdy children.
To whomever it may concern : join the channel it's great 😄🥰 the sheets are clear and very useful tools if you play often 🙂 and when playing with new players who need a character to discover dnd with it's a great databank of fun premade character 🙂
Colby: "This build does 24d12+30 Damage for 177 damage with cantrips." Also Colby: "This is my lowest multi target damage build." Meteor Swarm: **Runs away and cries with it's 156 average damage roll**
Instead of a linear tier list, maybe you could rank your builds on a graph in terms of how specific a situation needs to be to make them work vs how well they excell at nova/sustained/tanking in those situations.
33:20 "For those casting spells that require a spell attack roll, if you miss, the target takes zero damage" Objection! The attack-roll based spell Acid Arrow (also known by the alias "Melf's Acid Arrow) clearly states that it deals half of it's initial damage when it misses its target.
48:23 fireball doesn't really target multiple enemies they're just caught in its AoE, so you roll only once for all of them. Eldritch blast targets multiple enemies and you will roll separately for each of them. Since Reaper allows you to target 2 enemies, I would rule that you CAN roll for each of them and add Int modifier for both targets.
I set up a really nasty suggestion trap. The cult base was being guarded by two flaming skulls which we dispatched but didn't have the means to prevent them from eventually reforming. I had the idea of putting the pieces in one of the cult member's horse's saddle bags, unhooking it and using prestidigitation to make a thunderclap to startle the horse and make it run far down the road. Fast forward to combat with the cultists, I used Suggestion to say "Your horse got loose and ran down the road! Go and catch it!" which caused the cultist to run out of the room to go chase their horse, removing them from combat. Off screen, once the cultist had found and secured the horse and was riding it back, the flaming skulls in its saddle bags reformed.
The bard in my party cast suggestion and told an enemy to go learn to play the piano and she ran off. Later while meeting an NPC in a tavern, we found that enemy playing piano. I think about that all the time
The game is anything but dead but I would be very surprised if wotc is going to ever have the kind of player base they had in the past. They have just completely destroyed the trust that fueled good content so things like pathfinder 2e are going to pull further and further ahead of DND in terms of fun creative content and eventually the player base sizes will reflect that
@@pauljinkerson6359 no, it is not... and if it dies it wont be WOTC who killed it. WOTC punched the community in the dick, but if we wanna fall over and die of anger thats on us.
@@tobak952 as much as I want to agree with you most people aren't super eager to, after having already getting punched in the dick, go back for seconds.
I've been having such a blast recently playing around with Wild Shape and a Monk build, mostly revolving around Astral Self or Ascendant Dragon. There's something about a draft horse sprouting spectral arms or breathing lightning that's really funny to experiment with. From an optimization perspective, keeping high AC and movement is massive for most wild shapes, extra attack is a big boost for wild shapes without multiattack, and Astral Self keeps its Wisdom stat for the flurry of blows bonus action (that combined with Shillelagh outside of Wild Shape makes Monks much less MAD). The trick is that you actually DON'T want Circle of the Moon, because that prevents you from setting up Astral Arms and wild shape in the first turn, Shepherd seems like a good choice. Fey Touched can be used for Hex (disadvantage on strength checks + Astral Arms for decent grappling) or Bane if you're an Ascendant Dragon. I'm sure Colby can work with this base much better than me :)
As someone who is obsessed with cantrips and never running out of firepower, this build feels tailor made for me. It might help me wean off of Eldritch Blast as well lol. Amazing build as always! Thanks, Colby!
You are probably my favorite D&D based channel. Always love to watch and see what builds you come up with and give me ideas I never would have thought of.
In an early campaign group used suggestion to have the necromancer they were fighting to go take a long sleep in the nearest inn. The necromancer Gradilda was so angry in my book I ended up changing the whole campaign to make her the main BBE in the setting. She kept popping up and getting stronger until the big final boss fight.
I found your channel through the recent videos of you learning Pathfinder, and I'm glad I did. I really enjoy listening to your thought process on these deep dive builds. These kinds of super optimized builds may not be my favorite things at the actual table, I love them conceptually, and I love the idea of trying to come up with story justifications for your mechanical choices as a thought exercise haha. Definitely going to check out more of your builds!
