Warpriest nerf, real?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Before the ACG came out today I heard rumors that the warpriest in the playtest was too powerful and was being nerfed. But I don't see it, am I missing something? Has anyone else seen differences?

Scarab Sages

This isn't a rules question, but the playtest warpriest had full BAB when using the sacred weapon. This was removed for the final version.


They no longer get full base attack bonus when wielding weapons they have Weapon Focus in.


OK, figured out what you meant. They used to be able to take their level instead of their BAB when using their sacred weapon. Read right over the change in the ACG so thanks.

Don't think the playtest rule was out of control, but whatever. Them's the rules now.


The warpriest changes weren't all nerfs. They are now proficient in their deity's favored weapon and use wisdom instead of charisma for fervor.

Grand Lodge

whew wrote:
The warpriest changes weren't all nerfs. They are now proficient in their deity's favored weapon and use wisdom instead of charisma for fervor.

Wisdom instead of charisma for fervor?!!!

Oh my lord, if that is true my dwarven warpriest is back in action!

Grand Lodge

Gorignak227 wrote:

Wisdom instead of charisma for fervor?!!!

Oh my lord, if that is true my dwarven warpriest is back in action!

It's true!

But sadly the Champion of the Faith archetype's smite ability is still based off of charisma...


I have looked hard at the final Warpriest and think it's just fine.
It gets plenty of uses of Fervor, so you can either Swift Action buff Divine Favor or Self LoH (Fey touched feat FTW), can ware Heavy Armor, can buff your armor for MINUTES. or your weapon, Free Weapon Focus.

Basically plays like a self Buffing Magus in terms off Cast, move and smash all in one round.

Except he can do his thing 2 handed or with TWF.


Yeah... honestly getting level as BAB for favord weapons kind of made the Warpriest rediculous, especially with the swift action buff casting. When you combined Ferver, Divine Weapon enhancement buffs, AND Full BAB... they made every other martial cry...


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I disagree, this is major nerf to the class. I don't think its fine, it basically means you need to go down that silly 3 feat of their's which just means we are looking at new major feat tax.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
K177Y C47 wrote:
they made every other martial cry...

When most of the classes they were making cry were terrible to begin with... Eh.


K177Y C47 wrote:
Yeah... honestly getting level as BAB for favord weapons kind of made the Warpriest rediculous, especially with the swift action buff casting. When you combined Ferver, Divine Weapon enhancement buffs, AND Full BAB... they made every other martial cry...

They are more like a divine magus now instead of 3.5 CoDzilla


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Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Ahunting wrote:
Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.

yeah.

A big part of the problem is that the cleric is already a 3/4ths BAB class with good proficiencies and spells to augment their combat capabilities.

So by not giving the Warpriest more inherent combat ability you're essentially trading away 7-9th level spells for a few feats and stuff.

Hunter has the same problem to a degree.


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The problem is divine casters who don't have full BAB are always compared to cleric or druid.

Nothing can be as powerful as CoDZILLA. As such the class is strictly weaker than both.

Shadow Lodge

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.


Maybe the wrong place for this, but do spells/enchantments that increase the damage die for a weapon stack with sacred weapon damage? e.g.: lead blades, gravity bow, bashing shield enchantment, impact enchantment


downlobot wrote:
Maybe the wrong place for this, but do spells/enchantments that increase the damage die for a weapon stack with sacred weapon damage? e.g.: lead blades, gravity bow, bashing shield enchantment, impact enchantment

Nope. Those modify the base weapon. When you make an attack roll as a Warpriest, you have to decide whether you want to do Sacred Weapon Damage or use the Weapon Damage.


DM Beckett wrote:

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.

Bull.

Core Cleric and druid were and are the two most powerful classes in the entire game.

1) Good fort is unique to them among full casters.
2) 3/4ths BAB is only them and now the shaman.
3) In 3.5 you could have a cleric in full plate easily. In this edition some archetypes do that but the core book cleric is nerfed.
4) The core druid with only augmented summons and natural spell is the most powerful and flexible class in the game. Bar none.
5) The big guy gygax himself stated "Clerics and druids have to be overpowered because no one wants to heal." That's why the're so strong.
CoD Zilla still exists. With full BAB the war priest would be worse just not strictly worse. It would however be more fun since level 2-4 would be awesome before you get outscaled at 5th+.


