Baldur’s Gate 3: Best Cleric Build [Race, Ability Points & Spells]

The Cleric in Baldur’s Gate 3 has most of its playstyle and builds based on healing yourself and your allies and engaging in ranged and melee combat. This makes Clerics one of my favorite classes in the game, and I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have a Cleric at your party.

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Key Takeaways

• The subclass for our Cleric build is undoubtedly the Life Domain, which complements the Cleric’s spellcasting, healing, and supporting abilities.
• This build is based on the High Elf race as it provides an extra Cantrip, and the background is Folk Hero as the skills complement the Cleric’s primary ability: Wisdom.
• The playstyle with this build is to remain far from your enemies and support your team with buffs.
• Moreover, this build has two ranged damaging spells if you need to get into the action.

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Build Overview

Here is the build overview that you are looking for.

Subclass: Life Domain.

Race: High Elf.

Background: Folk Hero.

Deity: Any – Roleplay purposes.

Ability Points: Strength – 9, Dexterity – 16 (+1), Constitution – 14, Intelligence – 9, Wisdom – 16 (+2), and Charisma – 10.

Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Thaumaturgy, Balde Ward, and Light.

Spells: Healing Word, Bane, Command, and Guiding Bolt.

Gear: Prefer Medium Armor, Shield, Longbow, and Longsword.

Subclass

The Cleric class features seven subclasses, and choosing for your character can be daunting, especially when you have many options. I mean, it took me a reasonable amount of time to pick a sub-class, and hopefully, this guide can help you cut that time. Here is a breakdown of all the subclasses, which will better help us choose the correct subclass.

As for why a more aggressive subclass was not chosen, the Cleric is a pretty squishy class with a good mastery in spellcasting, so the Cleric should focus more on supporting and healing the allies and leave the head bashing to the Barbarians, Fighters, etc. of the group.

Speaking of Fighters, you can also check out our extensive best Fighter build in Baldurs Gate 3 for an ideal playthrough experience. 

Race

There are 11 races to choose from in Baldur’s Gate 3, so which one is the best for a healing and damaging Cleric build? As discussed in our Best Race Choices guide, the prime options for a Cleric are the Gold Dwarf, High Elf, and Wood Elf. 

Category	Gold Dwarf	High Elf	Wood Elf
Race Traits	Base Racial Speed (9m) Dwarven Combat Training Darkvision (12m) Dwarven Resilience	Darkvision (12m) Keen Senses Fey Ancestry Perception, Longsword, Shortsword, Longbow, Shortbow Proficiency	Darkvision (12m) Keen Senses Fey Ancestry Perception, Longsword, Shortsword, Longbow, Shortbow Proficiency
Subrace Traits	Dwarven Toughness	Medium Size Base Racial Speed (9m) High Elf Cantrip	Fleet of Foot (10.5m) Stealth Proficiency

Best Race & Traits Table.

Realistically, these race choices would work well for a Life Domain Cleric build. My best choice for this build would be the High Elf race, as it gets a powerful Cantrip when your whole thing is spellcasting.

You will mostly remain at range, healing and supporting your allies and damaging the enemy with ranged attacks, so the High Elf makes sense.

High Elf has good weapon proficiency, so you can still partake in old-fashioned combat. If you want your Cleric to be a little more tanky, the Gold Dwarf is the way to go, as it provides you with Dwarven Resilience and Toughness, though you do miss out on the High Elf Cantrip.

Background

Although it may seem like these are only for roleplaying purposes, let me tell you that these backgrounds make a difference in how other characters interact with the player.

The background affects your starting proficiencies and may grant you some special quests related to your background. Not only that, but they also influence how your character perceives different situations, dialogue options, and how the NPCs react to you.

There are 12 background options, and choosing the right one may seem overwhelming. An important thing to note is that the Cleric’s primary ability is Wisdom, and its Saving Throw Proficiencies are Wisdom and Charisma. These will play an essential role in our background decisions. Moreover, each background provides you with two proficiencies.

Only one option makes sense here: the Folk Lore background. Here is an overview of it.

Background	Description	First Proficiency	Second Proficiency
Folk Hero	You're a champion of the common people, challenging tyrants and monsters to protect the helpless. Saving innocents in imminent danger will make your legend grow.	Animal Handling: Wisdom Skill. Able to calm down domesticated animal, control a mount through a Wisdom check, and comprehend an animal's intentions	Survival: Wisdom Skill. Survival checks for following tracks, hunting, guiding your group, predicting weather, and avoiding natural hazards.