With your caveats you are right - this is a solid damage build because it's doing good damage on a bad save with a good damage type, and you can just spam Silvery Barbs and Web and other stuff with your actual slots. Good stuff! I saw this build and assumed it was an Eldritch Blaster; Toll the Dead spammer was way cooler and makes for a super cool "Mystic Theurge".
I’ve kinda been doing this with my clockwork soul sorcerer. He doesn’t do much damage but he definitely keeps his party pretty safe on their misadventures. Clockwork Soul also gets Aid, which is great when three people go down in combat.
Colby!!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssss!!!! This is fantastic. This shows your love for the game despite current stuffs. That's all I will say about that. I love this. I can see this concept so clearly. Have you ever met someone who has oversold themselves? This is that guy! "I studied under the most prestigious mages and I can bring down the rage of the nine hells on our enemies!!!!!" .... casts cantrip. I understand what youre doing with this build but I can see sooo many fun role play opportunities. I say again, this is fantastic.
As always, enjoyable content! I particularly like Evoker with a Death Cleric dip for the armor class and the synergy between Reaper and Potent Cantrip But, respectfully, I reeeeeally disagree with how the build played out. To be frank, I think the Fighter levels and Artificer levels are a mistake. I recognize what we're going for here, but these are dramatic investments that do not even come close to the power of higher level Wizard spells. Given the preamble about how strong spells are and how well they scale, spending all this time to ring a little more damage out of our cantrips once a day feels like a huge waste to me, personally. No offense taken, I love these videos and I love the ideas put forth on this channel, but I just cannot imagine being level 10 and going "Wall of Force is nice and all, but I'd trade it for a little more cantrip damage" let alone delaying it to level 17. Let alone not getting to Contingency, Forcecage, etc. Sorry, Colby, I still love you, no hard feelings!
I loved the combat medic! And this build rocks! Gives me "dark mage begrudgingly fighting for the good guys and learning life lessons along the way" vibes
1) Thank you for this build! I love doing cantrip damage with my aberrant mind sorcerer, reserving slots and concentration for my control and ongoing spells (storm sphere, banishment, haste). [Bonfire is my favorite (especially when put against something flammable and left to burn)!] Toll the Dead is a great cantrip, and my Palladin/Tomelock uses it quite a lot! 2) Suggestion Story: The bard suggested the hill giant "go buy a horse". (he meant to ride, but the hill giant interpreted it as "for dinner"!) Off it trundled, leaving its ogre and goblin minions for the party to easily mop up. Nearest location with horses? The 80-man detachment of Frontier Guards bivouacked nearby. Sure, only 2HD archer types, but *80* shortbows *will* hit with nasty regularity in 5e! [Indeed, when the party followed up to check on the soldiers, they found the dead hedgehog - um, hill giant - nearby...]
Ive played a similar character right at new years. Death 1 / necro 6. He didnt give up his beliefs as a cleric of teh Mourner, he was more like a stereotypical grave cleric, as in safeguarding souls and those who would mess with them. This also meant that lesser necromancy - animate dead and summon undead - were totaly fine, because they only dealt with the corporeal. My fireball always did bad dmg, but the zombies were surprisingly effective
Great build as usual! My players had a great Mass suggestion moment a few sessions back. They had to take a fire giant stronghold and the bard had readied mass sugestion to cast it once he was in range of enemies. The sorcerer thunder stepped into the middle of all the giants, taking the bard with him and triggering mass suggestion taking 4 out of 6 fire giants out of the combat.
I want to try this build so badly. I recently played a Death Cleric and they're a lot of fun, but maximizing their power like this is incredible. I'm surprised that you didn't go Pact of the Tome Warlock, but this is still really cool!
Also, I'd love someone else to try this, but my Death Cleric played himself off as a Peace Cleric. One who felt that only truly evil people needed to be brought back as zombies to work off their evil deeds. One who loved peace so much as a concept that the violence needed to achieve it was irrelevant. One whose only goal was a quiet, peaceful (mostly dead) world.
