Advanced Class Guide Preview: Warpriest

Oh, I feel that frustration, that humiliation. Here I was thinking this class would probably be one of the more interesting classes, one that could really hold his own, kinda like a full 20 level Holy Vindicator of sorts, but what we see now is not what we were supposed to get.

just popping in to ask: can warpriest use their thing with thrown weapons, or is pharasma just screwed?

Thrown weapons work just fine as of playtest II, there are even blessing to work with ranged attacks. Depending on whats in the book Warpriests of Pharasma might still be screwed though... Sorry, cant talk about Warpriests without saying something at least a little negative anymore, its a personal problem :P

Considering no one has the book and we can't see how they changed Blessings and such, it's hard to say how the Warpriest is going to be like.

Not that it's going to stop people from doing their self-serving "warpriest pity-me" party before the book actually drops.

hmm? i was just curious on pharasma specifically, since i've got a character i built for the playtest who was unfortunately unable to do much with their weapon. the class on the whole (as of the playtest, anywho) seemed more than fine to me.

Major_Blackhart wrote:

Amazing. 838 posts later and we're still talking about the class. Shows you how much folks are invested in this bad boy versus some of the other prestige classes.

Because the frustation.

The warpriest can easily be the most "RPG ICONIC" of the new class.

Cause it is a partial caster partial fighter, like the magus do for arcane and the psychic warrior for games that have psi.

We used to do this concept with multiclass, but since 3.0 D&D multiclass is almost always gimp unless youre aiming for a powefull prestige class. And the problem with prestige class is that you waste half your campaign playing "something" until you develop "the character you wanted when you created this PC".

The awesome thing about the magus(i am playing one) is that you play "the character you wanted" since first level.

The warpriest was made to make something similar.

It missed the mark... by lot!

Making a 3/4 BAB class that NEED to buff up to get to the "right fighting level" just made the class something like low level mages. You go on adventure... spells out? Rest. So you have 3 round workdays. Since clerics have access to more spells, you acomplish the same as cleric and eventually you will acomplish much more as cleric cause it scales a LOT better. (At 15th level you can cast quickedned divine power anyway, at level 9 you can cast quickened divine favor) but at 15 level a Warpriest cant cast an empowered flamestrike or true ressurection.

If you dip 1 level in fighter, as a cleric... the humiliation grows.

Well we'll see if your assumed faults are correct on August 14th, or August 4th at the earliest if your a subscriber. once you have a copy and look at the final version I would like to see your opinion of the class then.

As for the cleric comparisons:

Warpriest has Heavy Armor Prof. It counts as Fighter for Feats. It has Fervor. It can dump CHA. It gets bonus feats. It gets scaling damage with weapons (this alone allows concepts that are terrible otherwise to work. Whip fighters, Dagger master, Shortspear specialist, and so on)

I'm still looking forward to the class despite the lack of full bab. Swift action Divine Favor with the fates favored trait makes up for that.

Magus are crap if they don't use arcane pool every fight and spam at least a shield/mirror image each combat. Still, i don't remember anyone calling them underpowered, let alone umplayable. Why should the warpriest be any different?

Larger pool of points to spend? a few really stand out pool abilities too (target touch AC, gain an extra attack) ability to add massive damage boosts to their attacks? Warpriest can up their HIT/DAM with nickel and dime boosts by using actions but they bottle neck being swift actions instead of free so it takes a few rounds to come online. A magus can burn pool points and spell combat to drop a buff and then use the Arcana and buff attack in the same round to attack while Warpriest (as far as we know) cant push their accuracy or damage as far up as or as fast as. The scaling damage is nice for weird weapons but if you want to be a more traditional front liner, i.e. using a D8 or greater weapon, that it becomes a capstone ability to increase damage die by one step in most campaigns. Again, i am still hoping for some WOW moment when i open the book but as is i am left feeling this is a sub par Inquisitor.

After reading through the Warpriest information, I have a question. Can a Warpriest who worships an evil deity, say Minderhal, use his Fervor ability to heal himself, or is he ONLY allowed to use Fervor to deal damage to living creatures?

