Kids on Bikes

 On a trip to the local game store, I decided to pick up the rules to Kids on Bikes. This is a TTRPG system by Jonathan Gilmour and Dough Levandowski that is built primarily to play through stories of small towns with strange happenings, borrowing the tropes of 1980s stories like IT or E.T., or the more recent pastiche of that kind of genre, Stranger Things.

As someone who started with the Song of Ice and Fire RPG (briefly) before getting into D&D, it's a much simpler system, but a very versatile one. The recent Misfits & Magic season of Dimension 20 used a variation by the same company called Kids on Brooms to do their deconstructive take on the Harry Potter-style magical school setting.

There is a lot of emphasis here on creating complex relationships between characters as well as fleshing out the small town setting of your game.

At the core of the gameplay is your six stats. These are Brains, Brawn, Grit, Charm, Flight, and Fight. Brains is book-smarts and knowledge. Brawn is physical durability and stature. Grit is sort of emotional resilience. Charm is your ability to talk your way out of problems and influence people. Flight is your ability to evade and escape problems (both physically and metaphorically,) and Fight is your ability to attack and hurt others.

Characters can choose from several "tropes," which are the rough analogue of character class, which tell you how to assign each of the polyhedral dice to one of these stats (ignoring the percentile die.) You're also free to customize or build a character from scratch, but most of the ideas for this sort of story can be covered by these tropes. For example, you might play a Loner Weirdo. Your Grit die would be a d20, given that you're used to people treating your poorly and can handle it, but your Charm die would only be a d4, as you're, you know, a kind of off-putting weirdo.

You use these dice to make skill checks of the corresponding type. The GM tells you the difficulty you're trying to hit before you roll, and if you fail the roll, you get an Adversity Token, which can be spent later on to improve your luck later on (which nicely balances having really bad luck on rolls.) Because difficulties might be set above the maximum for your die (say your Loner Weirdo is trying to talk their mom into letting them go over to Suzy's house even though there have been stories of kids disappearing, and the Charm difficulty is set to 10, while your Loner Weirdo only has a d4,) you can also benefit more from a great roll. If you roll the maximum amount on your die, the die "explodes," allowing you to roll an additional die of that kind and add it to the total. This can continue until you hit the difficulty threshold. So even if our Weirdo is very unlikely to, they do have a chance, if they hit a 4 on the first roll, and then again on the second, and then get a 2 or higher on the third, to actually succeed on that check. (This also means that you're actually more likely to explode on your worst dice, as it's a 25% chance on a d4 compared to a 5% chance on a d20.)

When a skill check is required (and unlike in D&D, there's no distinction here between checks, saving throws, or attack rolls) it can either be a planned action, meaning something that you have time to prepare for, or a snap decision, meaning something you have to do in the moment. For example, trying to puzzle out where the shady government agents could be hiding the fallen spaceship you saw in town by poring over a map as a group together over the course of an evening would be a planned action, and probably a Brains check, whereas running from the alien menace that broke out of that warehouse after you decided to investigate it would be a snap decision Flight check.

For planned actions, a player can choose to simply take half their die's max amount as their roll. Additionally, anyone can expend the adversity tokens they have to increase the total amount (the GM has to declare the difficulty out loud, so players will know how many they need to spend.)

On a snap decision, the player has to roll the die, and only they can spend their adversity tokens to increase its result.

There are no levels and no hit points here - combat always carried with it the chance at serious injury or even death. There are also more complex mechanics I can't really get into here. And there's a lot of guidance on the building of relationships and setting.

But more than anything, the rules are built around creating a fun narrative.

Not to say that I have a ton of other examples I know that well, but while some players can kind of retreat into the mechanics (primarily combat) of D&D, this is going to be a very RP-Heavy type of game. Indeed, the game leans more on having all the players participate in the narrative-building, rather than just piloting their own character within a narrative mostly crafted by the GM.

One of the most interesting ideas is the "Powered Character." This is a sort of hybrid between NPC and PC - a character whose behavior is controlled by the entire party, each having elements of their personality and behavior to kind of advocate for. True to the tropes of this genre, this is the person with telekinesis or other psychic powers whose arrival in the narrative really gets the story going. The most obvious recent example would be Eleven from Stranger Things.

While the game puts its emphasis on small towns where everyone has at least a passing familiarity with everyone else, I suspect you could easily adapt these pretty simply rules into just about any genre or setting.

After reading Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, I had a concept for a campaign that begins with the absorption of a small town in America (probably in the 1980s) into the Mists of Ravenloft, having a short prologue session or handful of sessions in which the players are just normal teenagers, before scattering them into the Mists and having them develop into their D&D character classes after a significant time jump. I could imagine using this system for that prologue. I'd initially wanted to use the "Survivor" mechanics from Van Richten's, but I actually think the less combat-oriented Kids of Bikes system might work better for that.

Not to say that this is only valuable for tying into other games. The system here is less built around extremely long-term campaigns, instead treating its narratives more like episodes in a series or sequels. Character progression is not about an ever-higher climb in power, but is more about seeing a character change over time, for better or worse.

The Deep History of Dominaria and What I'd Love to See in a D&D Dominaria Book

 Magic the Gathering was built initially on broad fantasy tropes. The core concept of the game - the iconic division of fantasy into five broad "colors" that could represent different styles of magic along with different value systems - served to primarily hit generic fantasy concepts. To be fair, we did have some proper nouns or adjectives in there starting in Alpha, like Serra Angels, Sengir Vampires, or Benalish Heroes, but I think the actual meaning of who Serra or Sengir were, or where Benalia was, wouldn't really be fleshed out until later.

With the exceptions of Arabian Nights, which took place on the dubiously canonical "Rabiah," and Homelands (which took place on Ulgrotha and was the work of outside contractors,) every Magic set took place on Dominaria until Tempest block took us to Rath (which then wound up overlaying with Dominaria anyway,) and the plane remained the central setting even after the climactic Invasion block, continuing on with the post-apocalyptic Odyssey and Onslaught blocks (which told effectively a single interconnected story over two years.)

When WotC returned to Dominaria in 2018 for the aptly named "Dominaria" set, the design team ran into a challenge. When the game started hopping around to a different plane each year, they were able to build around a major concept: Mirrodin was the "Artifact world." Kamigawa was the "Legends world" along with a strong Japanese inspiration. Ravnica was "can we do a multicolor block, but rather than having everyone playing five-color decks, we're going to encourage them to stick to two-color decks" that coupled with a vast urban setting to be maybe their most successful high-concept world.

Since then, we've had the three-color block with Alara, the tribal block (which to be fair, had also been the theme in Onslaught) in Lorwyn, the "Lands" setting in Zendikar, the Enchantment-themed setting in Theros, etc.

Innistrad was the first setting arguably since Dominaria in the beginning to be built around top-down designs - starting with the in-universe concept for the card and building its mechanics out from there, but still retaining the cohesive mechanical consistency of modern design.

Given that Dominaria was built as "the fantasy setting," because there weren't any others, the designers needed to come up with a new hook for the world that wasn't boring. After all, literally all Magic planes are fantasy settings. So what sets Dominaria apart?

The answer, it turns out, is history. While Ravnica's Guildpact went back 10,000 years, there's a very tiny sliver of that time that we really know anything about. I can tell you, running a D&D campaign in Ravnica requires a lot of invention on the part of the DM if you want to introduce any sense of anything happening before about 70 years earlier (which is when the original Ravnica block took place.)

But Dominaria has an extensive history that dates back thousands of years. Even before the time of Urza, you have the ancient civilization of the Thran, not to mention the Elder Dragons.

What's really interesting is that one of Magic's first sets, Antiquities, actually served to give some of that ancient history for the setting. Rather than hit the ground running and give us a current story, Magic's second expansion set, following Arabian Nights (which was just a top-down recreation of famous stories from real-world folklore) and was thus the first time that Dominaria really started to get fleshed out as its own fantasy setting, we instead got what seemed to be the tale of an ancient conflict - something that we, as players (and thus powerful planeswalkers, though I don't even know if that concept had developed yet) were digging through in our own, later conflicts.

While the subsequent set, Legends, established the Legendary card type (that would get cleaned up in Kamigawa block and refined over the years) and thus gave us characters who were actual individuals rather than generic types (Arabian Nights had also had such cards, but with no rule to preserve their uniqueness) we didn't really follow the stories of individuals for the next couple years. The Dark explored the horrific dark age that came with what was effectively the beginning of a nuclear winter after the events of the Brothers' War, and Fallen Empires continued that theme of collapse and downfall with the civilizations of Sarpadia. Ice Age introduced new heroes and villains in the frigid time period that followed, but it wasn't really until Mirage block that a focus on stories and characters really came to the fore, introducing Teferi as well as the skyship Weatherlight.

From there, we got Tempest Block, which in stark contrast was basically a story told over the course of three major card sets, and the crew of the Weatherlight, along with a still very much alive Urza who was guiding (or manipulating, depending on how you see him) them in his quest to protect Dominaria from the Phyrexians.

What I find really interesting is that even that story, with the entire Phyrexian invasion, is now, I believe, centuries in the past as of the "current" state of Magic's story. In true edgy 90s fashion, nearly all the main heroes of that story died by the end of Invasion block, and while we got two blocks with a new group of characters on the continent on Otaria, it wasn't until a few years later with, I believe, Lorwyn block, that we got the new planeswalker characters who would become the face of Magic like Liliana Vess, Chandra Nalaar, or Jace Beleren. Magic had moved on from Dominaria at that point, and so among their number, only Liliana has a direct connection to that plane (being a native.)

But with the recent (and likely upcoming) revisit to the setting, we have a sense of the modern state of the world. And in stark contrast to places like Ravnica and Theros, which don't really have a developed sense of history (Theros, according to its D&D book, exists in a kind of mythic time where there is no real sense of history,) Dominaria has many different ages of history to explore. And it turns out that having many eras of history is pretty great material for a game all about delving into deep dungeons and discovering their ancient secrets.

While I think that Mythic Odysseys of Theros and Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica had to incorporate new world-building to flesh out the book, like the big map of the Tenth District, Dominaria almost certainly already has too much to fit. I mean, look at this map:

I think that any Dominaria sourcebook would have to pick a continent here to focus on. Most likely that would be Aerona, with its iconic lands of Benalia, Llanowar, and Keld, though I also find my eye drawn to other familiar names like Femeref, Urborg, Shiv, Yavimaya, etc.

