Hey guys, I'm trying to build a great cleric. The character will be played in the new adventure module about Giants.
We use point buy, no house rules, except natural 1's are fumbles (you might hit an ally or lose your next turn, ect.).
Anyway, I was looking at creating a variant human arcana cleric with the magic initiate feat.
The feat would be for druid spells, so I could pick up shillelagh. Looking at the spell list, I'll probably take produce flame as my other druid cantrip and goodberry for my first level spell (easy out of combat healing, subject to change). Shillelagh is the selling point though, as this character is centered around maximizing WIS, starting with a 14 DEX (to maximize medium armor), and a 14 or 16 CON (HP/concentration checks).
An arcana cleric can choose two wizard cantrips. I'm looking at green flame-blade and ray of frost, although I'm tempted to substitute in minor illusion instead (I have a level 9 wizard in another game and I still use minor illusion). I'd also get three cleric cantrips to start with, I know one will be sacred flame, one will be guidance, and I'm not sure of number 3 yet.
The initial character can have a pretty good AC with that 14 DEX, with medium armor and a shield. His HP are respectable.
In combat, step one would be to cast shillelagh as a bonus action, and cast green flame-blade as my regular action.
I'd do 1d8+3, plus 3 damage to one adjacent enemy (not a lot, but we're talking level 1.
I'd have the option to do fire damage (green flame-blade, produce flame), cold damage (ray of frost), or radiant damage (sacred flame). It's pretty nice to be so versatile!
The damage leaps forward at level 5 (18 WIS).
Melee with green flame-blade and shillelagh: 2d8+4 to enemy, 1d8+4 to an enemy withing 5 feet.
At level 8, I add CHA to all damaging cantrips. That's awesome.
The point of this character is to have an optimized single classed cleric. This arcana cleric can fight in melee with any of the clerics, and be better than most. He's got a great spell list to choose from.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions?