Trickery Domain 5e: The Ultimate Guide for Clerics who want to create mischief and challenge authority

Think of your typical cleric. What are they wearing? Which weapon are they wielding? Which god do they pray to?

Chances are, you are picturing a glorious hero in shiny silver armor, wielding a mighty sword or a gigantic hammer. They pray to a god who teaches the laws of honesty and goodness. At least this is the type of cleric most people imagine when hearing about this class in Dungeons and Dragons.

What if I told you there is a subclass that turns this approach on its head? The Trickery Domain subclass lets you create a cleric, a disruptive force in the world. Instead of relying on people's goodness, they prefer subterfuge and pranks to confrontation with them.

Usually, Trickery Domain Clerics are chaotic good characters who seek to undermine oppressive governments or hierarchies. They pray to patrons of thieves, scoundrels, gamblers, rebels, and liberators. So they are not naturally evil characters. They are willing to achieve the right outcome by unconventional means. Their gods of trickery are a constant challenge to the accepted order among gods and mortals.

So, if you are planning to play a cleric who couldn’t be further from what you are expecting of a cleric and who offers magic deception, illusion, and a good portion of stealth, you seriously should consider a trickery domain cleric as your next character.

In this article, we will take a close look at the Trickery Domain 5e. What spells it offers, what advantages it brings, and when you should choose this subclass.

Trickery Domain Feats

Just like any other cleric subclass, you can choose this subclass as soon as you have put in three levels into your cleric. Even if you are multiclassing, three levels are enough to get your first tools from this subclass. These feats are directly coming from the new 2025 Player’s Handbook.

Blessing of the Trickster - Level 3

With the first level of the trickery domain, you get the Blessing of the Trickster. This action allows you to give yourself or any willing creature within 30 ft. advantage on stealth checks. The effects last until you finish your Long Rest or you use this feature again.

So immediately with your first level in this subclass, you can see where this is going.

Invoke Duplicity - Level 3

The next big thing you gain at level three with this subclass is the Bonus Action Invoke Duplicity. So, already with level three, you gain an action and a bonus action from this subclass.

Invoke Duplicity allows you to expend one Channel Divinity to create a visual illusion of yourself. You can cast this illusion in any unoccupied space you can see in 30 feet. The illusion itself is intangible and does not occupy space. So allies and foes can walk through the space that you chose for your illusion.

The illusion itself lasts for 1 minute if you don’t decide to dismiss it or if you have the Incapacitated condition. Your expressions and gestures are animated and mimicked by your illusion.

While the illusion persists, you gain the following benefits:

• Cast Spells

The illusion allows you to cast spells as if you were in the illusion’s space. So if you fall

short on range, you can use your illusion's position to gain those extra feet. However, you

are forced to use your senses. So if a spell requires you to see the target, you and not

your duplicity must see that creature.

• Distract

When both you and your illusion are within 5 ft. of a creature, you gain advantage on

attack rolls against this creature. This is similar to sneak attacks from a rogue; besides

that, it has to be your illusion and not an ally, and you don’t gain any extra dice.

• Move

As your Bonus Action, you can move your illusion up to 30 ft. to an unoccupied space.

You can do this as long as you can see your illusion and you are within 120 ft. of your

illusion.

To summarize, the Invoke Duplicity Spell will be your go-to feat for the trickery domain subclass. You should use it as early as possible during an encounter, as other feats, which will be discussed soon, are heavily relying on Invoke Duplicity.

Spells - Starting Level 3

Beginning with level three, your trickery domain cleric gains access to the following spells:

Cleric Level	Prepared Spells
3	Charm Person, Disguise Self, Invisibility, Pass without a Trace
5	Hypnotic Pattern, Nondetection
7	Confusion, Dimension Door
8	Dominate Person, Modify Memory

These spells are always ready and can be used by you on demand.

Trickster’s Transposition - Level 6

The Trickster’s Transposition is the first feat your cleric receives, which heavily relies on your duplicity. Whenever you take your Bonus Action to create or move your illusion, you can instead choose to teleport to its place and change position with it.

Especially during combat, this can become a handy tool to control the map. As this swap does not provoke opportunity attacks, you can either use it as an escape route or position yourself better on the battlefield.

Improved Duplicity - Level 17

With this feat, your duplicity grows even more powerful. This happens in the following ways:

Shared Distraction:

Remember that if you and your duplicity are within 5 ft. of a creature, you gain Advantage on attack rolls? Now you and your allies gain advantage on attack rolls if your duplicity is within 5 ft. of a creature. This nice little support tool is a great way to enable Sneak Attack without any of your allies being in hand-to-hand combat.

Healing Illusion:

When your illusion ends, you or a creature of your choice within 5 ft. of it regains several Hit Points equal to your Cleric level.