Literally just finished watching the stars druid build. needed to refresh myself since I have a friend who just started playing one. Forgot it was Tuesday.
I played around with making a cantrip-focused build a while back, which was also a death cleric and wizard (but with bladesinger). The justification was getting around the Net extra attack restrictions with cantrips that didn't involve attacks. Sapping Sting is a necromancy spell that can make an opponent (or two) prone, which, along with the Net, is a heck of a lot of sustainable control. Unfortunately, it is Con save (yuck) and somewhat questionable access-wise as a Dunamancy spell (My justification is death cleric says "any spell list" and your death-cleric-self can teach your wizard-self the spell, since the text indicates it's possible for non-Chronomancer to learn if you happen across it.) Toll of the dead was a back-up and was the plan A for high-con-low-wis enemies or if you just want a bit more damage.
Brilliant, my guy. Reminds me of my OP blaster Druid in 3.5e, who alternated sunbeam for the blinding effects and undead annihilation, and moonbolt, for the wizard killing Strength drain effect
Before watching the video - warlock with Eldritch Blast and Agonizing Blast as a base. With things stacked on top. Edit: Now that I've watched the video, I am glad I was wrong. Also, I know it will hamper casters a little, but I find the wording of the spellcasting rules. Why don't they just say: "On your turn, you can only cast one cantrip and spell. The only exception to this rule is casting a spell as a reaction." Yeah, this will kill Action Surge if you have spells as bonus actions, but it is way more clear and easy to understand. A cantrip is a spell, so if you want, you can cast two cantrips. But a spell isn't a cantrip, so you can't cast more than one spells. I think this would be a fine change. Simple, easy to remember.
Awesome as always. I love your builds. My my favorite cantrip currently: Wildfire druid 6 / genie warlock 2, Race Faery. Flying at least 10ft up to the target: Thorn Whip 2d6 piercing + 4 Fire(djini wrath) + 1d8 Fire (enchanded bond) + 1d6 bludgeoning and prone condition for falling.
Taking a huge step back from WotC products for a while (me and my friends are moving to pathfinder 2e), but still going to like and share your work with others! You're an amazing person and thank you for all of the work you put in
I would definitely add Chill Touch to this build. The added range it gives, plus being able to benefit from advantage, means it would probably be more effective than TTD at least 50% of the time.
What would toll the dead casted through alchemist supplies look like? Alchemical bombs that make a loud ringing noise and then eat away at their flesh with necrotic acid?
I made a character build a couple months back whose sole purpose was to get as many cantrips in the end as possible, prioritising higher cantrip per level choices earlier on. This was by no means a practical build, the sole objective was to find out how many cantrips one can get without magic items or DM shenanigans. Trust me, real simple build, barely any switching around necessary. Current total cantrips in brackets: 0 - Race (1 cantrip if you pick right) 1 - Sorcerer 1 (5 cantrips) 2 - Cleric 1 (8 cantrips) 3 - Wizard 1 (11 cantrips) 4 - Artificer 1 (13 cantrips) 5 - Bard 1 (15 cantrips) 6 - Druid 1 (17 cantrips) 7 - Warlock 1 (19 cantrips) 8 - Warlock 2 9 - Warlock 3, Pact of the Tome (22 cantrips) 10 - Warlock 4, Magic Initiate feat (25 cantrips) 11 - Rogue 1 12 - Rogue 2 13 - Rogue 3, Arcane Trickster (28 cantrips) 14 - Paladin 1 15 - Paladin 2, Blessed Warrior (30 cantrips) 16 - Ranger 1 17 - Ranger 2, Druidic Warrior (32 cantrips) 18 - Fighter 1 19 - Fighter 2 20 - Fighter 3, Eldritch Knight (34 cantrips) I did a *lot* of scouring rules and classes for this one. If this build were even slightly more reasonable, it might be better to drop something like Ranger, taking Rogue 4 and Fighter 4 to get those juicy ASIs... which you'll be dedicating to feats that give cantrips, of course. Why wouldn't you. Switching out Warlock 4 for Rogue 4 or Fighter 4 and taking Magic Initiate would result in a net loss of 1 cantrip from reaching Warlock 4, which is not even slightly acceptable. Don't even joke about that. Levelled spells killed my father, you know.
