Twilight Cleric is Broken in D&D 5e! - Advanced guide to Twilight 

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Wizards of the Coast wanted to make a domain of cleric that ensures nobody says "better than Twilight"

Still can't believe they looked at the UA and said "You know this needs a little bit more insane broken stuff"

Twilight Cleric's so powerful it can even make Monks amazing. Shadow Monk 6/Twilight Cleric 2 can give itself a full minute of free Misty Steps that also gives them advantage on their next attack that turn. Shadow 6/Twilight 6 can also do that while also flying. And since Twilight 6 grants flying equal to walking speed, the more you invest in Monk the more powerful it becomes. Throw Twilight 6 on a Gunk build and by level 12 you're flying around the battlefield at 45 feet per round blasting enemies with a musket that ignores non-magical piercing resistance (with advantage if it's dark and you are outside their darkvision range but they are within yours).

My DMs have always ruled that Prone only imposes disadvantage if laying flat would reasonably make you harder to hit. If you are above or below someone who goes prone they not only have given you a larger surface area to hit but they've reduced their mobility. Also as someone playing one right now who has a DM that rules Twilight Sanctuary does not override dim light, you are right that it's easy to get it anyway. I only need a single spot of dim light/darkness to get the flight. I've literally just jumped into a bush or stood in the shade of a tree to get my flight.

Didn't they say they made it strong because they feared no one would find the Twilight Domain interesting from a flavor perspective & not play it? How ironic since many tables and players just refuse to use it for how absurdly powerful it is. Tasha's gets a bad reputation for powercreep, and the Clerics are a BIIIIIIG reason why.

One thing you forgot about Faerie Fire is that it is excellent to burn legendary resistances!

"Shadowheart should of been a Twilight Cleric" I'm pretty sure they wanted us to have some measure of difficulty possible when playing the game.

The campaign I'm playing in has a twilight cleric. She's been the best support caster, so my Forge Cleric can run Frontline fighting. I love the twilight cleric so much.

I rolled high wisdom and con and played a Damphir twilight cleric in Strahd, it was an absolute blast. At level 1 or 2 I stood in a 5 foot hallway with sanctuary and a dodge action, untouchable by ghouls while my party cantripped and halberded them to pieces.

Twighlight shroud is also the only way to have cover against a fireball because there are no corners for it to go around! Edit: one of a few ways

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Shadowheart should have been a twilight cleric, I’ve said this since EA

Twilight cleric is my favorite thing to bring to tables with strangers. They can't mess up anything you're doing and you get to make them feel invincible.

This video is so validating. I'm a first-time DM running a campaign for a small group, and one is a twilight cleric. The cleric's player is lovely and doesn't intentionally steal the show or play to optimize, but there have been a few times when they've just, by default, become a one-man band while the other two have struggled. They can tank AND heal AND do significant damage. I've been throwing magical items at the other two to try to help them catch up, because I'm less concerned about balance vs NPCs than I am about the other players feeling underpowered by comparison. I wish I'd known about the balance issue going in: I absolutely would not have banned twilight cleric (it actually fits the campaign themes extremely well and I'm not into banning anything unless it's particularly extreme), but I probably could have done more to offset that imbalance within the party up-front rather than having to come up with more tools for them later. I would add: all those times where Kobold says a particular spell is useless if there is a wizard in the party? That hasn't been my experience, because now my wizard can happily take other spells and the party as a whole can spread out their utility and damage output to cover as many bases as possible. A magically-inclined party that is aware of each other's strengths so they limit overlap is actually quite powerful.

I rationalize “prone in the air” as angling yourself to vastly reduce your silhouette at range. But I’d probably in session 0 ask everyone “okay, would you rather be able to go prone in the air, _but monsters can do it too_ and it work RAW” _or_ “You can go prone in the air but it gives you disadvantage too as you’re angling yourself away from your enemy” _or_ “You can’t go prone mid air.” I think I’d prefer 2 or 3.

One thing about it being OP is that it is a team based OP. The big stuff all benefits your allies, so it's easier to DM for than if it was just one person making a powerful character. I'm also surprised that you didn't mention Spiritual Weapon, since you can cast it on the turn that you use your Channel Divinity without the usual opportunity cost.

