Peace Domain Cleric Handbook: DnD 5e Subclass Guide – RPGBOT

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine – John Lennon

Introduction

The Peace Domain Cleric is anything but. Such division over the perceived power of this subclass has stirred many a fight. I don’t think it’s a problem though. Runaway math is a problem if it’s just one powergaming munchkin skewing the party average, but Peace Domain is about teamwork and cooperation, adding a little bit to everyone’s d20s. So what if the party is punching a little above their CR? Then let them fight a little above their CR. They’ve clearly asked for that kind of challenge.

Emboldening Bond is the Peace Domain Cleric’s star feature, giving a number of creatures an extra d4 to a d20 roll per turn. It’s great defensively, since a Saving Throw is usually made on the attacking creature’s turn, but only so-so offensively, only providing benefit to outgoing attack rolls (or possible Grapple/Shove checks) and not to the Save DCs that foes have to save against.

The argument against this feature I always see play out is “Oh but what if they start wasting extra resources (Bless, Bardic Inspiration, Built for Success, etc.) to stack up even more bonuses that they don’t really need?” well then they waste more resources and they rest sooner and that invisible timer they don’t know about ticks ever more towards failure.

If you’re here because you’ve heard that Peace is super strong and overpowered and you want to play it to feel super strong and overpowered, I don’t think you will. Instead, everyone else around you will feel super strong thanks to your constant small boost. Is it too much though? I personally don’t think so but the debate is largely undecided and I’m not the only opinion on this site so we’ll provide some reasonable optional adjustments.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Peace Domain Features
  • Peace Domain Problems
• Peace Domain Ability Scores
• Peace Domain Races
• Peace Domain Feats
• Peace Domain Weapons and Armor
• Example Peace Domain Build – No Peace for the Wicked
  • But can I just cast Bless instead for that sweet stacking +2d4?
  • Abilities
  • Race
  • Background
  • Skills and Tools
  • Feats
  • Levels

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Peace Domain Features

1. Domain Spells: Mostly healing and defensive options, but taken as a whole the spells address a variety of problems that an adventuring party will face in typical adventures. With the right spell from the Peace Domain’s spell list, you can prevent or repair most problems which might afflict your party with the exception of actual hit point damage since none of the Peace Domain’s spells restore hit points. Fortunately, you can still depend on your regular allotment of spells, and Channel Divinity: Balm of Peace provides some additional healing.
   1. 1st Level: Excellent defensive options for yourself or an ally.
   3. 3rd Level: Aid is good enough that many people prepare it every day, so getting that for free is fantastic. Warding Bond is more situational, but since Peace Domain is a back-line cleric subclass you’ve got a big pool of hit points which you’re not doing much with so you may as well share it with whoever is serving as your party’s Defender.
   5. 5th Level: Two situational options that you’re not likely to use every day.
   7. 7th Level: A situational defensive buff and a save-or-suck which amounts to a “time out bubble”.
   9. 9th Level: Greater Restoration is only situationally useful, but it’s an essential healing option so having it handy is nice. Telepathic Bond is a huge advantage for adventurers and you should use it frequently.
1. Implement of Peace: A free skill is always welcome. Insight is typically a great choice for the Cleric since it’s Wisdom-based, but Persuasion is also very helpful.
1. Emboldening Bond: This is spectacular. This is basically Bless but with a 10-minute duration and it also applies to Ability Checks. Bless will admittedly be more useful for creatures making more than one attack per turn, but that’s fine. They stack. Let me say that again: Emboldening Bond and Bless stack. Level 1, pick two people and they get +2d4 to attacks and saving throws. On average, that doubles a level 1 character’s expected attack bonus, and saving throws are dramatically less threatening.

   Even better, this whole thing progresses based on your Proficiency Bonus. If you took one level of cleric and never came back, you’re just as good with this feature as a cleric of the same level.

   Emboldening Bond is the Peace Domain’s central feature, and who gets to be part of the bond is an extremely important tactical decision for the Peace Domain Cleric. Since Proficiency Bonus advances so slowly, you can’t cover a full party of 4 until level 9. That somewhat limits the benefits, but if you stay out of trouble and rely on saving throw cantrips like Sacred Flame there’s little reason why you need to be part of the bond. Put it on your front-line allies, and gradually add your back-line allies as your Proficiency Bonus scales.

