Official Rules Response
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It doesn't explicitly state you only use it for pre req's. It seems to apply to all aspects of a feat. For example at 4th level the feat checks your BAB and it happens to be Power attack then does your PA count as -2 +4?
** spoiler omitted **
It almost seems intentional as well seeing as how he must meet pre req's as well.
Answered in the upcoming errata. For now a preview (exact wording subject to change):
...but he treats his warpriest level as his base attack bonus for the purpose of qualifying for these feats
"For the purpose of qualifying for these feats".
Qualifying is different than using, so as it reads a 4th level Warpriest treats BAB as +4 to qualify for feats (like Weapon Spec.) but does not use BAB+4 when actually using the feat.
Besides, if it was for using feats, taking Weapon Specialization would mean any time a Warpriest attacked with that type of weapon, his/her BAB would be at class level. So it wouldn't make much sense for the benefit to extend to use.
Hello! Just popping on to this thread to say that it's made me impossibly sad and severely hampers two of the Warpriest character concepts I actually liked after the dressing-down the class got between its playtest and final release.
That's all. I'll just sit here cradling my untouched ability to Fervor spells until that gets broken somehow. Carry on.
DM Beckett, I'm confused. The effective remaining Warpriest strategies were the ones that relied on incredibly high-accuracy attacks that could have huge damage yields with enough ways to boost static damage, i.e. Combat Reflexes + Reach, Archery, Gunslinging, or Charging.
All of these styles are dramatically enthused to trade some of their excess accuracy for enough damage to make sure the enemy isn't getting up, and from what I understand that ruling kills this possibility.
The "unoptimal" sword 'n board Warpriest was already shelved from the loss of pseudo-BAB for his to-hit and iteratives when the book was released.
EDIT: Oh, Natural Attacking, that's another good way to have a suite of high-accuracy attacks.
At least the Sacred Fist sails on gaily into the night, unconcerned with this ruling due to his untouched pseudo-full BAB... your guide still has its shining champion, Undone.
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DM Beckett, I'm confused. The effective remaining Warpriest strategies were the ones that relied on incredibly high-accuracy attacks that could have huge damage yields with enough ways to boost static damage, i.e. Combat Reflexes + Reach, Archery, Gunslinging, or Charging.
We must have different definitions of the word "effective".
Able to succeed at the role that they chose to play within the party, and at least as effective as other choices for that role? A role in which the Warpriest has myriad competitors.
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I did not even realize this had been answered. :)
Able to succeed at the role that they chose to play within the party, and at least as effective as other choices for that role? A role in which the Warpriest has myriad competitors.
While I understand your point about warpriests I disagree. I feel like they are effective as long as you don't overspecialize. After all...
"Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death."| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Indeed, unfortunately that sort of kills my character for our home game =/ since I was a reach WP. Unfortunately the design/devs hate the WP. It's been pretty clear since play tests so this is of no shock to me.
I think you need to take a step back and look again at what you're saying.
Because what you're saying is,
"Jason wrote this class. But he hates it. Despite hating it, he decided to keep it in the Advanced Class Guide. Because the best way to be proud of something you've created is to keep something you hate in it."
And I say that as a designer who had very little to do with the warpriest design (as I had finished the playtest drafts of my four classes, Jason had me round out some of the warpriest domain-like abilities for the playtest so he could finish up the other two classes he was working on). I certainly don't hate the warpriest. I don't even dislike it. And I certainly didn't go out of my way to try to make it bad or undesirable for players.
So it's silly to say "the devs hate this."
I think it's just that the WP has a hybrid tax. It's essentially a class that is 75% fighter and 66% cleric. This should make it 141% of a character. Which sounds quite good.
The real problem is that spell scaling is just too wacky. 9th levels spells offer too much more than 6th level spells, but 17th level feats aren't much stronger than 11th level feats.
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And I certainly didn't go out of my way to try to make it bad or undesirable for players.