As you can see, trickery domain clerics don’t need many levels to become useful. However, in later levels, they are heavily reliant on their Duplicity. Always keep this in mind when choosing to play this subclass.

Ability Scores for Trickery Domain Clerics

Usually, Clerics rely on Wisdom and their Constitution for casting their spells and sustaining a ton of damage. However, as we have established already, trickery domain clerics are not your usual type of cleric.

To sell their tricks, they rely more on dexterity and/or charisma than your typical cleric. So when choosing to play this subclass, you will have to make up your mind. Do you want to play a charismatic-chameau type of cleric? Someone who just uses their good looks and silver tongue to convince people not to fight with them, and that their views might be wrong. Or do you want to play a more roguish-dexterous cleric? Someone who causes chaos by placing traps and creating mischief. Depending on which play style you prefer more, this will be the Ability Score you will have to prioritize first. Your second choice should always be Wisdom. This is your primary ability for clerics.

To finalize, you have the free choice of which ability score you want to prioritize. If you are planning to play a front-line tank, you should focus on Constitution. If you don’t want to be limited by your Simple Weapon proficiency, you have to have skill in Strength and choose a feat that allows you to wield martial weapons like Weapon Master.

Lineages for Trickery Domain Clerics

When it comes to this specific subclass, there are no Lineages that take a clear first place. Technically, you can choose any lineage you want, as there will be no consequences that will make your character unplayable.

However, if you have to choose a lineage, we would go for a Half-Elf. This lineage allows you to increase your Charisma by 2 and two other ability scores by 1. This way, when playing a charismatic cleric, you will have a head start. Also, the different versatilities allow you to customize your character the way you want it to be.

If you are looking for a more dexterous character, you might want to consider a Kenku or Tabaxi. Both Lineages allow you to increase ability scores to your liking. This way, you can build your cleric to your liking.

Feats

As you might have noticed, it gets trickier the further we dig into this subclass. At the end of the day, it all boils down to what kind of character you want to play. However, there are a couple of feats that are generally better than others for this class.

Magic Initiate

The Magic Initiate feat allows you to learn two cantrips from a different class than your own. Also, you can choose one level 1 spell from the same class. This feat will give you a great addition to your character, as the choice is completely up to you. Spells like Booming Blade or Minor Illusion will make a great addition to your spell list as they will open you to a whole new world of ways to solve tricky situations.

Skill Expert

Skill Expert is another great skill you might want to consider. This feat allows you to add +1 to any ability you like and enhance one proficiency you already have. For this skill, you now have expertise, which basically means you can double the proficiency bonus you make for that skill. So, a charming trickery domain cleric with proficiency in Persuasion will now become an Expert in that field. So your chances of succeeding this particular skill check are as high as they can be.

Other Feats to consider

Lucky

This feat is generally a good thing to have. It allows you to reroll a failed saving throw. So if you don’t know which feat to choose, it is always a good thing to have a fail save for failing on a throw.

Mobile 

Another great feat that technically works with every class and lineage. The Mobile feat allows you to increase your speed by 10 ft. Further, using the dash action on difficult terrain does not cost you extra movement on that turn. Also, you do not provoke opportunity attacks from any creature you made a melee attack in the same turn. Depending on which type of cleric you are playing, this can become a great addition.

Weapons for Trickery Domain Clerics

As we have established, building a trickery domain cleric requires a bit of rethinking of what you might believe a cleric is. As you put a lot of points into your dexterity, you can use this for your weapon of choice. Here are a couple of weapons you might want to use for your new cleric

Crossbow, light

Everyone needs a ranged weapon, and so do clerics. The light crossbow should be your go-to ranged weapon. This weapon requires no extra training while dealing a good amount of damage. So, if you don’t want to be too reliant on ranged spells, you might want to consider taking this weapon along with you during your adventures.

Dagger

Just like a go-to ranged weapon, this is your go-to melee weapon. Daggers, in general, are a versatile and great weapon of choice. They don’t require any training and have the thrown property. This allows you some unique play-styles when it comes to combat.

Rapier

Just like Daggers, Rapiers are a great weapon in general. They are also simple weapons that don’t require special training. They deal more damage than daggers, but they lack the thrown property, limiting your fighting style to simple pokes against enemies.

Final Thoughts: Trickery Domain 5e

I know that the trickery domain subclass is not for everybody. If you play your cards right, you barely have a real cleric anymore (at least what people think a cleric should be like).However, if you are planning on playing a more bard-rogue-like cleric, this is your class. You will have to give up on the idea that you will be the hero in shiny armor for everyone.

With their high dependency on their duplicity trickery domain clerics don’t bring too many extras to a battle. 

Trickery Domain Clerics are by far not the most powerful clerics, but they are the most interesting ones. So if you do want to play a cleric, which does not feel like one, this is your subclass!