Warpriest nerf, real?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Quote:
A very few (in my estimation) campaigns have high-op-preferring DMs and players and embrace Nightstick-DMM, Venomfire Fleshrakers, and Tippyverse Traps.

It's kind of absurd though to equate magical resetting traps of wish with casting bless and divine favor (etc) on yourself though.

Like. Really absurd.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Lyra Amary wrote:

I was only considering the active enchantment of Sacred Weapon, not its damage die increase. The weapon die increase is not useful until higher levels anyway.

What's useful about Sacred Weapon is the abilities to stick abilities on it. You can stack extra d6s on your weapon using the alignment or elemental enchantments as long as it works on the enemy. Later you can screw any enemy that relies on armor with Brilliant Energy. Obviously Sacred Weapon is much more limited in application compared to Bane simply due to its nature and weaker, I would agree. But your example was hardly doing Sacred Weapon justice. It looked like you were deliberately ignoring some of its abilities to make it sound weaker.

Now, I'm not saying the Warpriest is better than an Inquisitor, it's not. But it also does not fall short very far.

The Sacred Weapon properties are very limited in what can be given, considering the list you can choose from them is crap compared to a Paladin or Magus'. At best, you can give Ghost Touch, which makes incorporeals a joke, or the ability to bypass certain DR via enhancement bonuses, but the former becomes pointless when you actually get cash to buy enhancements, and the latter is replicated quite easily via Bane, and on a much better level.

Balanced? Perhaps. But it doesn't do the Warpriest as many favors as you claim it does.

Where did I claim that Sacred Weapon gave the Warpriest an incredible amount of choice? Did I not, in that very post, state that I thought Bane was better? I have also stated that Sacred Weapon is inferior to the Magus' Arcane Pool. I was merely pointing out to another poster that Sacred Weapon was not as bad as they thought it was, and that they used a poor example to make it sound worse than it actually was.

Yeah, Sacred Weapon pales in comparison to Inquisitor Bane and to the Magus' Arcane Pool. But let's at least objectively examine it for what it is and not just disregard it just because another class' abilities are better, like some people seem to be doing.


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Ok, see here's the thing. CoDzilla doesn't require you to be actively making the best decisions. It just requires knowing how your abilities work and not making actively bad decisions. I mean really if you find out a spell isn't working for you, you can always prepare a different one tomorrow, until you find things that work. If you spend a few minutes looking at magic armor enhancements, you'll find one that aimed directly at *you* and then after that you'll find a specific armor that is again aimed specifically at *you*.

Building Druidzilla is just a matter of playing the class with a modicum of sense. And realizing "Oh hey, I can use Wildshape to be a Tiger, or an Allosaurus." I don't consider "use wildshape and cast all day buff spells" to be "theorycraft optimization" or "funwrecking optimization", but even with just that you are going to make all but the most optimized Fighters feel bad.


Aldizog wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:


None of this really makes the PF Cleric or Druid anything like a Codzilla. Allow me to share a few bits of a quote from 2008 I think really sums the whole sort of online urban legend that was the codzilla.

CoDzilla is a largely mythical beast. It is known to roam the Internet and the Character Optimization boards. On occasion, a particularly careless DM may enable one to exist at a table, but this is rare.

CoDzilla feeds on splatbooks, nightsticks, and indulgent DMs.
CoDzilla is very slow-moving, taking considerable time to reach full strength and running out of energy quickly. CoDzilla can be thwarted by foes temporarily withdrawing or taking cover behind a tower shield for one minute.
<Dispel Magic>“

It makes me happy to see a six-year-old quote of mine from EnWorld brought up. Allow me to expound on it a little bit even if it is a bit of a tangent...

Some campaigns, such as Anzyr's, probably do feature a level of optimization that I usually consider to be the realm of theorycrafting. My experience for the past 14 years, in 4 cities and varying gaming environments, has been much lower-op than that. No campaign that I have played in has seen CoDzilla (nor stacks of Explosive Runes, for that matter). Not in 3.0, nor 3.5, nor PF. Is CoDzilla possible? Sure. Is it common? Incredibly NOT so, in my experience. My 3.5 Drd20 WAS the most powerful PC in his party, but not the best melee combatant. The reasons for this are myriad, but include, as noted in my EnWorld post, the prep time, the vulnerability to Dispel, and, importantly, my desire to avoid ruining the game.