DM Beckett wrote:

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.

You can't get them until third and every three level there after and you still must meet the standard pre-reqs that means your always one level behind. IE you can't get weapon spec until 5th and so on. It's just to little to late. On the upside it's one less class we have to do the total math on from the ACG.


Undone wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.

Bull.

Core Cleric and druid were and are the two most powerful classes in the entire game.

1) Good fort is unique to them among full casters.
2) 3/4ths BAB is only them and now the shaman.
3) In 3.5 you could have a cleric in full plate easily. In this edition some archetypes do that but the core book cleric is nerfed.
4) The core druid with only augmented summons and natural spell is the most powerful and flexible class in the game. Bar none.
5) The big guy gygax himself stated "Clerics and druids have to be overpowered because no one wants to heal." That's why the're so strong.
CoD Zilla still exists. With full BAB the war priest would be worse just not strictly worse. It would however be more fun since level 2-4 would be awesome before you get outscaled at 5th+.

1. Wiz and sorc can still get decent fort saves.

2. Oracle also.
3. You only need one feat.
4. Druids are not on the wizard's level, but they are very flexible, how flexible depends on the player. Summon Monster is better than Summon Nature's Ally so the cleric and wizard have better summons.
5. Gygax may have started the game, but that does not make him always right, and neither class has to be made as healer. If someone is only healing it does not matter what else they could have done.


Undone wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:
Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.
Core Cleric and druid were and are the two most powerful classes in the entire game.

The 3.5 Codzilla thing was because clerics and druids who picked the right combination of options could outperform martials in melee while remaining full casters. They're still top-tier classes but I don't see them winning the DPR olympics. (Unless there's a wild-shape option I'm forgetting about.)


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Matthew Downie wrote:
(Unless there's a wild-shape option I'm forgetting about.)

Tons, but they don't need to win the DPR olympics, just perform well enough that full 9th level casting in addition is just over the top. A Wildshaping Druid is one of the #1 combatants in the game.


wraithstrike wrote:
Undone wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.

Bull.

Core Cleric and druid were and are the two most powerful classes in the entire game.

1) Good fort is unique to them among full casters.
2) 3/4ths BAB is only them and now the shaman.
3) In 3.5 you could have a cleric in full plate easily. In this edition some archetypes do that but the core book cleric is nerfed.
4) The core druid with only augmented summons and natural spell is the most powerful and flexible class in the game. Bar none.
5) The big guy gygax himself stated "Clerics and druids have to be overpowered because no one wants to heal." That's why the're so strong.
CoD Zilla still exists. With full BAB the war priest would be worse just not strictly worse. It would however be more fun since level 2-4 would be awesome before you get outscaled at 5th+.

1. Wiz and sorc can still get decent fort saves.

2. Oracle also.
3. You only need one feat.
4. Druids are not on the wizard's level, but they are very flexible, how flexible depends on the player. Summon Monster is better than Summon Nature's Ally so the cleric and wizard have better summons.
5. Gygax may have started the game, but that does not make him always right, and neither class has to be made as healer. If someone is only healing it does not matter what else they could have done.

1) Having passable saves is not the same as saving on a 2 with a dwarven cleric.

2) The oracle isn't the same. Prepared casters are the only one's who get truly full casting progression. They can't breath of life at 9th. They can't restoration at 7th. They can't Miracle at 17th. Oracle's also lack fort saves and the ability to swap daily spells which is one of the most powerful abilities in the game.
3) In a class that get's zero bonus feats this takes one of your feat starved classes feats. You have to trade a domain for in effect a feat.
4) This is wrong until you hit very high levels.
Spoiler:
I say this from experience. Stirges are the best 1 on either list. Earth elementals hit for 1d6+11 at 2 which is more than anything else on the list. 3 has some flexibility for SM over SNA but honestly lantern archons are cute but weak compared to earth elementals Celestial leopards do edge out here. 4th tiger beats celestial lion (Just barely) because of increased to hit. Hound archons are roughly equivalent to stayers. 5th is hands down SNA with cyclopti and ettins if you have an auto crit spell or class feature in the group (Destruction cleric) you will summon 1d4+2 cyclopses till 20th because it does ~80-100 per cyclops. After that the summon monster list takes over but the SNA list is better in the first half of the game and has more staying power (Stirges and cyclopses are good till 20th)

5) It's the reason clerics are as they are now and why they're better than war priests in nearly every way.