Having a ton of cantrips can be fun. If your dm allows you to burn through iron bars with acid splash, or poison a cup of wine with poison spray cantrips can be great. Hexblade 3 pact of the tome Death cleric 1 Aberrant mind sorcerer 16
I wanted to lyk that I appreciate your avoiding the recent mob scene so much that I sat through your ad read midroll when I am normally a skipper. I'm not sure exactly how much it helps, but together with my like, share, and comment it's the best positive reinforcement I can afford. Hopefully the algorithm rewards you more than the click fishers.
Hey Colby. Thank you for continuing to make DND content despite what WOTC is doing with the OGL. Some of us in the community like myself will be sticking to DND since we are too busy to learn a new system. Anyway, keep up the great work and making content for us.
let me make a prediction *ELDRITCH BLAST* Huh, I was proven wrong Oh, I'd thought it was supposed to be sustained damage. I wondered what he'd use quickened spell for…
What a timely video! I'm just about to start playing my control/support oriented evoker wizard this week. I'm even planning on eventually dipping into cleric for story reasons later on, or possibly Paladin (I rolled really well for stats). Planning on applying some of the things I learned here to that build, though to be fair, I'm focusing specifically on control spells that also have a damage component (ala Rime's Binding Ice, etc.) to get the most out of those evoker features. Still, glad to know there are some other routes! I hadn't REALLY considered Artificer seriously, but after this video I just might.
I wasn't the wizard, but we met the BBEG early in the campaign and while he was trying to a spell scroll of truth speaking to have a 'honest' conversation with us the wizard cast suggest and had him give him his scroll. Afterwards the BBEG realized what happened and tried to kill us. In the scramble of us trying to get away, the wizard successfully cast suggestion on him again telling him a friend in town was lookin for him and he needed to go find him. As he was walking away, our ranger who had mostly gotten away shot him in the back and set him on us again. It was a very messy scramble but hilarious to know that our DM kept rolling nat 1's to stop suggestion.
I really like the right-ups you put out for your patrons! They're great for when I don't have time to watch through the video for specific parts. Have you thought about adding a synopsis of your final thoughts section to them? I think that'd be useful in builds where you found there were alternate paths that maybe didn't work as great but were still fun and functional.
At about 32:28 you said slow can't be shaken off or saved against after the initial fail. It's clear there were some editing cuts, so perhaps that was supposed to be in reference to hypnotic pattern. To the best of my knowledge, slow does offer additional saves on subsequent rounds (but correct me if I'm wrong). Slow is also a personal favorite of mine, so I would love to find out that it's better than I thought. Great video, btw. Excellent presentation and I love your self-imposed restrictions - we have very similar preferences. Keep up the good work!
Really like this build Colby! The only challenge, or mistake, that I see in the build is surrounding the use of the “tool” as a spell casting focus. Arcane foci are used to replace material components that have no stated cost. Toll the dead does not use a material component as such using the tools as a focus to get the intelligence modifier bump is irrelevant.
Really cool build, thank you ❤ As a suggestion: it'd be cool to support 3rd party creators, and mage hand press has this cool class "warmage", class which uses cantrips and masters them to a perfection. I think it'd be cool to see a vid about this class in the future. Or magus from benjamin huffman... oh huh, I'm getting ahead of myself, sorry. Anyway, great vid, thank you for your work and for your "welcome home", it alone gives me so much joy each and every time ❤
The warmage is such an awesome class. I made a rogue-type character using mostly that class and the mobility cantrips from the same books, as well as a couple Bladesinger levels because adding double your INT to your AC is fun
One of the strongest things about this character is that in a campaign with few long rests and many combats (either because you just can't complete a long rest or if your using gritty realism rules where a long save takes an inconveniently long time) they are still an effective combat caster! It's a narrow niche, but one that can be hard to fill.