I did not want to get into an arms race with the DM. I did not want to overshadow other PCs. I did not want to mine splatbooks for a class that simply did not need more power. In an actual game, these are real considerations that actual players think about. This is what I meant when I said that CoDzilla is largely mythical. Most players either don't have the optimization...

You, sir, just "won" the thread.

All you said is true in my experience too.


I don't see how if could possibly be true in anyone's experience since Wildshape is undispelable, lasts for hours even when you first get it, and requires absolutely no splatbooks. Especially when the quoted post admits Druid 20 was the most powerful character in the party.

Also, as a sidenote; Dispel Magic tends to be a waste of an action, when a battlefield control spell could have stopped the Druid in it's tracks or a damage spell could have put it down.

Shadow Lodge

That really just depends on what exactly you mean by "an optimized fighter".


anlashok wrote:
Quote:
A very few (in my estimation) campaigns have high-op-preferring DMs and players and embrace Nightstick-DMM, Venomfire Fleshrakers, and Tippyverse Traps.

It's kind of absurd though to equate magical resetting traps of wish with casting bless and divine favor (etc) on yourself though.

Like. Really absurd.

Nightstick-DMM, Venomfire Fleshrakers, and Tippyverse Traps are ALL in the realm of "well above the optimization level of every single campaign I have played in since 2000." It doesn't matter to me at all that one is further above. OF COURSE casting Bless and Divine Favor aren't in that realm, and I never claimed they were. Nightstick-DMM is.

Casting Bless and Divine Favor doesn't make a cleric into CoDzilla. Try playing the PFS pregen cleric as a fighter, use her spells to buff up, and compare to what the pregen fighter dishes out. It won't even be close. CoDzilla includes a lot of optimization throughout the build, not just casting a couple of Core spells. I also don't think that wildshape alone makes Druidzilla in 3.5, and even less so in PF. 3.5 wildshape + wild dragonhide armor + GMW + using animal stats to qualify for feats, yes, then non-Core options to make it worse.

Anzyr is correct that wildshape used to be too powerful out of the box; it didn't require extensive rules knowledge to become Druidzilla. So I chose, given my understanding of the rules and game balance, a character-appropriate restriction on magic item acquisition. I avoided splatbooks as I knew druid was one of the most powerful classes. I avoided questionable rules interpretations that would favor the druid (only base stats qualified for feats, and GMW only applied to the form on which it was cast). I do not recall there being enough Core all-day druid buffs to walk around permanently superior to the martials. I could still WS into a tiger or air elemental if the situation required and do considerable damage. I just wasn't a 24-7 Dire Tiger with Wild Dragonhide Fullplate +5, Knowledge Devotion, Venomfire/GMW +5 on all attacks, and Quickened Nature's Favor followed by Animal Growth at the start of every combat. Even so, wildshape was still very powerful, and I'm thankful for the changes that Pathfinder made so that it is easier for the player of a druid to not overshadow the martials. I regard every decision I made for that druid as optimal for making the game more fun.

And, yes, Drd20 was most powerful, but not best at melee combat, which is what I thought CoDzilla was about. Battlefield control was effective early on until a Black Tentacles cast on the druid nearly led to a TPK, so Freedom of Movement became a priority spell from then on. Maybe an item, can't recall. His crafted items focused heavily on defense. The druid was VERY focused on being survivable and mobile, more than doing damage in melee. This is, after all, a team game, and the druid was the party's main healer and main battlefield control specialist; he had to stay alive.

"Funwrecking optimization" certainly is a real thing, but it is very, very table-dependent. The first 3.0 game I played in thought my core-only halfling Ftr/Rog was overpowered. So I'm not going to declare any particular option as being that in and of itself. It's all about context.


CoDzilla about being able to do anything with excellent proficiency. Druidzilla may not be able to out damage most Fighters if the Fighter is in a perfect position, but Druidzilla does not need to rely on standing still and full attacking. In 3.5 that was because of Pounce. In Pathfinder, its because of Pounce *and* Vital Strike. A Druid can move and still deliver their potent combat ability. A druid also has an animal companion that can deliver less potent, but still valuable combat ability. It can summon creatures to provide Battlefield control, utility (Unicorns are pro-healers) or just contribute some damage. (Now, Summon Nature's Ally is weaker then its 3.5 version, but still very useful). Add this on top of the fact that the Druid can heal, blast, and battlefield control (entangle is scary stuff at level 1 and Wall of Thorns is even better). There's really nothing the Druid is bad at.

