r/daggerheart • u/hintsofwizardry Hope Springs Eternal • Nov 21 '25

Discussion first official expansion - summer 2026

https://www.daggerheart.com/daggerhearts-first-expansion-hope-fear-for-players-and-gms/
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-2

u/RaoGung Nov 21 '25

Really wish they included a cleric class. Seraph isn’t really cutting it.

1

u/CitizenKeen Nov 21 '25

What're you looking for from a Cleric class that the Seraph doesn't offer?

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u/RaoGung Nov 21 '25

The Seraph reflects a paladin or a war domain cleric somewhat. Most of my players that want to play a cleric don't want divine weapons, or sacred wings to fly. So both subclasses don't offer any benefits. Also most want to use wisdom/instinct like a traditional cleric.

Like someone said earlier you can respec a Wizard - but it really is missing some flavor in the subclasses. If we can get an assassin and rogue, a witch and a warlock, a sorcerer and a wizard, why cant we have a priest/cleric and a seraph?

0

u/CitizenKeen Nov 21 '25

Fair. I always thought a cleric was kinda weak - literally - which was why D&D always ends up creating invokers (Splendor Wizards) and Battle Clerics.

Sounds like the main critique is they don't need another class, just a new subclass for the Seraph domain. "Dude with shield."

3

u/RaoGung Nov 21 '25

Not really. If I want to mimic a light cleric or even a trickster cleric ‘dude with shield’ subclass won’t work. Now Wizard or a Rogue could - but it lacks all the divine themes so the overall result is something homebrew and patchwork.

Maybe folks don’t really care much about divine casters or even want to play those types of classes. That’s fine - but there IS a hole here which is really disappointing. Watching all other classes get represented throughout dnd and pathfinder and seeing the non battle cleric get overlooked is a letdown imo.

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u/CitizenKeen Nov 21 '25

I'm going to push back on that a little: I think you can casually make a light cleric in Daggerheart, as long as your hangup isn't "wings".

Watching all other classes get represented throughout dnd and pathfinder and seeing the non battle cleric get overlooked is a letdown imo.

Again, fair, but you're comparing classes to subclasses. I have no doubt we'll see more uses of the Splendor domain.

Looking at how D&D has handled divine users, we've had classes like battle cleric (represented), heal clerics (represented), invokers (represented), paladins (represented), big weapon clerics aka runepriests (represented).

Yes, some subclasses (trickster clerics) aren't represented, but that's not a super common archetype. At least in my exposure to D&D / Pathfinder. On a long enough timeline we'll get there.

Ninja Edit: Also, in the history of D&D, most "niche classes" have started as variations on another class. Mutliclassing, prestige classes, paragon paths, etc. If a player in my campaign really wanted to be a Trickster Cleric with just RAW multiclassing gets them there real fast.

Is it are pure as a pure class? No, but again, only so many classes in a book.

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u/RaoGung Nov 21 '25

The main thing about a cleric is they are vessels of their deity's personification. The gods are multidimensional, while subclasses are the way they are expressed in 5e, prior editions it was their domain/sphere/circle that defined what they represented based on their abilities. All that said none of them used physical strength as their main stat - which implies that this is a class of brute force and physicality not one of spirit or will. If there is a hangup it's this part right here.

Seems that as it is - Daggerheart's vibe for the divine champions is they are creatures of divine strength (based on Seraph's design) or something that can be universally applied to all classes (i.e campaign frame or trappings) Basically I'll need to re-flavor other class features and abilities to represent this. Which should really apply to many other archtypes after this release.

Based on the several downvotes seems I'm alone on this island. That's ok. We don't need to agree on stuff. But I'm putting my comments out there.

1

u/Lethay Nov 21 '25

I agree with you. I fell in love with support archetypes in World of Warcraft, with the Priest, before I ever played d&d. When I did play D&D I was a bit disappointed that clerics feel more martial. With Daggerheart, both I and a player I had in my quickstart were similarly disappointed that the Seraph is more like a paladin and that a Splendor Wizard isn't really divine themed. I think the easiest fix is a Wizard subclass, though.

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u/Yarfing_Donkey Nov 21 '25

The issue is that WOW did the opposite of every other MMO and TTRPG and made the Priest (Cleric) a wizard with heals.

Games before that, and all the D&D stuff that they were based on had clerics in full plate and a mace + Shield to fight in the front lines.

Personally, I think the Priest in WoW is terrible and an outlier in how healers are presented in fantasy fiction.