Is it just me, or is Spirit Guardians overpowered?

[thereaper]

When you get right down to it, it's effectively +3d8 damage in melee every turn (better, in fact, because it's AoE). The fact that it allows a wisdom save doesn't really matter, because there's no practical difference between making an attack roll versus forcing an enemy to roll a save.

Throw in Divine Strike and Spiritual Weapon, and it seems to me like Clericzilla is alive and well.

[Ace Jackson]

When you get right down to it, it's effectively +3d8 damage in melee every turn (better, in fact, because it's AoE). The fact that it allows a wisdom save doesn't really matter, because there's no practical difference between making an attack roll versus forcing an enemy to roll a save.

Throw in Divine Strike and Spiritual Weapon, and it seems to me like Clericzilla is alive and well.

To speak even more to your side, it's worse then the save vs attack equivalency, because a failed save here still means 1/2 damage as opposed to a flat miss.

However I would also point out that while this is a potent spell, it's not quite all it appears to be, for one it's concentration, so if it doesn't go down in a round, and you get hit by the enemy, especially archers who should be out of the spell's range, you are liable to lose it pretty quickly. Also, on the wizzard list you have stinking cloud with a larger area of effect, total enemy immobilization on a failed save, and a shorter concentration time so you never feel as though you lost as much use if you lose concentration.

Also, divine strike applies to weapon attacks, not spell attacks, so no stacking it with spiritual weapon, though shillelagh may be fair game.

[thereaper]

I'm doing a flat warrior-to-warrior comparison here. Wizards need not apply.

Divine Strike is for the Cleric's weapon. He attacks, gets the equivalent of another attack from Divine Strike, gets another attack with Spiritual Weapon, then gets the equivalent of yet another attack with Spirit Guardians.

The issue with concentration is that between Resilient (Con) and Warcaster (both of which our hypothetical Cleric will certainly get), the Cleric should have at least an even chance of keeping Spirit Guardians up for the three rounds the battle is likely to last. Then he just begins the process again in the next battle.

[Ashrym]

When you get right down to it, it's effectively +3d8 damage in melee every turn (better, in fact, because it's AoE). The fact that it allows a wisdom save doesn't really matter, because there's no practical difference between making an attack roll versus forcing an enemy to roll a save.

Throw in Divine Strike and Spiritual Weapon, and it seems to me like Clericzilla is alive and well.

It also lets the cleric select targets, which is nice. Party friendly AoE damage is a plus.

The spell combos nicely with sanctuary.

The issue is it's still slow damage that's spread out on a limited resource, but at least it adds over time potential. Extra attacks continue to be better focused damage.

[Slipperychicken]

When you get right down to it, it's effectively +3d8 damage in melee every turn (better, in fact, because it's AoE). The fact that it allows a wisdom save doesn't really matter, because there's no practical difference between making an attack roll versus forcing an enemy to roll a save.

Throw in Divine Strike and Spiritual Weapon, and it seems to me like Clericzilla is alive and well.

It makes me wonder how long the Cleric will be able to keep his concentration up, since he's in melee range and is making himself a pretty big target. If he can maintain concentration despite the attention he's attracting, then I think this will be a good combo.


As for as Clericzilla shenanigans, we can add in shillelagh (magic initiate or nature domain) so he can safely pump wisdom and constitution and the expense of strength. By round 3, he's putting out three damage effects per round, all keyed off his primary stat (one magic weapon attack for 2d8+wis, one spell attack for 1d8+wis, then the AoE for 3d6 and halved speed).

Taking polearm master with his shillelagh-ed quarterstaff would let him save slots on Spiritual Weapon and use his bonus action to attack, bringing us to a total of one 2d8+wis attack, one 1d4+wis attack, and the 3d6 AoE from Spirit Guardians. If he can pre-buff Shillelagh and Spirit Guardians (the former is a cantrip and the latter has a 10 minute duration), I think the Cleric can be pretty competitive with non-caster melee.