Druidzilla doesn't need to make optimized Fighters feel useless to be Druidzilla, it just needs to be good enough at dealing damage to drop the enemies, while still being a Dinosaur, with a Dinosaur companion, that summons Dinosaurs. (And still has more skillpoints and a real perception check.)


I am not sure i get it right, are people saying that the warpriest is the same and/or weaker than the cleric or that the warpriest class is a very weak class?

Dark Archive

It's a lot weaker than a standard Cleric. But most classes are, so that's hardly a huge complaint. As long as Clerics have 9 levels of spells, decent BAB and weapons/armor, in addition to a list of really powerful domain abilities, it's going to be really difficult for any class to fit into the "warrior priest" niche without being compared to the monster that a well-designed cleric can be.

On a tier list, Clerics are in T1, while Warpriests are in T3. Considering T3 is pretty much smack dab in the middle of "can do lots of stuff well, but isn't able to do absolutely everything" I don't really think it's a bad class at all.


Lyra Amary wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Lyra Amary wrote:

I was only considering the active enchantment of Sacred Weapon, not its damage die increase. The weapon die increase is not useful until higher levels anyway.

What's useful about Sacred Weapon is the abilities to stick abilities on it. You can stack extra d6s on your weapon using the alignment or elemental enchantments as long as it works on the enemy. Later you can screw any enemy that relies on armor with Brilliant Energy. Obviously Sacred Weapon is much more limited in application compared to Bane simply due to its nature and weaker, I would agree. But your example was hardly doing Sacred Weapon justice. It looked like you were deliberately ignoring some of its abilities to make it sound weaker.

Now, I'm not saying the Warpriest is better than an Inquisitor, it's not. But it also does not fall short very far.

The Sacred Weapon properties are very limited in what can be given, considering the list you can choose from them is crap compared to a Paladin or Magus'. At best, you can give Ghost Touch, which makes incorporeals a joke, or the ability to bypass certain DR via enhancement bonuses, but the former becomes pointless when you actually get cash to buy enhancements, and the latter is replicated quite easily via Bane, and on a much better level.

Balanced? Perhaps. But it doesn't do the Warpriest as many favors as you claim it does.

Where did I claim that Sacred Weapon gave the Warpriest an incredible amount of choice? Did I not, in that very post, state that I thought Bane was better? I have also stated that Sacred Weapon is inferior to the Magus' Arcane Pool. I was merely pointing out to another poster that Sacred Weapon was not as bad as they thought it was, and that they used a poor example to make it sound worse than it actually was.

Yeah, Sacred Weapon pales in comparison to Inquisitor Bane and to the Magus' Arcane Pool. But let's at least objectively examine it for what it is and not just disregard it just...

In a void or in comparison to a class that cant make use of swift actions than Sacred Weapon is awesome. But i dont see how you can look at the Warpriest and its Sacred Weapon without looking at the Inquisitor and either its Judgement or its Bane, i feel bane is a closer analogy for being entirely weapon based and similiar limited duration. Both classes are 3/4 BAB with divine spell casting and special mechanics to enable swift action buffs so its really hard to not compare them against each other. I am not seeing a way to make a concept better with Warpriest than could be done with an Inquisitor unless i am going out of my way to maximise an obscure weapon. Even in that case the Warpriest is more of a dip class before moving to something else for the majority of levels.

I fully admit i do not like the class, i thought i was getting a less restrictive Paladin kind of class to play a divine butt kicker but the final product is... it feels like a homebrew archetype for cleric by someone who didnt know the Inquisitor was a thing. So many little pools of limited resources that compete with each other in action economy :/


Torbyne wrote:

In a void or in comparison to a class that cant make use of swift actions than Sacred Weapon is awesome. But i dont see how you can look at the Warpriest and its Sacred Weapon without looking at the Inquisitor and either its Judgement or its Bane, i feel bane is a closer analogy for being entirely weapon based and similiar limited duration. Both classes are 3/4 BAB with divine spell casting and special mechanics to enable swift action buffs so its really hard to not compare them against each other. I am not seeing a way to make a concept better with Warpriest than could be done with an Inquisitor unless i am going out of my way to maximise an obscure weapon. Even in that case the Warpriest is more of a dip class before moving to something else for the majority of levels.