While Dominaria's status as the most "generic" fantasy setting from MTG could be a detriment, I also think that there's a lot of potential in exploring its unique idiosyncrasies. The world is covered with wreckage from the various apocalyptic events it has witnessed, and I think we could have a lot of fun turning remnants of Phyrexia, Slivers, and other Magic-specific monsters into D&D stat blocks.

I'd also love to have some official rules for Planeswalkers. Admittedly, the crossovers have played a little with the "canon" of the various worlds - some might run Ravnica as just another world of the Prime Material Plane, with Rakdos having come from the Abyss. Not me, though. I've made a core part of my Ravnica campaign that everyone, from the Druids to the Barbarians, has a planeswalker spark that will ignite when the right emotional triggers occur (a couple characters are coming up on that soon!)

Artificers are the only class to be added to 5th Edition D&D. Initially introduced in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, the class was fully reprinted in the setting-agnostic rules expansion: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. As a general principle, WotC has avoided having any D&D book require you to own any other D&D books except for the Core Three (Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual.) The purpose of this is laudable (keeping the books accessible) but I do worry that it can also hamstring the development of new things like the Artificer class. If needs be, I'd hope that a Dominaria sourcebook would include the Artificer class (perhaps with a new subclass) given the importance of artificers in the setting.

Urza, after all, while playing the part of an ancient, ageless wizard, was actually, explicitly, an artificer (granted, if I gave him a stat block I'd probably somehow allow him access to high-level magic - though maybe through magic devices rather than traditional spellcasting.) Dominaria has had its share of more technological magic, not to mention a need to understand all of that given the mechanical nature of the Phyrexians (and Yawgmoth was originally a human Dominarian, after all.) One of the newer Dominaria-based characters, Tiana, is an angel of the church of Serra who is also an artificer and serves as the Weatherlight's engineer.

I think the setting would be extremely effective as a D&D campaign setting. Given how frequent WotC has been publishing MTG-based D&D books (with a Strixhaven one coming later this year,) I think that if the rumors of a return to Dominaria some time in 2022 are true, it would be a great opportunity to produce a nice big tome for setting D&D games in that world.

MTG Rumors: Another Dominaria Set and a Return to Kamigawa... a Cyberpunk Kamigawa???

 So, there's a supposed leak going around on the interwebs (hey, does that date me, calling the internet the interwebs ironically? Is that peak elder millennial?)

We know that the next two major MTG sets are going to be a duology of Innistrad sets. Having missed both Innistrad blocks during my years not playing the game, I've been super excited to play in those sets, as the setting seems insanely cool and I'm also a big fan of top-down design in Magic. Innistrad will be coming in Midnight Hunt - a set themed around werewolves, and Crimson Vow, which will focus on vampires, giving us the two top-tier gothic horror monsters that aren't specific individuals.

But, the leaks suggest that we'll be getting first a set called Dominaria United. Dominaria was, of course, the original setting for Magic: the Gathering, and is by far the most fleshed-out world. While the makers of Magic stopped revisiting it following the transition to more of an annual planes-hopping tradition starting with Mirrodin (other than a return a couple years later in the Time Spiral block,) we went nearly a decade without seeing it again until the Dominaria set came out in 2018, which was a big hit.

So it both makes sense and is exciting to hear that we might be getting another return to the plane that started it all. As someone who now plays D&D as well, I'm hoping that the next crossover book we get after Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos will be a Dominaria campaign setting book. While I'm certainly more invested in settings that go beyond the prime material plane (hoping for a 5th Edition Planescape book, and loved Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft,) I think that if there's any MTG setting that deserves to transition into D&D, it's Dominaria.

But the next title is even more intriguing. While the era of the "Weatherlight Saga" did see a couple other planes like Rath and Mercadia, once the game transitioned to a "new plane every year" style, Kamigawa was the second one we visited, coming after Mirrodin. It was also the first that really didn't tie at all into Urza and his activities, given that the Kamigawa block was set thousands of years in the past - its protagonist (a rare black-mana hero, based and named after legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune,) Toshiro Umezawa, was actually the ancestor of a legendary character from... Legends, an ancient foe of Nicol Bolas (who of course was a deep cut old school card until his reappearance in the Alara block a couple years later.)

Kamigawa was designed as the "Legend Block," and I think was the first to have common legends. It also introduced the Legendary supertype, or rather expanded it. Previously, "Legend" was a creature type, though the same rules applied to Legendary lands (which also appeared in the block that premiered the concept of legends, namely "Legends.") The rules also underwent a change, though we'd see further changes later on. Previously, if a legend was in play on either side of the battlefield (though it wasn't called that yet,) you simply couldn't cast the same card. Kamigawa changed it so that playing one would cause both to be destroyed. Obviously we've seen this change in a few ways since then, but this rule actually allowed for some nasty combos, like casting two copies of a legendary Spirit Dragon that, when it died, stole 5 life from your opponent and gave it to you. So you could have a 20-point life swing if you got two of these out.

The metagame had been coming off of a difficult time with Mirrodin block, where a small number of deck archetypes ruled, and Kamigawa didn't really do a ton to fix that (I still have nightmares about Umezawa's Jitte) but the follow-up, this newfangled urban setting called Ravnica blew people away with its many viable strategies around its different guilds.

Anyway, while Mirrodin and Ravnica have seen revisits in the years that followed, we've never gone back to Kamigawa. We do have a moonfolk planeswalker who has appeared since then, but no word on what Kamigawa has been like since then.

Which brings us to the second leak:

Kamigawa Neon Dynasty.

Now, technically speaking, Neon is just one of the elements, a noble gas that doesn't react chemically with others in normal circumstances. But Neon has a particular association with electric neon lights, which are a hallmark of the cyberpunk genre.

The folks at MTG have talked a little about getting out of the comfort zone of medieval fantasy. Innistrad, true to the gothic horror genre, has a bit more of an 18th century vibe, and Zendikar has a kind of unplaceable time period to it, existing as something not really based on earth cultures. I know there are purists out there who never want to see anything remotely modern in their fantasy works (and who will insist that Star Wars is science fiction, when I'd argue it's about 75% fantasy.)

Perhaps because of its rise to prominence in the 1980s, at a time when Japan was undergoing its post-War economic miracle and Japanese culture was becoming far more influential in the west, Cyberpunk as a genre tends to incorporate a lot of Japanese elements (it's also a genre that is very popular in Japanese media like anime, with examples like Ghost in the Shell or Akira as staples of the genre.)

Given that the Kamigawa we had seen was known to have taken place thousands of years before what was then the current story of Magic, it makes sense that we'd find a very different Kamigawa in the future. And perhaps it's not unthinkable that we'd seen technological and cultural developments that would make it closer to 1980s Cyperpunk than the mythical Japanese-inspired landscape it was.

Let's talk about what the original block was about, in the loosest terms:

The core of the story was a conflict between the Kami and others. Kami roughly translates to "spirit" in Japanese, and in Kamigawa, the spirit creature type was extremely common. A lot of inherently magical creatures like Demons and Dragons were Demon Spirits and Dragon Spirits in the block. (Actually, given that Japanese Oni are also kind of their version of ogres, Oni were Demon Ogre Spirits, though there were also normal ogres who tended to have synergy with demons.)

The conflict started when a powerful lord, Konda, stole a child/portion of the supreme spirit, O-Kagachi. The spirits, once existing in harmony with the people, go to war against the world of mortals.

The conflict ended in part due to the efforts of the ronin Toshiro Umezawa, who was later transported to Dominaria (this was pre-Mending, so non-planeswalkers had an easier time traveling across the planes. Still waiting to find out how Vorinclex made it to Kaldheim.)

Given how far in the future this would be taking place if it's contemporary with the current MTG story, we could see a vastly transformed Kamigawa. I actually love the prospect of a gritty urban environment in which gangs might be run by strange kami spirits.

All we have is a name, of course, and we don't know if it's confirmed. But as someone who loves genre-bending, I'm really hoping we get a futuristic science fantasy Kamigawa set.

Barbarian Subclasses - Tasha's

 We now come to the most recent subclasses for Barbarians. The class started out strong in the PHB and then got a couple of really good options in Xanathar's (Storm Herald is not nearly as weird and I think bad as Battlerager, but isn't quite up to par with the others.) In Tasha's we get two additional one.

Path of the Beast:

The premise here can be skinned in various ways, but I generally think this is the best way to play a straight-up werewolf (though granted the "tail" option is a little outside of your classic werewolf aesthetic.) When you rage, you take on beast-like qualities and get natural weapons. As with any martial class that has built-in weapons, you do suffer a bit from not being able to really upgrade them, but they're still quite good.

At 3rd level, you get Form of the Beast. When you Rage, you can transform, manifesting a natural weapon. These count as simple melee weapons for you, using your Strength modifier as normal. You can choose one of these options each time you rage.

Bite: Your mouth transforms into a bestial maw or set of mandibles. It deals 1d8 piercing damage on a hit (plus the usual bonuses) and once on your turn if you're below half your hit point maximum, you can regain HP equal to your proficiency bonus when this attack lands. Nice if you need the healing. Not much else to say.

Claws: Each of your hands transforms into a claw, which you can use as a weapon if the hand is empty. It deals 1d6 damage on a hit, and once on each of your turns when you attack with a claw using the Attack action, you can make one additional claw attack as part of the same action. This is actually the real powerhouse. Barbarians don't get fighting styles inherently, so dual-wielding is not quite as powerful (though given that you get to add your rage bonus, it's not terrible.) Here, however, you're effectively dual-wielding scimitars, but you A: get to add Strength (on top of just Rage) to the "off-hand" attack, and B: you still have a bonus action, so you can rage first and then get in these attacks. I'll also point out that once you hit level 5, you can make a single Greataxe attack and then two claw attacks, because you only need both hands on a two-handed weapon when you're attacking with it.