As a forever DM I got to play this class once. I loved it. It was so thematic and had so much flexibility that I noticed it wasn't a pigeonholed class, and I also realised it had flexibility of options which meant I never spammed the same action like other classes or optimisations bring.

Just casually giving the best Paladin aura to a Cleric at level 2.

The only time overpowered matters is if the players aren’t having fun

Hey, Kobold; you should look at the Zeal Domain Cleric from the Amonket setting. That one is pretty crazy, too. It's like a fusion between Tempest and War Domain.

Watching this again because 1 it's a great video and 2 to help boost it in the algorithm (commenting and liking to help too)

We are currently playing a campaign with a team of: Twilight cleric for temp hps, Ancients paladin for spell resistance, Ancestral barbarian for physical resistance, and Bladesinger wizard for shits and giggles, Dm snapped and it is a high fantasy campaign now

Hey, maybe some time, we'll get a single martial subclass with abilities this strong.

Yeah! It's insanely good make a multiclass with a circle of stars druid and you're a healbot that can also do considerable damage

Playing a twilight cleric now. My DM doesn't like to say no or ban anything. But, we did come to a compromise when making the character. Dark vision down to 120 feet. And, with Twilight Sanctuary, I can give 2D6 plus player level temp hit points to any creature inside the sanctuary at the end of my turn as a free action. Those are the two nerfs, i must say, it's still very powerful, the party has a lot more confidence going into combat then when I was playing my rougue in the same party.

Great video! I put a comment on the old version so I'll copy it here. A combo with twilight sanctuary that I don't see brought up very often is with summoning spells like conjure animals and animate dead, which makes twilight cleric even stronger in a party with something like a druid or a necromancy wizard. By affecting more creatures with twilight sanctuary, you effectively get more benefit from it. You can even use it at the beginning of the adventuring day to get temporary hitpoints on everyone, then take a short rest to get the channel divinity back. I've been playing a few twilight clerics recently and they are really fun (but also very op lol).

Congrats on three years, keep up the great content

it is so op that it can nicely step on the toes of other op builds. as a DM i really like it when the twilight cleric pops twilight sanctuary around the gloom stalker. it's almost like i don't *need* my drow to cast faerie fire at that point oh, who am i kidding, advantage on their sleepy dart shots and their giant spider friends to hit with entangle is always fun. especially against clerics in tin cans

I really like See Invisibility. It is one of the spells you may end up not picking as a wizard or sorcerer, but then when you do fight an invisible enemy, you hate yourself. Twilight Cleric get it automatic, so does not even have to make such a choice.

Shadowheart as a twilight cleric would've been perfect ❤️ Greater invisibility is my favorite spell

I really like that you value my time. Also I love both your characters. Very cute dudes. They just make me smile. :)

Playing one in our OotA campaign and it's a blast! DM understands the strength and scales the encounters a bit to keep them interesting. Noticed I've been using moonbeam alot more than spirit guardians couse I want to be centered between our melee and casters so they all benefit from TS. Also it's cool to use a primarily druid spell as a cleric 🤣

oh wow, i didn't know i'd been a subscriber since your first vid... i had assumed you were an established channel when i saw sleep

Great note on the dark vision: 1. Have a member who can get elevation above the party (mold earth, flight, shape water, tenser’s floating disk, standing on horseback…) 2. give them a bullseye lantern 3. Shine the light downward at an angle so that Only the enemy is lit up 4. Have fun. *note, a bit harder to do, but even better, have something other than a player hold the light, for example a magic hand, phantom helper, familiar if you dont use them in combat (you should conciser that tho), or again, most of the spells i mentioned earlier) A lot of DMs have bright light disable darkvision although this goes against RAW and RAI, but even without that this is pretty powerful and helps check for enemies past the initial group. Just make sure to aim correctly and set up an ambush attack Before lighting/uncovering the lantern.

I've had the same DM for about ten years now, Work party group, and we've gone on a lot of amazing adventures, they do not give us very many restrictions and our table is open to just about anything. The two things hands down that they will not allow at the table is the twilight cleric and the peace cleric. 😂

Playing a twilight cleric warforged for my curse of strahd campaign was one of the best decisions I ever made. Rolled up Strahd Fucker 3000 and gave it a little galaxy lamp in its chest as treat for me.

