Example Character: Cleric / Leader

As part of our continued preview of the Leader Prestige Class, we have another example character (there will be one for every base class), this time using the Cleric class. The idea behind example characters for prestige classes is that just a small selection of character choices can illustrate the power, flexibility, and theming of a prestige class in ways that simply seeing the material often can’t.

The cleric is a spellcaster with some of the weakest offensive cantrips available, but their non-cantrip spells are very strong. Most clerics rely on carrying a weapon for times when they aren’t expending spell slots, but not all characters — especially holy people — wish to carry weapons. But the cleric combined with the Leader can create a highly resonant character theme that feels familiar: a priest who wields divine magic at times, but does not work petty magics like cantrips or wield a barbaric weapon, and instead focuses on supporting allies with the nonmagical social skills that priests, chaplains, nuns, and others tend to cultivate — the skills to shepherd a flock through times of strife and difficulty. Thus, we’ll be calling this example character “The Priest.” The Priest is a level 10 character, with an even split between Cleric 5 and Leader 5. So how’s the Priest built?

To start, the Priest is a cleric, but the domain we choose for the priest is largely immaterial to the example. As a result, you can adapt this example to any domain, meaning that you can use the Leader to build an effective pseudo-pacifist in the service of any god or goddess you like, casting spells when needed but relying on the power of your words and your soul to aid your fellows as the faithful have always sought to do, divine ideals without the need for divine magic. With a Charisma of 11 and a skill such as Religion, Insight, or Persuasion, the Priest can easily meet the prerequisites for the Leader prestige class, given their focus on Wisdom and their likelihood of being able to convert someone to change alignment or lead a group of NPCs who follow the same divinity.

The first 5 levels for the Priest are standard cleric levels, and this brings the Priest up to having access to 3rd-level spells including cure wounds and mass healing word. With 5 levels in cleric, the Priest can finally take their 6th level as their 1st level in Leader. As a result, they gain a new skill proficiency and two Stratagems of their choice. They choose Soothing Comfort for the first one, since it synergizes well with healing spells like cure wounds and as a cleric the Priest can use it before nearly all of the healing spells they cast, with the choice to focus on healing spells above others. For the second Stratagem, Command of Caution offers a bonus action that can be used on turns when the Priest casts a nonhealing spell, but it can also be used as a main action on the Priest’s turn to defend allies against the dangers of wicked spellcasters, nefarious dragons and fiends, or even the diseases caused by many undead. This way, the Priest does not have to cast cleric cantrips on a turn when they do not expend a spell slot as an action — they can instead aid their party nonmagically with their action each round.

Soothing Comfort
You can use a bonus action on your turn to touch one ally and grant them a boon to their healing by boosting their spirits. Until the start of your next turn, anytime that ally rolls dice to regain hit points, they can choose to maximize up to a number of dice equal to your leader level.

Command of Caution
You can use a bonus action on your turn to set your comrades on alert for danger, granting one ally the ability to instantly make one Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check with a bonus to the roll equal to your leader level. Alternatively, you can use an action to warn your friends of a particular foe's threat. Choose one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you and choose up to a number of allies equal to your leader level. The target creature has disadvantage on the first attack it makes against any of the affected allies, or the affected allies have advantage on a saving throw that was caused by the target creature, whichever comes first. This effect ends at the start of your next turn.

The Priest reaches Leader level 2 and gains access to Stroke of Genius, which enables them to use the more potent option for Command of Caution as only a bonus action once per short rest. That way, it can be combined with a full cleric spell on the same turn. This works well for a Priest that seeks to aid others more than to harm the enemies of the faith, but many sages of some gods or goddesses would do better to pick up Warlord’s Strike as their stratagem of choice instead of Command of Caution, making use of their allies’ capable weapon attacks, or even Wolf Pack Tactics if they serve a divinity of war, knowledge, haste, etc. or if they simply wish to light a metaphorical fire under their allies. Inspiring Word is also an attractive option for many characters of this type, but we’ve opted against it for this example character so that it stays applicable even to cleric domains that give out temporary hit points through spells or class features.