Be that as it may, it's still certainly possible for said players to feel as though the option has become bad or undesirable, leading to frustration and causing said players to wonder why the design team chose to balance that option accordingly.
"Why does Paizo hate Warpriest" is an oversimplification; more accurately, it would be "why does every change made to the Warpriest since the point that we thought it was perfect make it, in our eyes, demonstrably worse."
And there's definitely precedent for the design team going too far on scaling back game options, such as the infamous Crane Style change that is still being tinkered with even as of quite recently. So if there's a chance that expressing displeasure at these changes will cause them to be reconsidered, then I think it's a fine thing to do as long as it doesn't bleed into personal attacks.
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Just so we're clear I agree. It's 75% fighter 66% cleric which comes to 49.5% of a character not 141%.
Now you're just being silly. Even if you completely ignore the cleric component, 75% of fighter is at least 75%. And because of fervor you don't have to choose whether to attack or cast because you can do both in the same round. So the 66% cleric is indeed additive.
I'm not saying the WP is overpowered because it's not supposed to be. If it overshadowed the fighter or cleric at being a fighter or cleric then that would be a problem.
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I'm not saying the WP is overpowered because it's not supposed to be. If it overshadowed the fighter or cleric at being a fighter or cleric then that would be a problem.If a class does not overpower the fighter then to put it simply then the class is probably terribly designed.
This is false. The fighter is actually good at fighting/damage. But that's all it's good at. It has nothing to do out of combat. The warpriest doesn't have this problem as badly because it is still 66% cleric.
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While I will agree that the warpriest losing full BAB was a detriment to the overall power level of the class, that doesn't mean the devs hate it. Nor does this ruling mean they hate it either.
And honestly, aside from the critical feats I personally felt that counting power attack as though you had full BAB was worse because of the increased penalty to attack dragging down your already poor ability to hit. I honestly don't see any problem with this common sense ruling about how the feat/prereq issue was resolved.
As to the warpriest not being a top tier class...does it need to be? Should it be? There are many options in the game, just because some are weaker than others doesn't mean the developers hate it. I don't think the developers hate monks or rogue or fighters. But each is has its problem, but that doesn't mean there is malice.
Not everything new needs to be a better option.
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Just so we're clear I agree. It's 75% fighter 66% cleric which comes to 49.5% of a character not 141%.Now you're just being silly. Even if you completely ignore the cleric component, 75% of fighter is at least 75%. And because of fervor you don't have to choose whether to attack or cast because you can do both in the same round. So the 66% cleric is indeed additive.
I'm not saying the WP is overpowered because it's not supposed to be. If it overshadowed the fighter or cleric at being a fighter or cleric then that would be a problem.
75% of a Fighter is more like 30% of a real class. Fighter is only about 50% of a class.
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I don't think the dev team hate the warpriest, but I do think the class suffered because of the time period the ACG was developed and was published in. Mainly I think the Warpriest could have benefited greatly from a third round of testing after it was regressed to 3/4th BAB. While I'm not entirely sure the loss of "pseudo-BAB" was warranted, if Jason thought the class achieved too too high attack bonuses then I respect and trust that.
However, the revised play test (the less said about the first round the better) was based and balanced around the idea that the class had pseudo-full BAB. Limitations within the class (no skills, dull spell list compared to other 6th level casters, gained access to its 'niche' spells slower than the cleric) were accepted because it was understood that the class needed those weaknesses to be balanced with both full BAB/4th level casting classes like the paladin and the ranger and 3/4th BAB casting classes like the inquisitor and the cleric. If the BAB progression was deemed too good, the "investment" saved by cutting down to medium BAB could have been put to better use elsewhere.
Taking medium BAB progression into account, a few welcome changes could have been: 4+INT skill ranks per level, treat Warpriest levels as BAB for all feats rather than just the bonus feats, having channel/fervor dice scale every two levels instead of every three, the option to trade a Blessing for a domain or an inquisition etc. I'd also mention having a customized spell list rather than just cleric/oracle, but I understand that the team did not want to create more class-specific spell lists.