Tail: You grow a lashing, spiny tail, which deals 1d8 piercing damage and has reach. If a creature you can see within 10 feet of you hits you with an attack roll, you can use your reaction to swipe your tail, rolling a d8 and adding it to your AC against that attack, potentially causing it to miss. This is a nice defensive ability and also a great use of the feature if you have a super-awesome weapon that would be better than using your claws (using the tail primarily for defense.)

At level 6, you get Bestial Soul. Your natural weapons count as magical. Also, when you finish a short or long rest, you can choose one of the following benefits, which lasts until the end of your next rest:

You gain a swimming speed equal to your walking speed and can breathe underwater.

You gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed and can climb on difficult surfaces including upside down on ceilings without needing to make an ability check.

Or, when you jump, you can make a Strength (Athletics) check and extend your jump by a number of feet equal to the check's total. You can do this once per turn.

These are pretty cool - I like getting spider-climb, and as always, getting a swimming speed is really great for any melee class, as it means you won't get disadvantage on your attacks.

At level 10, you get Infectious Fury. When you hit a creature with your natural weapons while you're raging, you can curse the target. They make a Wisdom saving throw against a DC determined by your Constitution and suffer one of the following:

They must use their reaction to make a melee attack against another creature of your choice you can see, or they take 2d12 psychic damage. Note that this isn't a charm effect, so this will work on an Iron Golem (though the psychic might not do much to them.)

You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

Finally, at 14, you get Call the Hunt: When you enter your Rage, you can choose a number of other willing creatures (not including you) you can see within 30 feet of you up to your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1.) You get 5 temporary hit points for each creature that accepts this. Until your rage ends, the affected creatures can add a d6 to the damage rolls of their attacks once on each of their turns. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. This comes out to a pretty significant amount of damage if you have a lot of characters who make attacks, not to mention that you get a decent little cushion of temporary hit points from it.

Beast Barbarians definitely seem to be one of the more damage-oriented options. On top of them, I'm a big fan of werewolves, so I'd really like to play one of these (especially in a Ravenloft game!)

Path of Wild Magic:

You know, one doesn't often associate Barbarians with whimsy. But the chaotic nature of rage here also manifests as a burst of uncontrolled and unpredictable magic. It's built on a similar premise to the Wild Magic Sorcerer, but I think a little more refined (also, it's only a d8 table, not a d100 table.)

At 3rd level, you get Magic Awareness. As an action, you can open your awareness to magic until the end of your next turn. You know the location of any spell or magic item within 60 feet of you not behind total cover. When you sense a spell, you learn which school of magic it belongs to. You can do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. So you effectively get a variation of detect magic as a Barbarian. This can be really good for sensing magical traps or illusions, or just finding the magic items in a pile of treasure.

Also at 3, you get Wild Surge. When you Rage, you roll on the Wild Magic table (not the Sorcerer one - a different one) to see what effect goes off. If these require a saving throw, the DC is based on your Constitution.

1: Shadowy tendrils lash around you. Creatures of your choice that you can see within 30 feet must succeed on a Con save or take 1d12 necrotic damage. You also gain 1d12 temporary hit points.

2: You teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You can do this again on each turn as a bonus action while you're raging.

3: An intangible spirit appears within 5 feet of a creature of your choice you can see within 30 feet of you. At the end of the current turn, the spirit explodes and each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Dex save or take 1d6 force damage. While raging, you can use this effect again on each turn as a bonus action.

4: Until your rage ends, a weapon of your choice you are holding is magically transformed. Its damage type becomes force, and it gains the light and thrown properties, with a range of 20/60. If the weapon leaves your hand, it reappears there at the end of the current turn.

5: When a creature hits you with an attack roll before your rage ends, they take 1d6 force damage.

6: Until your rage ends, multicolored lights float around you, granting a +1 bonus to AC to you and any allies within 10 feet of you.

7: Flowers and vines grow around you. Until your rage ends, ground within 15 feet of you is difficult terrain for your enemies.

8: A bolt of light shoots out of your chest. A creature you choose that you can see within 30 feet makes a Con save or takes 1d6 radiant damage and is blinded until the start of your next turn. You can repeat this as a bonus action on subsequent turns until the rage ends.

This, of course, is better (at least in terms of player power) than the Sorcerer Wild Magic table, in that all of these are useful. In fact, each of these is great, though being unable to predict which one you get means you'll just need to roll with it.

At 6th level, you get Bolstering Magic. As an action, you can touch a creature (including potentially yourself) and give them one of the following benefits:

For the next 10 minutes, they can roll a d3 when they make an attack roll or ability check and add the amount rolled to it.

Or, roll a d3 and the creature regains one expended spell slot of a level equal to the amount rolled or lower. A creature can only get this benefit once per long rest.

And you can take this action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest.

Actually, being a spell battery for your party is a pretty cool role to play, though of course it's at most going to be a third-level spell slot. D3s don't exist (at least in standard dice sets), but you could always either treat the 4, 5, and 6 as being a second 1, 2, and 3, or you could roll a d4 and ignore 4s.

At level 10, you get Unstable Backlash. After you take damage or fail a saving throw while raging, you can use a reaction to roll on the Wild Magic table and immediately produce the effect rolled, replacing your current Wild Magic effect. While this might not actually help with the current situation, it'll introduce a new big of chaos to the proceedings, which is fun. It does at least give you one more activation of what are generally beneficial effects.

At level 14, you get Controlled Surge. When you roll on the Wild Magic table, you can roll the die twice and choose which of the effects to unleash. If you roll the same on both dice, you can ignore the roll and choose any of these. Like the Wild Magic Sorcerer, this represents how you've learned to assert some limited control on your abilities, and will of course make it more likely you get something useful for your current situation.

It's funny, because in addition to comparing it with other Barbarian subclasses, this one invites comparison to the Sorcerer subclass of the same name. I think that on one hand, this is going to be more consistently useful (no dropping a fireball on yourself) but on the other hand, you won't get the total insanity of transforming into a flowerpot or other such weirdness. Still, if you want a bit of chaos, this is a good choice.

And thus we come to the end of the Barbarian review. Honestly, there aren't too many weak links here, with only the Battlerager being flat-out bad in my opinion. Clearly some of these focus more on defending the party while others focus on damage output or personal survivability. I still think the Zealot's Rage Beyond Death is off the walls bananas.

Barbarian Subclasses - Xanathar's

 In our first look through the Barbarian subclasses, we saw two very solid entries from the PHB and then one utterly bizarre one from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. In Xanathar's, though, we're going to see some of the subclasses that I think take things a bit farther.

Without further ado, let's get to them:

Path of the Ancestral Guardian:

There's a theme across multiple Barbarian subclasses of a more shamanic, spiritual side to the class. Ancestral Guardians draw on connection to the spirit world, channeling ancestral might through them.

At 3rd level, you get Ancestral Protectors. When you're raging, the first time you hit with an attack on your turn, the target is hindered by spectral warriors who fight alongside you. Until the start of your next turn, the target has disadvantage on attack rolls against creatures that aren't you, and if they do hit another creature with an attack, the creature has resistance to that damage. The effect on the target only ends early if your rage ends.

This is one of the first abilities truly lets the Ancestral Guardian tank - actively discouraging foes to attack the rest of the party (and reducing the damage if the foe ignores them.) It's a great feature.

At level 6, you get Spirit Shield. While raging, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage an ally takes by 2d6, if they're within 30 feet of you and you can see them. At level 10, this becomes 3d6, and at 14 it becomes 4d6. Again, the Ancestral Guardian helps to keep the party safe, reducing damage they take. You're going to be a very effective protector.

At 10, you get Consult the Spirits. You can cast Augury or Clairvoyance without the need for a spell slot or material components. If you use Clairvoyance, the invisible sensor takes the form of one your ancestral spirits (Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this.) Once you cast either spell, you can't do it again until you finish a short or long rest. Obviously, this isn't going to be much of a combat ability, but it's a pretty versatile way to keep tabs on a location or get some guidance - I'm happy whenever a strongly combat-focused class gets things to do when you're not in initiative, and these can be some very useful spells.

At level 14, you get Vengeful Ancestors. When you use Spirit Shield to reduce the damage of an attack, the attacker takes force damage equal to the amount of damage you reduced. This is nice - punishing a foe while protecting an ally, and once again really funneling foes toward you instead of your squishy wizard.

Not only does the Ancestral Guardian have a really strong flavor to it, it's also a really effective tank for protecting allies. We're looking at a top-tier subclass.

Path of the Storm Herald:

Your inner rage matches the fury of the elements, allowing you to be one with the storm, with primordial magic emanating from you as you fight.

At 3rd level, you get Storm Aura. When you rage, you get an aura that extends from you for 10 feet (though not past total cover.) Each aura has an effect when you enter your rage and again on each turn if you use a bonus action. You can choose between desert, sea, or tundra environments, which will have different effects as you level up. You can change which type of storm you represent when you level up, but it seems you're meant to stick with one.

Also, aura effects have a DC based on your Constitution. The third level effects are:

Desert: When activated, all other creatures in your storm aura take 2 fire damage. This goes up to 3 at 5th level, 4 damage at 10th level, 5 damage at 15th level, and 6 at 20th. So, try not to use this when your friends are close. But that's pretty decent AoE damage for a melee class.

Sea: When activated, you can choose one other creature in your aura. They make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, they take 1d6 lightning damage, and on a success they take half. This goes up to 2d6 at 10th level, 3d6 at 15th level, and 4d6 at 20th level.

Tundra: When activated, each creature of your choice within the aura gets 2 temporary hit points. This goes up to 3 at 5th level, 4 at 10th level, 5 at 15th level, and 6 at 20th level. So kind of the opposite of the desert.

So, it's a choice between AoE damage, single-target damage, and a bit of damage reduction in the form of Temp HP. Really depends on what you need.

At 6th level, you get Storm Soul, getting different effects depending on your storm environment. These are in effect even if you're not raging.

Desert: You get resistance to fire damage, and you don't suffer the effects of extreme heat (which to be fair, I think is baked into having fire resistance.) Also, as an action, you can touch a flammable object that isn't being worn or carried by anyone else and set it on fire. Kinda badass.

Sea: You gain resistance to lightning damage and you can breath underwater. You also gain a swimming speed of 30 feet. This is actually pretty huge given that having a swim speed allows you to use any weapon without disadvantage down there. So you can swing a greataxe around beneath the waves.

