In this article, we’re sharing our list of the top 10 best magic items for clerics in 5E D&D! The list focuses on flavorful and non-legendary magic items featured in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, presented in no particular order.
1. Necklace of Prayer Beads
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
A necklace of prayer beads is an awesome magic item for clerics!
The necklace comes with 1d4 + 2 beads, each of which allows you to cast a specific spell as a bonus action! This means you’ll be able to use your Challenge Divinity, attack an enemy, or cast a cantrip while also casting a spell, such as bless, greater restoration (without material components!), or cure wounds.
If you’re really lucky (or your DM really, really likes you), you can even acquire a necklace of prayer beads that’ll let you cast planar ally – a 6th-level spell with a casting time of 10 minutes that usually costs a wobbling 1,000 gp worth of spell components – for free as a bonus action once per day.
2. Ring of Spell Storing
More magic means more awesome, and with a ring of spell storing, that’s exactly what you get! This ring can store up to 5 levels worth of spells (such as three 1st-level spells and one 2nd-level spell, or a single 5th-level spell). While filling it up with 1st-level cure wound spells whenever you go to sleep with spell slots to spare is great, what really makes this ring a great magic item is that any creature can store spells in it. So, if you can convince your wizard to fill the ring up with misty step or shield (which is great when your AC is already relatively high), this ring becomes even more awesome!
3. Cloak of Displacement
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
Whether you’re acting as the party’s sole healer or more of a frontliner, staying alive is crucial – and one of the best ways to stay alive is to avoid being hit by your foes. Since you’ll probably have a pretty decent AC as a cleric, few items are greater at securing that than a cloak of displacement. Mimicking the displacer beast from the Monster’s Manual, this cloak causes you to project an illusion of yourself, which basically causes all attack rolls against you to have disadvantage.
Although the effect ceases to function until your next turn if you take any kind of damage – and is completely suppressed if you’re unable to move – it’s safe to say that this is an extremely powerful buff. I’ll spare you the deep dive into the probability calculations (you can find a breakdown here), but to give you an example, you’d have less than a 10 percent chance of rolling 15 or higher on a D20 with disadvantage compared to a 30% chance without disadvantage. That’s pretty huge!
If you’re not a fan of numbers, you can think of it as permanently having the effects of the 2nd-level spell blur, except that the effect deactivates temporarily if you take damage but doesn’t require you to concentrate on it (with the added benefit of a cloak of displacement, or not being hit in general, also makes it less likely you’ll concentration on your spells!).
4. Sentinel Shield
A sentinel shield is a decent shield for almost any class – but for a cleric with a high Wisdom, it’s even better! With this shield, you gain advantage on initiative rolls (which is great, considering combats tend to last only a few rounds) as well as advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks, which is arguably the most important skill in 5E D&D. This also grants you a +5 bonus to your passive Perception score, meaning you’ll likely never be caught off-guard!
5. Staff of Healing
Sometimes, you don’t really want to spend your spell slots on continuously healing your reckless party members – and sometimes you simply have no more divine-juice. That’s when you want a staff of healing!
This staff comes with 10 charges that you can use to cast cure wounds (1 charge per level of the spell, to a maximum of 4th level), lesser restoration (2 charges), and the 5th-level spell mass cure wounds (5 charges), making it a great magic item for clerics – especially if you’ve chosen the Life Domain.
6. Adamantine Armor
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
It sucks to be almost instantly downed by a critical hit, but with an adamantine armor, you’ll no longer have to worry about that! All this item does is to turn critical hits against you into normal hits, but it doesn’t need to do anything beyond that to make the list of the best magic items for clerics in 5E!
While this list focuses on magic items from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I feel I should also give a shoutout to guardian emblem from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. This emblem does almost the same except that it requires attunement, can only be used three times daily, and you must use a reaction to use it. However, the emblem also lets you turn critical hits made against allies into normal hits, which makes it much more versatile and, in my opinion, fits super well with the typical role of a cleric!
Another buffed version of adamantine armor is Mizzium armor from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. It basically does the same but has the added benefit of the rogue’s Evasion feature for Strength and Dexterity saving throws instead of Dexterity saving throws.
7. Wand of.. whatever
Even a wand of magic missiles can be a decent magic item for clerics! Snippet from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck!
There are a ton of great wands that are great for a cleric. For example, a wand of polymorph and a wand of fireballs gives you access to numerous daily uses of a great spell that isn’t on the cleric’s spell list. Likewise, if you’ve chosen the Tempest Domain, letting you use your Channel Divinity to max out any thunder or lightning damage you deal, a wand of lightning bolts is an incredibly powerful magic item!
8. Ioun Stone of Insight & Ioun Stone of Mastery
Ioun stones are strange magic stones that orbit your head and grant some kind of benefit. The best ones for clerics are an ioun stone of insight (a very rare magic item that grants you a +2 bonus to your Wisdom score, to a maximum of 20, unfortunately), and the legendary ioun stone of mastery that simply raises your proficiency bonus by 1, which is an incredible buff. If your DM is ruthless, there are some issues tied to these stones due to the fact that your enemies can snatch them mid-air, or even attack and potentially destroy them, which would be a let-down.
9. Cloak of Protection & Ring of Protection
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
There isn’t much to say about a cloak of protection and ring of protection except that they are pretty awesome. Both grant a flat +1 bonus to your AC and saving throws, which is great for almost any class – including clerics!
10. +1-3 Armor & +1-3 Shield
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
Any armor or shield that gives you a flat bonus to AC is a really great magic item for a cleric. These plain +x magic items (weapons included) don’t even require attunement! A bit vanilla and uninspiring, but very powerful indeed.
Honorable Mentions
To round off the list, I have a few honorable mentions of items that didn’t make the list for one reason or the other.
Amulet of the Devout
Amulet of the devout is for the cleric exactly what a rod of the pact keeper is for the warlock – in other word a super powerful magic item that increases your spell save DC! The amulet comes in three variants, with the uncommon granting a +1 bonus to your spell attacks and spell save DCs, a +2 bonus for the rare version, and a wobbling +3 bonus for the very rare variant. As an added bonus, the amulet also lets you use your Challenge Divinity feature without expanding its use once per day.
The only reason I didn’t put this magic item on the list is because I’ve been focusing on items from the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the amulet of the devout is from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Amulet of Health
As a cleric, you usually want to max out your Wisdom while also raising either your Strength or Dexterity a bit – and then you want a decent Constitution score. Getting all of this doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for also picking up optional feats, and you’re going to have to choose what stats you want to prioritize. An amulet of health makes this decision a lot easier as it sets your Constitution score to 19, which is pretty awesome.
Snippet of magic item card handout from our 5E Magic Item Card Deck! Check it out here.
Mace of Disruption, Devotee’s Censer, Duskcrusher etc.
If you’re a cleric who likes to jump into melee and hit stuff with a mace, all of the above are some decent and flavorful magic items. Mace of disruption is the only one of the lot from the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Conclusion
That’s our top 10 list of the best magic items for clerics in 5E D&D! As always, let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree with our picks – and share your own favorite magic items for clerics in 5E.
And, if you love magic items as much as we do, don’t forget to check out our deck of premium magic item card handouts with amazing art for the 300 most iconic 5E D&D magic items here – and get your own deck of printed magic item card handouts at an affordable price, ncluding a dedicated Deck of Illusions & Deck of Many Things!
