Trickery clerics ofBaldur’s Gate 3serve deceitful gods and enact their will throughout Faerûn. They excel at exploration through their stealth and, well, trickery with spells such asDisguise Self. While they aren’t the most powerful subclass in combat,clerics themselves are a strong classwith many great features.
A trickery domain cleric should serve as a support spell caster with healing, control, and offensive abilities, as well as spells for challenges outside of combat, such as conversation and stealth. While they may serve an evil or unreliable god, they should be a reliable party member that both heals and buffs fellow allies.
Best Races And Backgrounds For A Trickery Domain Cleric
Your character’s race won’t have a big impact on the effectiveness of your build. However, there are a few races that can give a few useful abilities for a trickery domain cleric. These are the best race options.
As a cleric, you’ll also be prompted toselect a deity. However, your domain does not limit which deity you can select to worship.
Features
Deep Gnome
Although they have a little less movement per turn, gnomes have the benefit ofAdvantage on intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saving throws. This is good for clerics as spell casters and healers since you’ll want them at their best as much as possible. Deep Gnomes also getAdvantage on Stealth checks.
Wood Elf
Wood Elves haveproficiency in both Perception and Stealth, which are handy on their own and especially so for sneaky trickery clerics. They also haveAdvantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep. Again, this keeps them on their feet and able to cast. On top of that,they have extra movement speed.
Like your race, your background won’t have an influence on the strength of your build. However, it does grant proficiencies and impacts how you’ll gain inspiration throughout the game. Here are the best backgrounds to choose.
Criminal
If you choose Wood Elf as your race, you may want to avoid the Criminal background since both grant Stealth proficiency.
Youcannot change your race or backgroundafter leaving character creation.
Recommended Spells For A Trickery Domain Cleric
Since trickery domain spells focus on support, you’ll want to use the available cleric spell list toincrease your action economy through summons, heal allies, and gain more control spells.
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Heroes' Feast,Create Undead,Blade Barrier
How To Level A Trickery Domain Cleric
Trickery domain spells focus onbuffing allies and forcing disadvantages onto enemies,control spells,and exploratory spells and abilities.
Your primary goal while leveling should beincreasing the effectiveness of your spells.
Level 1 Spells
New Domain Spells
Your new domain spells areCharm Person,Disguise Self, and you get the class action Blessing of the Trickster.
Channel Divinity Charge
Your actions that use Channel Divinity Charges are Turn Undead and Invoke Duplicity. Invoke Duplicitygrants you and your allies Advantage against enemies, so long as you’re within proximity to the illusory double.
Level 2 Spells
Your new domain spells arePass Without TraceandMirror Image. Mirror Imageincreases your AC, which can help you maintain concentration on a spellif you’re struggling to do so.
Feat
For your first feat, take an Ability Improvement for +2 Wisdom,which will boost your ability score to 19.
Level 3 Spells
Your new domain spells areFearandBestow Curse. Fear is excellent crowd control since it affects an area andforces all enemies who fail the saving throw to drop their weapons and flee from you.
Your action that uses Channel Divinity Charges is Cloak of Shadows.
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Level 4 Spells
Your new domain spells areDimension DoorandPolymorph. Dimension Door is very useful for traversing hard-to-reach locations such as rooftops.
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The feat War Caster is a must-have for any spellcaster who consistently uses concentration spells.It grants you Advantage on concentration saving throws. You’ll rarely find yourself losing concentration.
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Divine Intervention
This is one of a cleric’s most powerful abilities,but it can only be used once. Make sure to save it for when you’re really in a pinch.
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For your final feat, you should take another Ability Improvement for +1 Wisdom and +1 Constitution. This will bothmax out your spellcasting stat to 20 and increase your total health.
Best Equipment For A Trickery Domain Cleric
To improve the likelihood your spells deal damage, you’ll want tofocus on gear that increases both your spell save DC and spell attack rolls.
As a healer,it’s also a good idea to increase your AC. As long as you’re still standing, your companions will be, too.
Hood of the Weave
Looted from Raphael
Since you shouldn’t be relying on weapon attacks much, you’ll want toequip weapons that grant helpful abilities, passives, and spells.
Complete the Find the Blood of Lathander quest
How To Play A Trickery Domain Cleric
A trickery cleric’sdomain spells have three main intents behind spell casting:
Outside your domain spells, you’ll want to expand your spell list to gainsummons and crowd-control spells.
Spiritual Weapon is an excellent summon early on, andGuardian of FaithandCreate Undeadonly increases your summon potential as you level.The more summons you have, the more sources of damage you haveto take out enemies.
Summons also don’t require concentration, leaving you free to maintain other spells, such asSpirit Guardians, which is excellent crowd control.
As you level,Glyph of WardingandBlade Barrieralso make for excellent crowd control in fights with lots of enemies.
In battle, your focus should be increasing your AC through both gear and spells likeMirror Image. You’ll want tocast any buffs or summon spells as early as youcan in combat oreven before combatif you may get away with it.
As a support spell caster, you should do what you can to set up advantages for your attackers, such as throughHold PersonorGuiding Bolt.
Rather than directly attacking enemies one by one, you should focus on AOE crowd control spells such asBlade BarrierandInsect Plague.