While we're on the topic of play tests, it would be great if future play tests included class-specific feats like Quicken Blessing. Arguably the best warpriest build available right now plays more like a summoner than a warrior priest. :-(
TL;DR
Losing pseudo-full BAB was a big blow to the Warpriest, and if that had been covered by a playtest I suspect most testers would have commented that the class needed better class features to offset the loss.
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Base WP is equivalent to base magus. If you want to start throwing archetypes into it, then sacred fist.
I'd also argue that WP is stronger in a fight than inquisitor, its next most closely related class.
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Be that as it may, it's still certainly possible for said players to feel as though the option has become bad or undesirable, leading to frustration and causing said players to wonder why the design team chose to balance that option accordingly.
Oh, I'm not defending the warpriest design at all. I had very little to do with it, much of what I did was a temporary fix to get it ready for the playtest, and probably much of my temporary text was replaced after the playtest, or even after I left Paizo. I honestly haven't even read the final version of the class because I was more interested in the final versions of the four classes I did write (which basically didn't change at all). I have given zero though to evaluating the final version of the warpriest.
My point is, there is a difference between stating a complaint, and blowing something out of proportion.
"I feel that this is yet another thing that makes the warpriest a weak class" is a complaint.
"The devs hate the warpriest and it's clear they always have" is blowing something out of proportion.
It's also a false statement. I don't recall any discussion with anyone on staff who said they disliked the class.
And it's a statement that (I'm strongly suspecting) makes the (current) devs not want to get involved in a discussion with you. You're pushing away the very people you want to be involved. Why do that? Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel like a martyr? Do you think that'll change anyone's mind about what's printed for the class?
Me? I'm not a dev any more. And I'm clearly so dumb that I'll spend my own free time refuting false statements about a class I didn't work on. I also have a long history (during- and post-Paizo) of trying to explain to people that how they say something is just as important as what they're saying, because the Paizo staff are people, and they have a choice about what threads they reply to, or if they reply to any at all.
I get that you're unhappy with the class. I have no horse in this race—I didn't write the class, I don't work for Paizo anymore, and I don't know you... but I'm still trying to help you, so maybe you should believe me when I say that the devs don't hate the warpriest?
Anyway, the point is: the devs don't hate any of the classes. If they did, we would have left them out of the book and included other material instead. Suggesting otherwise is just... silly.
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Base WP is equivalent to base magus. If you want to start throwing archetypes into it, then sacred fist.
I'd also argue that WP is stronger in a fight than inquisitor, its next most closely related class.
I cannot say that Magus and Warpriest are anything close to equivalent with a straight face.
Also I'd agree that a Warpriest barely edges out in a fight with an inquisitor. As it should considering all the other stuff Inquisitors have to give them an edge in every other facet of the game.
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I know that Sean has been some big boogieman on the forums for a while now, but it would be really helpful if everyone took a step back, pretended it wasn't Sean that made the post, and read it with as little bias as you can muster.
Don't give in to your preconceived notions or everything Sean says is going to somehow be morphed to fit them.
Remember that everyone on this board is a person and that a lot is lost in a textual conversation.
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Inquisitor v Warpriest really depends on the situation. If neither class are casting buff spells or using class features, it's basically a tie. In actual play this is fairly rare and usually not particularly relevant since parties will usually rest well before they're completely out of resources. Conversely if the fight does not necessitate the use of spells or class features it's likely because it is an easy win already.
If both classes are fighting and using resources but do not have a chance to pre-buff, I'd say they're neck and neck. Fervor, Sacred Weapon/Sacred Armor and Blessings balance well with Bane, Judgement and Domains. The raw warpriest numbers will be a little behind the inquisitor's, but in turn Fervor means the warpriest is better able to adjust to a changing battlefield.