I love Twilight Cleric, not just because the features are good. I think that they are very nice as roleplaying characters. My present character is a Half-Orc Twilight Cleric, that protects merchant caravans on the travel nights.

Moonbeam can go through walls and doesn't require line of sight. It's a great spell

Always played the Steps of Night as needing to be in dim light (or darker) for the flight to work, not just activate... The more you know lol

Gator joy is never a waste of time

Genius thoughts on the opportunites provided by overpowered characters. Never thought of it that way.

This is probably the best explanation I've heard for why the 300 ft dark vision is strong, still don't think its as good as some tell me it is

i experimented with halfing the radius of the thp bubble and it really made playing twilight more fun and tactical. 15ft radius means you need to watch where you are standing to get the most out of it. still powerful, but far less broken.

If I were to maybe make Twilight more balanced, I would make the temp hp/ending condition effect only be usable up to twice your Wisdom modifier (min 2) so you can’t keep using it like crazy. The dim light effect can still be useful for your flight feature even when you run out of uses, but you spend another CD to regain those uses. Also make the darkvision range 120 feet instead cuz 300 feet is pretty abusable.

The idea of a full party that is just nocturnal sounds really fun to me. This class gets to be at its peak. You don't have to make excuses for the Owlin. Good idea I think.

Imagine a twilight domain gloomstalker ranger with the Sharpshooter feat.

3:12 does it really say the illusory double is intangible? I suppose it couldn’t be destroyed outside magical means, such as Dispel Magic, but I don’t know if it could be considered completely intangible and able to go through walls.

That domain power is fantastic.

II have zero idea how heavy armour and martial weapon proficiency have any connection to the twilight

Yay it’s my birthday too

I got so confused when i heared "smear" instead of sphere. Lmao. Awesome video.

One of my favorite characters was a College of Theurgy Wizard using the Twilight domain. My DM approved of it.

Prone condition explicitly specifies that your "only movement option is to crawl." So assuming you can go prone while flying, you have to exit prone to actually move while flying, and then get back into Prone again when you're done moving to get the disadvantage benefit.

I'd say as a dlc, Shadowheart is still a trickery domain but she cannot access twilight domain (even if you respec her) until she goes through her character arc and spares the Nightsong. Then you should be able to respec her into Twilight with Withers if you choose to.

I played as a Life domain cleric some years ago and now I'm playing as a Twilight domain (with minnor nerfs) and I can tell its stronger but I wouldn't considerate it broken in comparison, we changed a bit the CD (now the temp hp is lost in a short rest and we can only roll once when the combat ends). I think the biggest problem is that you are really strong without doing something special in my experience thare are 2-3 combos I typically use Easy fights: Round1 CD+ maybe spiritual weapon, Round2 Bless and that's it. you can even take the dodge action after that. Harder fights: Round1 CD+spiritual weapon, Round2 Spirit guardians+ spiritual weapon attack Round3-10 A cantrip or dodge + spiritual weapon attack. I think what makes the biggest difference is that your CD is so good and you get it back on a short rest that you'll save on spells.

I made a twilight domain gloom stalker in one of the campaigns I was in. Was very fun but insane build

i'm currently playing a warforged twilight cleric in a curse of strahd campaign and there's not many situations where i struggle unless i put myself in the front lines, which i often do cause i'm a tanky spelly boi. just like, spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, and twilight sanctuary, and boom we're invincible. takes 2-3 turns to set up but damn is it effective

One of those over looked 4th level spells saved 2 of our party members lives. We (yes one of the dying characters was mine) were stuck under quicksand and were getting attacked by gricks the whole time. Our aarakocra twilight cleric flew over the pit and cast Aura of Life. We kept going down and popping right back up the next round.

On prone flight, I personally have always ruled that magical flight makes you immune to the prone condition, while winged creatures still fall to the ground and take damage if an effect is supposed to prone them. And winged fliers choosing to go prone will fall harmlessly to the ground below them

As someone who is field testing this for Strahd… I’m glad I did because if I did any other cleric we would have dead party members. That being said despite the Temp HP and the spells it just barely (extremely so) protects people from their own stupidity lol. One hour of 300ft of dark vision is good but I find it coming up very niche and a hour is… limited. Regardless this is an extremely powerful class especially if you have a skilled party, you got that the team will be invincible. If you got a party like mine you will barely keep them alive no matter the health buffer lol. Honestly whole reason I chose this class this campaign is because in our last campaign I kept one shotting things by accident and I wanted them to have that spotlight this time. I enjoy this role, sit back and provide support while my friends get the glory I often felt I robbed them of in our previous campaign.