Quote:


The 3.5 Codzilla thing was because clerics and druids who picked the right combination of options could outperform martials in melee while remaining full casters. They're still top-tier classes but I don't see them winning the DPR olympics. (Unless there's a wild-shape option I'm forgetting about.)

There's a great picture out there which perfectly describes druids. It's the Jurassic park jeep getting chased by a Trex with the caption "That but with 9th level spells". That's what wildshape does. It makes you instantly a master of melee combat. If specced for you're in the top 1% of all builds for damage and within spitting distance of #1.

Shadow Lodge

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DM Beckett wrote:

Still not happy with the Warpriest, but it does treat it's level as BaB for Feat Selection, and counts as a Fighter for Fighter Only Feats.

Codzilla was a 3.0/3.5 thing, and required a lot of splat books and navigating a few grey areas, and focused on self-buffing.

Undone wrote:

Bull.

Core Cleric and druid were and are the two most powerful classes in the entire game.

1) Good fort is unique to them among full casters.
2) 3/4ths BAB is only them and now the shaman.
3) In 3.5 you could have a cleric in full plate easily. In this edition some archetypes do that but the core book cleric is nerfed.
4) The core druid with only augmented summons and natural spell is the most powerful and flexible class in the game. Bar none.
5) The big guy gygax himself stated "Clerics and druids have to be overpowered because no one wants to heal." That's why the're so strong.

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>“

All of the spells have as well as the class itself has been so nerfed, and the Prestige Classes, Variant Classes, Magic Items, Feats, and magic items required do not exist in PF. Druids can not utilize the same tricks, which largely relied on dumping all physical stats and walking around in ridiculous splatbook forms once they could Wild Shape with full spellcasting and gear, and at most just needed to change into a new form to overcome whatever challenge they might need circumstantially.

I'm 99% certain your #5 is also wrong, and it was Monte Cook, from 3.0 stating that they "slightly" needed to buff the Cleric, because no one wanted to be stuck playing the Cleric, (something that has always been, and continues to be true to a large degree). The Cleric has always been a highly defensive class, with some of the best Saves in the game (outside of things like the Paladin). This was done because what happens when the Cleric gets hit with things like Charm/Dominate/death? It generally leads very quickly to a TPK as there is no one there to heal the Cleric or fill their shoes to buff and heal everyone else. One of the major things that entailed was to allow <force> the Cleric to be able to spontaneously cast cure spells and give it things like Spellcraft and Know Arcana as class skills. This was done because 3E material was designed with the assumption of a party of 4 with a Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard as far as WBL, Encounter Design, Treasure, etc. . . with a little room to swap out things, but none of the other classes could really fill the role of the Cleric very well, which was essentially that of a secondary character that bordered on travelling NPC run by a player.


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Well, I can honestly say I've lost all interest in the class at this point.

The only reason I was interested in the class to start with was the full bab. Made it feel like a paladin who didn't have to be lawful good. At this point, I might as well just play a cleric. I'd rather have level nine spells than the rest of it.


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Ahunting wrote:
Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.

And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

Shadow Lodge

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That seems to be the general consensus from what I can tell, (I agree). Its basically just a worse form of fighty Cleric.

I have a few in PFS that I have not gotten to play yet, out side of a few small test runs. I really, really notice the lose of Attack Mod, which is leading me to regret my builds, (just using a straight Playtest version to Final version update until we get clarification).