At the 3rd Leader level (8th level character), the Priest must choose a skill and option for Leadership Expertise, and a 3rd stratagem. As a 3rd stratagem, the Priest chooses Helping Hand, which they can use as an action on rounds when Command of Caution is less helpful or when an ally is in grave need of assistance. Like Soothing Comfort, it requires the Priest to touch the ally. They also select Formation Master, since it helps the Priest stay close to allies for the Touch-range stratagems and spells that they have access to as a Cleric / Leader:

Formation Master
You can move through friendly creatures' spaces without treating them as difficult terrain, and when you provoke an opportunity attack by moving into a friendly creature's space, that opportunity attack has disadvantage.

Helping Hand
You can use an action to enable one ally that you touch to immediately stand up from prone or make an attempt to escape from a grapple with a bonus to the roll equal to your leader level, requiring no action. The target also gains a bonus to saving throws that they make before the end of their next turn equal to 1 + your leader level.

While Battlefield Conductor is appealing to a character like the Priest who doesn’t always want to be on the front-lines, it doesn’t help either Soothing Comfort or Helping Hand, and so we opted for Formation Master instead.

When the Priest finally reaches level 10, they can complete the mouth-watering 5th Leader level, selecting a 4th stratagem and a Leader’s Presence. As another option for the Priest’s action, “Look Out!” is not limited to a particular range and affects more than one attack, meaning that its easier to use than the Priest’s other stratagems and is more effective against weapon attackers than Command of Caution is. The Priest is always watching out for his allies, warning them at just the right moment when danger lurks. For a Presence, the Priest chooses Soothing Presence:

"Look Out!"
You can use an action to grant one ally the ability to immediately Dodge. Once you reach 5th level, the ally can also use their reaction at the start of their next turn to Disengage.

Soothing Presence
You and creatures of your choice that can see and hear you are soothed by your very presence and leadership. Whenever an affected creature regains hit points from a class feature that restores more than 4 hit points or from spending hit dice, it regains additional hit points equal to half your proficiency bonus (if more than one hit die is spent, each hit die gains the bonus). If a spell causes an affected creature to regain hit points, it regains additional hit points equal to your proficiency bonus or twice the spell's level, whichever is higher. Divide this bonus in half if the spell duration is anything longer than Instantaneous, if the casting time is less than 1 action, or if the spell can heal more than one creature per casting.

In addition to being immensely flavorful (the Priest tending their allies’ wounds during a short rest, or simply being there to watch over them with holy wisdom in times of need), this presence synergizes very well with the spells available to the Priest as a cleric. They already have access to mass healing word, which receives a substantial bonus from this Presence, and as they reach higher cleric levels they can take other healing spells that work well with it, such as mass cure wounds or the new D&D Unleashed spell rejuvenate. Combined with Soothing Comfort, the Priest can boost a small healing effect into a large one, turning a small spark of hope into a blaze.

Now the Priest is a level 10 character, but only a level 5 cleric. Those cleric levels would have given the Priest two 4th and 5th level spell slots each, as well as a 2nd use of Channel Divinity, Destroy Undead increased to CR1, two Domain subclass features, a new cantrip, plus the ability to prepare 5 more spells per day. Instead, the Priest boosts all healing that occurs nearby, and maximizes the dice of healing they do to a single target most of the time. The Priest also gains the ability to weave potent defensive abilities between their spells, giving enemies disadvantage on attacks and granting allies advantage on saving throws, sometimes as a bonus action. They don’t lose out on any hit points because the hit dice for Cleric and Leader are the same, but they do gain both a skill proficiency and a skill expertise. All in all, the Priest is far less magical than a full cleric at the same level would be, but they’re capable of interacting with the world or empowering, supporting, and defending their allies in nonmagical ways that reflect their experience in shepherding the faithful because of the Leader prestige class.