[Giant2005]

Taking polearm master with his shillelagh-ed quarterstaff would let him save slots on Spiritual Weapon and use his bonus action to attack (which adds Divine Strike), bringing us to a total of one 2d8+wis attack, one 1d8+1d4+wis attack, and the 3d6 AoE from Spirit Guardians.

Divine Strike is once per round.

[Slipperychicken]

Divine Strike is once per round.

I always forget things like this... Editing the post now to reflect that.

[Ace Jackson]

I'm doing a flat warrior-to-warrior comparison here. Wizards need not apply.

Divine Strike is for the Cleric's weapon. He attacks, gets the equivalent of another attack from Divine Strike, gets another attack with Spiritual Weapon, then gets the equivalent of yet another attack with Spirit Guardians.

The issue with concentration is that between Resilient (Con) and Warcaster (both of which our hypothetical Cleric will certainly get), the Cleric should have at least an even chance of keeping Spirit Guardians up for the three rounds the battle is likely to last. Then he just begins the process again in the next battle.

Alright, factoring in the feats the cleric is at least level 4 if variant human, but let's say he's level eight, he can do this combo exactly four times a day if he does absolutely nothing else with any of his slots above level 2.

Barbarians at this level have four rages, which confer damage reduction, and plus two damage to every attack for two attacks a turn, plus much more HP, more movement speed, and advantage on initiative before factoring in any subclass features.

Fighters have had an extra ASI, have slightly more HP, a fighting style, like GWM with rerolling 1s and 2s, also attack twice, have second wind, action surge, and one of the archetypes and all relevent abilities under there.

Monks have 8 ki points, attack with a monk weapon twice, attack with an unarmed strike as a bonus action at d6, or use a ki point to strike twice, deflect arrows, slowfall, stun strike, evasion, and subclass features here as well.

For comparisons sake, the cleric also has two channel divinity uses, three domain features, and the ability to destroy undead of CR1 or less at the expense of one of the channel divinity uses.

On the whole I'm not seeing too much imbalance, but then again, I haven't done all the math exactly.

Well, I've been late to the party...

[Giant2005]

If we work out the Cleric's offensive potential like the DMG suggests we do with monster's offensive CR (Relevent rules: AOEs are expected to hit 2 targets, targets always fail their saves, average damage inflicted over first 3 rounds of combat), the Cleric's average damage is: (18D8+4D6+6D8+20)/3 = 47.3 if he is using a Greatsword and has +5 Wis and Str (First round Spiritual Guardians, second and third rounds spiritual weapon + Greatsword attack). That isn't terrible but it isn't particularly impressive either when you compare it to a Warlock's Eldritch Blast which is 4D10+20 = 42 average damage per round.

EDIT: Had the numbers wrong. I thought Spiritual Guardians inflicted 3D6 when it inflicts 3D8. That results in an extra 6 DPR which has been accounted for above.

[Ace Jackson]

If we work out the Cleric's offensive potential like the DMG suggests we do with monster's offensive CR (Relevent rules: AOEs are expected to hit 2 targets, targets always fail their saves, average damage inflicted over first 3 rounds of combat), the Cleric's average damage is: (18D6+4D6+6D8+20)/3 = 41.3 if he is using a Greatsword and has +5 Wis and Str (First round Spiritual Guardians, second and third rounds spiritual weapon + Greatsword attack). That isn't terrible but it isn't particularly impressive either when you compare it to a Warlock's Eldritch Blast which is 4D10+20 = 42 average damage per round.

Plus if he has +5 wis and +5 str he probably doesn't have both resilient con and warcaster, he might not even have either of them. Rendering the concentration requirement relevant in this case.

Come to think of it, if he's using a great sword he's not using a shield, which lowers the AC and leads to questionable visibility and effect of the holy symbol for spell casting to begin with. Sure, he can have an amulet, but... nothing since the PHB has nothing special regarding amulets or reliquaries. Cede that one.