Folk Lore Table.

From the table, it should be obvious how the Folk Lore background synergizes with the Cleric class: the Wisdom skill checks for both proficiencies.

Deity

Worshipping a deity is an exclusive feature. There are a total of 27 different deities to choose from. Choosing a deity is entirely up to personal preferences.

Although they might alter some dialogues with NPCs, they do not significantly impact the game, so selecting the deity that aligns with your character’s personality and moral compass for roleplay is recommended.

Ability Point Distribution

Ability points are the base stats for your character. They determine the outcome of most of your interactions, such as combat, perception, saving throws, etc.

It is vital to pick the right Ability Points for each ability as they should complement your class and build. 

It is important to note that as the primary ability for Cleric is Wisdom, we have invested a lot of points in it as your primary ability should be strong.

I have also allocated many points to Dexterity as we want the best chance to land our hits and prevent getting one shot by the enemy. This is important, considering we are going for a squishy Cleric, not a tanky one.

Ability	Points	Assign Bonus
Strength	9	-
Dexterity	16	+1
Constitution	14	-
Intelligence	9	-
Wisdom	16	+2
Charisma	10	-

Ability Points Table. 

Cleric Skill Proficiency: Religion & Medicine.

Cantrips & Spells

When creating a character in Baldur’s Gate 3, you can choose your Cantrips and spells depending on your class and race. By default, you can choose three Cantrips as a Cleric; however, we selected the High Elf race to get an extra one, totaling four Cantrips.

For spells, you can choose four of them.

As we are going for a support Cleric, we only have one damaging Cantrip, and the rest are for helping our party defeat the enemy. The Fire Bolt was chosen as it is ranged and does decent enough damage.

The Thaumaturgy and Blade Ward Cantrips support the team by intimidating the enemy and buffing our teammates’ resistance. Moreover, the Light Cantrip can help a party member see in the dark if their build does not feature the Darkvision trait.

Cantrip	Source	Description	School	Range
Fire Bolt	High Elf Cantrip	Hurl a mote of fire.	Evocation	18m
Thaumaturgy	Cleric Cantrip	Gain Advantage on Intimidation and Performance Checks.	Transmutation	Self
Blade Ward	Cleric Cantrip	Gain Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage from weapon attacks.	Abjuration	Self
Light	Cleric Cantrip	Infuse an object with an aura of light. Only affects one target at a time.	Evocation	Melee

Cantrips Table.

Continuing with the theme of the build, the spells chosen are a mix of healing, damaging, and nerfing the enemies so your team has a better chance of defeating them.

Spell	Description	School	Range
Healing Word	Heal a creature you can see.	Evocation	18m
Bane	Up to 3 creatures receive a -1d4 penalty to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws.	Enchantment	9m
Command	Command a creature to flee, move closer, freeze, drop to the ground or drop their weapon.	Enchantment	18m
Guiding Bolt	Call forth a beam of light that grants Advantage on the next Attack Roll against the target.	Evocation	18m

Spells Table.

Best Gear

Gears and Equipment in Baldur’s Gate 3 is a vast topic. You cannot isolate a set of gear and say that this is the best for Cleric as there are so many different available in Baldur’s Gate 3. However, it would be best to aim for Medium Armor and Shield, as Clerics have proficiency in that.

Regarding other types of protection, it is just a numbers game, and you should aim for whatever provides the highest stats. Moving on, you should aim for a good Longbow and Longsword for the weapons, as the High Elf race has good proficiency.

My Thoughts On Cleric Build

The Cleric class became essential to my gameplay in Baldurs Gate 3. Luckily, the game sent me Shadowheart as the necessary Cleric for my party. Moreover, I was pretty impressed by her spells and abilities, as this class is essential if you want to recover a little bit of Hit Points.

However, if you are building a Cleric from the ground up, it may get a little bit overwhelming. Therefore, I hope this guide helped you build one of the best Clerics for your playthrough. It is an excellent choice for most parties, especially if you are playing with your friends who did not bother to pick the Cleric.

Check out similar guides:

• Baldurs Gate 3 Best Wizard Subclass.
• Baldurs Gate 3 Best Druid Build.
• Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Builds.