Speaking only for myself, I am looking forward to playing a new Trickery Cleric. I've not done so in 5e (created one, but the game quickly collapsed), but I am excited about the challenge of making it work.
Will it be optimal? I doubt it. But my sense from the playtest is there is a lot more potential than there has been before.
a. clearer rules on illusions are promised. This is a biggie. Illusions have always been a "Mother may I" school of casting (to use a phrase deployed in the cleric video for other purposes), and I'm hoping (as I have hoped
here and
here) that 2024 PHB will reduce this aspect.
b. the trickery cleric gets a few illusion things that the illusionist doesn't (and I'll just say -- they've really amped the illusionist, and it's now much more exciting than it has been (for me) since AD&D). Blessings of the Trickster (stealth advantage, now for self as well) is nice, but it's no Pass Without Trace; it may allow some truly superhuman effects though if stacked. For most games, though, the trickery cleric will come down to two abilities.
1. Invoke Duplicity (at 3). Making an illusory double of yourself is cool, and I have no idea (yet) what to do with is. The fun/challenge will be trying to make this actually do something. Yes, you can have advantage on attack rolls, but cleric damage spells (certainly the cantrips) don't involve attack rolls (another longstanding hobby horse of mine). You can swap places up to 120' away, but it's a lot of work when so many other classes have flight or teleporting abilities.
2. Trickster's Magic (at 6). Illusion spells go from an action to a bonus action. Awesome, except that the old cleric list only had silence at this level on the core list. Will that increase? If not, then you have only the trickster illusion spells -- at 6 that's Disguise Self, invisibility, and Hypnotic Pattern. That's slim pickings, but I can see having fun with any of these combining them as a bonus action with an attack. (Again, the attack needs an attack roll: if you make yourself invisible (bonus) you then get an attack with advantage -- it becomes costly, through.)
c. This means that in making the build, I am going to want to increase the number of illusion spells available to the character, and have a solid attack (cantrip or weapon) that will work will with bonus-action illusions.
- Gnome or High Elf can get Minor Illusion cast with Wisdom.
- Magic Initiate as a Background Feat can give you Color Spray or Silent Image. This will also give you an attack cantrip, which will need a to-hit roll, which the Cleric won't otherwise have (if True Strike stays the same, that lets it be a weapon attack, benefiting from Wis).
- a 1-level dip in Warlock can give you Misty Visions which lets you cast Silent Image without a spell slot. That means a bonus-action Silent Image every turn if you want, possibly giving yourself cover over and over again (for example) after every attack. [Of course, this is all just using playtest materials -- there will be changes]. For what it's worth, this really doesn't need to kick in until you have the ability at level 6, at which point it may not be desirable -- the first six levels are still cleric, and the dip may not be in fact desirable at that point.
Anyways -- an idea for a Trickster cleric emerged from re-reading a Fritz Lieber story, and these are the parameters that they will have to work around. Depending on the guidelines they give us for illusions, this might be one of my first post-PHB2024 characters.