[rhouck]

If we work out the Cleric's offensive potential like the DMG suggests we do with monster's offensive CR (Relevent rules: AOEs are expected to hit 2 targets, targets always fail their saves, average damage inflicted over first 3 rounds of combat), the Cleric's average damage is: (18D6+4D6+6D8+20)/3 = 41.3 if he is using a Greatsword and has +5 Wis and Str (First round Spiritual Guardians, second and third rounds spiritual weapon + Greatsword attack). That isn't terrible but it isn't particularly impressive either when you compare it to a Warlock's Eldritch Blast which is 4D10+20 = 42 average damage per round.

Thanks for the math. Identifying (as you did) that it takes until round 2 to even come online is important, as when I used it in play, it felt like combat was almost over by the time everything was cast (while the duration allows for it to be precast, that just doesn't seem to happen often). And that required the expenditure of a level 3 and level 2 slot, including concentration which precludes competing spells like Bless. And that's compared to a warlock just pew pewing with a cantrip.

I think it's a very effective combo against many minions over a long fight, but is not overly impressive against fewer big foes. As a 6th level tempest cleric, I found casting thunder wave out of a 3rd level slot paired with channel divinity to be a far more eyebrow raising combo. The ability to burst tends to be more valuable than dpr due to average combat length, and the cleric is weaker at burst than most classes.

The overpowered talk seems to stem from theorycrafting re the cleric sprinting around a battlefield and hitting 20 enemies per turn with it.

[Flashy]

Here's an odd question: How does Spirit Guardians interact with Find Steed? Does the steed get a horrible death nova too?

[MrStabby]

Yeah, its a good spell but not excessive. It is especially good at level 5 but becomes less significant beyond that.

Combats for me last about two rounds - for most of them. Sometimes three. This means number of creatures hit by this is probably just those within range when the spell goes up. As clerics dont tend to have awesome Dex it is probably a 50% chance that the enemies will get a go before the cleric anyway.

This gives a 9d8 damage over a couple of turns. Compared to other uses of a level three spell slot - it isnt too much. Fireball on two targets would be 16d6 damage - quite a bit more and in less time.

Even with this it's only twice per day - and unless you are dashing from fight to fight you will not always get multiple fights from it. Yes, for 20 minutes per day (unless you fail a con save) at level 5 you might be able to use all your highest level spell slots to slightly out damage a fighter but to me a caster exchanging sustained damage for the ability to shine in a couple of encounters per day isn't overpowered - its the class' distinguishing feature.

[Pex]

Just because a player character gets to do something awesome doesn't mean it's overpowered, including spellcasters casting spells.

[Callin]

I played a Paladin 2/ Light Cleric 9 once that used this for Crowd Control mostly. Sentinel with Sword and Board because I liked it. The extra damage is nice but the CC is what really sold me on it.

[thereaper]

By my math, a level 14 Wis 18 Str 16 Cleric using a Greatsword, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians will inflict 41 dpr if he lands everything (2d6+3+2d8+1d8+4+3d8). And he will have enough spell slots to do it in 6 separate battles. And this ignores the fact that using higher level spell slots means Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon will do even more damage.

By comparison, a Greatsword-wielding Str 20 Fighter will be doing 39 dpr if he lands everything (3*(2d6+1+4)).

The more I look at it, the harder it is for me to see how this could be balanced. The only real drawbacks are the concentration checks (which the Cleric can easily make with the right feats) and the fact that Spirit Guardians requires giving up an action on the turn you cast it, which is more than made up for in the face of the extra damage from using it in higher spell slots. Even the Fighter's Action Surge can't make up for that.

[ProphetSword]

Spirit Guardians seems powerful on the surface. I had some worries about it when the cleric in my game started casting it all the time. What I noticed, though, was that as the fights got tougher, Spirit Guardians seemed less effective.

I think this is because the hit points of the monsters increase so much. In addition, intelligent opponents will tend to try to take the cleric out, while unintelligent creatures will move out of the area of effect, making it hard for the cleric to keep them all in the spell's effect as they spread out.

The mage in the party does far more damage with his castings of Wall of Fire than the cleric does with Spirit Guardians.