They didn't fix skill points/class skills, didn't give anything to the Warpriests that use the war deity's favored weapon that doesn't benefit from the extra damage, didn't give any Warpriest spells, didn't really help much with the action economy, and kept Sacred Weapon and Armor incredibly short durations. There is also a very noticeable lack of toys for them, in the form of gear, new feat options, (extra freakin Fervor), and the divine/cleric spells are just almost universally terrible from what I have seen so far. It's pretty clear that no one that wrote the book liked this class or really wanted to touch it more than they where probably forced to. <my opinion/observation, only>


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I don't know about anyone else, but I'm house-ruling this change right out.


FormerFiend wrote:

Well, I can honestly say I've lost all interest in the class at this point.

The only reason I was interested in the class to start with was the full bab. Made it feel like a paladin who didn't have to be lawful good. At this point, I might as well just play a cleric. I'd rather have level nine spells than the rest of it.

It's actually not the case that they are useless the problem is that the cleric is just straight up better.

Quote:
And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

Is quicken not a thing?

Last I checked it's a thing

Quote:
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.

I understand that CoDZilla from 3.5 is not the same here but the truth is that CoDZilla is a measure of power disparity between Cleric or druid between the rest of the classes, not that of the monsters. Anything another class can do will be done by them but better. Even the summoner is worse at summoning (San's archetypes which are banned in PFS and most home games) little is better than melee (Only highly optimized builds and they have no utility) and even worse it's a full caster with 90% of the power of the wizard list. To put it plainly if the bard is the jack of all trades the druid is the king of all trades.

The 3.5 CoDZilla may be a misnomer for what I mean but the point is still the same. The druid and cleric can complete encounters designed for a party of four by themselves if built will. In 3.5 they can complete MORE encounters by themselves designed for 6 players.

Quote:
And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

What's that you say.

There's a point for point comparison to the inquisitor you say?
The war priest has straight up worse self buffs you say?
The inquisitor even has a better spell list you say?
It's just strictly worse than existing classes. Full BAB would have made it unique. I'd still say with full BAB it's weaker than a paladin on the passive immunities and Cha to saves alone (As long as divine protection is banned) and smite which is a superior swift action to any you can possibly take with LOH + Fae foundling being better self healing than you have.


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This and the hunter will always be on a slippery slope due to them being 6th level casters with 9th level parents. For the warpriest the ability to heal/buff as a swift is nice, but it severely hampers mythic stuff, and in that light is truly a bad choice compared to a cleric.

As early brought up the scaling of the weapon damage is nice, but not being able to buff it also hinders this class. It seems like lots of bandages to justify medium BAB on a dedicated melee.


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Quote:
It's actually not the case that they are useless the problem is that the cleric is just straight up better.

There is one thing I want. A full BAB, heavy-armor/martial weapon using divine caster that doesn't have to be lawful good or chaotic evil.

That's it. I don't care about optimization. I don't care if it's worse than the monk.

All I want is a class that fulfills those requirements. The warpriest did. Now it doesn't.

Shadow Lodge

K177Y C47 wrote:
Ahunting wrote:
Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.
And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

Most of the armor enhancements are bad, while the Warpriest can buff this little thing in combat, the lower level cleric (even with milticlassing) has already been running around with Magic Vestment that lasts hours per level. Cleric 1 / Warpriest 0

Sort of the same deal with weapon, though the ability to add a small list of extra properties on the spot vs the Cleric's permanent +1 + properties boosted with GMW. (debatable) Cleric 1 / Warpriest 0.5

Proficiency, fighty/warrior clerics gravitate towards a specific weapon they want, so it's not really that important as a comparison, and there are options to open up other weapons. So it's an advantage to the Warpriest, but not really one that matters when comparing the two.

Sacred Weapon Extra Damage. Only benefits weapon selections that really have no place being Warpriests and excludes benefiting those that do. Extremely poor design. What they really should have done is make this an either/or option, so that if you A.) used your deity's favored weapon AND B.) that weapon did not benefit from the extra damage, you could instead choose another benefit, rather than basically opting not to get anything cool for following a deity that should have Warpriests and using a good weapon. It doesn't actually make you worse directly, but it really does feel like it's designed to punish you for doing the right thing.


Not to mention the sacred weapon and Sacred armor bonuses are enhancement bonuses meaning they can be BOUGHT.

