The dice roller's been quite rude to the players in my other game, too. It's distinctly weird.
Yeah, sacrifices to Desna might be in order. Or try an Elliot and directly apologize to your god for your hubris. Since then, i think 5 out of his 6 attacks were critical threats :O
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No, luck bonuses don't stack. The highest one applies. Dodge bonuses, racial bonuses, circumstance bonuses (usually), and untyped bonuses that are not from the same source are the only kinds of bonuses that stack. This is also why Thesius hasn't been applying prayer on his attacks; it doesn't stack with his Archeologist's Luck bonus, unfortunately.
On the other hand, Verene has been pretty lucky this fight, all told. She barely made two fireball saves in a row thanks to Prescience (and the second time, also Merixia's prayer), and she's rolled a 50-50 chance on the magic missile wand three times in a row now and had it work all three times.
As long as we're not sacrifices Thesius to Desna.
Indeed, unfortunately luck bonuses do not stack. Although one of his traits currently make prayer almost as good as his archaeologist's luck for him.
I was pretty sure that luck bonuses didn't stack, so I'm glad I asked.
We'll see what comes!
Whoops, I thought one of those was a morale bonus. Sorry about that!
Logically speaking, you'd really think at least one of prayer or divine favor would be a sacred bonus. But oh well.
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You would think that, wouldn't you? Oh, Paizo. What are we going to do with you?
In other news, I really wish I had known about the Divine Paragon archetype when I originally made Merixia. I never use Touch of Good anyway, there are better things to do with a standard action. (Like flail uselessly at demons while the dice roller laughs at me.)
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I'm willing to let you retrain when you've got the chance!
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I've definitely got some retraining I'm hoping to do as well. Need to clean up some skills and spells.
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Holy s#@! Ragathiel's obedience and boons are awesome ! :O
+4 to saves vs spells of evil creatures, +,half your level on damage rolls vs the last target to attack you and a once per day superbuff eventually? Next to rage and bastard swords on clerics? I'd almost spontaneously convert!
Yeah, there's some dispute about how you need to do his obedience, but you're only going to use it when you're already fighting/expecting a fight, so it's less restrictive than it looks.
I think Ragathiel's boons are broadly considered to be the best in the game and the Divine Paragon cleric archetype would be a great flavorful choice for Merixia. However, by the standard rules, retraining into it would take her 10 days (5 each for the two class features it's altering), and we might not be able to invest that kind of time in-game until after Drezen. Which will likely be months of real time away. Is there anything she could do to accomplish it faster, GM? A sacred quest from Ragathiel to personally slay a specific evildoer in Drezen might be thematic...
Merixia, you're not waiting on Azira, right? I think she's more limited at range than Merixia is right now because she can't fly.
Sorry I didn't get a post up yesterday, my boss' boss came to my work (I'm functionally like the general manager there, so my boss' boss oversees the entire state and hasn't visited in person in over a decade), so it was a bit of a long day.
Well, since Merixia never really used touch of good and she is the only one of us playing a base class without an archetype, could the retraining time perhaps be handwaved or handled through a vision or prayer or such?
If we do someone have retraining time however, let me know, since I'd like to train away the wand wielder arcana on account of never using it and never having used it either.
No worries, Azira. I think you should have cold iron arrows if you do want to use the bow. We definitely found some anyway. Oh, but also, if you need something to do, you could kill the unconscious ones so Merixia doesn't heal them when she hopefully channels to heal us all soon! :)
P.S. Verene also doesn't have an archetype. Just a vanilla wizard with the Divination (Foresight) school here!
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Ah, right. I temporarily forgot diviner was a base wizard specialization :) Apologies.
Sure, I'll start executing the unconscious ones instead. No problem.
I will be starting to move again tomorrow. Fortunately should not effect my ability to post for long and this move will be a longer stay with much better internet.
What did poor Merixia ever do to you, Desna? T_T This is ridiculous.
@GM: Before I commit to retraining, I have a very important question. Do party kills count toward Ragathiel's obedience as long as Merixia participates in the fight, or does she personally have to land the killing blow? Because... uh... *looks at current combat* Yeah, that might not work so well.
If party kills do count, I'm on board with whatever you want to do about retraining times.
I'll try and help you out next level with sharing teamwork feats and a Keen buff, Merixia. Mythic power attack should work really well with expanded crit ranges!
