Another subclass I'm intimately familiar with - one of my consistent players in my 6-year Ravnica campaign is a Grave Cleric and former member of the Orzhov Syndicate.
I've actually seen a lot of Grave Clerics, from Caduceus in Campaign Two of Critical Role to multiple home games. It was a very solid subclass out of Xanathar's. I know there are some big changes here, but are the buffs, nerfs, or sidegrades?
Domain Spells:
Cantrip: Spare the Dying
1st: Detect Evil and Good, False Life
2nd: Gentle Repose, Ray of Enfeeblement
3rd: Revivify, Vampiric Touch
4th: Blight, Death Ward
5th: Dispel Evil and Good, Raise Dead
Ok, so, they lose Bane and gain Detect Evil and Good (which I suspect also means they lost Eyes of the Grave). Also, they lose Antilife Shell and gain Dispel Evil and Good. I don't think I've seen my player ever cast Antilife Shell, but I suspect that they'd lament losing Bane, especially to replace it with a spell that they kind of already got anyway with Eyes of the Grave.
Level 3:
Circle of Mortality:
You get two benefits.
Pull of Death lets you add a d4 of Necrotic damage once per turn to damage you deal to a creature that's missing any HP via a spell or an attack roll. The damage goes up to 1d6 when you hit level 11.
It's not much, but given that this stacks up with Divine Strikes/Potent Cantrips, it's a something. And that "missing any HP" qualifier is most of the time - a spell like Toll the Dead almost always gets its higher damage mode.
Return to Life lets you cast Spare the Dying with a bonus action.
Additionally, if you would roll one or more dice to heal a creature with 0 HP via a spell or Channel Divinity, you don't roll and instead just take the maximum.
This is basically the same as before, except that it doesn't increase the range of Spare the Dying because that's now baked into the spell. Admittedly, at lower levels, this is a slight nerf because it's only a 15-foot range at tier 1, but thereafter it's functionally identical.
Path to the Grave:
As a bonus action, you present your holy symbol and use Channel Divinity to curse one creature you can see within 30 feet of you until the start of your next turn. While cursed, the creature has Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws.
When you or an ally hits the creature with an attack, you can end the curse early (no action required) to make the attack deal extra Necrotic or Radiant damage (your choice) equal to your Cleric level.
So, a lot to unpack: The old version made the target Vulnerable to all damage of the next attack that hit it, but took an action. So, it's a very different feature overall. The new one realistically allows you to gain the damage benefit.
But also, the benefit is a flat amount of damage, so no matter if the Monk hits for just one of their attacks or the Paladin lands an insane crit-smite, the damage this feature will deal will be 3-20 damage, depending on your level. The insane burst potential that you can get with this has for sure been nerfed. But A: that seems to be a design goal for 5.5E and B: there are other pretty solid benefits that this gives you.
For sure, for pure damage potential, this is a nerf. But I'm tempted to say that overall it's a sidegrade.
Level 6:
Sentinel at Death's Door:
When you or a bloodied creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself is hit with an attack roll, you can take a reaction to halve that attack's damage (round down). Also, if the triggering attack was a critical hit, it now just counts as a regular hit. You can use this Wis dimes per long rest.
Again, one quite big buff and one significant... limitation. Notably, you can use this on yourself any time, but to use it on a friend, they need to be bloodied. That said, if you figure the old version of just cancelling a crit more or less halved the damage that the attack did, this lets you do that on far more attacks. And then, effectively, you're quartering the damage that a crit would do.
This is a feature that will run out if the DM is rolling well. The bloodied restriction, in a sense, forces you to conserve it until you really need to use it. Once again, I think there are arguments for this being a buff and some for its being a nerf, but I think overall it's probably a buff, even if it might not feel as good when you can't cancel the crit on the first round of combat.
Level 17:
Divine Reaper:
You get two benefits:
Enhanced Necromancy lets you expend a use of Channel Divinity when you cast a Necromancy spell of 5th level or lower that targets one creature, or a spell from the Grave Domain spells table a secondary creature in range. (You still need to expend material components for each target if it requires costly or consumed components).
So, this is actually from the Death Cleric - which does have a lot of thematic overlap with the Grave Cleric (even if they're also kind of opposite numbers). Naturally, a lot of spells that fit this, like resurrection magic, will still consume lots of components, but even if I think Blight is underpowered, hitting two targets with it is certainly better.
Keeper of Souls allows you to heal yourself or a creature you can see within 60 feet of yourself when an enemy dies within 60 feet of you. The healing is equal to twice your Cleric Level (so 34 when you get this). You can't use this if you're incapacitated. Also, you can use it once per short or long rest, unless you expend a 6th or higher level spell slot to restore your use.
The old version had no limitation in use except that it happened only once per round (and, like this, doesn't take any action on your part) but the healing was the number of hit dice that the monster had. That actually winds up rarely being all that many. Like, an Ancient Red Dragon only has 26 hit dice. But, it's also totally free to use as much as you like. This is a beefier heal, but it's a serious resource to expend if you want to use it again (though coming back on a short rest is pretty generous).
Overall Thoughts:
This subclass got a pretty thorough reworking. I suspect that those who were already familiar with and fond of the Xanathar's Grave Cleric will probably feel some ambivalence and even reluctance to embrace this version. But I think if this were brand new, it'd probably be pretty well-received. I truly don't think we can call this a nerf to the subclass, but it's certainly different than it was.
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