Introduction
The Light Domain Cleric is the best Blaster option available to the Cleric, offering expanded damage options borrowed from other spell lists. With powerful options like Fireball, you can easily match the damage output of classes like the Wizard.
Clerics have more access to radiant damage than any other class in the game,and after writing ourCleric Spell List Breakdown, I really wanted to see how far I could get on a build centered mostly onradiant damage. Because the Light Domain does that plus fire damage, I figuredthat restricting the build to those two damage types would be an interestingcharacter both mechanically and conceptually, and I wanted to share theresults.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Disclaimer
- Light Domain Cleric Features
- Light Domain Cleric Ability Scores
- Light Domain Cleric Races
- Light Domain Cleric Feats
- Light Domain Cleric Weapons
- Light Domain Cleric Armor
- Light Domain Cleric Multiclassing
- Example Light Cleric Build – Variant Human Light Domain Cleric
- Abilities
- Race
- Skills and Tools
- Background
- Feats
- Levels
Disclaimer
RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.
- Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
- Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
- Green: Good options. Useful often.
- Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.
We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.
The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.
Light Domain Cleric Features
- Domain Spells: A fantastic set ofoffensive spells which close the gap between Clerics and Wizards.
- 1st-Level: FaerieFire is a great way to handle invisible creatures, but it’salso helpful support option for allies that rely on attacksbecause it’s an easy source of Advantage against multipletargets. Burning Hands is a great low-levelAOE damage spell, but resist the urge to burn all of yourspell slots casting it or you won’t have any slots to healwith. At high levels, Faerie Fire remains incredibly potent,but Burning Hands will be obsolete after a few levels.
- 3rd-Level: ScorchingRay is a great option, especially if you have Bless or Faerie Fire running to boostthe attack rolls. Flaming Sphere is strictly worse than SpiritualWeapon, but it’s good enough that you could consider not preparingspiritual weapon if you’re short on space for prepared spells.
- 5th-Level: Daylightis situational, but Fireball is the sledgehammer of offensivespells: sometimes you just need to hit your problems untilthey fall down. In terms of instantaneous area damage, thereisn’t another spell that can compete with Fireball until 9th-levelspells introduce stuff like Meteor Swarm.
- 7th-Level: Wallof Fire is among the best area control spells in the game.
- 9th-Level: FlameStrike is considerably less important since you get Fireball,and Scrying is only situationally useful so it’s frustratingto have it prepared every day.
- Bonus Cantrip: Not spectacular, buta Light Cleric really should have Light, and someoneshould be able to cast it in most parties (unless every has Darkvision).
- Warding Flare: You won’t get a ton ofuses, so save this for enemies which can do a lot of damage on a singleattack. This needs to be activated “before an attack hits or misses”, whichis frustratingly vague, but I assume it means “before the result of theattack is determined”. So your DM could roll, ask “Does a 25 hit?” knowingfull well that it does, and you could scream “Warding Flare!” before the DMsays “you are hit” and the DM would then roll with Disadvantage (meaningthat they roll a second die and choose the lower of the two results, notthat they need to dump whatever they’ve already rolled).
Of course,your DM might read that differently and take my portrayal of that interactionpoorly, so check with your DM before you assume how this works.Tragically, Jeremy Crawford’s only response on the subjectdoesn’tactually clarify the answer.
- Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn:The damage isn’t great beyond low levels. Magical darkness canreally cause problems, and a guranteed way to remove it is very convenient,but you can also negate magical darkness with the spell Daylight, which youget prepared for free once you hit level 5. So there’s a small level windowwhere this might be impactful, but once you get through low levels you’ll frequently getbetter results from the Harness Divine Power Optional Class Feature if your DM allows it.
- Improved Flare: Fantastic if you haveallies who are squishier than you (like a Wizard) or if you need to buytime until you can heal someone.