2. Channel Divinity: Balm of Peace: Not much healing, especially compared to something like Channel Divinity: Preserve Life, but if your party is close enough together you can hit all of them and any pets or summons in the same action, especially if you have a lot of speed and are flying (centaurs and aarakocra are great for this). At low levels, this can prevent a TPK. It’s also a great way to expend remaining uses of Channel Divinity before you take a rest.

   However, as you gain levels its usefulness in combat will diminish, and it will become that thing you use before short rests to save on spending hit dice.

6. Protective Bond: Fantastic both for protecting frail allies like spellcasters (including you, potentially) and for repositioning allies in a hurry. There’s no limitation on how often you can use this beyond their Reaction, and in a pinch you could make an unarmed strike against an ally and use Protective Bond to pull another ally adjacent to the target.

   This does consume the Reaction of the creature that teleports, but that’s a price that is absolutely worth paying for many characters. When people have underutilized reactions to spare, this might see lots of use in combat. If the party is heavily invested into their own reactions on the other hand, it might not get used because the guy who wants to take the hit already used his reaction on a Polearm Master attack and the guy getting attacked is going to just cast Shield to have 24 AC prevent the attack doing any damage in the first place.

   Outside of combat, it does have teleportation utility. If your party includes a familiar, you can put the familiar into your Emboldening Bond (provided that you have space to justify doing so). Familiars get just one hit point, so even the smallest amount of damage kills them and the owner of the familiar needs to invest the time and gold to bring them back. Protective Bond allows you to both keep the familiar alive and use the familiar as a potentially flying teleportation beacon.

   Send the familiar where you need to be, throw a rock at them, then teleport to them and absorb the damage. Your Bonds can similarly punch themselves to trigger teleportation. The entire Bond could even teleport off of one punch, simply have each one react to the damage of the previous reaction trigger.

   Another example of shenanigans: A Path of the Totem Warrior can have resistance to all damage while raging by this level. Throw Heroism (or better yet, have a second Cleric of the Twilight Domain for Twilight Sanctuary) on top of that, and they’re a nearly-bottomless mountain of hit points and can use their Reaction every turn to happily take damage for the rest of the party, conveniently halving all damage that they take all while enjoying Heroism’s perpetually-replenishing pool of temporary hit points.

8. Potent Spellcasting: By this level you can easily have 20 Wisdom, giving an excellent boost to your damage output. Note that this only applies to Cleric cantrips, so you can’t use it in conjunction with Magic Initiate or cantrips gained by multiclassing.
17. Expansive Bond: Considering that Protective Bond has no usage limitaiton beyond taking a Reaction, this is an easy way to effectively give your whole party resistance to all damage by shuffling the damage between members of your party. So long as everyone has a decently pool of hit points (wizards may need be selfish here), everyone can sacrifice a little bit for the whole party to benefit considerably.

Peace Domain Problems

Emboldening Bond does too much at once for how easy it is to get. If it were just saves or just attacks, nobody would be arguing about it, but I don’t think it would be any good if it were just one or the other. Trying to alter what the feature does in search of balance is, in my opinion, a rather foolish amount of effort for something that nobody is going to be happy with.

Instead, I think the answer lies in changing how easy it is to obtain. I propose that Emboldening Bond and Balm of Peace simply swap places, with Balm becoming PB times per LR and Bond becoming the CD, with no other alterations to their internal mechanics. This simple change means that the Bond is no longer the easy dip that it was, while still letting someone who wants to be an actual Cleric still have that strong party support feature.

Peace Domain Ability Scores

Clerics want three things mainly: The Constitution to make Concentration saves, the Wisdom to increase save DCs, and good AC, whether that be Strength for heavy armor or Dex for Medium. Peace Clerics do not get Heavy, so we can leave the Strength and get some Dex.

Str: Dump it, we don’t need it for anything (except possibly if we dip into Fighter start for Heavy).

Dex: We’ll have Medium armor so 14 is enough here.

Con: Maintaining Concentration on powerful spells, be they buffs or area control is so important.

Int: Someone else will have to pick up this slack, we just can’t be good at everything.

Wis: This sets our Spell Save DCs so it’s good to raise it, but if roughly half of what we cast are going to be supportive and buffing spells, which don’t have saving throws, then it can be argued that it doesn’t have to rush to follow the Fundamental Math if we’d like more Constitution.

Cha: We have the option of a free Persuasion proficiency so if we lack Charisma in the party then we might as well handle this.

	Point Buy	Standard Array
Str	8	10
Dex	14	13
Con	15	14
Int	8	8
Wis	15	15
Cha	10	12

Peace Domain Races

Remember to consult the Cleric Races Breakdown for anything not listed here.