By the way, on that feat, while I wouldn't presume to know anything mechanically about what's going on (and even less on Desna's Vendetta against you), I think at level 6 clerics have a BAB of +4 which should bring power attack to stage 2, with mythic power attack that would add 10 damage instead of 5 or 6 I believe. Which might help a bit?
What did poor Merixia ever do to you, Desna? T_T This is ridiculous.
@GM: Before I commit to retraining, I have a very important question. Do party kills count toward Ragathiel's obedience as long as Merixia participates in the fight, or does she personally have to land the killing blow? Because... uh... *looks at current combat* Yeah, that might not work so well.
If party kills do count, I'm on board with whatever you want to do about retraining times.
Hm... Ragathiel's Obedience is really good. How do you folks feel about it? I don't mind, per se, but I don't want it to feel unbalanced to the rest of you players.
As a side note, I've come down with Covid, so I may not be able to post today. Hopefully I can, but I can't promise it.
Oof, best of health, gm!
Personally, I have no objection to Ragathiel's divine obedience. I don't want to take it away from Meri for one. Second, though (essentially, especially in this campaign) a +4 bonus to all saving throws that stacks with almost everything at the cost of just 1 feat is really strong, mythic heroism is also just around the corner and will provide that to everyone else too. Given that and the inflated stats and saving throws we will likely have from the mythic system, the relative gap between having it and not having it will probably be less.
It is true though that since the two aren't exclusive, it'd buff Meri's saving throws to be roughly comparable to those of Azira, which is supposed to be a paladin niche. I'd understand if she felt more opposed to such. If it was considered too powerful perhaps the saving throw bonus could be lowered to +3 or +2 instead of disallowing it entirely?
Sorry to hear about the illness, GM. I hope it doesn't hit you too hard and you feel better soon.
This is a really impressive streak of bad luck for Merixia. Her last five attack rolls have been 2, 3, 3, 10 (and attack still missed by 1), 2.
Elliot: We talked about the Mythic Power Attack thing recently. It is indeed only +6 to damage from Mythic Power Attack at BAB +4/stage 2 level, because Merixia is using the bastard sword one-handed. It would be +9 if she were using it two-handed.
Honestly, I think Ragathiel's obedience/boons are fine and won't feel overpowered. They're purposefully hard to trigger — as written I would definitely say the obedience-user has to personally strike the killing blow on a 'proven evildoer' — and the main initial benefit of +4 to saves actually doesn't help with Merixia's biggest problem in combat, which is her to-hit bonus. She's generally rolling at 4-9 less to hit than Elliot and Azira. (The natural 10 didn't hit this AC 22 enemy either, while Elliot and Azira would be hitting on 3s to 5s with their first attacks, depending on circumstances like flanking. It's fine if they're a little better, as our direct-damage-focused PCs, but that's too big a discrepancy for Merixia to ever really feel effective in combat next to them. Especially when enemies are beefed up to be any challenge at all to them.)
I try not to give unsolicited build advice, but I know it sucks to miss over and over. Let me know if you want my thoughts on mitigating that difference as a Str-based cleric while still being good at staying alive and keeping others alive.
Ah, right. I guess I am getting forgetful in my early middle age. In my defense, the +5/+10 was remembered from the video game version where it was rounded up from 4.5.
Hope you feel better soon, GM!
Honestly, I think Ragathiel's obedience/boons are fine and won't feel overpowered. They're purposefully hard to trigger — as written I would definitely say the obedience-user has to personally strike the killing blow on a 'proven evildoer' — and the main initial benefit of +4 to saves actually doesn't help with Merixia's biggest problem in combat, which is her to-hit bonus. She's generally rolling at 4-9 less to hit than Elliot and Azira. (The natural 10 didn't hit this AC 22 enemy either, while Elliot and Azira would be hitting on 3s to 5s with their first attacks, depending on circumstances like flanking. It's fine if they're a little better, as our direct-damage-focused PCs, but that's too big a discrepancy for Merixia to ever really feel effective in combat next to them. Especially when enemies are beefed up to be any challenge at all to them.)
I try not to give unsolicited build advice, but I know it sucks to miss over and over. Let me know if you want my thoughts on mitigating that difference as a Str-based cleric while still being good at staying alive and keeping others alive.
Well, that’s why I was asking if the obedience triggered even if Merixia didn’t personally get the killing blow. Ragathiel is a general, he should be familiar with fighting as a disciplined unit and using battlefield tactics vs. rushing in to get your licks in regardless of what would be most effective for the situation.