I fully admit i do not like the class, i thought i was getting a less restrictive Paladin kind of class to play a divine butt kicker but the final product is... it feels like a homebrew archetype for cleric by someone who didnt know the Inquisitor was a thing. So many little pools of limited resources that compete with each other in action economy :/

Unfortunately that was one of the issues with the Warpriest from the very beginning. It was coming into a crowded thematic zone of "Holy Warrior" that already had the Paladin, the Cleric and the Inquisitor in it, all class that are already good. By all means, they did not need yet another class in this area.

I can't really justify anyone playing a Warpriest unless you wanted to play a holy warrior type class with slightly different mechanics than an existing one. But at the same time, it's not as if the class itself is inherently bad. From what I can tell, it compares well to the Inquisitor when looking at both classes as a whole. Since the Inquisitor is considered one of the best balanced classes, that's not really too bad of a comparison.


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can't agree, inquisitor is substantially better in and out of combat


Lyra Amary wrote:
Torbyne wrote:

In a void or in comparison to a class that cant make use of swift actions than Sacred Weapon is awesome. But i dont see how you can look at the Warpriest and its Sacred Weapon without looking at the Inquisitor and either its Judgement or its Bane, i feel bane is a closer analogy for being entirely weapon based and similiar limited duration. Both classes are 3/4 BAB with divine spell casting and special mechanics to enable swift action buffs so its really hard to not compare them against each other. I am not seeing a way to make a concept better with Warpriest than could be done with an Inquisitor unless i am going out of my way to maximise an obscure weapon. Even in that case the Warpriest is more of a dip class before moving to something else for the majority of levels.

I fully admit i do not like the class, i thought i was getting a less restrictive Paladin kind of class to play a divine butt kicker but the final product is... it feels like a homebrew archetype for cleric by someone who didnt know the Inquisitor was a thing. So many little pools of limited resources that compete with each other in action economy :/

Unfortunately that was one of the issues with the Warpriest from the very beginning. It was coming into a crowded thematic zone of "Holy Warrior" that already had the Paladin, the Cleric and the Inquisitor in it, all class that are already good. By all means, they did not need yet another class in this area.

I can't really justify anyone playing a Warpriest unless you wanted to play a holy warrior type class with slightly different mechanics than an existing one. But at the same time, it's not as if the class itself is inherently bad. From what I can tell, it compares well to the Inquisitor when looking at both classes as a whole. Since the Inquisitor is considered one of the best balanced classes, that's not really too bad of a comparison.

I see your point and it may actually be a very balanced class but its not what i expected from the playtests and even according to the developer who commented on his experiance with it you have to adjust your concept of ability use to decide when to cast, bless, fervor, sacred weapon/armor and then take a long look at Vital Strike as a great option for the class. No one should ever have to look at Vital Strike as a way to make a class shine.

mweh, it may not be "nerfed" but its not what i wanted/expected so aside from the Sacred Fist i will just be skimming over this class, maybe it will be someone else's cup of tea. (and so long as they dont sit down at a table with an Inquisitor they'll probably have a blast playing it)

Shadow Lodge

I also dont agree that the spot is too crowded. There is still room for a battle priest typw class, its just the Warpriest doesnt really fill it well, nor does it really give us a Fighter Cleric mix (either in the Magus sense for Fighter/Wizard or in Fighter/Cleric mix).

They kind of new this from the start and mostly just ignored the feedback in order to push what they started with. Its pretty clear to with the ret of the book, no one was particularly interested in or loved the warpriest, as the divine spells just suck, there are not any feats, gear, or whatever designed for them. They are basically last in line for each of the lines that hand out new, shiney, cool toys.


Has anyone simply switched the cleric spell list for the inquisitor list. Seems a simple enough fix.


I can think of a few reasons to play a warpriest over an inquisitor, even over a cleric, but all of them aren't enough when you go at mid-high levels (10, 12 at most).

