Divinely Favored 5e

Published on December 28, 2023

Unleash divine power in D&D 5e with the Divinely Favored feat! Find the perfect spells and classes for your celestial-empowered might.

A divinely favored angel unleashes a wave of destruction in D&D 5e

Campbell White - Wizards of the Coast - Invoke the Divine

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What Is Divinely Favored 5e?

Divinely Favored is a feat introduced in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. This setting has a prominent focus on character alignment and the god’s interaction with the world, and this feat reflects those themes.

Divinely Favored represents a god’s selection of the character to wield a fragment of divine power, granting them access to unique spells.

How Does Divinely Favored Work?

Upon taking this feat, your character learns one cleric cantrip and one 1st-level spell based on their alignment:

Good alignment characters choose a 1st-level cleric spell
Evil alignment characters choose a 1st-level warlock spell
Neutral alignment characters choose a 1st-level druid spell

Additionally, characters gain the 2nd-level ritual spell augury.

They can also cast the chosen 1st-level spell and augury without using a spell slot, though this can only be done once per long rest. Alternatively, these spells can be cast using available spell slots. The spellcasting ability for these spells is chosen when you take the feat and can be Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.

Lastly, the character can now use a holy symbol as a spellcasting focus for any spell cast using the chosen ability.

Is Divinely Favored Good?

In our 5e Feats Tier List, Divinely Favored was given a B Tier rating, making it a niche feat that can improve some builds in D&D 5e.

A cantrip, a 1st-level spell of your choice from your alignment’s spell list, and a 2nd-level ritual spell may seem like it’s providing more value than Magic Initiate, but in actuality, it’s a good deal less powerful.

While the cleric cantrip list is pretty strong and a 1st-level spell off the warlock, cleric, or druid spell list is going to be beneficial, most of the time, I’d rather have two cantrips of my choice than a cantrip and augury.

What Spells to Choose?

Cleric Cantrips:

Guidance: Offers a consistent d4 bonus to ability checks to you or your party.
Sacred Flame: Reliable damage cantrip that targets Dexterity and ignores cover.
Toll the Dead: Potentially the strongest cantrip, if used against a damaged enemy.

Cleric 1st-Level Spells:

Bless: Boosts attack rolls and saving throws for your party.
Command: Varied spell that has a ton of uses.
Guiding Bolt: Deals good radiant damage and grants advantage on the next attack against the target.
Healing Word: A d4 heal that can be cast as a bonus action, perfect for reviving downed allies.
Shield of Faith: Increases your or an ally’s AC.

Warlock 1st-Level Spells:

Armor of Agathys: Provides temporary hit points and damages attackers, excellent for melee builds.
Hellish Rebuke: A reaction spell that deals damage to your attacker when hit.
Hex: Adds 1d6 necrotic damage to each hit and provides disadvantage on certain ability checks for the target, great for builds with multiple attacks.

Druid 1st-Level Spells:

Absorb Elements: Reaction that offers resistance against elemental damage and boosts the next attack.
Entangle: Controls the battlefield by restraining multiple enemies, great for crowd control.
Healing Word: A d4 heal that can be cast as a bonus action, perfect for reviving downed allies.
Thunderwave: Effective for dealing area damage and pushing enemies away, useful for creating space in combat.

Holy Symbol Focus

Getting access to the holy symbol focus is quite mechanically interesting. What’s really cool about this focus is you can bear this symbol on a shield or wear it visibly. This means that, even if your hands are full with a one-handed weapon and shield or two one-handed weapons, you can still cast spells requiring material and somatic components.

However, as Sage Advice states, you cannot cast a spell that requires somatic but not material components in this way.

This kind of only matters for martial spellcasters who will likely take War Caster anyway, so it definitely doesn’t matter too much.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Divinely Favored?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Divinely Favored 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

Artificer: Artificers can select supportive or defensive spells like guidance, bless, shield of faith, and even armor of Agathys. The holy symbol focus may not work for artificers because the rules state that they must have thieves’ tools or some kind of artisan’s tool in hand when they cast any spell.

Barbarian: While armor of Agathys would be great on barbarians, spending an entire feat to cast it once a day doesn't feel worth it.

Bard: Bards can utilize spells like healing word or guiding bolt effectively, and sacred flame is a solid offensive cantrip for them. The flexibility of the holy symbol focus is beneficial for martial builds, like Swords or Valor bards.

Cleric: This feat has a lot of overlap with features clerics already get. If you need a spell from outside your spell list, grab Magic Initiate or Fey Touched.

Druid: Druids struggle with offense sometimes, so taking sacred flame and guiding bolt isn't a bad look. But taking Magic Initiate and getting a second cleric cantrip will give you more value than augury.

Fighter: This provides a decent amount of value to baseline fighters, who can grab a solid cleric cantrip and either armor of Agathys or hex. That said, it is absolutely incredible for Eldritch Knights, who can expand their spell repertoire and skip having to take War Caster to be effective spellcasters in combat.

Monk: Monks have decent Wisdom, so the spells they pick up can be effective in combat, rather than simply taking support spells. Sacred flame can give you a good offensive ranged option and hex could be incredible with all the attacks you get per turn.

Paladin: Grabbing some ranged cleric cantrips can help fill a gap in the paladin's playstyle. Also, grabbing an extra 1st-level spell and some free spellcasting never hurt.

Ranger: This feat provides a huge amount of value to rangers, especially those who like to fight with a weapon and shield. Any of the listed cleric cantrips would be effective, and grabbing armor of Agathys or shield of faith would help their survivability.

Rogue: Getting free castings of guidance will be nice for your rogue's skill checks and spells like armor of Agathys or shield of faith would help their survivability. This is even better for Arcane Tricksters, who get spell slots they can use to cast these spells multiple times per day.

Sorcerer: The inclusion of spells like guiding bolt or hex can augment a sorcerer's offensive capabilities, but Magic Initiate is going to provide more value.

Warlock: More spells and free castings are always beneficial for warlocks. Make sure you choose a spell that scales, so that you can use it with your warlock spell slots. The holy symbol doesn't matter much, except for Hexblades, who are going for the sword-and-board.

Wizard: The inclusion of spells like guiding bolt or hex can augment a wizard's offensive capabilities, but Magic Initiate is going to provide more value.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.