Sure, I welcome your tips! The vast majority of games I’ve played in the past petered out around 4th or 5th level, so I’m not very familiar with gameplay above that. I know using the sword two-handed is part of it.
Still struggling to throw this thing off, so I'll hopefully get some rest in today.
I'm fine with the bonuses of Ragathiel's devotion, but I'm not sure about allowing it to trigger off of others? Because as you say, it's hard to set up if your buddies are slaughtering things faster than you can, and it does thematically vibe with Ragathiel's themes to a degree.
I agree with Verene's assessment of Ragathiel's deific obedience- the designers seem to have purposefully balanced an unusually potent initial benefit against a much more difficult obedience. I won't feel like Meri is stepping on my toes at all if/when she's able to gain the benefit, but that is tricky to do. If our gracious GM wants to make it easier that's one thing, but as written (even aside from questions about whether Meri has to kill it herself) we have to have proof that the person/creature killed has committed evil acts, so none of the demons or cultist we've encountered since leaving Mendev would have counted since we don't know of any specific evil deeds they've done.
I (somewhat briefly) played a paladin of Ragathiel in a higher level campaign ages ago (she was a sacred servant with the destruction [rage] domain, so she could rage like a barbarian and smite) and took the deific obedience feat but I so rarely benefited from it that I wished I had spent the feat on something else. I'm a little rusty on my rules-fu but I actually have some downtime tomorrow so--since Meri welcomed it--I may try to post a few suggestions for ways she could bump her combat effectiveness.
@Merixia I am not as good at this as Verene no doubt is, but these are some things I know of that can help hitting, from an optimization standpoint. I tried to stay a bit close to the rage theme and morale bonusses mostly.
-The fate's favored trait, increase all active luck bonusses like divine favor by +1. Would require taking with a trait or the 'extra traits' feat. If you have it, a wand of divine favor is probably a good buy as it would grant the +2 hit/+2 damage effect as a level 1 spell with 50 charges for 750 g.
-Extreme mood swings feat, increase all morale bonusses you receive by 1 (2 if drunk). (rage is a morale bonus so that would buff rage to +5str/+5 con). But also things like good hope, the flagbearer feat of wulfric and heroism would increase lots of other things as well.
-Metamagic wand or feat of encouraging spell. Cost: +1 spell level, increase all morale bonusses provided by a spell by +1. Even base bless is pretty good with that.
-The Blood Rage spell, level 3 cleric. For every 5 damage you/others take in a fight, your AC drops by 1 but your str and con increase by 2 up to a max of 10 each.
-There are some items that grant a competence bonus to attack, but usually those are provided by Wulfric's inspire courage, who is absent from the current fight.
-Teamwork feats, outflank is really strong for one. Elliot will spread this to the party at level 7.
-Untold wonder, a level 4 cleric spell: long duration increase all morale bonusses someone received by another +1 and mage that person immune to morale penalties. The flavor is a bit wonky though.
-In this campaign, it's probably worth upgrading your weapon with an evil outsider bane enchantment. It does cost like 6000 gold but adds so much hit and damage.
I think the proof, at least, can be reasonably assumed in the case of demons - if not their cultists, definitely the demons.
...oh no, I haven't calculated my gold in forever. >.< Ugh. Another thing to try and make time for. I'm pretty sure a wand of divine favor would only grant +1/+1 though, at least the 750 g version would. Evil outsider bane is definitely on my wishlist though!
The reason I'm asking about this is because with Divine Paragon, you don't just lose access to your boons if you don't successfully perform your obedience. You also lose access to your domain spells and abilities. So I don't want to go that route unless I know ahead of time that Merixia will have a pretty good chance of performing her obedience in the first fight of the day.
Oh, Ragathiel. Why must you be so extra?
Sorry to hear that Worldwound GM. I hope it's a mild case and you get to feeling better soon.
I don't have an issue with whatever you choose in regards to Merixia's use of Ragathiel's devotion.
Overall, the last boon is accessed at 14th level so that is still pretty far into the game.
I will say the daily devotion seems rough as hell though. However, I would say that a) the Worldwound is a prime source of candidates for her to slay and b) you could potentially cheese it with a summoning spell...
Overall, cleric can be rough to play when you feel mitigated to just healing. So I'm perfectly fine with making sure Merixia feels like she can do something.
Thesius should hit more of his stride later. He's honestly a more all rounder so I'm not going to expect him to outshine anyone in combat necessarily. Skills are where I expect him to be better.