- Potent Spellcasting: By this level youalmost certainly have 20 Wisdom, giving an impressive boost to your damageoutput. Note that this only applies to Cleric cantrips, so you can’tuse it in conjunction with Magic Initiate to turn things like EldritchBlast into a problem, but adding Wisdom to staples like Sacred Flame, Wordof Radiance, and Toll the Dead is still great.
- Corona of Light: If you’re anything likeme, you want to make a joke about light beer whenever you see thisability. But unlike light beer, this is fun. It’s essentially anoverdrive button for your fire and radiant damage spells, which isespecially nice with the Light domain’s Domain Spells and with Clericstaples like Spirit Guardians.
Light Domain Cleric Ability Scores
No different from a standard cleric.
Light Domain Cleric Races
No different from a standard cleric.
Light Domain Cleric Feats
Little different from a standard cleric.
- Elemental AdeptPHB:With so much reliance on fire damage, Elemental Adept can make your best subclass options more reliable. Of course, you can also switch to other damage options when you run into resistance.
Light Domain Cleric Weapons
No different from a standard cleric. Light Domain is a casting-focused domain, so it’s entirely likely that you’ll never use weapons.
Light Domain Cleric Armor
No different from a standard cleric. Light Domain doesn’t get heavy armor, so grab half plate and a shield.
Light Domain Cleric Multiclassing
This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.
No different from a standard cleric.
Example Light Cleric Build – Variant Human Light Domain Cleric
If only I could be so… grossly incandescent.
This build is fairly simple. Limiting our damage options to fire damage and radiant damage is extremely limiting, but those still include many of the best damage spells in the game. In the party, this is primarily a ranged spellcaster, but with medium armor and a shield, we can still interpose ourselves between weaker allies and things with spears and teeth if they slip past our more melee-oriented allies.
This build recieved on honorable mention in our 10 favorite 5e builds.
Abilities
This includes the two flexible +1 ability score increases from Variant Human.You can easily make adjustments based on your role in the party. If you pickup some Face skills, switch Intelligence and Charisma..Base Increased Str 8 8 Dex 14 14 Con 13 14 Int 12 12 Wis 15 16 Cha 10 10
Race
Variant Human. We’ll put the two ability score increases into Constitutionand Wisdom. We’ll spend the free skill on Perception because it’s the mostimport skill in the game and it’s not on the Cleric’s class list. We can putthe extra language into anything, and Celestial seems appropriate. We’lldiscuss feats below.
Skills and Tools
We get Perception from our race, and two skills from the Cleric list.Religion is almost guaranteed, so let’s assume that as our first choice. Ifyou’re your party’s Face, take Persuasion. If you’re not, take History.
Background
Our choice of background doesn’t matter much to the build, so pick somethingthat appeals to you or that helps support your role in the party. If you can’tdecide, Acolyte is a great option. Take Insight, Persuasion, and two languagesthat are common in the setting where your campaign takes place.
Feats
Your choice of racial feat is complicated. Elemental Adept seems appealing,but we get a total of just 6 spells that deal fire damage so it won’t get muchuse. We don’t even get the Fire Bolt cantrip. Heavily Armored is tempting, butit’s only a total of +1 AC, and the Strength increase isn’t helpful. MediumArmor Master could work, but we’ll still need more Dexterity to fill it outand I don’t see our glowing cleric doing a lot of sneaking.
Spell Sniper or Magic Initiate both look tempting for extra cantrips, but wehave Sacred Flame and Word of Radiance, so we don’t need much else. Ifsomething is resistant or immune to radiant damage, we can use leveled spellsinstead. Clerics have almost no offensive spells that require spell attacks,so Spell Sniper does very little, and I can’t think of any specific spelloptions that we would want from other classes available via Magic Initiate.
Our best options are like Lucky, Observant, and Resilient. Lucky is just agenerally great feat, so it’s a great fallback if you don’t know what to pick.Observant gets us +1 to Wisdom or Intelligence, so if you’re using Point Buyfor ability scores you can drop your base Wisdom to 14 and spend the extrapoints elsewhere and still have 16 Wisdom at level 1. Or, you could rearrangemy suggested ability scores to end up with two odd-numbered scores (afterapplying racial increases and the bonus from Observant or Resilient) so thatyour first ability increase can increase two of your ability modifiers.