Tundra: You gain resistance to cold damage, and you don't suffer the effects of extreme cold (again, I believe that always comes with cold resistance, though I guess it's a nice reminder here.) Also, as an action, you can touch water and turn a 5-foot cube of it into ice, which melts after 1 minute. This will fail if a creature is in the cube. The applications for this cube of ice could be pretty interesting with a lot of creativity, for example by creating things to climb on.

At level 10, you get Shielding Storm. Each creature of your choice within your Storm Aura (which exists while raging,) gains the damage resistance granted by your Storm Soul feature. This is nice, though of course situational depending on what kind of damage you're dealing with.

At 14, you get Raging Storm, enhancing your Storm Aura in different ways for each type.

Desert: Immediately after a creature in your aura hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to force that creature to make a Dexterity saving throw. If they fail, they take fire damage equal to half your Barbarian level. A nice bit of punishment, though it's also something they can fully save out of.

Sea: When you hit a creature in your aura with an attack, you can use your reaction to force that creature to make a Strength saving throw. On a failure, they get knocked prone (as if struck by a wave.) I find it interesting that this is a case of a reaction you're only really going to use on your turn. I kind of wish this was a knockback instead of a knock prone effect (or better yet, both.)

Tundra: Whenever the effect of your Storm Aura is activated, you can choose a creature you can see in the aura. They must succeed on a Strength save or their speed is reduced to 0 until the start of your next turn as they are covered in magical frost. This is actually very cool - giving you a way to literally freeze a foe in place to let allies escape it and for you to root them down to take them out.

Overall, I love the aesthetic of the Storm Herald, and I also like how it's almost three subclasses in one. But I suspect it's not really as powerful as other subclasses, and it'd be nice to be able to mix-and-match like the Totem Warrior.

Path of the Zealot:

While Paladins are the classic example of a class based on fervent zeal, they still tend more toward the lawful side of things. If a paladin starts with adherence to a code and an oath, a Zealot is less intellectual in their fervor, fueled by a righteous rage (though make no mistake, this isn't only about adherence to good deities. You could be terrifying champion of evil, eager to slaughter in your god's name.)

At 3rd level, you get Divine Fury. When you're raging, the first creature you hit on each of your turns with a weapon attack takes extra damage equal to 1d6 + half your Barbarian level. The damage is necrotic or radiant, which you choose when you gain this feature (I'd recommend radiant, as it'll work on more things and sometimes get bonus effects like shutting down a vampire's regeneration.)

Also at 3rd level, you get Warrior fo the Gods. Resurrection magic like Raise Dead does not require material components when used on you. All your Cleric needs is a 3rd level spell slot to pop you up if you go down. This is great, and it's just the beginning of a crazy theme in this subclass about how insanely hard it is to kill you in a way that lasts.

At level 6, you get Fanatical Focus. If you fail a saving throw while you're raging, you can reroll it, and must use the new roll. You can do this only once per rage. This is quite nice - failing a Wisdom save against some charm spell can be really nasty, so having a second chance when you need it could be clutch (though of course you might just fail again.)

At level 10, you get Zealous Presence. As a bonus action, you unleash a battle cry. Up to ten creatures of your choice (this can include you) get advantage on attack rolls and saving throws until the start of your next turn. You can do this once per long rest. Advantage on everything for the whole party is really powerful, even if it only lasts a round. Not much more to say. It's just really good.

At level 14, you get Rage Beyond Death. This is, to be frank, maybe the most insane feature of any subclass. While you are raging, having 0 hit points does not knock you unconscious. You still roll death saving throws, and taking damage gives you failed saves as normal. If you would die from failing death saves, though, you don't die until your rage ends, and then only if you still have 0 hit points.

Just think about that. You just cannot die (except maybe to something like Disintegrate or Finger of Death) until your rage ends. The image here is utterly badass - you've taken the full blast of an ancient red dragon's breath in the face, your flesh is hanging onto your skull by a thread, but you JUST. WON'T. DIE. Consider also that all you need is a quick little heal before your rage fades and you're going to walk away fine. Also, you've already got Relentless Rage at this level. If you're an aasimar, you can save your Healing Hands to tap yourself once the fight is over. And at the next level, your rage never ends early unless you go unconscious - which we already know you won't be doing. Just keep a healing potion on yourself and you can never die.

I mean, Zealot already has some nice things going for it (Divine Fury already adds a pretty hefty amount of damage) but I've got to say that that level 14 ability is just so insanely over the top that I really want to try one of these.

And that finishes off the Xanathar's subclasses. All we have left now is the pair out of Tasha's - the Path of Wild Magic (do you like Wild Magic Sorcerers? Here's a somewhat less complicated version for Barbarians) and the Beast (aka the closest it seems we're going to get to letting you be a werewolf outside of the weird rules in the Monster Manual.)

Barbarian Subclasses - PHB and SCAG

 So, confession time: the Barbarian is the one class in D&D I've actually never played even a little - while I've only played the Warlock, Monk, Sorcerer, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger in any long-running sense (the Warlock, Monk and Sorcerer primarily in Adventurer's League,) and the rest mostly in one-shots or lower-leveled AL stints, I've never actually had a Barbarian character sheet in front of me to play.

So this is all theoretical.

Barbarians' primary purpose in the group is twofold - while they don't get super high armor, the "physical" damage reduction from Raging makes them great at absorbing damage (their d12 hit die also means they tend to have the most health of any characters, even before you get into their generally high Constitution.)

But rage also means that they deal a pretty hefty amount of damage with their attacks - while it only caps out at 4 extra damage at higher levels, this adds up (consider that the bonus on magic weapons is only ever +3.) By level 20, should you get that far and do it all in Barbarian, you will probably have a +7 to Strength, maybe a +3 weapon, and +4 from Rage, meaning every hit deals your weapon die plus 14 (not to mention if you've gone for Great Weapon Master or if you roll a crit!)

So Barbarians deal a lot of damage and they can take a lot of punishment. Let's see how the various subclasses aid you in those roles.

Path of the Berserker:

As is often the case in the PHB, there's a subclass that doesn't so much add to the class as much as it embodies the quintessential version of it. The Berserker is very much that for Barbarians.

At level 3, you get Frenzy. When you go into a Rage, you can make that rage a Frenzied Rage. While frenzied, you can make a single melee attack as a bonus action on each turn. When the rage ends, you suffer a level of exhaustion. One level of exhaustion is not too bad if you're otherwise fine (it means disadvantage on ability checks,) but this can be pretty punishing if you're dealing with other forms of exhaustion. That said, getting an additional attack each round can be really good (and again, recall that you've got that Rage bonus meaning your hits hit hard.)

At level 6, you get Mindless Rage. While raging, you can't be charmed or frightened, and if you enter your rage while under such an effect, it's suspended while you're raging. This is actually fantastic - given that Barbarians need to focus a lot on having high Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity, their mental stats like Wisdom can suffer significantly, making them susceptible to mental effects. Knocking all charm and fear off the table is great - never worry that your Barbarian is going to get dominated and turn on you, or have to run from the dragon that just roared.

At 10, you get Intimidating Presence. You can use an action to force a creature you can see within 30 feet of you (that can see or hear you) to make a Wisdom saving throw on a DC based on your Charisma. On a failure, it'll be frightened of you until the end of your turn. On subsequent turns, you can use your action to extend the duration another turn. The effect ends early if the creature ends its turn out of line of sight of you or more than 60 feet away. If it succeeds on the save, it's immune to this effect for 24 hours. While cool in theory, the fact that your DC is Charisma-based is a bit tough (as we said earlier, you don't have a lot of flexibility to boost mental stats.) Still, in the event that a creature fails its save, you can keep them away pretty effectively - though it takes your action, which again is a downside.

At 14, you get Retaliation. If you take damage from a creature within 5 feet of you, you can use a reaction to make a melee weapon attack against them. This is a great punishing move for what is probably the group tank - between this and frenzy you're effectively doubling your damage output in the right circumstances. Simple but really effective.

The Berserker doesn't really have any giant bells and whistles, but it does do a great job of embodying what you'd want out of a Barbarian.

Path of the Totem Warrior:

A somewhat more spiritual path for the Barbarian, you have a spirit animal as a totemic guide. Now, the term "spirit animal" is one that is a bit fraught with cultural appropriation, though on the other hand, human cultures across the world have affiliated with mythical animal spirits, so I think just try to be thoughtful and respectful in your RP for this kind of subclass.

At level 3, you get Spirit Seeker. You gain the ability to cast beast sense and speak with animals, but only as ritual spells.

Also at 3, you get Totem Spirit. You must make or acquire some kind of amulet or other kind of totem to represent the animal with whom you are communing (you might also take on physical aspects associated with the animal, like thick hair for the bear spirit or golden eyes for the eagle.) The book suggests that you can re-skin these creatures for other similar ones - for example, rather than eagle, you might have a connection to a vulture spirit. The options are:

Bear: While raging, you have resistance to all damage except psychic.

Eagle: While raging and not wearing heavy armor, other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you, and you can dash as a bonus action.

Elk: While raging and not wearing heavy armor, your walking speed increases by 15 feet (on top of ordinary Barbarian unarmored movement!)

Tiger: While raging you can add 10 feet to your long jump distance and 3 feet to your high jump.

Wolf: While raging, your friends have advantage on attack rolls against creatures within 5 feet of you that are hostile to you.

Among these, I think Bear and Wolf are clear stand-outs. Bear means you're going to be extremely resilient against even magical foes, and wolf will be a huge buff to your party.

At level 6, you get Aspect of the Beast. You get a new bonus based on an animal spirit, and you can choose the same one or a different one than your level 3 feature.

Bear: Your carrying capacity is doubled, and you have advantage on strength checks to push, pull, lift, or break objects. This will save you from really ever having to rage outside of combat, and if you're also a Goliath, Firbolg, or other race with "powerful build' this means you can carry an enormous amount.

Eagle: You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, and discern fine details even if something is up to 100 feet away from you. Dim light does not impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks. Kind of cool, in the right situation.

Elk: Whether mounted or on foot, your travel pace is doubled, as is the travel pace for up to ten companions within 60 feet of you if you're not incapacitated. This can actually really speed up a Tomb of Annihilation-style wilderness exploration campaign.