I would like to set an expectation. Thesius is at minimum two mythic tiers out from granting more then himself and maybe one other (Likely Merixia) heroism on a normal basis. That also would cut into the plans I had originally made to keep upgrading his skills more heavily.
While I appreciate it’s really cool, it’s currently being used heavily as a way to try and keep up, strengthen Thesius’ skills, and bump his defenses. It was used heavily before because of the danger the vescavor queen posed.
I will try and make sure Elliot can use it on others too; it's only one retrain of a magus arcana away once we hit level 7.
I'm feeling a touch better, but I think I may have to wait until Monday to post. I'm almost over this thing, but still have a nasty cough and stuff.
Take it easy and rest up, GM. We'll be here.
Finding appropriate targets for Ragathiel's obedience shouldn't be hard in this campaign. A demon is kind of definitionally an evildoer, of course. And trying to further the large-scale slaughter-and-torture goals of the demons is also an obviously evil act, so any creature in the demons' armies who is there willingly or who demonstrates loyalty to the Abyss would also qualify, in my opinion.
For the record, at the next mythic tier I'm planning on taking Harmonious Mage for Verene and making her second mythic spell heroism. But she can't be putting heroism or mythic heroism on everyone all the time, because the mythic version costs a use of mythic power that could be a Wild Arcana spell, and also heroism is competing with haste *and* slow *and* fly for spell slots.
1) Build so her Strength is actually higher than her Wisdom.
2) Buff for every single combat in the one to five rounds directly preceding it (depending on how long ago I cast my previous minute/level buffs), not during the combat itself. As a melee cleric, if there's ever a combat where I don't start with all five of bull's strength, bless, shield of faith, ironskin, and divine favor up, it's because we got ambushed.
At our level, I'd also want blood rage and bless weapon (from the wand) for every significant combat. Merixia doesn't have Use Magic Device, but that's fine. Verene can tap her with the wand a couple of times until it works.
I understand that (1) might seem counterintuitive. Wisdom is the cleric's casting stat, and her spell DCs and bonus spells per day scale from it. You're committing to not trying to directly harm enemies with your spells very much, because the saves on those spells will be a little lower. But that's perfectly fine. Debuffing and direct spell damage aren't a cleric's strong suit anyway, especially not in a context where almost everything has spell resistance. Buffing, healing, and maybe a bit of summoning are a cleric's strong suit, and they aren't sky-high-Wisdom-dependent or SR-mediated. A melee cleric wants to be more like Elliot, whose casting stat is his second highest but still very high, at 18; not more like Verene, who is not a particularly optimized wizard, but is still basically putting all her eggs in the Int basket and avoiding melee at all costs.
For example: In one level, Merixia will get air walk, blessing of fervor, crusader's edge, divine power, spiritual ally, *and* freedom of movement, all at once. An amazing spell suite. Spectacular even. None of them care about spell DC. Nor does summon monster IV. Nor does the 3rd-level dispel magic: it scales off caster level checks, not casting stat.
The most powerful cleric spells that scale off casting stat are almost all evil-themed. Consider bestow curse. Bestow curse is an insanely good, versatile debuff, but does our friendly local cleric of righteous might really want to be throwing necromancy around? Probably not. Warp metal (4th) and greater command (5th) are good debuffs too, but the fact that all the targets have to be within 20 or 30 feet of each other, respectively, will make them far more annoying to use effectively than they seem.
So: buffs. Buff early, buff often. With buffs up, a cleric is 95% of a fighter but can also heal and cast other great spells like stone shape and Merixia's favorite shield of wings. Without buffs up, a cleric is like half of a fighter or less.
Note that the melee cleric would have only decent (mid-to-high 20s) AC even in +1 full plate with her buffs up. This would still be higher than her current usual AC values, but as far as I can tell, it's just impossible to be a truly tanky Str-based cleric. Contrary to how it should intuitively work, in Pathfinder wearing heavy armor and using a shield does not actually make you the hardest person to hit in practice; a high-Dex build with light or no armor is much more defensively effective. Elliot and Azira are both Dex builds for a reason.
It's an annoying feature of the game, but it's just true: over time the designers have made Dex a far better stat than Str by creating various ways of getting Dex to damage as well as attack bonus and AC, but absolutely no ways of getting Str to AC as well as attack bonus and damage.
