How To Build An Arcane Domain Cleric In DND

Highest Score

Wisdom augments the power and accuracy of your spells. Most arcana clerics are pure spellcasters, wearing medium armour more out of self-preservation than any desire to jump into melee.

Second Highest

Arcana clerics can rely almost exclusively on their wisdom for everything they do in combat. The goal of constitution is keeping them alive to do all of that. Your medium armour means enemies are less likely to prioritise you over a sorcerer in robes, but you can still expect to take damage.

Third Place

Arcana clerics don’t have any features that directly benefit from a high intelligence, but do want to be capable in the related skill checks of history and arcana. If you are planning a multiclass into wizard this becomes more important.

Maximum of 14

In medium armour you want around 14 dexterity: Enough to make full use of your armour but not enough that your other ability scores are losing out. If you’re planning to gain heavy armour via a feat you can afford to lower this.

Honourable mention

In a diplomacy focused game this becomes more important, but doesn’t offer a dungeon crawling cleric any advantages.

If your GM lets you go below 8 on your ability scores, this is where to do so.

Arcana clerics need enough strength to carry their inventory but otherwise don’t utilise this ability score. If you plan to pick up heavy armour via a feat then you will want sufficient strength to wear it, but can also just choose to take the penalty to move speed.

Deals a small amount of psychic damage and weakens an enemy’s next saving throw.

This is one of the few damaging cantrips to target intelligence, one of the least common saving throws. Most enemies are liable to be weak against this and the debuff it applies can set up other players to inflict more powerful status ailments.

Creates a magical image of your choice that takes up a five-foot area.

It is a powerful tool for both roleplaying and stealth. Any time you’re about to be spotted, illusion a pile of crates in your current position and crouch down inside the illusion. Disbelieving your illusions allows you to look through it, giving minor illusion the ability to walls that only you can see through.

Sets a five-foot area on fire, damaging any enemy who passes through it.

Area damage and crowd control in a cantrip, at the price of concentration. When fighting in corridors this can completely block off a group of enemies.

Create a variety of minor magical effects. Seasons food, does your laundry and files your taxes.

The classic wizard cantrip. If you are playing an arcana cleric who wants to pass for a wizard in roleplay, this is a must.

Empowers a melee attack with either fire or thunder magic, dealing additional damage.

If you build around a melee playstyle, these spells gain additional strength in the hands of an arcana cleric. The level 8 feature Potent Spellcasting lets you add your wisdom modifier to the damage of your cantrips. Since both Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade deal damage twice they will synergise strongly with the feature.

Sixth level

Allows you to cast a spell ahead of time and have it activate when your choice of trigger is activated.

This wizard-exclusive spell can do some unintuitive things when wielded by a cleric. Storing a cleric spell inside your contingency lets you plan around a wide swathe of scenarios. Storing a greater restoration in your contingency allows you to end party-wiping afflictions such as charm and petrify the moment they target you, leaving you free to then dispel those effects from allies on your turn. You’ll lack some of the wizardly uses of the spell such as “polymorph me into a dinosaur if I’m about to get stabbed.”

Seventh level

Creates a duplicate of a target with access to all of their class features and spells but none of their magical equipment.

Like most spells only available to a single class, Simulacrum is far stronger than the spell level alone indicates. For the price of 1,500GP you can essentially double the power of your character. The bonus isn’t properly permanent as the simulacrum is expensive to heal and will never regain spell slots, but there are a lot of ways to use a simulacrum in both roleplay and combat.

Eighth level

Reduces a targets intelligence and charisma to one, preventing them from speaking or casting any spells until the curse is broken.

This is perhaps more of a roleplaying choice but a cleric of arcana’s duty is to uphold the sanctity of magic both by proliferating its use and punishing its misuse. The feeblemind spell is a rather dramatic way of forcibly stripping a spellcaster of their ability to use magic. Previous versions of the spell hammered this idea home and forced specifically wizards to make the save at a penalty.

Eighth level

Creates a clone of yourself that your soul will transfer into if you die.

The non-evil way of gaining functional immortality: Most arcana deities would frown on their cleric becoming a lich or otherwise consuming souls to extend their life, but clones explicitly do not have souls according to this spell.

Ninth level

Can imitate any spell of level eight or lower, or allows you to wish for an assortment of permanent buffs or magical equipment. Misusing the spell has an increasing risk of getting your wish privileges revoked.

Even outside the ability to wish for gold, a pet dragon or permanent damage resistances the ability to replicate any 8th level spell or lower without materials or casting time is incredibly powerful and versatile. Making proper use of this poses a challenge, since you need to be able to remember a boggling number of spells across all the classes.

Ninth level

Grants advantage on all attacks, skill checks and saving throws for eight hours. Anyone targeting you has disadvantage, and you cannot be surprised or otherwise ambushed.

A very simple but incredibly powerful spell. The long duration means that you can potentially cast it once per day and have the effects on almost all the time.

• Gain two wizard cantrips and a first level wizard spell.
• You can cast the spell once per day without a spell slot.

Find familiar lets you complete the appearance of a classical wizard, and gives you a useful tool for relaying messages or scouting. The Arcana Cleric already gains several wizard cantrips but more is better.

• Gain two druid cantrips and a first level druid spell.
• You can cast the spell once per day without a spell slot.

The druid cantrip Shillelagh lets you use your wisdom score instead of strength or dexterity on melee attacks: Combined with the wizard cantrips Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, this allows arcana clerics to make competent melee fighters, but they do not gain the extra attack granted to tempest and war domain clerics.

The goodberry spell gives you a cheap source of healing and ensures you’ll never run out of food while traveling.

• You gain one skill proficiency, one tool proficiency and one language proficiency.
• One of your skill proficiencies becomes an expertise, doubling your proficiency bonus.

Arcana clerics have no way other of gaining access to expertise: Doubling your proficiency in arcana means you’ll be able to confidently take the lead when dealing with magic out of combat, or doubling your investigation means you’ll be able to easily disbelieve magical illusions.

• You have advantage on concentration saving throws.
• You can cast somatic spells even with both hands full.
• You can cast spells for your attacks of opportunity.

Arcana clerics are already strong at purely magical combat and this amplifies that further:

• Your medium armour makes you more evasive than most spellcasters.
• Strong wisdom and constitution saving throws make you resilient against the most common spells.
• War Caster’s bonus to concentration saving throws makes your own spells difficult to interrupt.
• War Caster’s ability to cast spells as attacks of opportunity means you harass less well armoured spellcasters in melee, forcing them to spend resources on teleporting away or allowing you to hit them with a spell such as hold person when they try to flee.