The Winter Domain (Cleric)
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“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?” — John Steinbeck
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Winter Domain
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3oJdyv
Cleric domains are as numerous and diverse as the fantasy pantheons that they draw their power from. Despite the abundance of official cleric domains, there are still myriad gods and goddesses in real-world pantheons and D&D world pantheons that are still unaccounted for. The upcoming compendium The Elements & Beyond contains a handful of new elemental cleric domains to alleviate this problem: the mountain domain, the sea domain, and the one we’re previewing today — the icy winter domain.
The winter domain cleric has some domain spells that are new in D&D Unleashed, which have been previewed already here. It specializes in area damage and battlefield control, such as debuffing enemies or creating difficult terrain, and can be seen as a parallel to the light domain and the tempest domain, specializing in cold damage instead of fire or lightning and thunder damage. When it comes to their features, we have a little bit to say.
Herald of Winter: This feature is comparable to the bonus proficiency given to the war domain, with martial weapons replaced by the extra cantrip. The additional ribbon of cold endurance is accounted for by Divine Blizzard being more situational than the war domain’s additional attack.
Divine Blizzard: Like many 1st-level cleric features, this feature is limited to a number of uses per long rest equal to the cleric’s Wisdom modifier. It’s designed to be similar in power to the war domain’s bonus action attack, which becomes more and more useful at higher levels, especially to ensure the war cleric gets to use their divine strike even when they miss with their attack on a turn, and gains bonuses from other martial class levels. Similarly, Divine Blizzard gains bonuses from more cleric levels or other class levels in the form of keying off of proficiency bonus. This ability helps to ensure that winter clerics feel like specialists in area damage (similarly to a light cleric) from the very first level, before spells like cone of cold or ice storm are available to them.
Channel Divinity: Icy Embrace: This Channel Divinity is intended to be relatively simple. It’s similar in effect to the Oath of Ancients paladin’s ensnaring Channel Divinity (which is notably weak to balance out that oath’s powerful aura at level 7), except it can be used without expending an action of any kind. The requirement to deal cold damage prevents many of the default cleric spells from being combined with it, but with a guaranteed cold damage cantrip at level 1 and more cold damage spells in the domain spell list, any winter cleric is sure to have a good chance or two (or three) to use this freezing ability.
Numb to Pain: The winter cleric has become so filled with cold as to be deadened to pain itself. The cold resistance part of this feature can be seen as an upgrade to the cold endurance ribbon at level 1, since resistance to cold damage automatically confers the effects of the cold endurance according to the Dungeon Master’s Guide. This ability is similar in power to the forge domain cleric’s level 6 ability, with its bonus to AC swapped for this one’s bonus to concentration rolls, which can be very useful for maintaining some of the spells on the domain spell list, such as hold person or sleet storm.
Potent Spellcasting: Since their 1st-level feature and Channel Divinity both encourage the winter cleric to rely on a cold damage cantrip, and the subclass doesn’t grant martial weapon proficiency, it made since to give them Potent Spellcasting rather than a cold-damage Divine Strike.
Relentless Winter: This feature represents an upgrade to the abilities granted at level 6. The inability to feel pain has been expanded, and the winter cleric now can’t feel fatigue either. The other half of the ability is a powerful frost armor-style effect, and combined with the cold resistance granted at level 6 gives the winter cleric the effects of frost armor at all times, without concentration (minus the AC bonus, of course). Like the war domain’s 17th-level feature, Relentless Winter makes the cleric incredibly tough when facing melee weapon attackers, but can be overcome by DM preparation. Instead of magic weapons (like the war cleric), it is cold resistance on enemies that foils the winter cleric’s defenses — commonly found on fiends, frost giants, and many more monsters.
So the winter cleric has a focus on spellcasting and cantrips, but they also gain a number of class features that aid them in close range or melee combat, including heavy armor and the divine blizzard ability. This subclass straddles some of the roles of other clerics, being similar in some ways to the light cleric and in other ways to the war cleric or the forge cleric. Ice is cold and harsh, but it is also sturdy and solid. Winter can kill, but it is also a time of thick furs, strong armor, and sturdy walls. So the winter cleric gains a little of all of these capabilities.
The winter cleric also makes a great candidate for the new Hydromancer feat coming in The Elements & Beyond, one of the new spellcaster specialization feats. Since the Hydromancer feat’s spell list includes all kinds of watery spells (from liquid water, to ice, and even to steam), an ice-focused spellcaster like a winter cleric can get a lot of value from taking it, and gain a new dimension of battlefield control from the boosts it provides to ray of frost, frostbite, and other spells. A hydromancer cleric of the winter domain will play very differently from a hydromancer cleric of the sea domain, despite taking the same feat! This broad versatility in character building is always one of the core goals of D&D Unleashed.
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Winter Domain