If I were making a melee cleric from the ground up with 25-point buy, as a Ragathiel worshipper and hellspawn tiefling, and not trying to minmax, I would start with Str 16, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 15, Cha 13 after racial adjustments. Right now, after a +1 improvement at character level 4 (Wis), a +2 inherent ability score bonus from Iomedae (Str), and with a +2 ability score belt (Str), she would have Str 20, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 16, Cha 13. Bull's strength would push her effective Str in combat to 22. Not that different from Merixia now, except Wis and Str are effectively swapped. If I were optimizing a little, maybe her current stats would look like Str 20 (22), Dex 10, Con 14, Int 9, Wis 18, Cha 13; and if a little more than that, right now it would look like Str 22 (24), Dex 10, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 13. Selective Channel instead of Summon Good Monster. +1 full plate instead of banded mail. As many of the spells listed above as possible every fight. No buckler, since it penalizes attacking with a two-handed weapon. In fact, ignore shields until you can take Shield Focus directly into Unhindering Shield, at which point it will be more about what magic and properties you can stack on the shield anyway. Otherwise exactly like Merixia is now.
All right, you say, but I've already chosen Merixia's ability scores and don't want to switch them around. I will note that our gracious GM let Elliot do exactly that when he changed classes from arcanist to magus, and retraining to a Divine Paragon cleric could be an opportunity to do the same. But if you don't want to, all the stuff about buffing still applies. Her effective Str in every combat could be 20, she could be adding +1 from bless and +2 from divine favor and soon +2 from crusader's edge to every attack and +6 to her AC, she could be wearing +1 full plate, and so on. It's boring to think about turning Pathfinder into a buffing game, but if it helps to imagine it a little differently, Merixia is calling on her god for his aid against tides of evil monsters more powerful than any single mortal could face alone, and he is answering. In her situation, when every fight could be her last, wouldn't a soldier want every edge?
I'll second Elliot's suggestion of a wand, but I would get bless and not divine favor. A backup wand of bless, which doesn't scale with your level except in duration, lets you prepare more of shield of faith and divine favor, which both do scale with your level. The evil outsider bane weapon quality is nice but not crucial for you, because of crusader's edge, which duplicates it plus some extra. That's good, because it would cost 6,000 gp to add to your weapon and we might not have that yet. He also has good suggestions for feats that will improve attack bonuses, but the problem is that clerics are feat-starved and each one of those things would cost a whole feat for +1 to hit. I think the best of those options would be Extra Traits and taking Fortune's Favored plus some other trait; maybe Reactionary for +2 initiative.
If you really want to keep focusing on boosting Wisdom, there is also a three-feat chain of Channel Smite -> Guided Hand -> Mythic Guided Hand that substitutes Wis for Str in attack bonus and eventually damage. But again, clerics are feat-poor, and Channel Smite is basically a dead feat for this campaign. The chain also makes all of your points spent on Strength at character creation a total waste, since it's a replacement and not an addition. I wouldn't recommend going this route without significantly rebuilding the ability scores.
Yup, your health comes first. Appreciate the updates, but do what you got to do.
I am aiming to eventually have Thesius able to give Mythic Heroism with a 24 hour duration, it's just still a ways out.
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@Merixia- Verene made some good points, and I don't want to overwhelm you with information, but I spent some time looking at your build and refreshing my memory on options, so I'm going to share my 2cp. I'll use multiple spoilers though to make it seem less intimidating when you click "show," lol.
Before I get into any specific suggestions, though, I just want to say that it looks like maybe (at least) part of your problem is that you're trying to be good at too many things. Right now, you're trying to be a primary divine caster, a melee combatant, and tank. 9 level casters can usually be good at anything, but only temporarily and with enough prep time, and that's mostly about spell selection- you can't build to be good at everything all of the time, but with a few rounds to buff and the right spells (or enough mythic points for multiple inspired spell uses) you can be good at anything while you're buffed. In a game like this (with a high point buy and all the extra goodies from mythic and whatnot), you should be able to be good at two things all the time but sometimes that requires specific builds (that may or may not match the feel you want). So, I'm going to start by suggesting a really simple tweak to Merixia as she is now, then a bigger tweak (that has some clear similarities to Verene's suggested changes), and then offer a build that really leans into Wisdom (and would probably be the biggest change).