DM'd a campaign with someone playing as this. I knew I wasn't crazy when I said it was strong!! It was still a fun campaign, lasted a year.

For this subclass, I’d use the “Nyxborn” gift from Theros. Origin: I was rescued from the Underworld and took on supernatural characteristics when I returned to life. Quirk: Whenever my weapon strikes something, the weapon gives off a shower of starry sparks.

We are currently playtesting the Twilight domain... Eyes of Night was the first nerf even before testing... I just made it grant 60ft darkvision to those that didn't have it or double existing ranges... We are still on the fence about the temp hp though... whereas base rules indicate temp hp expire on a long rest or at dawn (forget which) we are leaning toward 1 minute or 1 hour after the channel ends. In Descent into Avernus it really made quite a few encounters somewhat trivial.

Mislead was one of my favorite spells from BG1 and 2

I was like I've seen so many videos on twilight. Player but this one's only two hours old i'm willing to watch another one lol

My guy skipped Greater Invisibility and said the 4th level spell list is nothing special.

I DM'ed Call of the Netherdeep with a Twilight Cleric. I can say that the Twilight Sanctuary feature is 100% broken...in a bad way (and I don't like to throw that phrase around). The higher level the players get, the more broken it is because the temp HP is partially based on character level and that is a fixed number. The most broken part of it is that there is no limit on how many allies can receive the temp HP. It's every ally, every turn, every round. So to balance the encounter as a DM, you need to significantly increase the damage the enemies are dishing out. And here's the rub: this significantly increases the chances the DM will accidentally kill a PC or have a TPK. On the flip side, if you don't increase the damage, the encounters are going to be too easy and over in 1-2 rounds, and that's not fun either. And it's non-concentration. It's a poorly designed subclass. Just as some subclasses are too weak, this one is too strong.

What a coincidence I Just stared playing a twilight cleric a few days ago for a level 5 oneshot :D

Twilight cleric get heavy Armour pro. Not just medium *nevermind he caught this later on* Twilight sanctuary is like having free cure wounds on your party memebers turn, you could also bonus action healing word and get a few hits in as well

I'm pretty sure Twilight Cleric was a homebrew that was played by WotC employees who naturally loved it. What I hear about their games is that everyone is super OP, like every PC gets a free feat at 1st level in addition to whatever else they get.

I played one in a campaign. It was so good. Like every aspect.

When greater invisibility is considered meh 😂

Makeing a Kobold Twilight Cleric!!!

I love how the original twilight was darkvision as far as you could see during the day

I’m actually playing as a twilight cleric in a campaign. With the channel divinity and Aura of vitality. The advantage on initiative doesn’t help when allies roll low anyway.

I houseruled that because infrared wavelengths are longer, our eyes are too close together for good ranging beyond 150 feet, which doesn't explicitly give disadvantage, but it means you can't gain advantage no matter what other modifiers you stack on. This cuts down _somewhat_ on the fish-in-a-barrel syndrome. Also it doesn't _technically_ target the Twilight cleric at all, it's a nerf to Darkvision in general.. so it also addresses the worst aspects of the sharing problem. One Twilight sharing Darkvision cleric and a bunch of rangers with Sharpshooter make for a mighty fortress at night. It's slightly vulnerable to magical Darkness, but not really any more than any other keep-a-standoff-distance combat strategy.

Reupload: still good!

As a twilight cleric player, I agree: it's OP, but D&D being a coop game, it's not OP in a boring sense, it makes everyone have more fun and lets the DM throw more things at the players. I think ALL clerics should get an aura effect like Twilight Sanctuary, each one thematic to its choosen subclass. It helps A LOT to make you not feel dead weight concentration bot.

I love a 1 or 2 level twilight cleric dip. Either that or Peace.