Tiger: You gain proficiency in two skills from the following list: Athletics, Acrobatics, Stealth, and Survival. Nice to have.

Wolf: You can track other creatures while traveling at a fast pace, and move stealthily while traveling at a normal pace. This really depends on if your campaign is tracking travel that closely.

I'd say these are a bit less obvious in terms of utility. The extra skills from Tiger are pretty great, while the rest are pretty situational.

At 10th level you get Spirit Walker. You can cast Commune with Nature as a ritual, and a spiritual version of your totem animals will appear to convey the information. Pretty cool, and a nice way to give the Barbarian utility beyond "I'm the one who hits things."

Finally, at 14, you get Totemic Attunement, gaining another bonus based on an animal spirit. As with the previous features, you can choose either the same spirit or a different one.

Bear: While raging, any creature within 5 feet of you that is hostile has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets that aren't you or another creature with this feature. A creature is immune to this if they are immune to the frightened condition or can't see or hear you. This is actually a great "tanking" ability to focus enemy attention on you, though you need to be right up close to them.

Eagle: While raging, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed, though if you end your turn in mid-air, you fall if you're not standing on anything or held by anything. Still nice for crossing big gaps or striking at foes. I think technically falling is forced movement, and thus should not provoke opportunity attacks (though depending on the height, you might take a chunk of fall damage. Good thing you're resistant to bludgeoning damage!)

Elk: While raging, you can use a bonus action while moving to pass through the space of a Large or smaller creature. The creature must make a Strength saving throw (with a DC based on your Strength,) getting knocked prone and taking bludgeoning damage equal to 1d12 + your Strength modifier on a failure. It's a pretty cool maneuver to set both yourself and allies up for advantage on melee attacks, not to mention a bit of extra damage.

Tiger: While raging, if you move at least 20 feet in a straight line toward a Large or smaller target right before making a melee weapon attack against it, you can use a bonus action to make an additional melee weapon attack against it. I doubt you'll get more than once per combat, but it could be a way to take out a foe quickly, which is cool.

Wolf: While raging, you can use a bonus action on your turn to knock a Large or smaller creature prone when you hit it with a melee weapon attack. This is similar to the Elk, but a bit different - you don't get the bonus damage and can't set yourself up for advantage on both of your attacks, but on the other hand, there's no save against it, which is pretty sweet.

Honestly, all of these are pretty good.

So, overall, I think the Totem Warrior is actually a very strong choice of subclass, and on top of that, its customizability is really good (I realize I sort of sped past lists of options for subclasses like the Battle Master, Arcane Archer, and Rune Knight earlier - maybe I shouldn't have.

Path of the Battlerager:

This is a really weird one from SCAG. For a class that often goes unarmored, this is built around a special type of nonmagical armor that only exists in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. On top of that, it's the only remaining subclass with a race restriction (Bladesinging was originally an elf-only Wizard subclass, but its reprint and revision in Tasha's removed that restriction.) So get ready for some weird, outdated design!

As I mentioned, this subclass is restricted to Dwarves, though the book does say that at the DM's discretion, this restriction can be lifted, regardless of the setting you're using.

At 3 you get Battlerager Armor, allowing to use Spiked Armor as a weapon. Spiked Armor is statistically identical to Scale Mail, but costs 25 gp more and is covered in spikes (facing out - we're not going all Hellraiser here.) While raging, you can use a bonus action to make a melee weapon attack with your armor spikes against a target within 5 feet of you, using Strength as your ability for the attack. The armor does 1d4 piercing damage (and of course gets your Strength and Rage bonuses on damage.) Also, when you use the attack action to grapple a creature, the target takes 3 piercing damage if your grapple succeeds.

So... weird. Let's read on.

At 6, you get Reckless Abandon. When you use Reckless Attack while raging, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier. These vanish when your rage ends. The weird thing here is that, because the subclass is built around wearing armor, you might not prioritize Con as much as other Barbarians do. Still, up to 5 (or 7 at level 20) tempt hit points each round if you're always attacking recklessly could be good.

At 10, you get Battlerager Charge. You can dash as a bonus action while raging. Certainly not bad, though of course you can't use it on the turn you rage. Actually, let's be fair, that's some good added mobility, which you'll want to make sure you can maintain your rage.

At 14, you get Spiked Retribution. If a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, they take 3 piercing damage if you are raging, aren't incapacitated, and are wearing spiked armor. Should we tell the people who wrote this that 3 damage is not very much damage? It's like how I feel like Heavy Armor Master is probably not worth it. Even if a Marilith hits you with all seven of their melee attacks, that's a grand total of 21 damage - but wait, because your armor isn't doing magical damage (though I wonder if a +1 set of Spiked Armor would make its damage magical...?) that's halved to (rounded down) 1 damage for each, meaning only 7 total damage.

Yeah, this is very, very weird and I think just not good.

So, this is interesting. Some classes (the Warlock, for example,) have mostly underpowered options in the PHB I assume because they needed to get a better sense of what the right power level should be. I think the PHB Barbarian subclasses are actually both pretty good, but the Battlerager is just a total mess (which is not uncommon in SCAG subclasses.)

Next post we'll look at the three subclasses out of Xanathar's, and then finish off (man this seems short compared to the Clerics) the class with Tasha's in the subsequent one.

Blizzard Walkout

 Today, the staff at Blizzard is doing a walk-out - an act of protest against the policies that allowed for the abuses detailed in the recent lawsuit. I suspect that any direct invitation to players to join them in this protest by not playing Blizzard games might be considered a serious offense - generally you're not supposed to actively encourage people not to use your company's products.

The video game industry is one without any major union, which would normally serve as a protection against retribution for an act like this, so what they're doing is very brave (to their credit, higher-ups at Blizzard have announced that the employees won't face any disciplinary actions for this protest.)

Other than briefly logging on to leave a message for my guild yesterday, I have been avoiding WoW. I've considered the possibility of canceling my subscription (though as I'm a 6-monther, it wouldn't actually expire until November.) I don't really know what my plans are in the longterm. It's really tough when you're emotionally invested in something that is, on a technical level, the product of a profit-seeking corporation. Just as with any commercialized art form, you have passionate artists who work on the project while there are executives who are all about profit-maximizing, and often the desires of the former get overruled by those of the latter.

It would be reassuring if we could blame all of these problems on the people with the purse strings, though as we've seen, some of the abusers were high-ranking members of the creative side of the studio. There's some examination to be had about how the casual, "we're just a bunch of fun-loving nerds" culture that had endeared Blizzard to so many fans fed into the very toxicity and abuse. But additionally, the people who abuse their power usually do so with the advantages of seniority and seeming indispensability.

This is more complex than merely blaming this all on Activision and retaining an image of purity for the actual Blizzard studio. The rot was from within.

And what also makes it complicated is that we don't know who every abuser was and who every victim was. I don't really have a great sense of the hierarchy within the company or each game team, and while I've seen a lot of prominent men from the WoW team expressing their support for the people coming forward, at the same time I've seen women working at Blizzard say that they've seen their own abusers speaking out in false solidarity, as if they are one of the "good guys" when they're in fact the problem. Again, we don't know who is who.

The secrecy here is in part to protect the victims, which is a paramount priority, but it does mean that those of us who know Blizzard only from the outside are left to wonder to what extent our enjoyment of the game(s) is the celebration of horrendous people and to what extent it is the celebration of the work of a much larger number of passionate nerds who have only ever tried to make great games.

And there are sliding scales of culpability, the proportions of which are a matter for debate and investigation.

WoW, as I've said in my previous post on this subject, is important to me. I'm invested in it. There's a sense of community to it, many very fond memories from my time playing it. I've said many times that Azeroth and the broader Warcraft cosmos is one of my favorite fantasy worlds in fiction, and that feeling doesn't get erased by these disturbing stories. That's what makes this all so heartbreaking.

I want to be able to return to WoW, to see the remaining story of the Shadowlands and what comes next. But at the same time, I want that return to be one I can feel comfortable with, in which the victims have gotten their justice, and in which Blizzard's internal culture has transformed into one in which people who don't have the privilege of being white, straight, cis men can feel an equal sense of ownership of Blizzard's beloved properties, where their voices are heard. And that means that we need some change in leadership. We need women and people of color and LGBTQ+ people, and of course people who fall into multiples of those categories, to get a chance to lead the teams, to be the authorities.

There's a reason people love Blizzard. And it's so sad to learn how bad it's been there. But I hope that that love can transform the company into something better. Again, while the news has been a shock for those of us who did not know what was going on there, the exposure of the truth that has happened over the last week is actually a good thing. The bad stuff has been there all along. Now there's a chance to do something about it.

So, I applaud the brave employees for their protest. And I celebrate the bravery of the people who came forward with the stories of the abuse they suffered. It is easy, in the moment, to just shut down and endure these problems. No one wants to have to confront them. But in the long run, ignoring the problems makes things worse, and as we've seen in this case, even led to the death of one employee. That is unacceptable. Change must come.

Cleric Subclasses - Tasha's

 So we come to the conclusion of the Cleric subclass review. So far, I think that there are more subclasses that work pretty decently than I'd have expected, though I still think Life and Grave are your best choices for playing a straight-up healer. Let's see what the latest ones bring.

Also, to repeat this note: I'm going to breeze past Divine Strike and Potent Spellcasting - each subclass gets one or the other at level 8, with the only difference being that the damage of Divine Strike tends to change with the subclass. There's also the optional Blessed Strike, which doesn't upgrade like Divine Strike, but also applies to cantrips and also deals radiant damage, making it a pretty decent option in many situations (and if you have a Divine Strike subclass and would prefer to stay at range with spells, this is a good thing to pick up.)

Order Domain:

Originally published in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, this is the subclass mostly associated with the Azorius Senate and the Orzhov Syndicate (though I always saw it as closer to the former than the latter.) You're devoted to institutional obedience, meaning that you're basically always going to be some flavor of lawful. Given the lack of gods (or at least the scarcity of them and their influence) in Ravnica, this is designed more around being a "philosophical cleric," though of course deities in other settings might represent order - whether that's a benign one, a neutral one, or a malevolent and despotic one.