• Autognome^SJ:AiS: What if you had more d4s? Well, we’re not really making attack rolls, but they would be nice when making Concentration saves.

Peace Domain Feats

Again, refer to the Cleric Handbook for anything not listed here. I will also discuss some of the options I’ve used in the example build below.

• Medium Armor Master^PHB: This can be used to both increase AC and remove the Stealth Disadvantage from half-plate. Depending on the party’s make-up, it might be useful to go with the sneaky half of the party. This is why it’s orange, it only makes sense if the whole party wants to go in on the tactical espionage action.
• Resilient (Constitution)^PHB: Maintaining Concentration is a big part of how Clerics get things done. Spending one spell slot on ten minutes of Spirit Guardians for potentially multiple fights is super slot efficiency.
• Telekinetic^TCoE: Such a good utility bonus action with no resource cost. Consider Spirit Guardians again for a moment: Using Telekinetic to move creatures into the are on your own turn can trigger the damage, allowing you to double-dip the damage from Spirit Guardians when it again applies when the creature starts their turn in the area.

Peace Domain Weapons and Armor

Few Clerics should be using weapons, and we’re no exception to that fact. We should however be wearing Armor and a Shield.

Without some kind of multiclassing dip to get Heavy Proficiency, we’ll be starting with Scale Mail and looking to upgrade to Half-Plate eventually. As long as we did what we could to start with 14 in Dexterity, Scale + Shield is 18 AC, which is respectable. If Heavy is an option, we’d start with Chain+Shield for the same 18 AC, the only difference being that we could end one AC higher than Medium when we upgrade to Full-Plate.

Example Peace Domain Build – No Peace for the Wicked

One of the funny things about Cleric builds is that the good options don’t change. No matter how good or bad a domain might be, good spell selection is still 90% of being a good Cleric. Peace is interesting because the features play a trick on you. You read Emboldening Bond and you think “Ah ha! I can stack this with Bless and add +2d4 to all the things and we’ll win all the math rocks.” 

But why? Emboldening Bond is there to let you not have to cast Bless, saving spell slots and Concentration for other spells. I’m not saying we’ll never cast Bless, but that Bond frees up our Concentration for other fun things so you’re not absolutely obligated to cast Bless whenever your party wants it. The swirly blendy user-friendly area control kind of things. It’s Spirit Guardians.

It’s almost always Spirit Guardians.

But can I just cast Bless instead for that sweet stacking +2d4?

You can; it’s really good. Especially at the first few levels, when nobody has Extra Attack so it doesn’t matter that Bond only applies once per turn, this combination is amazing (assuming your party has at least a few people who fight by making attack rolls). Thanks to bounded accuracy, it doesn’t really drop off either, as the target AC for at-CR monsters increases at the same rate as proficiency and ability score bonuses.

This means that because the expected target on a d20 at CR is 8, then +2d4 from Bless and Bond will always be the same strength, changing the target from an 8 on the d20 to a 3 on average (Average on 1d4 is 2.5 so 2d4 is 5. 5+3 is 8.) This is a perfectly fine way to play it if you want to just buff everyone else up. To compare this to Spirit Guardians (which we’re going to do more of below), let’s look at a couple things to do with a 5th level cleric.

Any of them can cast Spirit Guardians and it will use a resource you get exactly one of in a day which is also competing with Revivify, meaning if you choose to be a blender and someone dies, they’re just outright dead. The spell will last ten minutes and do less than 9 average damage per target if you use the “65% chance to hit” math that attacks do, which isn’t exactly accurate for saves but is ok as an estimation. Level 5 will see a normally-optimized rogue doing something like 11.5 DPR, a martial defender doing a bit over 11, and your blaster warlock a little more than that.

As the math in the linked articles above shows, bond/bless makes each of them do 50% extra DPR. That’s you causing 17 DPR (about equal to hitting two targets with with your 1/day Spirit Guardians) using resources you can use 3 times a day (meaning probably every fight unless your DM tries to make pacing work in the way it’s badly described in the DMG), while also increasing party defenses, and saving your high level spell slots for a truly dire situation.

The 50% boost will wall off slightly when everyone hits 5th level, and characters who make multiple attacks get less benefit, so fighters, monks, and two-weapon fighting builds benefit the least, while rogues benefit the most since they rely on single attacks. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter similarly benefit a great deal since their attack penalty is negated on average by the +2d4, which also gives us a very simple formula: What if everyone in my party could add +10 damage once per turn?

