Dungeons & Dragons: How To Build A Tempest Domain Cleric

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• Best Ability Scores For A Tempest Cleric

• How To Fight As A Tempest Cleric

• How To Roleplay A Tempest Cleric

• Team Building Synergies For A Tempest Cleric

• Best Feats For A Tempest Cleric

The tempest domain is one of the most fun subclasses you can find for clerics in Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of preaching peace and art, you get to give threatening proclamations of impending ends by storm and flood. The abilities of the tempest cleric are all about following through on these ominous declarations.

Related: Dungeons & Dragons: Most Powerful Gods, Ranked

What separates the tempest domain cleric from other damage-focused casters is their increased resilience due to the base abilities of a cleric. Where a storm sorcerer is expected to stand in melee range without any armour, the tempest cleric has no need to worry about their own survival.

Best Ability Scores For A Tempest Cleric

A feature in common with the War Domain, tempest clerics have access to heavy armour from the first level. This shifts some of the priorities in choosing ability scores.

Ability Score

Priority

Explanation

Wisdom

First

Wisdom improves your spellcasting, allowing you to heal more, deal more damage, and reduce your chances of missing spells. There is no cleric who wants to ignore wisdom.

Constitution

Second

Constitution increases how many hits you can take without dying. It is considered impolite for the cleric to be the first party member to die.

Strength

Third

A minimum of 15 strength is needed to wear heavy armour without a penalty to speed. More will allow you to participate in melee, but not as well as a non-caster.

Dexterity

Fourth

A dexterity below ten will penalise your Armour Class, but you gain few other benefits from this stat.

Intelligence

Personal Preference

Intelligence doesn't improve any of your core skills, but investing in it may help you roleplay the character in a specific way. History and religion are both skills powered by intelligence that a cleric would want.

Charisma

Personal Preference

Charisma doesn't improve any of your core skills, but investing in it may help with roleplay: Despite religious spellcasting and knowledge being derived from wisdom and intelligence, there is still an expectation for preachers to be charismatic.

How To Fight As A Tempest Cleric

Tempest clerics have the ability to step into the front lines due to their heavy armour proficiency, but generally should only do this nobody else can perform the role well.

Tempest clerics do their best work standing at the back of the group holding concentration on a Call Lightning spell and using their heavy armour to shrug off ranged attacks that would break the concentration of lesser spellcasters.

When caught in melee their best spells are Thunderwave to buy distance and Destructive Wave to inflict heavy area damage. Neither requires concentration, allowing them to be cast while also maintaining a spell such as guardian spirits, bless, or aura of life. Tempest clerics do not have a continuous use for their bonus action, allowing them to make generous use of the Spiritual Weapon spell. Healing Word is also useful.

How To Roleplay A Tempest Cleric

A god of thunder and lightning lines up well conceptually with an evil cleric, and many of the deities with this domain are evil, such as Talos, Umberlee, and Zeboim. This doesn't mean that your cleric has to be evil as well. You could worship a deity related to nature more broadly or worship a deity of change and chaos that is symbolically represented by a mastery of wind and storm.

It is also possible, with the right backstory and explanation, to worship an evil god while playing a good character.

A good example is Talos, who is described as being a popular deity out of fear instead of reverence. A cleric of Talos might not be an enthusiastic agent of the destruction god but may instead view their worship and acts of violence as a form of appeasement towards a god that would otherwise hurt the innocent.

A good backstory for a tempest cleric is sailor. The proficiencies in athletics and perception fit into your two strongest ability scores and the blessing of a storm priest is a good way of earning free passage on most vessels.

Storm Sorcerers have a note in their lore stating that they are often desired by sailors since their control of weather can be lifesaving at sea. Tempest clerics have similar control over wind alongside healing and water-purifying magics that make them even more valuable.

Team Building Synergies For A Tempest Cleric

Tempest clerics have a few options for working together with other party members, many of which focus on the sixth-level ability Thunderbolt Strike. Pushing enemies ten feet when dealing lightning damage can set up combos for party members with abilities to control enemy movement and positioning.

• Abilities that activate when an enemy is moved over an area are not always active when a movement is forced, such as by Thunderbolt Strike. Attacks of Opportunity won't occur when you push an enemy out of melee range, but a polearm master will be able to make attacks when the enemy moves back into range. The druid/ranger spell Spike Growth activates even on forced movement, causing an extra 8d4 damage as a character is pushed ten feet away and is then forced to walk ten feet back to their previous position.
• Abilities that cause damage when a creature enters or starts their turn in an area, such as Wall of Fire, Hunger of Hadar, and Guardian Spirits are all able to combo with the tempest cleric forcing enemies into their area of effect.

Tempest clerics perform poorly when subtlety is demanded of them: Their spells are loud and their armour is loud. This also means that silencing effects will lock them out from many of their abilities by negating thunder damage. They might perform well as a distraction in a stealth-focused party but have little else to offer them.

Best Feats For A Tempest Cleric

Tempest Clerics benefit the most from feats that allow them to do their specialities better, although some people might opt for a wider skillset that covers more bases. In both cases, it is important to save enough ability score increases to reach 20 Wisdom.

Feat

Uses

Warcaster

This feat gives advantage on concentration checks. Combined with your heavier armour you'll be near impossible to interrupt when spellcasting.

Elemental Adept

Ignoring damage resistance is strong but not infallible. This feat will only affect one of your two damage types (either thunder or lightning) and has no impact against enemies immune to those elements.

Shield Master

Shield Master rounds out your defences by letting you add your shield's AC to your dexterity saving throws, and allowing you to halve or negate their damage as a reaction.

Magic Initiate (wizard)

Two cantrips and a first-level wizard spell can give you more to do out of combat. The Find Familiar spell can give you a raven or other bird that can scout much better than you can sneak. Minor Illusion and Prestidigitation are powerful utility cantrips that don't require a high intelligence casting modifier.

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