These people never consider the always prepared spell list when they write this stuff. The ten spells that the subclass adds to the cleric’s kit are a vital part of understanding how powerful that subclass is.
Take Trickery cleric. (A certain goblin who visits this place is a trickery cleric.) - the “I can make a silent clone of myself” feature isn’t that powerful… it’s sometimes helpful as a distraction, and sometimes helpful in combat to deliver touch spells, but it’s concentration which makes it hard to use effectively. It’s especially hard to use at higher levels when you want that concentration slot for other spells. However! Trickery cleric gets disguise self, dispel magic, blink, dimension door, polymorph, and modify memory, a whole host of useful effects that largely sit outside a cleric’s normal capabilities. Trickery is quite a powerful subclass purely on the strength of the extra spells, not because of its regular features.
Oh, and they also get Pass Without Trace.
Twilight domain gets Sleep as a domain spell - that’s really good at low levels, and if your DM likes to provide complex or weird situations, it’s surprisingly handy. In player surveys, Twilight Domain is viewed as the most powerful cleric subclass.
These people never consider the always prepared spell list when they write this stuff. The ten spells that the subclass adds to the cleric’s kit are a vital part of understanding how powerful that subclass is.
Take Trickery cleric. (A certain goblin who visits this place is a trickery cleric.) - the “I can make a silent clone of myself” feature isn’t that powerful… it’s sometimes helpful as a distraction, and sometimes helpful in combat to deliver touch spells, but it’s concentration which makes it hard to use effectively. It’s especially hard to use at higher levels when you want that concentration slot for other spells. However! Trickery cleric gets disguise self, dispel magic, blink, dimension door, polymorph, and modify memory, a whole host of useful effects that largely sit outside a cleric’s normal capabilities. Trickery is quite a powerful subclass purely on the strength of the extra spells, not because of its regular features.
Oh, and they also get Pass Without Trace.
Twilight domain gets Sleep as a domain spell - that’s really good at low levels, and if your DM likes to provide complex or weird situations, it’s surprisingly handy. In player surveys, Twilight Domain is viewed as the most powerful cleric subclass.