[thereaper]

The Wizard (in theory) pays for it by being squishier. This isn't about the Wizard. This is about the Cleric seemingly once again being able to make the Fighter redundant.

Fortunately, the Paladin is still safe, because she at least gets Aura of Protection (which, as far as I'm aware, is after a certain point the only practical defense for the party against saves that they aren't proficient in short of spending their Bardic Inspiration dice).

[Flashy]

This is about the Cleric once again being able to make the Fighter redundant.

Or the Bard.

[JNAProductions]

Two higher DPR for an entirely melee focused Cleric? That's, um... Not exactly a huge deal.

[thereaper]

That doesn't take into account other domain features, 1st level spells, and so on.

And it makes the Cleric almost strictly better than the Fighter, which is the problem.

[JNAProductions]

For a few encounters a day. I believe the theorycrafting, but I don't think it's really a table issue.

[Giant2005]

The Wizard (in theory) pays for it by being squishier. This isn't about the Wizard. This is about the Cleric seemingly once again being able to make the Fighter redundant.

That is a bit of a stretch... The Cleric will never keep up with the Fighter's damage in any consistent manner.
The numbers you posted above are obviously heavily skewed - the Cleric is 3 levels higher than the Fighter and has been given an extra turn in those calculations. It also excludes both feats and magic weapons from the calculation, both of which obviously heavily favor the fighter. It also ignores all of the Fighter's class abilities. Comparing a Cleric throwing everything he has into a Fight against a Fighter that is actively restraining himself is no way to compare classes. The fact that you did so and the Fighter still only came out 2 DPR suggests that the Fighter would be far superior in damage if he wasn't so restrained.

[Psikerlord]

IMO spirit guardians is strong but not OP. It's concentration after all and requires the cleric to get in close. As a spell it is also susceptible to dispelling and counterspelling, and it is a limited resource. If the cleric has taken con resilience and warcaster he will tend to keep it going longer, but then it cost him 2 feats to do that, which is fine in my view.

I certainly don't think a warrior style cleric invalidates a fighter, but there can be a fair bit of cross over. The fighter however has free short rest heals and great burst with action surge.

[thereaper]

That is a bit of a stretch... The Cleric will never keep up with the Fighter's damage in any consistent manner.
The numbers you posted above are obviously heavily skewed - the Cleric is 3 levels higher than the Fighter and has been given an extra turn in those calculations. It also excludes both feats and magic weapons from the calculation, both of which obviously heavily favor the fighter. It also ignores all of the Fighter's class abilities. Comparing a Cleric throwing everything he has into a Fight against a Fighter that is actively restraining himself is no way to compare classes. The fact that you did so and the Fighter still only came out 2 DPR suggests that the Fighter would be far superior in damage if he wasn't so restrained.

The Fighter was level 14 as well. The Cleric doesn't get an extra turn; his loss of an action in the first round is mitigated (and then some) by the fact that most of his Spiritual Weapons and Spiritual Guardians over the course of the day will be cast using higher-level slots than 2nd and 3rd, which means even more damage. Plus, there's nothing stopping him from pre-casting his buffs.

But yes, let's throw feats and Fighter subclass into the mix. Let's say the Fighter has Resilient(whatever), since the Cleric did. Let's say the Fighter is a Battlemaster and has Martial Adept for an extra superiority die (let's also say he has the Sentinel feat, because otherwise he's nowhere near the melee utility of Spirit Guardian's slowing capability). This gives the Fighter 18 Superiority die over the course of a typical day (assuming two short rests). Assuming he burns them all on extra damage and that the average combat lasts 4 rounds, that means that over the course of the day the Fighter's Superiority dice are giving him an average of (18/28)*d8 extra damage, which comes out to just under 3 more dpr for the Fighter.

But wait, we didn't specify the Cleric's domain. So let's say Tempest. That means that twice each short rest, the Cleric can double the damage from his divine strike. So that's an extra 2d8 thunder damage four times a day, which adds (8d8/28) extra dpr, which adds just over 1 dpr to the Cleric. Throw in the AoE of Spirit Guardians, and the Cleric is once again definitely ahead.