The actual math is more complicated, but it’s a fine “back of the envelope” estimate, and it points people in the right direction for building the rest of your party. Remember: a small number of high-damage attacks will be better than a flurry of small ones.

The only problem with this combination is how much it turns the math sideways in terms of the dungeon master figuring out what encounters are actual challenges, which is why we generally advocate banning Peace Domain.

Abilities

Clerics have this thing where they need Wisdom and Constitution, as well as some Dexterity to get that AC to where it needs to be. We’re going Custom Lineage with a +2 into Wisdom and the Bonus Feat Resilient (Constitution).

	Base	Increased	Level 20
Str	8	8	8
Dex	14 (15)	14 (15)	14 (16)
Con	15	16	20 (18)
Int	10 (8)	10 (8)	10 (8)
Wis	15	17	20
Cha	8	8	8

Race

Custom Lineage is a perennial favorite thanks to the bonus feat, which we’re using for Resilient (Constitution). We’re putting the +2 into Wisdom, and we’ll take Darkvision. Size is mostly preference, none of the major penalties of picking Small apply to us so choose whichever.

Background

We chose the Acolyte background. Normally this gives Insight and Religion, but as we’re getting those from Peace and Cleric, they can be freely swapped to any skill. Perception and Survival are good matches to our high Wisdom score.

Alternatively, there is a route where we take Stealth instead of Survival, but everything else is the same.

Skills and Tools

From Cleric, we take History and Religion. Peace gives us a few options as well: we’re taking Insight. Acolyte gives us Perception and Survival.

Feats

At first level, we take Resilient (Constitution). It gives us +1 Con, getting us to 16 and shoring up our defenses.

At fourth level, we take Telekinetic, choosing +1 Wisdom. This gives us a powerful bonus action option to move people around, such as pulling them into Spirit Guardians so they take damage twice as often.

At eighth level, an ASI for +2 Wisdom caps us to 20 Wisdom.

At twelfth level, we take Tough to gain more HP because it’s good to have more.
But we have options. If we instead took that 15 Dexterity earlier at creation, Resilient (Dexterity) is an interesting option. It pushes the build in an unusual direction for fun.

At sixteenth level, we’ll take an ASI for +2 Constitution, increasing to 18 Con.

But if we’re in the parallel dimension with 16 Dexterity and Stealth proficiency, we have the option to take Medium Armor Master. This feat will boost AC by another point and remove the Stealth Disadvantage from Scale Mail and Half-Plate. That brings Half-Plate up to match Plate, which is nice.

Why would we move to this strange timeline? If your party happens to enjoy Stealth and Surprise, this is a fun way to support that. Plus, with Emboldening Bond and Guidance giving bonuses to ability checks, this is probably one of the few times you can put the Cleric in the Sneaky half of the party.

At nineteenth level, we’ll take another ASI in Constitution on both timelines, so either 20 or 18.