Also, summoning spells probably aren't going to be super-effective in a high powered game (unless that's your focus), so you could probably drop summon good monster. I'd suggest trading it for furious focus, since hitting has been a problem. I know you can already use mythic points to avoid the attack penalty from power attack, but furious focus would let you save those points for inspired spell or other goodies. And, while we're on the subject of hitting... it might be worth considering switching out mythic power attack (which you could always pick back up later) for mythic weapon focus- that's an extra +1 on every attack roll you ever make, and gives the option of spending a mythic point to add even a little more attack bonus when you really need it.
Smaller change- Switch your stat bonus from the special blessing we got from Wis to Str and keep focusing mostly on Str moving forward (as Verene suggested). Instead of taking Divine Paragon (which might be hard to keep active), trade out the Good domain for the Anger inquisition- that halves your options for your domain spells (like paragon would have anyways) but you'll get a lot more use out of the counterattack than you have from touch of good and you'll be able to start raging during combat immediately (and have more rounds worth to use once the destruction [rage] 8th level ability kicks in). Normally raging during combat isn't great for a caster but if/since you're focusing on buffs spells (which you cast before combat) and heals (which are mostly afterwards) it should work out most of the time. I'd suggest the same feat changes here as I did in the simple tweaks- drop summon good for furious focus and switch to medium armor (freeing up another feat for whatever).
Bigger change- This is really like a minor overhaul, so you'd definitely need to work with the GM to see if it's even possible. I'd suggest the same changes as the 'smaller change' version but then take it further by reworking your starting stats, and race... well, racial subtype. If you switched from Hellspawn to Motherless (or Hungerseed), you'd get a natural +2 to Str instead of Con; you'd lose the +2 to sense motive (and pyrotechnics, which is a fun spell) but since you're not using the skills you would get bonuses to you could trade those out for 'fiendish sprinter' which buffs your speed on a charge, so you can get into melee faster. You could pretty easily (with the same gear you have now) have 22 Str all the time (26 while raging). Some quick math looks like you could potentially be at Str 22, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 13 as a Motherless tiefling- that costs you 1 skill point/level but improves your channeling and opens up some more feat options. Without any buff spells running, your base 2-handed power attack (if you took mythic weapon focus instead of mythic power attack) with a +1 bastard sword would be +13 to hit for 1d10+16; and raging that would go up to +15 to hit for 1d10+19 (which is better than my base hit/damage).
The best way to be a divine caster who's good in melee really (imo) is probably to go Wisdom based. Verene showed the basis for this at the end of her post but then kind of dismissed it: channel smite->guided hand->mythic guided hand. That feat tree gives you Wisdom as the stat that determines your bonus to hit and damage, so you can really focus on that one stat and it benefits your melee and your casting (meaning control/debuff/SoS spells are all viable options). Channel smite is often a feat tax here (for good casters), but in this campaign could actually be really useful if combined with the alignment channel feat (which lets you deal channel damage to evil outsiders). The only issue with that smite is that the DC to take half of the damage is Cha based, so you'd either have to get your Cha up some or just plan on that part of your damage being halved fairly often.
If you stayed a Hellspawn tiefling but adjusted your starting stats some (and switched your Str belt to a Wis headband) you could be at Str 14, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 24, Cha 11. Obviously, that doesn't give you a lot of channeled smites/day, or a very high DC on them, but it minimizes change and still provides a big bump to your attack bonus. Obviously you'd lose a bunch of power attack damage, and raging would be a far less effective option (like, one you'd probably have to give up on), but with weapon focus and a +1 bastard sword your base attack would be +13 for 1d10+8, and you'd have your domain smite plus channel smite to add to that (and more bonus spells to buff with). There is also a mythic channel smite feat that gives you a bonus on attack rolls when you use your smite, so that could potentially be helpful down the road too, if your attack bonus starts to lag again? And, if you switched to a different subtype you could obviously raise your Cha, though it would cost you something from your physical stats, which might make her feel even more different.
I don't know, this probably isn't really what you're looking for but I thought I'd mention it just so you knew it was an option.
edit: Oh... if you were going to have an in game explanation for changes, you could maybe talk to the GM about some kind of ritual to transform herself? It seems, from my outsider perspective, like maybe Meri isn't crazy about her heritage? If you wanted to go the Wisdom route, a base aasimar (with +2 Wis and Cha, and no -2 at all) would be a great way to do it- maybe if she discovered some kind of ritual to change her nature (from fiendish to celestial) any changes to her stats/feats/etc could be explained by that too? I don't know, again, just throwing things out there- do with all of it as you please?