If both classes get a chance to pre-buff, the inquisitor blows the warpriest out of the water. The Inquisitor has access to basically all the same buff spells that the warpriest does and a fair few he does not, and they all stack with Bane and Judgement. Sacred Weapon and blessings alone cannot keep up with Judgement, Bane, and a domain/inquisition.
Outside of combat the inquisitor still has 6 skills per level, Stern Gaze, a domain or an inquisition, constant detect alignment, track, discern lies... There is very little doubt that the inquisitor crushes the warpriest in general utility.
I will however say that the warpriest gains ground if the comparison is made with a feat-intense combat style such as low level archery or dex-based TWF, or if the fight is both pre-warned by 24 hours and so unusual that the inquisitor's fixed spell list does not give him sufficient cover the way the Warpriest's flexible spell list does. For example a warpriest can probably better prepare for a fight with vacuum-breathing mantis swarms taking place in space, provided he has advance warning ahead of time.
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Pretty good play by play from Kudaku. Can't find anything I can disagree with in his post.
It's entirely up to the player to decide how valuable they find certain aspects of the classes, but I know I wouldn't play anything but a Divine Commander lance Charger Warpriest or a Sacred Fist over an Inquisitor.
The only problem I've seen with the Warpriest is a lack of imagination from the people using it.
If you're trying to build something to out-damage a pouncing Barbarian you will indeed find it lacking.
I find the class is incredible for making previously underwhelming combat choices viable. I'm playing and very much enjoying a Warpriest that uses a sling. I've specced out a dagger-throwing Warpriest of Pharasma that I think is pretty damn good.
That's way more fun for me than yet another OP build that makes everyone else at the table roll their eyes as you one-shot encounters.
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Warpriest: It lets you use a sling.
Marketing genius. :)
Warpriest: It lets you use a sling.Oh yes, as much as monk of the healing hand lets you raise someone.
Considering how often you like to call other people out on logical fallacies, do you really think that's an apt comparison?
I would dispute your assertion that my warpriest sucks in combat. He got through Bonekeep just fine at level 3. He more than holds his own dealing damage and can handle healing and condition removal in emergencies or between combats. He's not going to out-damage an optimized archer, but very few things can.
Perhaps it would be simpler to ask what your threshold is for whether a character sucks. What's the minimum required DPR? What kind of bonuses in which skills is sufficient? What save DCs by level do you need?
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I was being satirical, in case that wasn't clear. Being able to use a sling somewhat viably, but still basically suck, is not actually a strong selling point.
Sometimes I think my sarcasm, like natural gas, needs an odious additive to it can be easily detected.
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The only problem I've seen with the Warpriest is a lack of imagination from the people using it.
Oh, agreed. Imaginative math would help the warpriest immensely in comparisons! ;)
Perhaps it would be simpler to ask what your threshold is for whether a character sucks. What's the minimum required DPR? What kind of bonuses in which skills is sufficient? What save DCs by level do you need?
Good question, but allow me to rephrase it slightly:
what is your threshold for whether a class is underperforming?
I would say a class is underperforming if it is consistently outperformed at the primary function(s), thematically and/or mechanically, that it's intended to do.
For example I'd say the rogue is having a hard time because speaking broadly, his main schticks mechanically are sneak attack and being good at lots of skills - both of which are handled better by a myriad of classes/archetypes. The rogue is having a hard time thematically because most people expect a "rogueish" character to have and benefit from a high dexterity, intelligence and charisma - and high dex/int/cha rogues tend to fail a lot of saves and die young. Looking over the rogue class, apart from extra skill bonuses there is very little benefit to investing in those ability scores. The lack of benefit from investing in dex/int/cha over for example str/con/wis means that the rogue is better off investing in ability spreads that runs counter to the conventional depiction of a rogue. It's fine to have this as an option (the more possible character builds the merrier), but it probably shouldn't be the dominant choice.
