Archivist—Cleric Archetype

Archivists seek out esoteric sources of divine lore, wherever those sources might be, securing those secrets for themselves and their fellow scholars.

Level Features
1st Divine Recovery, Spellcasting
2nd Lore Mastery
3rd Divine Domain
… —
10th Expanded Lore Mastery

Summary

Archivists use Intelligence instead of Wisdom, and focus more on the study of lore than they do the martial arts.

＋Gain＋

  • Divine Recovery (as Wizard’s Arcane Recovery)
  • Lore Mastery (Expertise in knowledge skills)
  • Arcana, Investigation, and Nature as skill options
  • Proficiency with calligrapher’s supplies
  • Wizard-style ritual casting

– Lose –

  • Downgrade medium/heavy armour proficiency by one step
  • Shield proficiency
  • Channel Divinity and Turn Undead (mostly)
  • Insight and Persuasion as skill options
  • Divine Domain delayed until level 3
  • Only automatically prepare one domain spell per spell level
  • Must find and learn spells

Basic Features

Proficiencies

Armour: Archivists are proficient in light armour. If a Divine Domain would grant you proficiency in heavy armour, you become proficient in medium armour instead. Archivists do not gain proficiency with shields.
Skills: Select two from Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, and Religion.
Saving Throws: Intelligence, Wisdom
Tools: Archivists are proficient with calligrapher’s supplies.

Starting Equipment

You start with the following items, plus anything provided by your background.

Alternatively, you may start with 125 gp (5d4 × 10 gp) to buy your own equipment.

Esoteric Study

Archivists use Intelligence as their primary ability score, rather than Wisdom. Your spellcasting ability is Intelligence instead of Wisdom, and any Cleric feature, Divine Domain feature, &c. that normally uses Wisdom uses Intelligence instead. You gain proficiency in Intelligence saving throws instead of Charisma saving throws.

Divine Recovery

You have learned to regain some of your magical energy through prayer and study of your prayerbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your archivist level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

For example, if you’re a 4th-level archivist, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots.

You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots.

Spellcasting

As a student of the divine, you have a prayerbook containing spells that show the first glimmerings of your true power. See chapter 10 of the Player’s Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the cleric spell list.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know three cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list. You learn additional cleric cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Cleric table (PHB, p. 57).

Prayerbook

At 1st level, you have a prayerbook containing six 1st-level cleric spells of your choice. Your prayerbook is the repository of the cleric spells you know, except your cantrips, which are fixed in your mind.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Cleric table (PHB, p. 57) shows how many spell slots you have to cast your cleric spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of cleric spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of cleric spells from your prayerbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your archivist level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

For example, if you’re a 3rd-level archivist, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With an Intelligence of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination, chosen from your prayerbook. If you prepare the 1st-level spell guiding bolt, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of cleric spells requires time spent studying your prayerbook: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Ritual Casting

You can cast a cleric spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your prayerbook. You don’t need to have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Ability

Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your cleric spells, since you learn your cleric spells through dedicated study and exegesis. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spellcasting Focus

You can use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus for your cleric spells.

Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher

Each time you gain an archivist level, you can add two cleric spells of your choice to your prayerbook. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the Cleric table. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your prayerbook (see “Your Prayerbook”).

Your Prayerbook

The spells that you add to your prayerbook as you gain levels reflect the esoteric research you conduct on your own, as well as divine revelations you have had about the nature of the deific. You might find other spells during your adventures. You could discover a spell recorded on a scroll in a church library, for example, or on an ancient stele in an even older temple.

A prayerbook doesn’t contain cantrips.

Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a cleric spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your prayerbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.

Copying a spell into your prayerbook involves reproducing the basic form of the spell, then deciphering the unique system of notation used by the priest who wrote it. You must practice the spell until you understand the sounds or gestures required, then transcribe it into your prayerbook using your own notation.

For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells.

Copying from a Spell Scroll. A cleric spell on a spell scroll can be copied just as spells in a prayerbook can be copied. When you copy a spell from a spell scroll, you must succeed on an Intelligence (Religion) check with a DC equal to 10 + the spell’s level. If the check succeeds, the spell is successfully copied. Whether the check succeeds or fails, the spell scroll is destroyed.

Replacing the Book. You can copy a spell from your own prayerbook into another book—for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your prayerbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your prayerbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell.

If you lose your prayerbook, you can use the same procedure to transcribe the spells that you have prepared into a new prayerbook. Filling out the remainder of your prayerbook requires you to find new spells to do so, as normal. For this reason, many archivists keep backup prayerbooks in a safe place.

The Book’s Appearance. Your prayerbook is a unique compilation of spells, with its own decorative flourishes and margin notes. It might be a plain, functional leather volume that you received as a gift from your head priest, a finely bound gilt-edged tome you found in an ancient library, or even a loose collection of notes scrounged together after you lost your previous prayerbook in a mishap.

Lore Mastery

At 2nd level, your long study of the esoteric and occult has given you insight many others lack. Choose either Arcana, History, Medicine, Nature, or Religion; you must be proficient in the chosen skill. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses the chosen proficiency.

At 10th level, you may choose a second skill from the list.

Divine Domain

At 3rd level, you choose one domain related to your deity from the list of available domains. Each domain is detailed in their own feature, and each one provides examples of gods associated with it. Your choice grants you domain spells and other features when you choose it at 3rd level. It also grants you additional benefits at 6th, 8th, and 17th levels.

Archivists do not gain the Channel Divinity or Turn Undead abilities, but you can activate your Divine Domain’s Channel Divinity abilities by expending a 2nd-level or higher spell slot instead. Once you do so, you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Domain Spells

Each domain has a list of spells—its domain spells—that you gain at the archivist levels noted in the domain description. When you gain a domain spell, you may inscribe it into your prayerbook at no cost. You can always add a domain spell you’ve gained to your prayerbook, as though you have it prepared.

Whenever you finish a long rest, choose one domain spell of each spell level you can cast in your prayerbook: you have those spells prepared until you finish a long rest, and they don’t count against the number of spells you can prepare each day.

If you have a domain spell that doesn’t appear on the cleric spell list, the spell is nonetheless a cleric spell for you.

Modified Divine Domains

Divine Domains function slightly differently for the Archivist. Such changes are listed below, for each domain.

All Domains

Initial Divine Domain features are gained at third level, not first. If a Divine Domain would grant you heavy armour proficiency, you gain medium armour proficiency instead.

Arcana Domain

When you gain the Arcane Initiate feature, if you already have Lore Mastery in the Arcana skill, you instead gain proficiency in History, Nature, or Religion.

Knowledge Domain

When you gain the Blessings of Knowledge feature, choose only one skill instead of two. (Expertise does not stack: you gain no benefit choosing a skill both here and as your Lore Mastery.)

Inquisition Domain

When you gain the Orthodox Scholarship feature, choose only one skill instead of two. (Expertise does not stack: you gain no benefit choosing a skill both here and as your Lore Mastery.)