Shadow Lodge

TarkXT wrote:
Has anyone simply switched the cleric spell list for the inquisitor list. Seems a simple enough fix.

The Warpriest could probably use both. The Inquisitor has a lot of spells that really should be on the Cleric list anyway, but thats its own problem.


TarkXT wrote:
Has anyone simply switched the cleric spell list for the inquisitor list. Seems a simple enough fix.

I played around with a few solutions like this during the play test, but found it hard to find a second spell list that worked. The inquisitor list has a lot of "sneaky", "detecty" and information gathering spells that don't mesh well with the rather more straightforward warpriest.

The ranger list is chock full of nature themed spells and so runs into the same problem as the inquisitor - nice for a warpriest of Erastil, not so good for a warpriest of Gorum.

The paladin list has tons of EXCELLENT spells for the warpriest, but naturally many of them assume that the caster will be Good and fighting Evil - since the warpriest can be any alignment, quite a few of the spells either break down or provide significant incentive for the WP to have the same alignment as the paladin since there aren't similar spells available for non-good warpriests.

Unsurprisingly the anti-paladin has the same problem as the paladin list, just in reverse.

The best solution would probably have been to cherry-pick appropriate spells from the cleric, inquisitor, ranger, druid, paladin and anti-paladin lists and make a custom spell list for the warpriest, ideally with some level rebates so he can get new buff spells at the same level as the cleric - unfortunately that's exactly the thing they didn't want to do with the ACG. :-/


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Anyone mind letting me know what the advantage of a Warpriest would be rather than simply playing a multiclass fighter / cleric (other than the bonus hit point or skill point for preferred class)?

Not trying to be snarky, just wondered if multiclassing would be better in this instance rather than making the hybrid class.


KestrelZ wrote:

Anyone mind letting me know what the advantage of a Warpriest would be rather than simply playing a multiclass fighter / cleric (other than the bonus hit point or skill point for preferred class)?

Not trying to be snarky, just wondered if multiclassing would be better in this instance rather than making the hybrid class.

Specific weapon you want to use or a campaign that you know wont go to high levels?


Torbyne wrote:
KestrelZ wrote:

Anyone mind letting me know what the advantage of a Warpriest would be rather than simply playing a multiclass fighter / cleric (other than the bonus hit point or skill point for preferred class)?

Not trying to be snarky, just wondered if multiclassing would be better in this instance rather than making the hybrid class.

Specific weapon you want to use or a campaign that you know wont go to high levels?

I would say only if you know that a campaign won't go at high levels since at high levels the damage die of the weapon doesn't matter (mostly) anyway.


Torbyne wrote:
Lyra Amary wrote:
Torbyne wrote:

In a void or in comparison to a class that cant make use of swift actions than Sacred Weapon is awesome. But i dont see how you can look at the Warpriest and its Sacred Weapon without looking at the Inquisitor and either its Judgement or its Bane, i feel bane is a closer analogy for being entirely weapon based and similiar limited duration. Both classes are 3/4 BAB with divine spell casting and special mechanics to enable swift action buffs so its really hard to not compare them against each other. I am not seeing a way to make a concept better with Warpriest than could be done with an Inquisitor unless i am going out of my way to maximise an obscure weapon. Even in that case the Warpriest is more of a dip class before moving to something else for the majority of levels.

I fully admit i do not like the class, i thought i was getting a less restrictive Paladin kind of class to play a divine butt kicker but the final product is... it feels like a homebrew archetype for cleric by someone who didnt know the Inquisitor was a thing. So many little pools of limited resources that compete with each other in action economy :/

Unfortunately that was one of the issues with the Warpriest from the very beginning. It was coming into a crowded thematic zone of "Holy Warrior" that already had the Paladin, the Cleric and the Inquisitor in it, all class that are already good. By all means, they did not need yet another class in this area.

I can't really justify anyone playing a Warpriest unless you wanted to play a holy warrior type class with slightly different mechanics than an existing one. But at the same time, it's not as if the class itself is inherently bad. From what I can tell, it compares well to the Inquisitor when looking at both classes as a whole. Since the Inquisitor is considered one of the best balanced classes, that's not really too bad of a comparison.

I see your point and it may actually be a very balanced class but its not what i expected from...

No it is nerfed, we know this because Playtest version had full BAB with sacred weapon, but the final doesn't: that is nerf.