Edit: Also Domains (and even inquisitions) are way better than the blessings a Warpriest can get.


K177Y C47 wrote:
Ahunting wrote:
Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.
And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

The ability to enhance your equipment becomes pointless by the endgame, since by that point you should have +10 weapons, armor, and shields with the WBL you have access to. And maybe some +gold options on top of them. It might make him competent in the early game, but he will get outscaled eventually.

The ability to increase damage dice (seems more of a Monk ability than a Fighter ability) can be useful, and given that they are 3/4 BAB, they might be best off going with a Vital Strike build by the endgame; even with their buffs, they're comparing to a standard BAB + Strength martial for hitting power, and for damage power they're about equal. The multiplicatives would be useful if they can hit, but since they only get 3 attacks, and only one of them is going to hit at a time, Vital Strike becomes the superior option.

Swift Action spells only target himself, meaning he can only heal himself with slots per day or buff himself for combat, unless he wants to invest in Quicken Metamagics, both feat or rod. Again, while this helps make him superior in the early game, it becomes required before battle if he wants to maintain competence.

Although somewhat related, it's another benefit. Not needing to rely on a weapon's damage dice is a real handy tool, since he can just invest in whatever 18-20/X2 weapon he wants, or go with a 19-20/X3 Falcata.


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CoDZilla is absolutely still a thing, though not as much for Clerics who took nerfs to some of their better Core options and haven't gotten the splatbook options that made Clericzilla pull ahead of Druidzilla.

But Druidzilla is in the CRB. See that access to pounce? See those long duration offense and defensive buffs? See that mini-fighter it gets for free? See that undispelable wildshape that grants utility in addition to combat power? See that access to battlefield control magic? Access to Curative magic? Offensive Magic? See that Wild Armor? See that Dragonhide Fullplate? (Which means bar none they'll have the highest AC in core, eat your heart out Fighter's armor training).

Ya, Druidzilla is very very real.

Shadow Lodge

FormerFiend wrote:

Well, I can honestly say I've lost all interest in the class at this point.

The only reason I was interested in the class to start with was the full bab. Made it feel like a paladin who didn't have to be lawful good. At this point, I might as well just play a cleric. I'd rather have level nine spells than the rest of it.

Undone wrote:
It's actually not the case that they are useless the problem is that the cleric is just straight up better.

It's more accurate to say that the Cleric, who is not that great at it to begin with, but can manage, is generally better at being a war priest than the Warpriest.

And here's the thing about Clerics being 9th level casters, oh my. . ..

Up until 3E, they where full casters, but that only meant they had 7th level spells. Yep, 7th, not 9th. 3E wanted to stream line the system and bumped them up to 9th level spells, but what they did was stretch out the spell levels, literally adding to whole spell levels without many actual new spells to fill in the gaps. That leads to the vast majority of spells of 6th level or higher being extremely underpowered for what they do, when they come online, and what they work against. This generally leads to more than a few entire spell levels being filled with very, well crappy spell options. Unlike basically every other caster, 9th level or not, the Cleric list is also filled with a lot of spells that overlap a lot, rather than stack, (for example, most AC boost offer Deflection, most Save boosts offer Resistance bonus, where even the Druid gets a lot of alternates and variety), and are pretty terrible about scaling. So the truth is, while technically the Cleric is a 9th level full caster, the reality of it in practice is that they are really more like a 6th level full caster.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
DM Beckett wrote:
That seems to be the general consensus from what I can tell, (I agree).

When you have a range of highly discordant opinions, you don't have a consensus. What you are focusing on are the vocal disappointments from folks who found their DPR Champion had been brought back down in line.

The class succeeds in what it's meant to do... be a midway fighter/cleric mashup. When I played the play test version of the character, I never realized that the Sacred Weapon gave full BAB advancement, so I've already had practise playing the character this way through several PFS scenarios. Did I dominate play? No... but I pulled my weight, and that is my definition of viable.


LazarX wrote:
When you have a range of highly discordant opinions, you don't have a consensus. What you are focusing on are the vocal disappointments from folks who found their DPR Champion had been brought back down in line.

I don't think too many people would consider being made strictly inferior to its counterpart to be particularly "in line".

