VeryBasicGuide - Death Domain (D&D Cleric) 

I do agree that it will be more fun trying out new character concepts and I think it definitely depends on your setting and DM of whether or not something is considered inherently Evil aligned, because maybe the dead do care about what happens to their bodies since a lot of times a person's body in the D&D multiverse usually is connected to their soul in some way and defiling their body sometimes prevents them from going to the afterlife. But that is something to talk about with your DM and I agree that having a pragmatic neutral death cleric is very doable and a cool concept. Thanks for the comment!

@@Greyscales Just hit level 3 after tonight's session, so it'll be awhile before he gets to the point where he can actually start animating any dead things. But until then, I'll need to do some research on how that works in the D&D world, if there's some sort of time limit after which they've already "crossed over" and their bodies are no longer connected to their souls, etc. That would definitely inform the character's motivations for sure!

@@IceMetalPunk Yea absolutely! Although each campaign and all world building rules are more up to the interpretation of the DM rather than official lore, so talking to your group would probably just be an easier way of doing things. But the most important rule is to make a character you have fun playing as! So good luck man.

Oh I like this! My death cleric worships a neutral god and the dm let me go with a chaotic to neutral good outlook on personality and alignment. We don't really use aligments that much but he did wan't to know how I was gonna be behaving. She hides her death abilities so I built her like she's basically a healer and hiding the aspects of her magic that she finds are inherently evil due to how she was raised and how it can be used to hurt. My hope is that eventually she sees that power isnt evil it's what you do with that power that really matters.

Here is a suggestion for a good alignment death cleric: The character was a medic before everything happened. He/She was well known in his/her village as a good person and amazing in the craft. Someday, the villagers brought a wounded warrior. He was in a terrible situation, but the medic was able to threaten its wounds, and the warrior survived. Later the medic knew from the warrior that he was a demi-god, he challenged a Death divinity, and it was almost killed. The warrior thank the medic and gave an amulet to him to show his gratitude before leaving. After some time, heavy clouds appeared in the sky, the wind was sharp could, and the Death divinity appeared in the medic village with an undead army. It found the medic and said: - Your piece of..., have you thought you would be able to steal my treasure and get away with it? Now you'll suffer! The medic did not have the time to process what was going on before the divinity grabbed him and made him/her watch the village being ripped apart. The undead army killed every single person in front of the medic, letting his/her family to the last one. The medic screamed: - What I've done? I didn't steal... My family! Please, I'm just a medic! What do you want? - Now you don't know huh? Where is my amulet? The medic remembered the amulet the warrior gave, and explained the story. No one knows why exactly, but the deity believed, but it was still mad. - I see, either way, this thief is alive because of you. Your family will come with me, and you shall serve me to find this moron. If you find, your family is free, if you not... - I'll serve you, whatever it takes, I beg you to not hurt my family! - Deal The family was imprisoned in a purple color gem, and the deity gave it to the medic. - This will provide the power you need to find, but if you disobey me, remember your family is inside this gem. It'll destroy itself at the moment you don't follow my commands. The deity was gone as fast as it appeared. The village was destroyed, and various corpses lay on the ground, but the medic had his/her family in his/her hands, imprisoned in this gem. Now it's no longer a medic, but a Death Cleric. Every day he/she thinks it can head his/her family when it sleeps, every day it feels more corrupted by all this evil, every day it needs to fight the urge to become what he/she fights against all its life.

These are very cool ideas! I'm glad you liked the video!

I'm glad you liked the video, hope your party appreciates the healing!

Yea I hope college gets easier as well, but regardless, thank you for the support!

@@Greyscales at level 2 doesn’t death cleric get a spell which makes someone they choose take double dmg from the next attack I’m trying to get into dnd can you tell me

Grave domain sorry

@@elreturner1227 Yea the Grave Domain Cleric has a channel divinity feature that gives an enemy Vulnerability which doubles the next attack's damage against it.

@@Greyscales yea sorry I confused death and grave

That's pretty cool, having a 1 on 1 with a DM is something I've never tried!

@@Greyscales honestly a lot of fun. Especially if you like playing evil characters. Im debating multi classing into warlock

@@Greyscales i have Touch of Death (which at my current lvl I can use twice per long/short rest) that when i hit with a melee attack i can deal extra necrotic dmg equal to 5 + twice my cleric lvl (currently 7). So with this and my Inescapable Destruction: Cleric spells and channel divinity (touch of Death) ignore Necrotic Resistances. So I can pretty much hit anything really fucking hard with this. I:E I have Necrotic shroud active when i attack with my scythe I roll my d6 then use Touch of Death with Inescapable Destruction. I roll a 4 + 7 Necrotic dmg from Necrotic Shroud + 19 from Touch of death = 30 dmg total 26 of it being necrotic that goes through resistances thanks to Inescapable Destruction.

I'm currently a level 7 Necromancy Wizard, looking into multi-classing a death domain cleric. I've heard some suggestions that it's a weak Cleric subclass, but I've not found any examples of people multi-classing the way I intend. Is it true that Death Domain Clerics have lot's of Necrotic modifiers? That could be tasty!

While that is true, the flavour from the DMG paints it as more of a villain NPC subclass and I kinda played it up in the video.

The less evil gods are usually associated with the Grave domain instead.

Thanks Corey, I'm glad you enjoyed!

Yeah it is true that Touch of Death + Inflict Wounds would be a great combo that does a ton of damage but it also uses up two fairly important resources for a Cleric that also puts them on the frontlines with only medium armour and carries the risk of spell slot waste, the Paladin carries very little danger since they are designed to be on the frontlines so I guess it depends on your appetite for risk. The average calculations would also be slightly different I think. The paladin would add their STR modifier to their Extra Attack, making the average 2d8 + 8 + 3d8 = 30.5 for non critical rolls. The cleric's Inflict Wounds at 3rd level + Touch on non crits would be 5d10 + 15 = 42.5. 2nd Level would be 4d10 + 15 = 37. If the paladin is going shield + longsword, they would also most likely go for Dueling Fighting style bumping the average to 32.5.

Hey Finn, I'm think the next video will be Barbarian since that would finish off the 12 Classes from the PHB. Although college will most likely make it tough for me to find the time, but I'm glad that you enjoy the videos!

@@Greyscales I hope its Ancestral Guardian or Zealot Barbarian (aka I call it the Kratos subclass) personally but still I can relate as I'm starting another year of college this month so I know how weighted the workload can be XD

@@finnmchugh99 I think it'll probably be Beast Barbarian since I get to talk about stuff from Tasha's in there. And good luck to both of us in education!

I thinks it's more about the type of god you want to serve and how that reflects on your cleric's perspective, but I can understand why mechanically it might not fulfill that destructive fantasy as much as other subclasses. Thanks for the comment!

You can flavour your Death cleric in any way you think is more exciting for your campaign, the examples I talked about was not an exclusive list of themes. The reason I highlighted violence was a reference to the fact that the Death Cleric is found in the DMG as a villainous archetype for your DM to use against the party rather than as a creative limiter.

aw thanks man!

Yep