Your domain spells are Command, Heroism, Hold Person, Zone of Truth, Mass Healing Word, Slow, Compulsion, Locate Creature, Commune, and Dominate Person. As this was designed initially to work for the Azorius, who are one of the two law-enforcement guilds in Ravnica, it makes sense that this has a lot of enchantment spells to force foes (criminals?) to stop and even answer your questions.

You also get proficiency with heavy armor, as well as your choice of Persuasion or Intimidation.

At 1st level, you get Voice of Authority. If you cast a spell  using a spell slot that targets an ally, that ally can use their reaction immediately after the spell takes effect to make one weapon attack against a creature of your choice that you can see. If the spell targets multiple allies, you choose which one can make the attack. I like how, flavorfully, this kind of gives you a leadership position. It's also nice as you can cast bless on the party and then have one of your allies make a newly-enhanced attack with it.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Order's Demand. As an action, you present your holy symbol (man, they don't seem to want Clerics to use a component pouch) and all creatures of your choice within 30 feet of you who can see or hear you makes a Wisdom saving throw or gets charmed by you until the end of your next turn or until they take any damage. You can also force the charmed creatures to drop what they're holding when they fail the save - this latter can be great, as your allies can then sweep up their weapons (as usual, just because you've charmed them doesn't mean your allies have, but forcing a foe to drop what they're carrying can have some very useful applications.

At 6th level, you get Embodiment of the Law. If you cast an enchantment spell of 1st level or higher, you can change the spell's casting time to a bonus action (as long as its normal speed is 1 action.) You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest. Ask a sorcerer how useful Quickened Spell is, and you can see how useful this is (for example, freeing up your action to disengage or dash.)

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing psychic damage.

Finally, at 17, you get Order's Wrath. If you deal your Divine Strike damage to a creature on your turn, you can curse the creature. The next time one of your allies hits a creature with an attack, the target also takes 2d8 psychic damage and the curse ends. You can only curse a creature this way once a turn. So A: RAW this doesn't work with Blessed Strike, so you probably don't want to take that. B: this really encourages you to mix it up in melee with your weapons, as you can get in a pretty substantial amount of damage between your extra 2d8 and your ally's.

To me, this seems like one of the most martial-based Clerics, and could potentially increase the damage output of your party by a decent amount. It does seem pretty appropriate for the urban combat you'd find in Ravnica, but could apply in any party with martial characters.

Peace Domain:

We've had Death and Life domain, so why not have Peace to offset War? This is probably one of the most obviously good-aligned domains, and while you'll be able to aid allies in fights, it seems like you ought to RP this as someone who tries to prevent conflicts.

Your domain spells are Heroism, Sanctuary, Aid, Warding Bond, Beacon of Hope, Sending, Aura of Purity, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Greater Restoration, and Rary's Telepathic Bond. Weird to me that Calm Emotions isn't on this list, but there's definitely a lot here to save someone from harm and open lines of communication.

You get Implements of Peace, gaining proficiency in your choice of Insight, Performance, or Persuasion.

At 1st level, you get Emboldening Bond. As an action, you choose a number of willing creatures within 30 feet of you (it can include yourself) equal to your proficiency bonus. (Technically it does not say "up to," though I would probably rule that if you have fewer people around you can use it on them still.) For 10 minutes or until you use this feature again, if any bonded creature is within 30 feet of another, they can add a d4 to one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw per turn (not per round, notably, so they can still use it on a save on a foe's turn.) You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. So, you get a somewhat watered-down (but longer-lasting) Bless spell, which can also stack with the Bless Spell (meaning that together, they can add 2d4.) Bless is amazing, and while the once-a-turn thing here is a bit of a bummer, it's still very good.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Balm of Peace. As an action, you can move up to your speed without provoking opportunity attacks, and when you move within 5 feet of any other creature during this action, you can restore hit points equal to 2d6 + your Wisdom modifier to them. (You can only heal each creature once per use of this action.) Depending on how bunched up your allies are, this can actually mean a pretty substantial group heal, which is pretty nice.

At 6th level, you get Protective Bond. If a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond is about to take damage, a second bonded creature within 30 feet of them can use their reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the first creature and takes the damage instead. This really encourages the whole party to act selflessly, giving a bit of mobility but also making it a lot easier to protect a vulnerable ally. (I'm imagining each party member coming and absorbing hits made against an unconscious ally.)

At level 8, you get Potent Spellcasting.

At 17, you get Expansive Bond. Your Emboldening Bond and Protective Bond features now work when the creatures are within 60 feet of each other. And if a creature uses Protective Bond to take someone else's damage, they get resistance to that damage. This actually makes it very advantageous for everyone to soak one another's damage (and could be really confusing for the monsters.) This basically rewards the party for going all "I'm Spartacus" and covering each other, potentially adding up to a significant reduction in damage taken.

Man, Peace domain is interesting - it really makes the party participants in the subclass' benefits, but they can be very potent if everyone plays along.

Twilight Domain:

The last of the very many Cleric subclasses, Twilight Domain could almost be seen as a foil to Light domain, though in truth, this is about the interplay between light and shadow. I think you could have a very cool aesthetic going with this one.

Your domain spells are Faerie Fire, Sleep, Moonbeam, See Invisibility, Aura of Vitality, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Aura of Life, Greater Invisibility, Circle of Power, and Mislead. There seems to be two themes here: playing with perception and also creating beneficial auras.

You also gain proficiency in heavy armor and martial weapons.

At 1st level, you get Eyes of Night. You have darkvision out to a range of 300 feet. You read that right. 300. You can see very far in the dark. Additionally, as an action, you can share this huge-range darkvision to willing creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) you can see within 10 feet of you for 1 hour. You can do this once free per long rest, or you can spend a spell slot of any level to do it again.

Also at 1 you get Vigilant Blessing. As an action, you can touch a creature (including yourself, potentially) and give them advantage on their next initiative roll. The benefit ends after the roll or if you use this again. Giving, say, the Assassination Rogue (or the Wizard who likes to start fights off with a Slow spell) advantage on initiative can be really useful.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary. As an action, you present your holy symbol and a sphere of twilight emanates from you - a 30-ft radius of dim light, which moves with you and lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die. When a creature including you ends its turn in the sphere, you can grant them one of the following benefits: they get temporary hit points equal to 1d6 + your Cleric level, or you end one effect on it causing it to be charmed or frightened. Remember that you have darkvision, so dim light is as good as bright light for you, but it will also make it harder for foes to make perception checks to find you if you're hidden. Also, these bonuses are pretty fantastic - you don't use your reaction, so each of your allies is getting those refreshing temp HP. And buckle up, because it gets even better with the next feature:

At 6th level, you get Steps of Night. As a bonus action while you're in dim light or darkness, you magically give yourself a flying speed equal to your walking speed for 1 minute. You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus each long rest. You only need to start in dim light or darkness, and if you're in an insanely bright room without shadows, you can use Twilight Sanctuary to turn the lights down. The limit on how many times you can do this means you won't just be flying around all day, but it could be a nice clutch ability.

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing radiant damage.

Finally, at 17, you get Twilight Shroud. You and your allies have half cover while within the sphere created by Twilight Sanctuary.  A +2 to AC for all your allies is nothing to sneeze at, and you'll want to use this channel divinity option on any major fight.

Overall, I really like the concept of this subclass. It is very reliant on your Channel Divinity, though I'm used to playing a Paladin, who only ever gets one use per short rest, whereas a Cleric gets a second use at only level 6, and a 3rd at level 18, meaning that they can actually reasonably use this pretty frequently.

Clerics have an absolute ton of choices for subclass, and it all needs to be made at character creation (or the moment you multiclass into it. Actually, a single level of Cleric is the easiest way to quickly get Heavy Armor proficiency if you choose Forge, Life, Nature, Order, Tempest, Twilight, or War domains, because, bizarrely, Fighter and Paladin don't grant it unless it's your initial class.) I do think that Life and Grave are probably the most straightforward choices if you really want to lean into the healer archetype. Forge, Order, and Peace domains are pretty strong support classes that aren't strictly focused on healing. If you want to be a damage-dealing cleric, I think Death, Light, and Tempest are pretty good options. And there's a lot of versatility for Trickery, Twilight, and Arcana. Honestly, the only subclass that really felt underwhelming was Nature domain. Knowledge has the potential to be extremely useful in the right kind of campaign (a mystery-based one,) though its dungeon-crawling, combat abilities are perhaps a little more lacking.

In my attempt to alternate between pure casters and... not that, I'm going to make the next series on the Barbarian, which I believe will only leave the Bard and the Artificer. What a long, strange, somewhat obsessive trip it's been!

Cleric Subclasses - SCAG and Xanathar's

 Clerics are one of two classes in the PHB that get a very large selection of subclasses (on top of also having an option in the Dungeon Master's Guide.) Cleric domains can help to flesh out the divine pantheons of a world, and while existing deities might fit with new cleric subclasses, it's also an inspiration to create new gods.

As a note, I'm going to rush past any Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strike feature, as one or the other is common across all subclasses, with Blessed Strikes, the optional replacement in Tasha's, giving you slightly less damage on average but applying to both melee attacks and cantrips. Potent Spellcasting (which seems slightly less common) allows you to apply your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips, while Divine Strikes adds 1d8 damage, or 2d8 after level 14, to one melee weapon attack on your turn, the damage type being tied thematically to the class. Blessed Strikes adds 1d8 radiant damage to either one melee attack on your turn or your cantrips (unlike Divine Strike, it doesn't upgrade. You could argue this is generally better than Potent Spellcasting, given that its average damage is 4.5, which is close to 5 from Wisdom, and can crit if you have an attack-roll cantrip, and of course also empowers your weapons if you use them.)

Arcana Domain:

Arcana Domain, found in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, is for worship of gods of magic. Divine and arcane magic don't have any mechanical distinction, but I do find it interesting how subclasses like this and the Divine Soul sorcerer kind of blur the lines. If you want the healing capabilities of a cleric but also kind of want to play a Wizard, this might be the right choice for you.

Your domain spells are Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon, Nystul's Magic Aura, Dispel Magic, Magic Circle, Arcane Eye, Lemonund's Secret Chest, Planar Binding, and Teleportation Circle. Some of these are great, though Nystul's Magic Aura is generally one of those spells I imagine is mainly useful for NPCs, like having a Lich use it to appear as a humanoid along with some illusion magic (which I'm totally not having a lich NPC use in a campaign I run...)