Mechanically I'd say the monk was underperforming because his original design philosophy seems to be at odds with itself - for example he gets lots of movement-enhancing abilities, but flurry of blows can only be used when standing still, which heavily encourages an immobile play style.
Now, for the warpriest. Thematically, the warpriest is doing well up until level 10, where his best option suddenly goes from "swift cast a buff and run into melee/swift cast a buff and fire my bow" to "swift cast a summon, then summon another dude" - he basically turns into a summoner. Mechanically, the schtick for the Warpriest is that he is a battle-focused "selfish buffer" - he relies on divine abilities as well as buff and combat spells to stay alive and dish out damage in combat. His main focus is on combat, which should be reflected in the class. Therefore, to me, it makes absolutely no sense that the Warpriest has a spell list that misses out on extremely appropriate spells like Litany of Vengeance, Keep Watch, or Blistering Invective, but all Warpriests gain Find Traps or Enchantment Foil, that he has the same hit die as a bard, and that he has slower channel/lay on hands progression than a cleric. Likewise, I find it troubling that what buff spells he does get access to will be delayed anywhere up to five levels after the cleric has had access.
I find the class is incredible for making previously underwhelming combat choices viable. I'm playing and very much enjoying a Warpriest that uses a sling. I've specced out a dagger-throwing Warpriest of Pharasma that I think is pretty damn good.
You're probably not aware of this, but in the original Warpriest playtest thread I was one of the people who argued the hardest that Warpriests should have be able to use Sacred Weapon with multiple weapons - the original Warpriest could only use Sacred Weapon with the favored weapon of his deity. It also didn't change his damage die, it simply meant he was able to use Sacred Weapon to enhance that one weapon type. Fervor, damage scaling, "pseudo-BAB" and so on was all added later. Basically he had 6 levels of spellcasting, sacred weapon/sacred armor, slow progression channel energy and some bonus feats.
No one is knocking the Warpriest's ability to make otherwise poor weapons worthwhile, that's in my opinion one of the best things about the class, and one I was on the frontlines arguing for literally dozens of posts that he should have! What is being said, I can't help but feel that it would be nice if the Warpriest could excel with normal weapons as well as the weapons you usually find found at the bottom of the proverbial instrument box.
The class inherited its problem from the fighter, another class that literally only gains class features related to combat and war. Similar classes are equally viable in combat and get tons of utility abilities as well. Concluding that the Warpriest was able to buff his attack rolls too high is well and good, but when cutting that leg away it would be good to balance that loss out by boosting the class in other areas. Helping the Warpriest either stand out more in combat (by making minor changes such as full channel progression or a more appropriate spell list) or giving it some features that let it contribute out of combat (such as having a paltry four skill points instead of 2) would have gone a long way - all suggestions that were made numerous times in the revised play test.
All that typed up, arguing the Warpriest is essentially futile. The class has been published, and I wouldn't get my hopes up for a rewrite anytime soon. And, perhaps most importantly, it's still much better than the rogue! ;)
I am a little surprised by all the talk about the warpriest not being any good here. It is my impression that it is quite strong. Yes the lag of skills is a shame but that os a problem it shares with cleric and sorcerer and it is hardly a problem if you look at strength.
Am i misundestanding the Sound of crying in here or am i just wrong in thinking the WP a good class.
I am not talking wizard/arcanist/cleric/summoner good here, but on par with the other 6th level casters.
2 skill points per level is so lame, augh.
Agreed! On the bright side that seems to be a design choice that Paizo are distancing themselves from. Only the Arcanist, the Magus, the Witch (which are all INT-focused), the Summoner (who has the eidolon for additional skill support) and the Warpriest have 2 skill points per level, all the other Paizo-made classes have either 4 or 6 ranks per level.
I'm not sure how the Occultist classes stack up though.
There will apparently also be some support for "additional skill points" for characters in Pathfinder Unchained.