Life Cleric
Do you enjoy the front lines of battle… taking on large chunks of damage while your loser companions hide behind trees and rocks? Do you enjoy supporting the team, healing wounds, and ensuring that your party will endure? The life domain cleric might just be for you!
I will absolutely argue that no class fulfills the tank and healer role better than the life domain cleric. In the early game, Bless can be the difference between missing a critical attack and landing the final blow. As you level up, you will gain access to Lesser Restoration and Spiritual Weapon (3rd level spells), Beacon of Hope and Revivify (5th level spells), Death Ward and Guardian of Faith (7th level spells), and Mass Cure Wounds and Raise Dead (9th level spells).
What truly makes this class able to stand tall on the front lines, is the class’s proficiency in heavy armor. In my experience, using spells to bolster your shit, while killing shit, and healing shit is an absolute blast!! I have learned that as a D&D player, I typically crave having everyone dependent on me to survive…especially NPCs that follow me into the frozen tundra. And I’ll be the first to tell you that nothing screams for attention better than taking on aggro and having the party at your beck and whim for your delicious, precious healing!
Another feature that makes this class great: Disciple of Life. Did you think to yourself - I could really use some bonus healing points as a cleric? Well guess what buttercup? Starting at level 1, whenever you use healing spells to restore hit points, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spells level. Unless of course your healer has a negative modifier in Wisdom, which…lulz. In D&D, as you level up and the challenges become greater, you typically want to use spells/skills that scale well. The bonus healing for a life cleric scales extremely well, and will likely keep you and your party from failing early on or at the final boss encounter. Outside of being effective both early and late in the campaign, I firmly believe that the Life Domain Cleric is one of the best Dungeons and Dragons classes for beginners.
Additional features of the class include Blessed Healer, Divine Strike and Supreme Healing:
Blessed Healer: at the 6th level, healing spells you cast on others heal you as well. Yes you read that correctly! You will apply 2 + the spells level of healing to yourself when healing other creatures. Very efficient.
Divine Strike: at the 8th level, you gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage to the target. This increases to 2d8 at level 14. This is a welcome addition as the Life Cleric isn’t necessarily topping any DPS charts, but every little bit helps.
Supreme Healing: at the 17th level, when rolling to determine how many hit points a heal spell will restore, you use the highest number instead. NO MORE HEALING FOR THE MINIMUM AMOUNT. This is very welcome at higher levels, and turns your healing cleric into an absolute beast. Dragons, Gods, Sadistic DMs… be on alert.
Favorite Spell
Spiritual Weapon: My time in D&D has been dominated by the Life Cleric, so I feel sexually about the class. At lower levels, my favorite spell is Spiritual Weapon. Casting a floating spectral weapon allows for tons of flavor, and by the way, very efficient damage. This is not a concentration spell either, so there is no need to worry about those pesky DMs snarkily leaning over to you when you take damage, stale Dorito flakes on their breath, and saying “Don’t you need to roll for ConCeNTraTiOn?” (All DMs are also mouth-breathers, fun fact.) In addition, I still have the ability to maneuver myself to the center of the battlefield, fire off verbal healing spells, and slap enemies with my divine peni…I mean Spiritual Weapon, as often as possible. Yes Please! By the way, I have an unhealthy obsession with the God Helm… so be prepared for plenty of references and call backs to Gauntlets, Justice and anything else us Helmites love.