Though I guess full caster supremacy is the party line at Paizo so maybe people do.

Shadow Lodge

Actually, I was talking about all the stuff I have personally heard in regards to the Warpriest's final outcome from my direct communication with others. By that, I mean around the gaming store, from the various groups I run for, as well as online to a point. So the consensus of those I have directly spoken to rather than from the world as a whole, (which tends to be the Warpriest = bad, which I agree with). I honestly don't know what everyone else in the world thinks of it, and imagine that once Gencon is over and a lot of people are back, (well at least for these boards), and we get some official changes/clarification/whatever, things might change. Or might not, but then again, I don't know.

From what I can tell from people as a whole, generally stemming from online boards, is that the opinion of the class is very polar, and tends to be based a lot around the it allowing Warpriests of Whips, Daggers, Brass Knuckles, and things like that as being a good thing vs the nerfs ruining the class or the class failing to give others what was wanted/promised/expected/etc. . . There is a third group that doesn't really care because they are not interested in the class.


Putting a straight cleric and a straight warpriest side by side isn't really the best comparison to see who is better at the "divine martial caster" concept - try a cleric x/fighter 1 vs a warpriest y instead. Quite a lot of battle clerics take a level of a martial class to pick up martial weapon and heavy armor proficiency. The extra HP, BAB and saves is just a bonus.

On a vaguely related note - is it just me, or does it seem like the warpriest archetypes were written independently of the play test feedback? According to the preview blog the warpriest's attack bonus was too high so they changed the class to 3/4th BAB, but the sacred fist gets flurry of blows with full BAB. The warpriest was too MAD so they changed fervor, but the champion of the faith needs charisma as well as wisdom...


LazarX wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:
That seems to be the general consensus from what I can tell, (I agree).

When you have a range of highly discordant opinions, you don't have a consensus. What you are focusing on are the vocal disappointments from folks who found their DPR Champion had been brought back down in line.

The class succeeds in what it's meant to do... be a midway fighter/cleric mashup. When I played the play test version of the character, I never realized that the Sacred Weapon gave full BAB advancement, so I've already had practise playing the character this way through several PFS scenarios. Did I dominate play? No... but I pulled my weight, and that is my definition of viable.

I never saw anything about them being DPR champions before, what they could do was almost match the hit/damage of fighter without buffs and if using their extremely limited swift buffs they could pull ahead a little bit for a few rounds.


DM Beckett wrote:
K177Y C47 wrote:
Ahunting wrote:
Now they are subpar divine casters who gave up domains and 9th level spells for weapon focus at first, and couple bonus feats. Not a good trade. If they are part fighter make'em fight like a real martial class.
And the ability to add enhancements to weapons and armour...and the ability to increase damage dice... and swift action spells...and staying proficiency in whatever the he'll they want...and being able to use weapons for flavor and still be useful...

Most of the armor enhancements are bad, while the Warpriest can buff this little thing in combat, the lower level cleric (even with milticlassing) has already been running around with Magic Vestment that lasts hours per level. Cleric 1 / Warpriest 0

Sort of the same deal with weapon, though the ability to add a small list of extra properties on the spot vs the Cleric's permanent +1 + properties boosted with GMW. (debatable) Cleric 1 / Warpriest 0.5

Proficiency, fighty/warrior clerics gravitate towards a specific weapon they want, so it's not really that important as a comparison, and there are options to open up other weapons. So it's an advantage to the Warpriest, but not really one that matters when comparing the two.

Sacred Weapon Extra Damage. Only benefits weapon selections that really have no place being Warpriests and excludes benefiting those that do. Extremely poor design. What they really should have done is make this an either/or option, so that if you A.) used your deity's favored weapon AND B.) that weapon did not benefit from the extra damage, you could instead choose another benefit, rather than basically opting not to get anything cool for following a deity that should have Warpriests and using a good weapon. It doesn't actually make you worse directly, but it really does feel like it's designed to punish you for doing the right thing.

Except the war priest is better at GMW and magic investment because he can swift action cast without dropping quicken...


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GMW lasts an hour per level. If you need to cast GMW as a swift action you're probably not off to the best start as a warrior priest.