This was such a great and complex build to achieve solid Cantrip damage, great job! I'd have gone about it somewhat differently, though. 2 levels in Fighter, 8 levels in Draconic Sorcerer, and 10 levels in Evocation Wizard with Transmute, Twinned, and Quickened Spell, and Elemental Adept (Acid) you can reliably get to 16d6(turning 1s into 2s)+32 while only using 2 Sorcerery Points to Quicken Acid Splash, up to 24d6+48 with Action Surge.
Easy explanation of why your cleric multiclasses into Alchemist Artificer. Their god of death, Haber, is also a god of agriculture and chemical warfare. To quote the hymn of his church as was first documented by the group of Bards named “Sabaton” Father of toxic gas, and chemical warfare His dark creation has been revealed While over no man’s land, a poisonous nightmare A deadly mist on the battlefield. (Song title is simply “Father”)
Xanathars stated that there is a glass rod included in Alchemist supplies. Rods are valid items to be used as Arcane focuses. Additionally the enhanced Arcane focus infusion is specifically used to turn a mundane rod, staff, or wand into an arcane focus. You don't need to take the extra feat to make this work.
Man this reminds me so much of my first ever character. A tortle karmic shaman going death cleric and divination wizard. Really awesome to see another slightly different take on it!
So when you said 'Web' something clicked in my head. You could alternatively also hit them with Chill Touch if they *do* have high Wisdom or if they are restrained and you have advantage on an attack.
Also, i agree that you maybe should update that multi-target sheet to 'per target'? But only if it's not much work because multitarget is only a few builds.
I'm not sure this strictly fits the bounds of your Suggestion request, but this is the most memorable use of Suggestion I've ever had. Context: We were playing an evil campaign, and we were getting initiated into the local thieves' guild. This was also back in the days of 3.0e. Party members were an assassin-to-be, an evil cleric, a variant Fighter called a Thug (after level 1, got Sneak Attack instead of bonus feats on even levels), and me, a bard. Assassin died trying to fight the guards in a solo heist gone wrong, evil cleric screwed up her task and died, too. Thug and I were hitting our tasks, but had one last one: capture the head priest of a local temple and bring him back, alive, to the guild. We took out his guard dog, crept to his bedroom, opened the door, and found him wide awake, full armor, and buffed to the eyeballs. Apparently, he had a habit of casting Augury every day and was warned we'd be there that night. Things were looking dicey. I win initiative, and look at my spell list, and make my decision. "I cast Suggestion." The DM and the Thug player look at me like I'm nuts. "He's a high level cleric, so he's gonna have a good Wis save. You sure?" I shrug. "He could always roll a 1." DM rolls... It's a 1. "I suggest you come quietly with us to meet our leaders." Didn't even have to fight a single round. Sadly that campaign broke down shortly after, but it's probably for the best. It was likely going to end up in betrayal anyway.
I love your takes on these characters. I would love to see a drunken master. I think there cool a concept might be a lucky drunken monk using lucky and such.
For a drunken master you might want Rogue levels, basically fall prone when facing ranged attacks (so they have disadvantage to hit you), and knock melee opponents prone (advantage for you). So you fall all over the place, make a ton of flurry attacks, and have some minor battlefield control (maybe add some Battlemaster, or just the maneuvers?)
The frustrating thing about Drunken Master is they don’t get their flashiest offensive feature until 17th level when they can flurry against a lot of opponents. Before then, you’re mostly just a more mobile vanilla monk. It’s probably just build straight monk. I’d go VHuman, take Crusher for some more control and to start 16 in Dex/Con/Wis. Then just ASI for stats and play hit-and-run. I can’t really see building around Drunkard’s Luck, since it’s so dang expensive. 2 ki to cancel disadvantage for one roll seems really unsustainable as a build around. Useful, but I wouldn’t make a character designed to use it as a core feature. Likewise, trying to exploit Redirect Attack seems hard, since the DM basically has to decide you can use it.
@@thebitterfig9903 not building around drunkards luck just maybe being halfling and taking the lucky feat will allow or some fun stuff to happen. There is also second chance and bountiful luck. I think it would be hilarious to see this tiny halfling running around pissing people off. The Pest.