At 1st level, you get Arcane Initiate: You gain proficiency in Arcana and you learn two cantrips from the Wizard spell list, which count as Cleric cantrips for you. (They don't specifically note these don't count against your cantrips known, but I think that's just because SCAG isn't formatted as precisely as later books.)

At level 2, you get Channel Divinity: Arcane Abjuration. As an action, you present your holy symbol and one celestial, elemental, fey, or fiend of your choice within 30 feet of you has to make a Wisdom saving throw if they can see or hear you. If it fails, it's turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage. While not an official condition (though it probably should be?) this works just like Turn Undead. And like Turn Undead, this gets upgraded. After you reach 5th level, if a creature fails, it gets banished for 1 minute if it isn't on its plane of origin, with no concentration required, if it's of a low enough CR. (Eventually getting to CR 4 or lower at level 17.) While this doesn't have the Banishment spell's permanent banish effect if you let it last the full minute, this is still a pretty great bit of crowd control - again, with no concentration required!

At level 6, you get Spell Breaker. If you restore hit points with a spell of 1st level or higher to an ally, you can also end one spell of your choice on that creature, if the spell's level is equal or lower to the level of the spell slot you expended to heal them. This is actually really fantastic - you do a 2nd level Healing Word on someone who's under Hold Person and they're popped out of it. Being able to dispel magic and heal at the same time is actually really solid.

At level 8, you get Potent Spellcasting.

At level 17, you get Arcane Mastery. You choose one spell each of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th levels from the Wizard spell list. These get added to your domain spells, and are always prepared for you. That's right. Divine Intervention and Wish on the same character. Dear lord. I mean, if there's any downside to the Cleric spell list it's that it isn't the Wizard spell list. But now it kind of is. Jeez.

Honestly, there's a lot to like about this subclass. I'm kind of surprised I don't see it more often. I also think this is the perfect subclass to take if the party is pressuring you to be a cleric for the heals when what you really want to be is a Wizard (granted, that Arcane Mastery thing won't come online until 17, so even though you get 6th level spells at 11, you won't get Disintegrate until later.)

Forge Domain:

In a weird way, I feel like Forge clerics are kind of proto-Artificers. Still, gods of the forge have been mainstays of real-world pantheons, and you get a lot of really useful features here, especially when magic weapons are few and far between (the longest-running campaign I've been in as a player has a Forge cleric, and when we got all our equipment taken away when we arrived in the Nine Hells, it's been very useful to be able to empower the Gunslinger/Ranger's salvaged musket with magical damage.)

Your domain spells are Idenfity, Searing Smite, Heat Metal, Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Protection from Energy, Fabricate, Wall of Fire, Animate Objects, and Creation. Naturally a bit of a fire theme here, but also plenty of stuff to enhance weapons.

You also gain proficiency in heavy armor and smith's tools (oddly not martial weapons.)

At 1st level, you get Blessing of the Forge. At the end of a long rest, you can touch one nonmagical object that is a suit of armor or a simple or martial weapon (no natural weapons.) Until the end of your next long rest or until you die, the object becomes a +1 magic item (so a +1 weapon or a +1 armor.) You can use this once per long rest (which, given that it only happens at the end of a long rest, is kind of implied.) This can be huge in any situation where you need magic weapons to fight resistant or immune foes. And if the party's full up on magic weapons, magic armor is rarer, so putting that on a party member's armor can be very useful.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Artisan's Blessing. You can conduct an hour-long ritual to create a nonmagical metal object worth 100 gold or less. All you need is metal equal in value to the object you want to create, which you lay out in front of you for the ritual. This will even create the nonmetallic parts of the object (such as the leather of a sword's hilt) even if you don't have that material. This is one of those things that really lets the players use their imagination - all sorts of useful objects can be created, and there's no limit on size - only value - so we've been able to make things like carts or a complex rig to allow the friendly unicorns pulling our wagon to detach themselves if needed in combat.

At level 6, you get Soul of the Forge. You gain resistance to Fire damage and while you're wearing heavy armor, you get a +1 bonus to your AC. Both of these are very welcome - fire resistance is great, as it's one of the most common forms of magical damage (you'll also avoid exhaustion in hot jungles or deserts.)

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing fire damage.

At level 17, you get Saint of Forge and Fire. You gain full immunity to fire damage, and while wearing heavy armor, you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks. As I've often pointed out, player characters only rarely get full immunity to any kind of damage, and fire is a great one to have - you can stare down an ancient red dragon and take their breath full in the face and be fine. Indeed, dragons tend not to have magical attacks, as do a few other high level creatures. In fact, the RP possibilities of this are really cool - maybe your god commands you to create something in a forge inside a volcano, and you have to wade through a lake of lava to get to the sacred forge - which you're totally fine to do.

So, this is a subclass that doesn't focus so much on enhancing healing, but gives you a lot of other ways to support your party, and is really thematically consistent, which I love.

Grave Domain:

Another very popular choice, the Grave Domain is a more benevolent (potentially) take on death as a divine domain - being less about the promotion of death and destruction, but more about being a caretaker for the dead and ensuring the natural cycle is not profaned. (I had an NPC describe it as "keeping the living alive and keeping the dead dead.") The way I think of this subclass is that while Life domain lets you keep your party at the peak of health, this one is better for dealing with emergencies, with a kind of "don't you die on me!" vibe. Life domain is your general practitioner, while Grave is your ER doctor.

Your domain spells are Bane, False Life, Gentle Repose, Ray of Enfeeblement, Revivify, Vampiric Touch, Blight, Death Ward, Antilife Shell, and Raise Dead. Some strong offensive spells here, actually. There's a grave cleric in the campaign I run, and I'm honestly shocked I don't see Blight or Antilife Shell used more often.

At 1st level, you get Circle of Mortality. If you'd normally roll dice to restore hit points with a spell to a creature at 0 hit points, you instead heal them for the maximum amount the spell can do. This is actually great, giving them a big heal just when they need the biggest heal you can give them.

In addition, you learn Spare the Dying, which does not count against your known Cleric cantrips. Additionally, you can cast it as a bonus action and at a range of 30 feet. This is actually fantastic - usually you're better off just casting a healing spell with your action than using Spare the Dying if you're in the middle of a fight, but this lets you handle things while still leaving your action open, and also lets you save people you can't quite get to. There was a moment in Critical Role's second campaign in which Grave cleric Caduceus managed to stabilize one character and dispel the mind control on another (the mind-controlled one had been the one to knock out the unconscious one) on the same turn, proving how clutch this can be.

Also at level 1, you get Eyes of the Grave. As an action, you can learn the location of any undead within 60 feet of you that isn't behind total cover and isn't protected from divination magic. You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest. This is not quite as good as a Paladin's Divine Sense, but being able to alternate with the party's paladin (or if you, you know, don't have one - though seriously, paladins are awesome) makes this pretty good - mostly just a cherry on top of some other really good features.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Path to the Grave. As an action, you choose a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see, cursing it. The next time you or an ally hits the cursed creature with an attack, they have vulnerability to all of that attack's damage (and then the curse ends.) Doubling an attack is really amazing. Also consider that you can hold this action (and unlike a spell, you don't need to concentrate and it's not wasted if you don't use it.) In our Curse of Strahd campaign, the Grave cleric often holds this for when my Vengeance Paladin is about to hit a target, and then I'll use a divine smite to do enormous amounts of damage (I think I did something like 100 damage when I also happened to crit against an Amber Golem).

At 6th level, you get Sentinel at Death's Door. As a reaction, if you or a creature you can see within 30 feet is hit with a critical strike, you can turn that hit into a normal hit (and any effects triggered by the critical hit are canceled.) You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier. 30 feet is a bit of a short range, but being able to cancel out any big spikes of damage can be very helpful. It might make the DM sad they don't get to roll so many dice, but it's a great way to keep things reasonable.

At level 8, you get Potent Spellcasting.

At level 17, you get Keeper of Souls. When an enemy you can see within 60 feet of you dies, you or one creature of your choice you can see within 60 feet of you regains HP equal to the enemy's number of hit dice. You can use this feature only if you aren't incapacitated, and once you use it, you can't until the start of your next turn. This rider on the end actually makes it clear that this doesn't take your reaction, which is pretty great - you can just redistribute that life energy. This isn't going to be a huge amount of healing - an Ancient Red Dragon only has 28 hit dice, which is a sizable heal, though if an ancient red dragon has died, I feel like your campaign might have just concluded. That said, this is actually free healing that's limited only by how many things you can kill, and while you have to be conscious to use it, there's nothing saying you can't use it on an unconscious ally to pop them up, so the party can actually focus on taking down the monster while you just spare the dying on the unconscious person and let the monster's death pop them back.

I think the Grave Cleric is another great option if you want to focus on being a healer, but while the Life Cleric is about healing and little else, Grave Clerics also have some powerful offensive capabilities as well. It's a top-tier subclass.

Next post, we'll look at the options out of Tasha's, including the Order domain originally published in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.

Cleric Subclasses - PHB part 2

 Man, Clerics get a lot of subclasses. In fact, with 14 published subclasses, they have the most (Wizards are a close second with 13, whereas other classes generally have 7-9). Which is to say we're only going to get through the second half of the Core Books subclasses in this post, with SCAG and Xanathar's making the third post, and Tasha's finishing us off.

Once again, I'm going to be short-handing the level 8 Potent Spellcasting or Divine Strikes feature, as these are common across the whole class, with only Divine Strikes changing its damage type depending on the subclass. The Blessed Strikes feature, an alternative option found in Tasha's, is more versatile but generally does less damage, as it affects both cantrips and weapon attacks, but only ever deals 1d8 damage (which is radiant, so pretty generally useful. Honestly, this might actually not be all that bad.)

But let's get started:

Nature Domain:

Clerics of Nature are worshippers of gods of the natural world. While Life clerics can fit in with any sort of life, this subclass implies a somewhat more druidic aesthetic and appreciation for forests and other natural places away from big population centers (though it would also be a totally appropriate subclass for the Selesnya Conclave in Ravnica, or really any of the other "green" guilds, i.e. Gruul, Golgari, or Simic.