With the nerf is the class still good? That is debatable.

But debating is it was nerfed is silly, because logic dictates that it was.


I'd argue the WP balance heavily relies on the exact RAW/RAI of the treat your BAB for bonus feat sentence. The way it's written it makes you use your BAB for all purposes regarding the feat taken in the bonus slots.

Example Dazing assault can be taken at 12 it's DC will be calculated based on your level as it treats your WP level as BAB For these feats. Now like many things in this book it may not be intentional given the average/bad editing many copies have. However since it's intentional that you only qualify as a fighter and have full bab For these feats it's possibly intentional as a way to give the WP full power attack progression and make feats which are based off BAB good for them.

If they respond to my thread http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rdtw?Warpriest-using-Level-as-BAB-for-feats#31 we'll know.

I'm going to be completely honest if they make your BAB apply to all aspects of the feats your damage is actually quite good. Especially as a human with an extra bonus combat feat.

The reason is simple if they agree that for example PA taken in your 3rd level BF means at level 4 you get -2 to hit and +4/+6 to damage then the only thing lost in the overwhelming majority of cases is +2 to hit and Iterative attacks delayed at 6, 7, 11, 12, and the final iterative attack. THAT is something I could live with.

Shadow Lodge

Here are the relevant portions:

Warpriest:
Bonus Feats: At 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter, a warpriest gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained from normal advancement. These bonus feats must be selected from those listed as combat feats. The warpriest must meet the prerequisites for these feats, but he treats his warpriest level as his base attack bonus for these feats (in addition to base attack bonuses gained from other classes and racial Hit Dice). Finally, for the purposes of these feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level.

In both cases, it is talking about the ability to qualify for Bonus Combat Feats where they normally wouldn't be able to. I think it takes more than a little bit of forcing and reading it weird to translate "but he treats his warpriest level as his base attack bonus for these feats" as meaning for all aspects of these Feats rather than specifically to qualify for them like the rest of the paragraph specifically talks about.


Quote:
The warpriest must meet the prerequisites for these feats, but he treats his warpriest level as his base attack bonus for these feats

While this isn't the place to argue it you should note that unlike a style feat you don't have to ignore the prerequisites.

That is the first half of the sentence.

But the second half is related to treating your BAB as your level for these feats.

More conservative DM's probably won't allow this unless it's FAQ'ed or answered hence why I posted the questions.

Personally I hope that this is intentional as it's a good balancing favor.

Either way I know like 200% there will be a level 5 war priest at my table and I will have to crush him by telling him he doesn't qualify for weapons specialization.

Shadow Lodge

Why would he not?

Weapon Specialization:
Weapon Specialization (Combat)

You are skilled at dealing damage with one weapon. Choose one type of weapon (including unarmed strike or grapple) for which you have already selected the Weapon Focus feat. You deal extra damage when using this weapon.

Prerequisites: Proficiency with selected weapon, Weapon Focus with selected weapon, fighter level 4th.

Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on all damage rolls you make using the selected weapon.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of weapon.

"Finally, for the purposes of these feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level."

Weapon Focus? Check.
Proficiency? Check, or not Weapon Focus
Fighter Level 4. Check (at level 4 anyway)

If they treat their Warpriest Level as the BaB for A.) all Feat Purpossed or B.) just for meeting prereqs to choose Feats doesn't really affect Weapon Specialization at all.

Dark Archive

Warpriests get their bonus feats at 3 and every 3 levels after that. If the "Warpriest level as BAB/Fighter levels" thing is only for Bonus Feats, then he can't get it yet.

I honestly don't know, and I'm curious about how the Sacred Fist counts Warpriest levels as Monk levels, so it's relevant here. :3

Shadow Lodge

Seranov wrote:

Warpriests get their bonus feats at 3 and every 3 levels after that. If the "Warpriest level as BAB/Fighter levels" thing is only for Bonus Feats, then he can't get it yet.

I honestly don't know, and I'm curious about how the Sacred Fist counts Warpriest levels as Monk levels, so it's relevant here. :3

That doesn't seem to be what he/she is talking about. They called out Power Attack, for example, which raises the extra damage based on your BaB. That means a Warpriest can qualify for it, but is going to be pretty far behind unless they can use their Level as BaB for both gaining the Feat and then all purposes in using it.