@@paulcurtis2380 That would be a fun halfling, stacking all those "luck" feats. Only qualm is that many other classes would probably be stronger. Monks are so MAD that ASIs are incredibly important, and giving up as many as two and a half for feats is pretty rough. Optimizing a luck halfling and optimizing a drunken master monk might be fundamentally diverging goals. If that's what you want to build, go for it. But there probably isn't much synergy there.
I have a intresting idea multiclass with echoknight and somehow get access to blur and roleplay it that when you get drunk you dont see things double or triple but your enemys see you multiple times (or you make everyone around you drunk when you drink)
This build: Our main source of damage are gonna be cantrips. *Avatars of gods and Rakshasas with Limited Magic Immunity to 6th level spells or lower* : This is Free real estate.
Depends on if you have to roll for multiple attacks. Such as eldritch blast. If you're rolling once for the attack, then once for the damage would be logical. However, if you're rolling multiple times for multiple attacks. Then roll multiple times for damage.
Take this same build but swap death cleric for Order cleric and you have an unparalleled master battlefield controller. Sculpted spell works with voice of authority, when you target your allies in a spell and sculpt them out they are still targets of the spell. Giving you allies free attacks particularly while moving them around with vortex warp or rescuing them with silvery barbs but throwing down some fireball and letting you allies pick off the survivors the same term is devastating.
I think that this is a great alternative! However, "Generally, the rules for AOE spells target a point in space and not a creature". I could be wrong though. you could vortex warp an ally RAW
@@MrMravetto you are generally right but there are more exceptions than you'd think. Case in point with sculpted evocation spells that typically target areas now also target your allies as a function of excluding them from the affects of the spell. There are also spells with "creatures of your choice" within an area also target and are applicable.
I'll have this argument with anyone that wants it: You can use your alchemists supplies as an arcane focus regardless. Xanathar's specifically states that alchemists supplies include a glass stirring rod. Rods are viable options for arcane foci. You can even use Enhanced Arcane Focus on a glass rod from the alchemists supplies.
I see/used suggestion few times, and one of them was incredible - the orc chief killed his entire camp, which makes a battle 90% easier. Also once DM used spell against us and we get a one player unconscious because of this
I have been talking with friends about homebrewing a wizard subclass I call hedge wizard that has only cantrips but gets level bonuses like the ability to cast 2 cantrips at level 7 and 3 at level 11. Also, gets empowered cantrip at level 5. Can maintain concentration on 2 cantrips at a time at level 9 and 3 at 13. At level 5 gets one level 1 spell as a cantrip, at level 7 gets a level 2 spell as a cantrip, at level 11 gets a level 3 spell to use as a cantrip. Prolly super overpowered, but I am still working on it.
Love your this series! idk how many episodes I've watched but every time I'm secretly hoping for a spell weaver/spell crafter build. my main thoughts are order of the scribe wizard with repeat metagic adept feat but I feel like there might be a good argument for taking some levels in divine soul sorcerer but I really don't know if that's a good way or not..
My first ever campaign, I used suggestion on a Young White Dragon, "Why don't you fly home and stay there!" as we were dying, and this was our last hope. It worked! But, not long after the 8 hours expired, the dragon returned to the nearest town, it then forced the town people to give up the name of the Bard who had wronged it, capture him and deliver him to the dragon, or else the dragon would destroy the town and all the folks in it. One very important persuasion check later (while handcuffed by the town folks), the Bard convinced the city to not deliver him to the dragon, but to let him and his party kill the dragon instead. And so it happended, that a level 3 party, killed a young white dragon, and became heroes and local legends. And oh yea, the white dragon was rolled as a random encounter, but it's the most memorable thing from that campaign for most of the players to this day.
as an OLD gamer (started in 1978) I remember the OG Queen of the Demonweb Pits had a bit where any Cleric spells 3d lv or below (maybe 2d?) were powers gained from their internal faith instead of directly gifted by the gods. I like that idea and have used that as a house rule ever since. PS- Great Job!