Your domain spells are Animal Friendship, Speak with Animals, Barkskin, Spike Growth, Plant Growth, Wind Wall, Dominate Beast, Grasping Vine, Insect Plague, and Tree Stride.

You also get heavy armor proficiency.

At 1st level, you get Acolyte of Nature, learning one druid cantrip of your choice and gaining proficiency in your choice of Animal Handling, Nature, or Survival.

I don't know that any of these bonuses are really awe-inspiring, though getting an extra skill proficiency is nice. Also, Shillelagh could be a useful option if you want to be a bit more of a combat cleric.

At 2, you get Channel Divinity: Charm Animals and Plants. As an action using your Channel Divinity, you can force every beast or plant creature within 30 feet that you can see to make a Wisdom save or become charmed by you for 1 minute or until it takes damage. While charmed, you can designate it to become friendly to not just you but also other creatures you designate (something I need to remind myself about other charm effects are if the creature has to stop attacking your friends just because they suddenly like you - technically no! Though you'll be in a better position to argue that they should stop attacking your friends.) As such, this can really put a fight on pause... if it's against plants and/or beasts. Could be clutch, but very situational.

At 6th level, you get Dampen Elements. If a creature within 30 feet of you takes acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, you can use a reaction to give the creature resistance to that instance of that damage. Now we're talking. While not mind-blowing, the utility of this feature is pretty obvious and strong. Your fighter fail their dex save against the dragon's breath? Halve the damage.

At 8, you get Divine Strike, and you get to choose between cold, fire, or lightning damage. This is actually pretty cool, as you can adjust it when needed based on what you're fighting (for example, against a Flesh Golem, use fire instead of lightning!)

Finally, at 17, you get Master of Nature. When creatures are charmed by your Charm Animals and Plants feature, you can take a bonus action on your turn to verbally command what each of those creatures will do on its turn. While this turns the charm into a much more powerful effect, you're still dealing with two creature types that don't get very high CR monsters. Granted, even at 17 having a bunch of mammoths or treants at your command will still be very useful, but it's situational.

Nothing here is really terrible, but mechanically it's also not terrible impressive. Let's move on.

Tempest Domain:

Arguably another aspect of nature, Tempest domain relates specifically to the many storm gods. I think most people think storms and storm gods are super cool, so let's see how they do.

Your domain spells are Fog Cloud, Thunderwave, Gust of Wind, Shatter, Call Lightning, Sleet Storm, Control Water, Ice Storm, Destructive Wave, and Insect Plague. Obviously a strong theme here (insect plague, though? Storm Sphere is from Xanathar's, right? Because it seems like it'd otherwise be an obvious one.) I also feel like I might have preferred Lightning Bolt over Call Lightning, though over 3 rounds Call Lightning overtakes Lightning Bolt in damage potential - if your fight lasts that long.)

You also get proficiency in heavy armor as well as martial weapons.

At 1st level, you get Wrath of the Storm. When a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with an attack, you can use a reaction to force the creature to make a Dexterity save, taking 2d8 lightning or thunder damage (your choice) on a failure, or half as much on a success. You can use this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

Between the armor and the martial weapons, it seems a Tempest Cleric is meant to be on the front lines, and this punishes those who go after you (and being able to choose the damage is great - generally you probably want to go with thunder, as far fewer things are immune or resistant to it.)

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath. When you roll lightning or thunder damage, you can use your Channel Divinity to deal maximum damage instead of rolling. This kind of maximizing damage can really increase the damage of a spell - for instance, if you cast Destructive Wave, the thunder half of that (5d6) would normally average out to 17.5 damage, but you can guaranteed it'll be 30. Other than Glyph of Warding, the domain spells actually seem to be the only cleric spells that do these damage types - but that means this could be a fantastic two-level dip for a Storm Sorcerer to get a max-damage Chain Lightning (80 damage to each thing it hits!) or the like.

At level 6, you get Thunderbolt Strike. When you deal lightning damage to a Large or smaller creature, you can push it up to 10 feet away from you. While it'd be great to get this on thunder damage as well, the fact that this only cares about damaging them is pretty great - especially given effects that deal half damage on a successful saving throw should still trigger this. Forced movement without a save is one of the insanely powerful things about Repelling Blast for Warlocks, and being able to just no-save this using, say, Call Lightning is actually really, really good.

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing thunder damage. Weird that you can't choose between thunder and lightning (lightning would be very synergistic with Thunderbolt Strike, but maybe that's the reason.)

At 17, you get Stormborn. You have a flying speed equal to your walking speed whenever you are not underground or indoors. So... not great for an Underdark campaign, but I'm always a fan of features that just plain let you fly (the limitations here are a little annoying, though.)

So, overall, I think that the Tempest subclass is actually pretty good for a more damage-focused cleric. I've briefly played on in Adventurer's League, though only through maybe one or two modules, so I can't really comment too much on them beyond the theoretical.

Trickery Domain:

If you want to dupe your foes with clever maneuvers and be very chaotic, this is a great domain for you. If you have the patience for the four-hour episodes, of which there are over a hundred, I highly recommend you check out Laura Bailey's tiefling trickster cleric Jester Lavorre from Critical Role's second campaign, who is a total delight and a great example of this subclass. Interestingly, I think the subclass actually incorporates some of the abilities that Loki from the Marvel comics and movies uses, which is appropriate given that he's a god of mischief (and thus would be of this domain.)

Your domain spells are Charm Person, Disguise Self, Mirror Image, Pass without Trace, Blink, Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, Polymorph, Dominate Person, and Modify Memory. There are some very strong spells here, giving you both a lot of flexibility in manipulating NPCs and also getting around places safely. (Blink is an underrated survival spell, for example.)

At 1st level, you get Blessing of the Trickster. You can use an action to grant a creature other than yourself advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. The blessing lasts an hour or until you use the feature again (which you can do as many times as you like.) This is pretty great if you want to make it easier for the group to sneak around while the paladin or fighter is clanking around in heavy plate, or just to give the Rogue an easier time scouting up ahead.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Invoke Duplicity. As an action, you create a perfect illusion of yourself that lasts for 1 minute or until you lose concentration. The illusion appears in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you that you can see, and you can move it up to 30 feet as a bonus action to a space you can see, as long as it's within 120 feet of you. While it's up, you can cast spells as though you were in the illusion's space. Also, if it's within 5 feet of a creature that can see it, you have advantage on attack rolls against the creature, as it distracts them.

This is a very good ability, though taking up your concentration checks its power a little. Still, being able to send an incorporeal illusion that can't be destroyed in to tap people for Cure Wounds (or Revivify!) is really great. Also, it'll make it easier for you to land attacks on your foes, which is nice.

At 6th level, you get Channel Divinity: Cloak of Shadows. As an action, you can become invisible until the end of your next turn. You become visible early if you attack or cast a spell. This is potentially a really useful way to get away from enemies, though most of the time you can just disengage instead. Probably best to use Channel Divinity on Invoke Duplicity.

At level 8, you get Divine Strike, dealing poison damage. Given that you don't get martial weapons or heavy armor, I don't know if you'll make tons of use of this, and poison damage is also by a hugely wide margin the damage type most enemies are resistant or immune to. It is thematic, though. But I'd actually seriously consider Blessed Strikes here instead.

Finally, at 17, you get Improved Duplicity. When you Invoke Duplicity, you create 4, not 1 duplicate, and can move any of them up to 30 feet as a bonus action as long as they stay within 120 feet. This is, frankly, nuts. I'd assumed it would be like two duplicates instead of one. But four? You can practically be in 5 places at once with this, so if you need to focus on healing, you can just have each cling to a party member, and if you want damage, you can have them shadow your foes. Nuts, I say.

So yeah, the Trickster Domain has a lot going for it. You can play this as both a strong damage-focused Cleric but also as a very mobile (or effectively mobile) healer.

War Domain:

Finally, we come to the War domain. This is a subclass that can represent the very most vile and evil deities, but also chivalric, heroic ones. It's also one that has its opposite in the form of Peace domain, which we've got like two posts to get through before we tackle.

Your domain spells are Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, Magic Weapon, Spiritual Weapon, Crusader's Mantle, Spirit Guardians, Freedom of Movement, Stoneskin, Flame Strike, and Hold Monster. There's a clear overlap with the Paladin for these spells, which makes sense given that this is subclass has a lot of thematic overlap with the Paladin.

You also get proficiency in martial weapons and heavy armor (which is very on-theme.)

At 1st level you get War Priest. When you take the attack action, you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action. You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest. Given the limits on Divine Strike and how this will likely only be 5 times per day at max, this isn't a ton, but still, more attacks mean more damage, and sometimes you just need that last hit to finish the foe off.

At 2nd level, you get Channel Divinity: Guided Strike. When you make an attack roll, you can use your Channel Divinity to at a +10 bonus to the roll after you see what you've rolled (but before the DM tells you if it hits.) So yeah, again, if you really, really need to make sure that you hit, you can nearly guarantee it. Pretty good.

At 6th level, you get Channel Divinity: War God's Blessing. If a creature within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll, you can use your reaction to grant them a +10 bonus to the roll, following the same rules for Guided Strike. Really, this is just expanding Guided Strike to your allies at the cost of a reaction. Better, more versatile. Certainly not bad.

At 8, you get Divine Strikes, though interestingly, the extra damage is the same as that of the weapon. As such, you'll really want to get a magic weapon to make use of this, but once you do, very few things will resist you.

Finally, at 17, you get Avatar of Battle. You gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons. The nonmagical restriction hurts a little at this level, though at the same time, a ton of monster don't, actually, have nonmagical weapon attacks, including the Tarrasque and almost all dragons.

Phew - we've finally gotten through the PHB Cleric subclasses. With those done, we only have six more to go - one from SCAG, two from Xanthar's, and three from Tasha's (one of which was a reprint from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica.)

Overall, I think of the PHB ones and the Death Domain from the DMG, Life domain is the clear winner if you just want to focus on healing. For damage output, I like Death and Tempest. And Trickery is actually very versatile. We'll see as we go beyond the core books if we get some more unique and interesting features, though there are plenty of choices here that are totally worth trying.