You fail to consider that seeing 300' in the dark is very situational. In Lord of the Rings, when the Fellowship are attacked by the Cave Troll in Moria, seeing 300' is useless because of the obstacles and close-quarters made the Cave Troll no more than 50' away, that when the Rohirim are attacked by the mounted worgs, they were attacked in broad daylight, nightvision would have been utterly useless. If you venture in a real forest, most of your field of vision beyond 50' is blocked by trees, branches and foliage, plus foes can set an ambush and get the jump on you 20' away. A monster such as an Anhkeg or Bulette or Worm, can emerge from the sand or soil at point blank range. Etc, etc.

For newer DMs: the way I handle getting knocked prone in water and magical flight is essentially the idea that they get spun around so violently that they lose orientation ( same rules apply). If you purposefully go prone in water or with magical flight, it has no effect. And as far as the banning topic, I have never banned anything. If you have a player that keeps exploiting a thing making everything too easy or not fun (for you or other players) you talk to that player. If they keep doing it and it is OP, foes are going to realize they are the tough one and they are going to get targeted far more often or look up how to manage any out of combat OPness. The DM community has tons of great ways to handle most things. What they are doing is very likely not new or special.

I ran a L9 party through a gauntlet of like 10 Earth Elementals, 6 Xorn and 8 Gargoyles. The Twilight Cleric kept them going the entire fight between Spirit Guardians milling monsters and Twilight Shroud buffing allied HP. She would be indisputably the strongest member of the party if she didn’t mostly pull her punches so that other characters have their moments in the sun.

So the twilight sanctuary I had it nerfed in my game where it is still active for 1 minute but it can only be given 3 times or equal to prof bonus As for flight the dm had the funny idea of giving most enemies torches and having fire slinging enemies hurdleing the cleric outta the sky

As somones whos been playing in a multi year campaign with Twilight cleric. It is very powerful. But it has allowed my DM to throw some heavy stuff at us. If i didnt play smart enough or didnt use my resources at the best moments we would have all died so many times. The theme of this class has always spoken to me. And i love how strong it can be. But with a kinda reckless DM its very much needed. Those temporary HP add up quick. Ive buffered so much damage iver these years

I've played the Twlight Cleric in a short campaign. Near the end the GM just started skipping the fights because it was completely pointless. The enemies just couldn't penetrate the temp HP shield.

@13:57 - "They came to role play" -- I came to stack dead orcs like chord wood; so long as that counts, then by gum I came to role play!

Twilight Cleric is perfectly balanced lol (I say as I'm playing one in a campaign with a Paladin and Ranger who both serve the same church)

quick question at 13:25: how is the Steading of Hill Giant Chief (G1) the 5th encounter of the day? That is a fight you need to have pretty close to full resources going into against 1,000+HP worth of giants (1,426 in AD&D, 5e would be 3,750 HP).

Great video!

I'm very interested in the justification for Bless being better than Faerie Fire. +1d4 vs Advantage is like, not even close. Is the assumption here that your party will have advantage in other ways? Or that enemies are going to make their Dex saves too often?

Yes, yes it is and I love it

The most powerful at all levels of play? I'm gonna say that chronurgy wizard after level 14 has a very strong case with how strong convergent future can be. And at the lower levels I think being able to effectively concentrate of two spells at once (one being 4th level and lower) with your familiar is also busted.

Ooohhhhh... THIS twilight... Everyone should have known the other one was broken just as badly.

The Eldritch Cannon lasts until it dies… or after an hour. (*Sad cannon noises*)

I mean, yeah, all fair points.

While I know this is an unpopular opinion, I was really expecting to see all new and upcoming subclasses to be on the same power level. I know some people dislike powercreep, but I find it interesting to make more new options viable, instead of only the usual really strong options.

Eu estou sofrendo com essa subclasse na minha campanha de Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Os desafios propostos no livro não chegam nem perto de vencer a proteção do Twilight Sanctuary. Eu literalmente tive que bufar o nível de desafio de todas as criaturas em +3 para conseguir causar dano nele. E não digo impor um desafio, digo apenas CAUSAR DANO. É ridículo. Also, love it and I'll never ban this.

Imagine if they made a monk subclass even half as strong as this subclass. 🤔

The eternal war between Selume and Shar necessitates new power :3

Can anyone else hear that faint bagpipe music in the background??? Am I going crazy? If Pack Tactics sees this will he comment what song is playing?