Warpriest is not well planned out

[David Bowles]

I find the warpriest has many of the same problems as a melee cleric: action economy when the battle starts.

My proposal would be to make the warpriest a derivative of the magus, and give the warpriest the ability to cast spells on himself when he strikes a foe; somewhat like a reverse spellstrike.

Also, give them interesting abilities in the forms of "divine arcanas" just like the magus has.

[Razh]

A "divine magus" of sorts, eh? It does sounds interesting...

[ChainsawSam]

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I agree the Warpriest is not very well thought out.

Lots of bonus feats with not much to get. Slow BAB progression makes feats stack up faster than a player can make good use of them. Slow BAB coupled with the class' ridiculous MAD makes Combat Expertise and maneuver feats (the only thing available after the basics)unappealing.

Furthermore most of the Blessing options just aren't that interesting or don't do enough to make much of a difference.

Taking all of this in, I decided to build an Archery Warpriest as I figured it would be able to soak up all the bonus feats. Erastil gives access to Good, Law, Plant, Community, and Animal.

Of those Blessings, Good, Law, Animal, and Plant all require melee attacks for their Minor Blessing to be effective...

For the Major Blessings? Good and Law give Summon Monster while Plant and Animal give Nature's Ally. While summoning as a standard action is pretty cool, if all of the blessings available do the same thing then there isn't much choice in the matter. They're all melee stuff for the Minor and Summoning for the Major.

Community is the only one of the bunch that isn't a cardboard cutout but it gives bonuses to Aid Another for its minor and requires a shield for its major. Erastil is the only core deity which grants the Community Blessing and it does absolutely nothing for someone who is shoehorned into a Longbow.

The Class requires Strength or Dexterity (or both) because its entire shtick is combat. It requires Constitution as well for the same reasons. It needs Wisdom to cast spells and Charisma to Channel.

In exchange for this ridiculous stat requirements, a Warpiest gets:

-More Feats than it can feasibly use

-Channeling, which is underwhelming and eventually becomes virtually obsolete

-Stunted spell progression

-An extremely short weapon enhancement bonus, which they can't even change battle to battle, and in the long run wont make up for the short BAB (unlike, say, an Inquisitor's Judgments)

-An interesting Armor enhancement option that while it can't be changed battle to battle, at least lasts long enough to matter.

I'm not sure what the class needs, but right now it isn't doing anything the Inquisitor can't do better and its options are dull. Playing as a Longbow wielding Warpriest, my options were to buff my allies melee weapons, buff them with spells, or heal. Despite the feats and focus on my deity's favored weapon, I somehow became an even less interesting version of the Cleric.

My suggestion:

-Drop Wisdom. Entirely. This alleviates MAD.

-Spontaneous casting based on Charisma. This makes the Channeling work and, thematically, allows the Warpriest to fulfill the role of a battlefield leader for their Church.

-Keep channeling. In fact, give more uses of it.

-Give each Blessing an interesting alternate Channeling option. Most should be offensive.

-Allow the Warpriest to cast defensive and buff spells while attacking akin to a Magus' Spell Combat

-Allow the Warpriest to offensively use their neat Channeling options offensively akin to a Magus' Spell Combat. None of this wussy "it only works on undead" BS either, just godly wrath channeled through a weapon to hurt things.

[MrSin]

David Bowles wrote:

I find the warpriest has many of the same problems as a melee cleric: action economy when the battle starts.

My proposal would be to make the warpriest a derivative of the magus, and give the warpriest the ability to cast spells on himself when he strikes a foe; somewhat like a reverse spellstrike.

Also, give them interesting abilities in the forms of "divine arcanas" just like the magus has.

Quick thing, but a magus can actually use spell combat to do any spell, but spell strike is just for delivery. He can buff himself, use bladed dash for mobility, or cast a touch attack. Spell Strike allows you to deliver the attack. Clerics have a slightly different spell list, but one of their gigs is channeling energies and casting inflict/cure. Could go a lot of ways with trying to make them magus-like.

[David Bowles]

Right MrSin. Maybe give the divine magus spell combat and then let them spellstrike with inflict wound spells. Inflict wounds would actually get some use then.

I'd say keep wisdom. Drop *channeling* as to eliminate CHA. This distinguishes the class from the paladin. Up the action economy of this idea, and they get a lot better.

[williamoak]

@chainsawsam: as for your last (really last) point, maybe the warpriest should get channel smite for free?

[ChainsawSam]

williamoak wrote:

@chainsawsam: as for your last (really last) point, maybe the warpriest should get channel smite for free?

Well there's two issues with that. First, the Class already has a mess of Feats (played a level 12 last night, 13 Feats. Had so many feats I forgot one and only played with 12). Second, Channel Smite is all over the place. It is terrible for the good guys and decent for bad guys.

Even so, it is only really worth using when you face one smitable enemy as opposed to just channeling the bunch. That's why I'd rather see the Smite just do damage to everything and have some sort of additional effects.

If I were to be honest, my idea isn't all that great. However it is fairly unique and would help the class stand apart from Cleric and Inquisitor. Of course in order to make it work even remotely well it would require a complete overhaul of everything they've printed thus far in order to result in a class that is unique but likely not that useful.

[David Bowles]

That's why I want to make it a magus derivative.

[Sean K Reynolds]

Thread closed. Please post your comments in the stickied thread for this class, otherwise we'll end up with a hundred parallel discussion threads. Thanks!