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Wow, thank you both so much! I feel kind of stupid now... but like I said earlier, the vast majority of Pathfinder games I've played died around 4th or 5th level.
Things I don't want to change: I want racial subtype to stay the same for RP reasons, and I don't want to drop Int any lower than 10. Roleplaying a stupid character is not my idea of a good time.
Primary combat stat: It pains me to drop my Wisdom. But Verene is right, I won't be trying to get through SR for the most part, and more Str will definitely mean more combat effectiveness. If our GM is willing to let me mess with my stats, I'd go with the Str 20, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 16, Cha 13 option and invest in a Wis headband as soon as possible. (How do you wash your hair if you can't take the headband off without losing your bonus spells? Inquiring minds want to know!) While I like the higher Wis from the second spread, I don't want to RP Int 9.
Armor and shield: Yeah, I'll ditch the buckler. Goodbye +2 AC. I want to keep my heavy armor, especially if I use blood rage. +1 full plate is on my wishlist, she's wearing banded mail for budget reasons. Hopefully the demons of Drezen have a nice set of plate armor somewhere that they looted from an unfortunate paladin.
Buffs: This problem is another legacy of my past in low level games. I'm too used to having to ration my spells. I'm trying to be better about this, honest! Didn't know about blood rage though, that's pretty nice. Why can't the Destruction domain have that instead of rage? I keep forgetting we have a bless weapon wand. Oops. A wand of bless sounds like a good idea for when we don't have Wulfric along, as Flagbearer is also a morale bonus.
Feats: I agree with dropping Summon Good Monster. I think I like Furious Focus better than Selective Channel, at least for right now. It would be nice not to burn all my MP avoiding Power Attack penalties. I'll keep Mythic Power Attack though. Higher Str and being better about my buffs should help mitigate my +attack problems. Doubling the bonus damage on a crit before adding the multiplier is just too nice to give up, especially if I have bless weapon up to automatically confirm. If I'm still having attack issues, I'd probably go for Extra Traits so I can get both +1 attack with Fate's Favored and +2 initiative with Reactionary.
EDIT: Ooh, I just remembered the Crusader trait from the same book as Divine Paragon. +1 trait bonus to attack vs. outsiders with the chaotic subtype.
Domains & Divine Paragon: The thing with switching to the Anger inquisition is that Destruction has a few levels with subpar domain spells. Good helps fill in those gaps. You don't lose domain spells with Divine Paragon, just domain abilities from one domain. As for whether or not I take Divine Paragon, that depends on our GM's ruling as to whether I have to personally land the killing blow or just hit the enemy at some point. Given Merixia's initiative (or lack thereof), Azira and Elliot will still most likely beat her to the kill even with the above changes.
Again, thank you all so much for your help!
You're welcome of course, Merixia. Happy you found it useful. I didn't think about the fact that bless won't stack with Wulfric's Flagbearer ability. Maybe only a backup scroll or two of it would be good then, instead of a whole wand. I also hope we'll find a set of full plate for her soon. I did suspect you wouldn't want to drop Merixia's Int too low for combat advantage, and likewise that you were committed to being a hellspawn tiefling because of Ragathiel's own devilish parentage.
Furious Focus is a great feat, and Extra Traits for Fortune's Favored plus Crusader is also a good way to get more from fewer feats, but if Worldwound GM allows this slight respeccing of ability scores, I also strongly recommend getting Selective Channel as soon as it's possible to. Maybe as her level 7 general feat? It will help both Merixia and all of us with survivability. To the extent that you ever really need to heal in combat in Pathfinder 1, channeling is the best healing there is. It doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, take concentration, or require moving to be in touch range if you're healing others. It won't break rage to do it like casting a healing spell does. It also doesn't burn the spell slots you need to buff yourself — it's just free daily healing.
Azira, those are interesting points. I didn't know clerics could take inquisitions at all. I think the idea of the Anger inquisition has merit because of getting the barbarian rage at an earlier level, and the 1/day counterattack is nice to have. Though you'd want to swap it directly for the Rage subdomain, and then you do lose one daily cast of bull's strength as a domain spell. As Merixia says, the other Rage subdomain spells are kind of useless, so I can see not wanting to totally get rid of Good for the Anger inquisition, but the domain powers of Good are unimpressive.
