The Antimagic Domain (Cleric)
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Antimagic Domain
Art Credit: https://www.artofmtg.com/art/champion-parish/
The themes of an inquisitor cleric and an abjuration cleric combine in the Antimagic Domain subclass for clerics, today’s preview from Legends of Prestige and Prowess. If you’ve been wanting to make a cleric that feels less like a holy wizard and more like a magic-wary warrior that relies on divine miracle, this subclass will give you what you want without treading too close in theme or design to any other domain. This cleric works fantastically in settings where a powerful church has restricted or outlawed the use of arcane magic (such as the Dragon Age setting or some clerics in the Dark Sun setting), but it can also be used for the defensive aspect of any deity of magic.
In many ways, the Antimagic Domain is the cousin of the War Domain. Both domains feature proficiency with martial weapons and heavy armor, both use physical damage for their Divine Strike feature, and both tend to focus on the weapon side of things rather than highlighting the magical nature of the cleric class. The other features are critical for keeping the Antimagic Domain distinct from the War Domain and others, which presents a design challenge: create meaningful abilities that fit the theme of offense and defense against magic but don’t make the cleric feel innately magical themselves. The higher-level features are direct in their utility: they work best when the cleric faces down enemies that cast spells. But the low-level features, those at 1st and 2nd-level, need to be useful even when the cleric faces chiefly nonmagical foes, without being too inherently magical or treading too close to the weapon-focus of the War Domain or the Hunting Domain. The result is a cleric subclass that works (at least at the low levels) much like a “4th-edition warlord”-style cleric, one that relies on its nonmagical ability to rally and inspire its allies when it isn’t defending them from magic. In fact, this martial cleric even makes a well-themed “divine warlord” character when combined with the Leader prestige class!
Rather than the War Cleric’s ability to make additional attacks, the Antimagic Domain Cleric has a 1st-level feature that boosts an ally’s saving throw. It can be used not only to defend against spells and magic, but is also still useful against nonmagical enemies, since many of those still force saving throws to avoid being grappled, knocked prone, poisoned, frightened, etc. The 2nd-level feature (Channel Divinity) is generally a bit weaker than that of the Life Domain even though it only takes a bonus action to activate, since temporary hit points are much weaker than real hit points, they can’t be pooled to one target, and they can’t be used to heal out of combat. When facing magical enemies, however, this Channel Divinity enables the group to break through magical defenses for a turn or two and grants extra temporary hit points to boot, meaning that the Antimagic Cleric has to consider whether they may face such enemies in the future whenever they might want to use the ability. The 6th-level and 17th-level features are both highly targeted toward magic and magical creatures, helping to solidify the subclass’s antimagic identity, and both can be used even while the cleric’s hands are busy wielding a weapon and a shield.
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Antimagic Domain