Resilient won’t work well to raise your Wisdom at 1st level since clerics arealready proficient in Wisdom saving throws, but you could use it onConstitution and you would still get some extra Point Buy points to spend.
You could plan to take two feats which give +1 to an ability score, startwith 17 Wisdom, then end up with 18 at 4th level. Unfortunately I don’t knowof a feat combination that supports that except Observant and Resilient, andyou can’t do anything with the redundant saving throw proficiency so thatseems wasteful.
For this build let’s assume Lucky as the default feat choice, but I encourageyou to experiment. If you don’t have other people in the party with highPerception, I strongly encourage you to explore Observant instead.
Levels
| Level | Feat(s) and Features | Notes and Tactics |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spellcasting Domain Spells Cantrips Known: – Guidance – Sacred Flame – Word of Radiance Light Domain Bonus Cantrip: – Light Warding Flare | For your starting equipment, select a mace, scale mail, a dagger,either pack, and a shield and holy symbol. If you took the Acolytebackground you may end up with two holy symbols, but it’s nice to havea spare. At level 1 you have 18 AC while you’re holding ashield. You can walk around with your dagger and shield out, butyou’ll need to stow your weapon to perform somatic components and theonly reason to carry the dagger is for opportunity attacks. Yourgo-to offensive options are your cantrips. Sacred Flame for singletargets and Word of Radiance if you can target more than one bygetting into melee range, but don’t be afraid to break out BurningHands if you want more damage or can hit a bunch of targets. Expectto rely primarily on resting for healing, but bring Healing Word foremergencies. Consider Bless or Shield of Faith to buff your allies,but remember that your spell slots are very limited at this level. Ifyou just need to protect yourself, skip Shield of Faith and rely onWarding Flare instead. |
| 2 | Channel Divinity (1/day) Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn | At low levels, Radiance of the Dawn is a decent AOE damage spell witha fantastic radius. As you gain levels the damage falls behind veryquickly, but it remains an unstoppable way to handle magical darknesswhich is otherwise a huge problem. |
| 3 | Domain Spells | 3rd level brings 2nd-level spells, and our domain spells have two funnew ways to deal fire damage. Spiritual Weapon is typically a betterspell than Flaming Sphere, but we’re limiting ourselves to fire andradiant damage, so get ready to summon a very small sun and ram itinto people. 2nd-levels spells include Continual Flame, andhonestly if your holy symbol isn’t perpetually glowing are you even alight cleric? |
| 4 | Ability Score Improvement: Wis 16 -> 18 New Cantrip Known: – Any | More Wisdom does a lot for the cleric. More spells prepared, morehealing from Cure Wounds and from Healing Word, higher DCs for ourspells, and an extra use of Warding Flare. We already havethe cantrips that I care about, so consider something fun likeThaumaturgy or Spare the Dying. |
| 5 | Domain Spells Destroy Undead (CR 1/2) | 5th level brings some important milestones. Cantrip damage increases,and you add Daylight and Fireball. Fireball is one of the best damagespells in the game for its level, and I encourage you to use itwhenever the situation even remotely justifies it. Be sureto pick up Spirit Guardians. Turn yourself into a radiant damage-basedblender and wade into melee. You still get your Action, so you canpile on more radiant damage with Word of Radiance or Radiance of theDawn if you need more damage. |
| 6 | Channel Divinity (2/rest) Improved Flare | An extra use of Radiance of the Dawn isn’t spectacular, but it’s acheap AOE with a big radius, so use it whenever you can catch a bunchof enemies in the effect. Improved Flare is a greatimprovement to Warding Flare. Forcing Disadvantage on attack rollsagainst any of your allies means that you have an easy way to protectyour weak or wounded allies without cutting into your blasting time.You still only get a few uses per day, so save this for attacks thatwill be really problematic rather than burning through your WardingFlare pool as soon as weapons come out. |