Levels

1	Bonus Feat: Resilient (Constitution) +1 Constitution (15=>16) Divine Domain: Peace -Emboldening Bond -Implement of Peace Spellcasting -Cantrips –Guidance (c) –Sacred Flame –Toll the Dead –1st-level Spells –Bless (c) –Guiding Bolt –Healing Word –Shield of Faith (c) Domain Spells -Heroism (c) -Sanctuary	For equipment, we can start with scale mail and a shield, so pick that. We don’t need a weapon, so we take a dagger to eat with. At first level our Domain gives us Emboldening Bond which we can use twice a day on two targets. Use it on anyone using attack rolls and see if you can squeeze in two fights with the 10-minute duration. For spells, because clerics can prepare from the whole list every day, I’ll discuss spell options as they become available. Also consult the Cleric Spell Breakdown for anything not covered here. For Cantrips, Guidance, Sacred Flame, and Toll the Dead are staples. Guidance is +1d4 to an ability check in the next minute but it costs Concentration. Want a cheeky trick? Cast it on someone right before kicking in the door to grant +1d4 to the Initiative check. Sacred Flame and Toll the Dead are sources of good damage types. We’ll use them for at least a few levels before we start rolling with enough spell slots to avoid Cantrips. Bless is mathematically a fantastic buff at any level. Emboldening Bond means we’ll be able to cast this less often in favor of other Concentration spells if you’re happy with just 1d4, but the fact that they stack is part of what makes Peace Domain so crazy. Guiding Bolt takes a spell attack roll, so in those cases where we have the Bond, we’ll get that nice +1d4 to the attack. Healing Word to tell people to get back up. Shield of Faith is criminally underrated. If someone is clogging up the doorway to protect the party, add this +2 AC to whatever else they have. In those situations where multiple people might be taking incoming damage, check Heroism below. Heroism is a nice steal from the Bard and Paladin spell lists. It’s no Twilight Sanctuary, but it’s still nice to have. Heroism is great for upcasting onto multiple allies when we’re expecting unavoidable ‘half on a save’ type damage. Sanctuary can be fine in a pinch, like if we’re Concentrating on a spell that won’t break the rules of Sanctuary. As an example, if this is cast while already having cast Bless or Hold Person, none of the rules are broken. Let your allies do the actual violence.
2	Channel Divinity: Balm of Peace	Balm of Peace looks straightforward. Spend an action, move, and heal a bunch of creatures and it can totally be used that way just fine. But it can also be used as a way to pseudo Dash and Disengage at the same time since the action moves us without spending our normal movement. Since it comes back on every rest, saving it to pop right before short rests to save on Hit Dice is another key use for this, especially as we gain levels and the healing per use stays the same.
3	Spellcasting –2nd-level Spells –Enhance Ability (c) –Hold Person (c) –Spiritual Weapon Domain Spells -Aid -Warding Bond (c)	We get some 2nd-level Spells now. Enhance Ability is useful when we expect plenty of skill checks and it’s one of the better examples of “Things Emboldening Bond lets us do instead of Bless.” Hold Person is a good death sentence, especially with a Rogue in the party. Spiritual Weapon is a great use of our bonus action for a few levels, but we’ll cast it less when we can use Telekinetic to pull targets into the edge of Spirit Guardians. Remember that the attack bonus from Emboldening Bond applies to this attack. Aid has a lot of uses; extra maximum hit points are great, especially on mounts who otherwise don’t scale, but so is pseudo Mass Healing Word to stand people up. Warding Bond is dangerous if we’re not careful, so we’d better be careful with it and not just take a ton of damage for no reason. Especially because if we’re caught in an AoE, we’ll end up taking 150% of the damage by taking half of our bond partner’s damage. When you get Protective Bond at 6th level, stop using this.
4	Feat: Telekinetic +1 Wisdom (17=>18) Spellcasting -Cantrip –Light	Telekinetic gives us something great to do with our bonus action. It’s a real multitool, but we’re primarily interested in using it to double dip on Spirit Guardians when we start casting that. We’ll take the Light cantrip now as the Cleric cantrip list is honestly slim pickings past the first few. Even with Darkvision, being able to see something in color is sometimes the whole puzzle.
5	Destroy Undead Spellcasting –3rd-level Spells –Revivify –Spirit Guardians (c) Domain Spells -Beacon of Hope (c) -Sending	3rd-level Spells. Blender online. So we have to pay the Revivify tax. Just make sure to have the material components on hand. Spirit Guardians is a dangerous blender. For the bad guys. For us it’s the happy-fun-time-safe-space. Remember to attempt to pull people onto the edge with Telekinetic for double-dipped damage, which might require moving yourself to position them 5 feet outside of the radius of Spirit Guardians. But Spirit Guardians isn’t our go-to win condition like it is for many clerics. Spirit Guardians is good, but it can’t out-DPR our entire party with +50% DPR (on one attack per round so the exact percentage will vary) unless we’re facing a large number of enemies. Save this for when you’re facing 4 or more enemies that you can put into the blender, and default to Bless+Emboldening Bond the rest of the time. Beacon of Hope is strangely usable for a Peace Cleric. By now we’ll likely only be using Balm of Peace right before short rests, and Beacon’s effect applies to Balm. Right now it’s 16 to every target if combined, but next level when we can Balm twice, it’s 32 to each target. 128 across only four targets, though it can be even more targets if your party is larger than four and/or your party includes pets or NPCs. Sending is nice for sending peaceful messages like “please don’t do that”.
