Of all the classes available inDungeons & Dragons,few reach power levels similar to Clerics. Though they’re often seen as the support class (for a good reason, as they can be one of the best healers depending on the subclass), they can be destructive, divine forces of good and evil, featuring many spells exclusive to them.
All that said, how do you make sure the Cleric in your party is still being properly challenged once they get to higher levels and gain access to all this power? From good strategy between baddies to countering spells, you may ensure the difficulty won’t drop just because they can now resurrect people or trap enemies with their magic.
We don’t recommend pulling all those tricks off in the same combat or using them often, though.
You may make your game far too challenging for the player to enjoy or end up killing their character.
Save these tactics for hard encounters, and though using more than one at the same time is okay, using all of them simultaneously isn’t.
5Decent Attack Bonus And Advantage
Make Sure You’ll Beat Their Armor Class
More often than not, Clerics tend to have adecent AC,from using medium armor (or heavy, depending on their subclass) along with a shield, meaning they can start an adventure at level one with 16 to 18 AC right away.
A simple fix here is to just give your enemies a better attack bonus, and you can either do that to minions or, if you don’t want to increase the whole game’s difficulty, you can do that to at least bosses.
Just be careful because that’s a general tip to work on hitting anybody, so you’re not only making your Cleric’s life harder but everyone else’s.
Alternatively, you can create situations where enemies will attack the Cleric with an advantage. It can go from attacking while hidden, flanking them (if you’re using this variant rule), knocking them prone before striking or paralyzing them, among other things.
4Long Rest Ambushes
Take Them Without Their Armor
Night ambushes are a scary moment for most players for many reasons. If a character relies on armor for protection, this is a perfect moment to attack them, as they’ll be far easier to hit when their AC is just ten plus their shield and whatever Dexterity bonus they have — and Clerics don’t tend to have much.
Along with a surprise attack that will definitely scare the party off, it’ll force the Cleric to be mindful of their limited resources, as they won’t have completed their long rest. We just don’t recommend doing an ambush like this if the party is extremely beaten up, or you might end up with a total party kill.
3Focus On The Healer
Fight Smart
If you’re controlling mindless beasts or animals, this entry won’t really apply. But, if you’re controlling people or intelligent enemies in general, they can react accordingly against the Cleric, the person who’s preventing their enemies from dying.
A smart enemy will focus their forces on the healer if possible, ensuring that the party will no longer get healed or resurrected. There’s a good chance that if you throw an entire squad of enemies on the Cleric, they might easily fall or die, but you may also circumvent that byroleplaying their emotions.
You can have cocky enemies who don’t focus as much (but still a little) on the Cleric or divide their forces among all party members (which is the smartest choice in most situations). Still, having some troops or wasting powerful strikes on whoever has healing magic is a smart decision that most people would make in this situation. You can even play dumb at first, roleplaying enemies who are not aware of such powers, but once the Cleric heals someone, they can change their strategy.
2Prevent People From Being Healed
Chill Touch Can Do Wonders
There are quite a few ways to stop people from taking all the advantages that come with healing, and while counterspell is an obvious and efficient method, it’s not the only one. Still, give your more powerful creatures counterspell just in case, or you can even make an annoying group of minions who have it so you can use it constantly.
Other than that, spells that involve restraining or paralyzing will prevent most of them from working, as well as an enemy who can cast big areas of silence, preventing any spell with a verbal component from happening. This will also make them far less efficient in combat along with cut healing.
Even a cantrip as simple as Chill Touch can do wonders here. Multiple minions hitting the party with Chill Touch will not let them recover hit points until the next round, and you can repeat this trick on the next turn.
You can also homebrew spells that cause similar effects to any of the options mentioned here, catching veteran players by surprise.
1Use Spell With Saving Throws
When AC Is High, Use Magic
As mentioned, Clerics have a decent armor class, which will increase further as they level up through better equipment. While that probably won’t stop high-level bosses who have a +14 or more on their attack bonus, not every enemy will be like that.
So, you can make sure you’ll hit them with spells that rely on Saving Throws, such asthe classic Fireball,for example. Clerics will usually be good with Wisdom Saving Throws, making them bad options for mind control or Hold Person, but spells that cause direct damage, like our example, will usually ask for a Dexterity or Constitution Saving Throws, which will have a good chance of success.
Plus, even if the character manages to succeed out of pure luck, they’ll still take half-damage in most cases, meaning they’ll still get hurt regardless of the situation. Only Shield Master would save them here, but this is a rather specific situation, as it is an optional feat. You can still use spells that ask for Constitution Saving Throws, which are also good options, like Heat Metal.