And this is without the Cleric giving up his 1st level slots (which he can still use to cast Healing Words at the cost of some dpr if the need comes up).

More importantly, it doesn't matter if the Cleric has 10 or 2 dps over the Fighter. If he is even 90% as good at the Fighter's job as the Fighter while still being able to do his job as a Cleric, then the Fighter is effectively obsolete, because a Fighter with 3 Healing Words per day and Guidance is a heck of a lot better than a Fighter without those things that gets slightly higher damage.

[Ashrym]

By my math, a level 14 Wis 18 Str 16 Cleric using a Greatsword, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians will inflict 41 dpr if he lands everything (2d6+3+2d8+1d8+4+3d8). And he will have enough spell slots to do it in 6 separate battles. And this ignores the fact that using higher level spell slots means Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon will do even more damage.

By comparison, a Greatsword-wielding Str 20 Fighter will be doing 39 dpr if he lands everything (3*(2d6+1+4)).

The more I look at it, the harder it is for me to see how this could be balanced. The only real drawbacks are the concentration checks (which the Cleric can easily make with the right feats) and the fact that Spirit Guardians requires giving up an action on the turn you cast it, which is more than made up for in the face of the extra damage from using it in higher spell slots. Even the Fighter's Action Surge can't make up for that.

You are missing accuracy difference, fighting style, bonus ASI's, bonus attack action the fighter can have, or subclass options.

If you just go with damage and not other considerations EK enlarged 5 encounters with GWM and GWF and PAM can still have 20 STR for 3d10+5d4+20+40 with rerolls for 75.5 damage; +3d10+3d4+15+30 more on a surge.

I would look more closely at more options and variables before committing to your assertion.

[Malifice]

I'm doing a flat warrior-to-warrior comparison here. Wizards need not apply.

Divine Strike is for the Cleric's weapon. He attacks, gets the equivalent of another attack from Divine Strike, gets another attack with Spiritual Weapon, then gets the equivalent of yet another attack with Spirit Guardians.

The issue with concentration is that between Resilient (Con) and Warcaster (both of which our hypothetical Cleric will certainly get), the Cleric should have at least an even chance of keeping Spirit Guardians up for the three rounds the battle is likely to last. Then he just begins the process again in the next battle.

I'll happily go toe to toe with this cleric 5 with my raging, Str 18, GWM, axe using frenzy barbarian 5.

You're getting three attacks a round back at you at +2 (with advantage) dealing 1d12+17 damage per hit.

Good luck making a concentration save against even one of those hits.

I have around 55 hit points. I should last about three rounds taking damage from the spell and your attacks.

Or an action surging, S and B BM fighter.

Bonus action to shove you prone. Followed by 4 attacks at +7 with advantage dealing 2d8+6 damage each.

Or a paladin smiting. Even a DW rogue at that level deals 5d6+4 DPR (conservatively) while halving the damage he takes back in return via uncanny dodge.

It's no more imprssive DPR than any of the above, and it's useable once per day at 5th level.

Doesn't look broken to me at all.

[thereaper]

The trick doesn't work at low levels, because the Cleric won't have enough spell slots to do it for more than one or two battles.

As for your challenge at higher levels, I can't speak for the Barbarian or the Rogue because I haven't looked very deeply into them. And as for the Paladin, it doesn't even matter because a Paladin of 6th level or higher can earn his place in a high-enough level party simply by being present, even if he isn't actually doing anything (+4 or +5 to everybody's saves means a lot when nobody can get more than three saving throw proficiencies).

[Slipperychicken]

By my math, a level 14 Wis 18 Str 16 Cleric using a Greatsword, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians will inflict 41 dpr if he lands everything (2d6+3+2d8+1d8+4+3d8). And he will have enough spell slots to do it in 6 separate battles. And this ignores the fact that using higher level spell slots means Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon will do even more damage.

By comparison, a Greatsword-wielding Str 20 Fighter will be doing 39 dpr if he lands everything (3*(2d6+1+4)).