If I were Merixia and not going for Divine Paragon, which gets rid of one set of domain powers, I might consider switching from Rage subdomain to Anger inquisition despite losing that daily bull's strength, and also swapping the straight Good domain for the Good (Archon) subdomain available to Ragathiel clerics. The domain spells for Archon are the same or even better (at our level, an extra divine favor and prayer instead of extra protection from evil and magic circle against evil), and the 8th-level domain power is a fantastic no-save area debuff called Aura of Menace. In fact, I might do it anyway just for the replacement spells. Presumably if you did go Divine Paragon and kept both domains, you would be getting rid of Good's domain powers and not the barbarian rage power of the Rage subdomain, as it's more thematic and also adds to attack bonus.
At some point, though, I might like to stat up a mythic monk 1/cleric X that used Guided Hand, just for fun. It would be pretty cool getting Wisdom to AC, attack bonus, and damage but also being able to do essentially full-cleric buffing and healing.
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Feeling closer to 100%. Definitely can get a post together tomorrow.
Glad to hear it GM, hope your recovery continues apace.
Glad to hear you're feeling better, GM!
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There’s actually kind of a ‘hack’ for clerics using an inquisition, but it wouldn’t work for Meri’s theme/build at all. The ecclesitheurge archetype has one domain that works normally but then for their second domain they pick one and get the powers from it but each day they can pick a different available domain’s spell list to use for domain spells. So a cleric of Ragathiel could take destruction [rage] for their primary domain and then for their secondary domain pick anger and they’d get all the granted powers for those normally but when they prepare spells each morning they’d choose the good, law, or nobility domain and pick their domain spells from that and the destruction domain’s lists. Unfortunately, the ecclesitheurge gives up all armor use and proficiency with the deity’s favored weapon, so it’s awful for most melee clerics (though there’s probably a solid build in there somewhere for a cleric of Irori with a 1 level monk dip). It does make the conversion inquisition a much more appealing option though for caster clerics who want to be the party face.
Also, yes- glad to hear you’re feeling better, GM!
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Okay, I took a good look at the Rage subdomain and the Anger inquisition, and I'm sticking with the former.
Rage (Su): At 8th level, you can enter a fearsome rage, like a barbarian, for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. At 12th and 16th level, you can select one rage power. You cannot select any rage power that possesses a level requirement, but otherwise your barbarian level is equal to 1/2 your cleric level. These rounds of rage stack with any rounds of rage you might have from levels of barbarian.
(emphasis mine)
Compare:
Divine Anger (Ex): At 6th level, you gain the ability to rage like a barbarian. Your effective barbarian level for this ability is your inquisitor level – 3. If you have levels in barbarian, these levels stack when determining the effect of your rage. You do not gain any rage powers from this granted power, though if you have rage powers from another class, you may use them with these rages. You can rage a number of rounds per day equal to your Wisdom bonus, plus 1 round for every inquisitor level above 4th.
So if I wait two levels, I get a lot more rounds of rage per day, plus a rage power at 12th and another one at 16th. I can't pick powers with a level requirement, but that still leaves some good options.
As for Archon subdomain, I had not realized that Aura of Menace doesn't allow a save! Must have confused it with archon's aura. Tempting if I don't go the Divine Paragon route. Unfortunately, that would mean both of my 6th level domain spells suck. Rage has moonstruck which is only effective on humanoids, and Archon has planar ally with archons only. Why do they put planar ally as a domain spell? It's expensive AF and many outsiders want favors that are inconvenient and/or dangerous. Nobody can afford to cast that spell very often.
Might still be worth it for Aura of Menace though.
Thought I'd elaborate on this, late response but:
I'm pretty sure a wand of divine favor would only grant +1/+1 though
That comment was made under the assumption the fate's favored trait was gained, even at CL 1 a wand of divine favor would grant the same bonus you would normally need to be a level 6 cleric for. That said between all the good advice of the others you're probably good to go, and Rage and mythic heroism should help out soon too.
If you want to put together your requests as to what you'd like retraining into, I can give you tentative answers.
Moonstruck is usually decent but pretty bad for our purposes, and planar ally is very good but indeed too expensive to use often.
I think we might be giving Verene a little too much credit here — both Merixia and Worldwound GM have mentioned her spell as letting Merixia fly, but as far as I know, right now it's Merixia's own shield of wings! It has good synergy with communal resist energy (fire) though. Each time in a fight the caster would take fire damage, she loses a wing and some fly speed instead. But since several instances of fire damage were entirely prevented here, all wings and the full speed were preserved.
Oh, huh. I must've forgotten about that. I was actually wondering why she hadn't cast it. I guess she did!