Kudaku wrote:
GMW lasts an hour per level. If you need to cast GMW as a swift action you're probably not off to the best start as a warrior priest.

You never know lol.the opt-in to have it is better than not having it. And besides, people were making the argument like warpriests couldn't cast those spells

Shadow Lodge

They really are not even close, but they can do some novaing to get in the ball park of other "DPR" classes.

The only time I've seen a Warpriest pull it off was by prebuffing using two full rounds to stack as many things as possible to get in a single massive hit. However, there are two major caveats to that in that it just happened to be a Crit and that Warpriest was also 2-3 levels higher than everyone else.

Round 1: Swift Bull's Strength + Divine Favor + shift to charge position
Round 2: Good Blessing + Keen Weapon
Round 3: Bless + Charge to Flank + Crit + Power Attack with +1 Keen Bastard Sword in 2 hands.

Shadow Lodge

K177Y C47 wrote:
Kudaku wrote:
GMW lasts an hour per level. If you need to cast GMW as a swift action you're probably not off to the best start as a warrior priest.

You never know lol.the opt-in to have it is better than not having it. And besides, people were making the argument like warpriests couldn't cast those spells

for armor

Warpriests get it at 7th level, the same time Sacred Armor kicks in. Clerics get it at 5th, while a warrior priest (Fighter/Cleric) is looking at it more around 6th level, still before the Warpriest has either option. Cleric's tend to have an advantage in that if they have a shield, they can double up on it with 2 MVs.

for weapon
the real advantage that the Warpriests have is the option to pick what abilities they need for a short time. Ghost Touch for example. Some of those clerics can replicate pretty easily with spells or cheap items, others they can not, and the advantage really just depends on how often these sorts of things are needed in a particular game. But the other side of that is that it's not that much different than what a fighter/cleric war priest can already (and probably is) already doing with a magic weapon + long lasting GMW prebuffed rather than quick buffed.

The general trick is to make your armor and weapon +1 normally, then use GMW and MV to get the extra attack, damage, and ac bonus while paying for the other properties you want permanently.

A few specific, (pricy but not ridiculously so) grants you Extend and Quicken spell as needed, and well, all casters have the option of making sure they have the right circumstantial spell options on hand if needed with scrolls and wands.


LazarX wrote:
DM Beckett wrote:
That seems to be the general consensus from what I can tell, (I agree).

When you have a range of highly discordant opinions, you don't have a consensus. What you are focusing on are the vocal disappointments from folks who found their DPR Champion had been brought back down in line.

The class succeeds in what it's meant to do... be a midway fighter/cleric mashup. When I played the play test version of the character, I never realized that the Sacred Weapon gave full BAB advancement, so I've already had practise playing the character this way through several PFS scenarios. Did I dominate play? No... but I pulled my weight, and that is my definition of viable.

I've not yet heard a single person present a single reason to play a WP for any reason but flavor.

Damage - Inferior to Cleric, Inquisitor, and paladin.
Saves - Average for divine
Base stats - Weaker than Cleric. Equal to Inquisitor, and Paladin.
Spell list - Equal to cleric, Inferior to Inquisitor, and paladin.
Class Features - Inferior to Paladin, Cleric and Inquisitor.

There is nothing it excels at. It's not even middle of the road all around. If the bard is the jack of all trades this is the 2 of all trades. It's bad at everything.


Quote:
Spell list - Equal to cleric

Cleric has 7th - 9th level spells, so have to disagree there.

Quote:
It's bad at everything

Wouldn't say that necessarily. Objectively it's mostly competent at its niche and mediocre overall. It just happens to exist in a world where the cleric and inquisitor do the exact same thing except better.

Which you have to expect to a degree, not sure why Paizo wanted another martial divine champion when we already have the anti-paladin, cleric, inquisitor, oracle and paladin doing that same thing.


anlashok wrote:
Quote:
Spell list - Equal to cleric

Cleric has 7th - 9th level spells, so have to disagree there.

You misunderstand.

It has access to the same spell list. It has equal cleric access. It just get's worse progression which is what I point out in it's base stats part.

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