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.
DM Beckett wrote:

Why would he not?

** spoiler omitted **

"Finally, for the purposes of these feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level."

Weapon Focus? Check.
Proficiency? Check, or not Weapon Focus
Fighter Level 4. Check (at level 4 anyway)

If they treat their Warpriest Level as the BaB for A.) all Feat Purpossed or B.) just for meeting prereqs to choose Feats doesn't really affect Weapon Specialization at all.

You only count it for the bonus feats. You do not qualify as full BAB or fighter levels for normal feats. You cannot take WS at level 5 unless you are WP 1 and fighter 4 (or WP 3 and fighter 2).

Here is the post.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lg7q&page=18?Advanced-Class-Guide- Preview-Warpriest#891


Undone wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:

Why would he not?

** spoiler omitted **

"Finally, for the purposes of these feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level."

Weapon Focus? Check.
Proficiency? Check, or not Weapon Focus
Fighter Level 4. Check (at level 4 anyway)

If they treat their Warpriest Level as the BaB for A.) all Feat Purpossed or B.) just for meeting prereqs to choose Feats doesn't really affect Weapon Specialization at all.

You only count it for the bonus feats. You do not qualify as full BAB or fighter levels for normal feats. You cannot take WS at level 5 unless you are WP 1 and fighter 4 (or WP 3 and fighter 2).

Here is the post.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lg7q&page=18?Advanced-Class-Guide- Preview-Warpriest#891

You could, in theory, retrain into it though, right? Hit level 4, retrain your level 3 bonus feat. Or do it at level 5 so you can immediately pick up what you train out of with your level 5 feat.


redward wrote:
Undone wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:

Why would he not?

** spoiler omitted **

"Finally, for the purposes of these feats, the warpriest can select feats that have a minimum number of fighter levels as a prerequisite, treating his warpriest level as his fighter level."

Weapon Focus? Check.
Proficiency? Check, or not Weapon Focus
Fighter Level 4. Check (at level 4 anyway)

If they treat their Warpriest Level as the BaB for A.) all Feat Purpossed or B.) just for meeting prereqs to choose Feats doesn't really affect Weapon Specialization at all.

You only count it for the bonus feats. You do not qualify as full BAB or fighter levels for normal feats. You cannot take WS at level 5 unless you are WP 1 and fighter 4 (or WP 3 and fighter 2).

Here is the post.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lg7q&page=18?Advanced-Class-Guide- Preview-Warpriest#891

You could, in theory, retrain into it though, right? Hit level 4, retrain your level 3 bonus feat. Or do it at level 5 so you can immediately pick up what you train out of with your level 5 feat.

Do you also think a fighter could retrain his 3rd level regular feat into WS at 4th?

Same answer.

A straight up pure WP cannot get WS until level 6.

Shadow Lodge

Retraining does not require you to pick a new Feat you could have qualified for at the time you took the original, so yes, a Fighter could retrain a Feat they got at 3rd to WS at 4th. Same with the Warpriest. Fighters also have the option to trade out Feats as a class feature, every 4 levels I believe.


I am not sure the warpriest counting level instead of BAB for power attack is a good thing, the class is already lacking in the to hit department and then you would be blowing buffs/sacred weapon to get back to a 3/4 BAB accuracy.


Torbyne wrote:
I am not sure the warpriest counting level instead of BAB for power attack is a good thing, the class is already lacking in the to hit department and then you would be blowing buffs/sacred weapon to get back to a 3/4 BAB accuracy.

Either way we need clarification.

Even if it's not good for power attack (it is, Statistically speaking -1 to hit for +3 damage is beneficial till you hit 67 average damage) feats like dazing assault RELY on having full bab for the save to not be trash. Other's have X Use / X BaB / Day abilities which require full BAB or bust.


I do hope that people here FAQ and bump that thread because otherwise this will be subject to table variation. If it works and they get full progression on feats like PA then it's possible that the class is passable and not as bad as it's made out to be.

Shadow Lodge

We really don't. It's a pretty big stretch to assume that it would apply to every aspect of Feats.


DM Beckett wrote:
We really don't. It's a pretty big stretch to assume that it would apply to every aspect of Feats.