6	Protective Bond Channel Divinity (2/rest)	Protective Bond comes online so now the Bonds can jump in the way of damage for each other. Get down, Mr. President! Maximizing Protective Bond’s benefits requires your party to monitor their hit points and balance the need to use their Reaction. Characters with high hit points can tank hits for injured allies, using a sort of “round robin” system to distribute damage across the party. Area and multi-target healing options like Balm of Peace often provide more total healing, so not only is your party less likely to drop to 0, but you’ll also be able to heal more easily and distribute hit dice usage across the party, stretching limited resources more easily. Of course, that assumes that your party members don’t have something better to do with their Reaction. Sometimes using Shield or Absorb Elements is a better choice, and characters with options like Polearm Master might choose to reserve their Reaction. Also we can Balm twice/rest now, saving even more Hit Dice when short resting.
7	Spellcasting –4th-level Spells –Banishment (c) –Death Ward –Stone Shape Domain Spells -Aura of Purity (c) -Resilient Sphere (c)	4th-level Spells. 4th-level Slots. Upcasting Spirit Guardians is a great way to spend some of these slots. Banishment makes things go away. Possibly forever if they don’t belong in this world. Death Ward is just the spell version of Orc’s Relentless Endurance, but that’s still nice. Stone Shape shapes stone. For example, if our Wizard casts a Wall of Stone in a circle around the party then we cast stone shape to make a single doorway, the party can bring doorway dodging to any encounter we want. Aura of Purity is ok. It provides general protection against some mean effects so it can be nice in the right situations. Resilient Sphere is a timeout bubble. Use it when something is too charismatic to Banish, I guess.
8	Potent Spellcasting ASI: Wisdom +2 (18=>20)	Potent Spellcasting is ok. We should have enough spell slots to not need Cantrips anymore, but it doesn’t hurt to have them as an option. Wisdom goes up, and that’s great for our spell save DCs.
9	Spellcasting –5th-level Spells –Holy Weapon (c) Domain Spells -Greater Restoration -Telepathic Bond (r)	5th-level spells. Not a lot of good choices. Our domain list even has one of the better options. So probably just upcast more Spirit Guardians. It’s not going to stop being the best spell on our list for handling crowds. Holy Weapon can be the right choice in some situations. In particular if you have Fighter making plenty of attacks this can do a lot of single target damage. Greater Restoration is the aforementioned good option already prepared for us. It’s really nice to have it ready when we need it to remove debilitating ailments. Telepathic Bond solves a lot of communication problems.
10	Divine Intervention Spellcasting -Cantrip	Divine Intervention is a 1 in 10 chance to get a free spell cast. Not something to rely on but when the chips are down, roll it. Your cantrip choice is pretty much whatever you want at this point. We have all the good ones.
11	Spellcasting –6th-level Spells –Heal –True Seeing	6th-level Spells. A few good options, and for once maybe don’t just Upcast Spirit Guardians, we’ll only have a single 6th-level slot until 19th level. Heal is good to get someone’s HP back quickly. True Seeing sees the truth. Handy to have when you need it.
12	Feat: Tough	More hit points are always welcome, especially if you’re occasionally taking hits from the Protective Bond.
13	Spellcasting –7th-level Spells –Plane Shift	Most of the 7th-level Spell options are super niche utility spells or something you can just wait a day to prepare. That means our 7th-level Slot is ripe for Upcasting. Wouldn’t it be weird if we had a spell with a friendly-fire safe AoE that did 7d8 to foes stuck inside. This is why I’m so adamant about making sure our Concentration saves are solid. We hate losing such a high level slot. Plane Shift is a good utility option but unless we’re actively on a different plane, we don’t need it every day. Fun trick it can pull though: If the party enters a rope trick, then you’re on a different plane so you can use it to functionally teleport.
14		The only thing here is an improvement to the Destroy Undead feature of Turn Undead. I haven’t been talking about it because it’s just kind of there and would use up our uses of Balm.
15	Spellcasting –8th-level Spells –Holy Aura (c)	Holy Aura is quite ridiculous as far as defensive buffs goes. Advantage on all Saves and imposing Disadvantage on incoming enemy attacks.
16	ASI: Constitution +2 (16=>18)	We’ve been Concentrating on a lot of spells and we’d like to keep Concentrating.
17	Expansive Bond Spellcasting –9th-level Spells –Mass Heal	Expansive Bond increases the range out to 60 feet, which is helpful since higher-level enemies are often larger and your DM may be putting you in encounters which are more spread out at this level. More Importantly, Protective Bond now gives Resistance when taking a bullet for an ally, making the round robin damage distribution strategy doubly effective Which is a good way to spread the damage evenly before casting Mass Heal. Convenient.
18	Channel Divinity (3/rest)	We can triple the Beacon of Hope+Balm of Peace trick now, which would be 51 per target, 204 spread across 4 people. That’s honestly not too shabby. For reference, this character ends up at level 20 with 243 HP, so that’s a little over a fifth of our total hit point maximum.
19	ASI: Constitution +2 (18=>20)	More HP, better Concentration.
20	Improved Divine Intervention	Now we don’t have to roll, it just happens. Free spell effect once per week.