| 7 | Domain Spells | Nothing at this level except 4th-level spells. Wall of Fire is greatarea control, which makes Guardian of Faith feel silly by comparisonbecause it’s a less-useful area control spell. Guardian of Faithadmittedly has an 8-hour duration which offers some fun options, butgenerally you’ll go for Wall of Fire. Get reallycomfortable with Wall of Fire. The damage scales by 1d8 per spelllevel just like Spirit Guardians, and the fact that the damage can beapplied multiple times makes it a great option for your higher-levelspell slots. |
| 8 | Ability Score Improvement: Wis 18 -> 20 Destroy Undead (CR 1) Potent Spellcasting | We’re now at maximum Wisdom, which is great. More damage, betterDC’s, and more Warding Flare! Potent Spellcasting is a bigboost, especially for Word of Radiance. If you can catch two enemiesin the effect, 2d6+5 damage is really great, and it gets even betteras enemies crowd in around you. I don’t know why they would do that,consider Spirit Guardians is a thing, but something enemies are dumbat just rush the nearest player. |
| 9 | Domain Spells | Nothing at this level except 5th-level spells, and Light Domaindoesn’t get anything of interest. You won’t use Scry most days (thoughyou should absolutely buy the materal cimponent for it), and FlameStrike is just a more expensive fireball so you should probably neveruse it. Still, we get access to Dawn and Holy Weapon, andwhile they’re not massively important they’re still great sources ofradiant damage. |
| 10 | Divine Intervention New Cantrip Known: – Any | Divine Intervention is really cool, but also totally unreliable. Atthis level you have just a 10% chance to receive Divine Intervention.Use this frequently, if only so that you’ll have a chance to actuallytrigger the effects. Unfortunately, this is also the lastlevel for a long time where we get an exciting and wholly new classfeature. From here on it’s all incremental improvements and new spelllevels. |
| 11 | Destroy Undead (CR 2) | 6th-level spells, and you can destroy undead of CR 2. Cantrip damageincreases, too. Tragically, there are no 6th-level clericspells that deal radiant or fire damage, but our favorite spells likeSpirit Guardians and Wall of Fire are still fantastic options. You doget great things like Heal, but none of them are divine sunlight-basedexplosions so they’re not very exciting for our purposes. |
| 12 | Ability Score Improvement: Con 14 -> 16 | Your first ability score increase that doesn’t need to go intoWisdom. Constitution will improve your hit points, but if you’re notbeing targeted frequently consider feats. If you din’t take it atfirst level, Resilient is a great option. |
| 13 | – | Nothing at this level except 7th-level spells. |
| 14 | Destroy Undead (CR 3) | Destroy even more undead. |
| 15 | – | Nothing at this level except 8th-level spells. |
| 16 | Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 16 -> 18) | Another ASI or feat. |
| 17 | Destroy Undead (CR 4) Corona of Light | 9th-level spells and Corona of Light. Corona of Light only lasts oneminute, but cast Spirits Guardians as a 9th-level spell and activateCorona of Light and you’re an unstoppable tornado of radiant damage,dealing out 9d8 damage per round, with reflex saves for half made atdisadvantage. All you need to do is keep enemies in the area and notdie, and after a full minute if you haven’t manage to kill everythingin the room with a total of 90d8 damage (avg. 405; a little less than2/3 of the Tarrasque’s hit points), hopefully spamming Radiance of theDawn and Word of Radiance were enough to make up the difference. |
| 18 | Channel Divinity (3/rest) | No change at this level, but the extra use of Darn of Radiancecombines nicely with Corona of Light. |
| 19 | Ability Score Improvement (Constitution 18 -> 20) | Another ASI or feat. |
| 20 | Improved Divine Intervention | Divine Intervention jumps from 19% effective to 100% effective. Atthis level you’re close enough to your deity that you can alwaysrequest and recieve direct aid. This is an intentionally vagueability, so expect to do some amount of negotiating with your DM todetermine what sort of aid you recieve. |