Not really. It's not specific to saying that it counts as having its BAB for feat pre-requisites only, it just says "he treats his warpriest levels as his base attack bonus for these feats," a general statement, so for all intents and purposes regarding Base Attack Bonuses with his Bonus Feats, it applies to everything.

Whether that's intended or not is tough to say. I don't see why not, considering the only feats that actually scale from Base Attack are Power Attack and Piranha Strike, its Light-weapon counterpart.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:
We really don't. It's a pretty big stretch to assume that it would apply to every aspect of Feats.

Not really. It's not specific to saying that it counts as having its BAB for feat pre-requisites only, it just says "he treats his warpriest levels as his base attack bonus for these feats," a general statement, so for all intents and purposes regarding Base Attack Bonuses with his Bonus Feats, it applies to everything.

Whether that's intended or not is tough to say. I don't see why not, considering the only feats that actually scale from Base Attack are Power Attack and Piranha Strike, its Light-weapon counterpart.

As a note that's not true. Dazing/stunning assault, Several abilities which go off X bab over Y, several some times per day based on BAB. It's a highly relevant ability.

That said assuming that it is the case I can see a lot more how they thought the WP was balanced because it basically would mean that the WP only loses iterative hits at a couple of levels since you get WF and GWF to make up for the lost 2 to hit losing only 3 to hit over 20 levels and 1 iterative is not breaking. Losing 5 to hit and a ton of PA damage IS breaking.

If that's intended I still dislike the change but it's probably tolerable.


Mechanics are mechanics. They have no effect on the flavor. If an archetype or class is mechanically superior to another it has 0 effect on the flavor of the world. It's just that all your "rogues" are Alchemists, Investigators, Bards and Inquisitors.


Undone wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:
We really don't. It's a pretty big stretch to assume that it would apply to every aspect of Feats.

Not really. It's not specific to saying that it counts as having its BAB for feat pre-requisites only, it just says "he treats his warpriest levels as his base attack bonus for these feats," a general statement, so for all intents and purposes regarding Base Attack Bonuses with his Bonus Feats, it applies to everything.

Whether that's intended or not is tough to say. I don't see why not, considering the only feats that actually scale from Base Attack are Power Attack and Piranha Strike, its Light-weapon counterpart.

As a note that's not true. Dazing/stunning assault, Several abilities which go off X bab over Y, several some times per day based on BAB. It's a highly relevant ability.

That said assuming that it is the case I can see a lot more how they thought the WP was balanced because it basically would mean that the WP only loses iterative hits at a couple of levels since you get WF and GWF to make up for the lost 2 to hit losing only 3 to hit over 20 levels and 1 iterative is not breaking. Losing 5 to hit and a ton of PA damage IS breaking.

If that's intended I still dislike the change but it's probably tolerable.

Fair enough, but those feats don't change my argument whatsoever; many min-max builds don't make use of those feats, and even if they do, are for very niche builds, such as CAGM Barbarians. Warpriests are not them, so they won't really need it.

Even so, they can only get those via their Bonus Feats, of which they will have few. And they would much rather spend those feats on Fighter-Only feats, such as Weapon Specialization, Penetrating Strike, their greater counterparts, etc. So it's not really something that can be abused.

Quite frankly, the reason they bumped down the pseudo-BAB was because Fervor swift-buffs + Full BAB = "too good," (though it's about on-par compared to a non-optimized Barbarian or Paladin,) and they didn't want that replicated with a mere Fighter class hybrid.

Honestly, the whole "Bonus Feat effects scale with class level as BAB" is quite the silver lining, and doesn't make losing the BAB as bad as it is, since they can get Fighter-Only feats with them, have as much of their to-hit as a standard Fighter, and still have other features instead of "I hit things."

Additionally, by the endgame, you're looking at an additional -2 to hit for an extra +4/+6 damage in comparison to not allowing it, whereas for DCs for abilities that they won't really be able to utilize, would increase by at-best 5, so instead of DC 25 Fortitude saves (which everything can do quite easily by the endgame), they become DC 30 Fortitude saves (which becomes "the bar" of mediocrity for the endgame).

I still don't know what the big deal is behind your arguing of it "not being intended," since a -4 to +8/12 is not much difference in penalties compared to a -6 to +12/18 modifier, whereas the damage bonuses in comparison are quite powerful.

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