The more I look at it, the harder it is for me to see how this could be balanced. The only real drawbacks are the concentration checks (which the Cleric can easily make with the right feats) and the fact that Spirit Guardians requires giving up an action on the turn you cast it, which is more than made up for in the face of the extra damage from using it in higher spell slots. Even the Fighter's Action Surge can't make up for that.

Several problems here:

• Level 20 fighters attack four times with their action, not three.
• Greatsword-weilding fighters will typically have great weapon fighting style. That means the 2d6 will average to 8.33, not 7.
• A fighter will almost always have feats to support his fighting style, in this case almost certainly Great Weapon Master. Even without the power attack, that gives him pretty good chances of an additional attack each round (18.55% chance to crit at least once on four d20 rolls [47.80% if the fighter is a Champion, critting on 18-20], in addition to his chance to reduce an opponent to zero hit points with one of those). I will represent this as adding a fifth attack roughly every other turn, or .48 an attack on average.
• A level 20 fighter can action surge twice in a short rest. This is quite significant, especially if the party tends to get short rests between fights.

Even without power attacking, a level 20 champion fighter is doing upwards of (4.48* ( [2d6 reroll 1s and 2s]+5)) = 59.72 damage per round, assuming that his attacks hit and his criticals are cancelled out by low damage rolls. If he power attacks wisely, he can boost his expected damage. This is also ignoring the facts he can action surge twice per short rest to burst farther ahead of the cleric, that the fighter does not need a buff-round to get going, and will not need to make concentration saves.

A non-champion can use other means to improve his damage. An EK for example, can cast Haste four times per day, giving him an extra attack. His damage would look more like (5.18*([2d6 reroll 1s and 2s]+5))= 69.05. There may be other more efficient ways for an EK to use his remaining spells, like perhaps casting enlarge.

[DemonSlayer6]

I play in a party that normally has a Fighter, a Cleric, a Sorceress, a Druid, a Monk, and my Bard. And what I have noticed is:

• The Sorceress increases damage output proportionately to the number of enemies. Unload a spell on 9 enemies, and that's at least 40d6 (max 240 damage output, or DO) damage dealt.
• The Cleric increases damage output proportionately to the number of enemies, but does so more consistently. He can do 8d8 per turn total against 3 to 4 people (max 64 damage per round or DPR), but then has to hold it for 4 or 5 rounds to beat out the Sorceress in total damage.
• The Monk does less raw damage than the Cleric, a standard 2d6, but is able to burst multiple times for 4d6 per round. Plus, ability score modifier enabling this to be an effective 5d6 to 7d6 damage.
• The Fighter does consistent damage. Yes this is only 2d8 per turn which is less than a surrounded Cleric, but does this regardless of whether there's one enemy or ten. Also, this gets the ability modifier added to each attack, making an effective 3d8 to 4d8.

Let's assume that "random encounters" can be split between "large" and "small" parties of enemies. Let's also assume that said encounters can be split between "high level" and "low level" enemies.

The Sorceress is best against large parties with low-level enemies. The Cleric is best against large parties with high-level enemies. The Fighter is best against small parties with high-level enemies. The Monk is best against small parties with low-level enemies.

----

In fact, the usual tactics are for the Sorceress to explode everything. Then the Cleric takes the the largest group, the Fighter takes the strongest enemy one-on-one, and the Monk takes out the mooks that threaten the Cleric and/or the Fighter.

The Druid and Bard...We fluctuate between "small parties with high-level enemies" and "large parties with low-level enemies". Shatter is a CON save for 3d8 THUNDER to each creature in a 10-foot radius (meaning up to 10 targets); Moonbeam is prolonged a CON save for 2d10 RADIANT for up to 4 targets. That's 30d8 (up to 240) total damage output and 8d10 (up to 80) DPR.

Meanwhile, a 4d6 great sword with multi-attack permitted Opal the Bard to slay a two-headed giant single-handed. And two giant Seagull/Vulture hybrids working together make even a basilisk into easy prey. So no matter what we face, no one has to face it alone.