I'd hazard a guess that you could only do damage, but at the same time, I know of Cleric related feats that allow evil clerics of evil deities etc to heal when using channel energy, so maybe that will apply here with Fervor.

Or play a dhampir?

I was really excited to play this class until the BAB got nerfed. Now I'll likely never look at it again. I'd much rather not have ferver.

It would appear that once more, Holy Vindicator prestige class coupled with Cleric and Unbreakable Fighter may be the better choice.

There is still hope, if blessings are a limited pool but free actions to initiate coupled with a flat unlimited per day but only once per round swift self buff spell they could get through a 3-4 encounter day fairly well. To me it's all about how they make up for the dropped BAB and how economically they can do that. My big point of comparison is the Inquisitor who at the basic level wants two swifts to get judgement and bane going, those two will grant an attack bonus higher than your total level and an extra ~9 damage per hit with a better chance to overcome DR by level 5, it gets even better with second judgement. If they want to drop a spell on a standard action it's even more awesome but that can't be economical for every fight. I feel like the warpriest is supposed to be more combat oriented but I am not seeing it just yet.

From the sound of it, I don't think they are going to try to make up for the dropped BaB, as they keep saying it was too good.

Yeah, that is a big part of the angst over the class, but they also said they boosted other aspects of the class, they just didnt give any great details as to how.

I realize this is just my opinion but every successful 3/4 BAB class has a reliable and action efficient way to boost their attack to equal most full BAB classes. Just waiting to see how reliable and efficient Warpriest will be at that.

Also, i am wondering how much of a unique class this is, what difference would there be if it was an Archetype of Inquisitor? They drop Judgement and Bane for Sacred Weapon and gain Blessings as additional options along with single domain or inquisition. It shuffles their casting around to spontaneous which is almost the same as burning a prepared spell to spontaneously cast a self buff, thats their big signature thing but could easily be the replacement for the bane class feature.

The pregen is actually not based on the final version of the warpriest, but on the second playtest.

Wait, the pregens are based on the playtest rather than the final product? Are we sure of this?

If so, my hope for the final product has increased greatly. I was really disappointed at how some of the problems with the playtest classes (especially low level swashbucklers) didn't seem to have been addressed.

I heard somewhere on this forum, possibly just a poster's own concept, that the pregens were made with a revised version of the playtest but before the final edits were made.

Zark wrote:

The pregen is actually not based on the final version of the warpriest, but on the second playtest.

Wait, the pregens are based on the playtest rather than the final product? Are we sure of this?

Risen from the Sands has s sidebar saying the pregens might not reflect the final rules. I think that means they were done based on a draft (or done according to the playtest and revised to match a draft), but Free RPG day stuff had to go to the printer before the final book did, so it possible things still changed.

Matrix Dragon wrote:

Zark wrote:

The pregen is actually not based on the final version of the warpriest, but on the second playtest.

Wait, the pregens are based on the playtest rather than the final product? Are we sure of this?

Risen from the Sands has s sidebar saying the pregens might not reflect the final rules. I think that means they were done based on a draft (or done according to the playtest and revised to match a draft), but Free RPG day stuff had to go to the printer before the final book did, so it possible things still changed.

Edit:

Read this:

Axial wrote:

Wait a minute! If this module provides an early preview of the final ACG classes, does it contain the updates that were made after the last playtest document?

The pregens were created with the class rules available in February. These are refined from the playtest, but we also put in the caveat that these might not be the final-final builds.

I have a question, and I hope this is the right place for it, and I don't mean to start any arguments. :)
If people want the warpriest to have full BAB, what's to stop them from just house ruling that? Not trying to be sarcastic, genuine query as I was thinking of doing it myself, but with a fighter's skill points.

Well if you are a player than its not your call to make. If you bring this up with a GM and they do a quick search on why it isn't a full BAB class they will probably find the preview saying it would break the game. There are a lot of people who don't see that as game breaking though, some of us saw this as the Paladin for the rest of us. I am sure some people will house rule it for their home games, the same way they house rule no summoners, gunslingers or arcanists. It's that you can't expect that to work out how you'd like very often when the developers said it's a mistake.

I have a question, and I hope this is the right place for it, and I don't mean to start any arguments. :)

If people want the warpriest to have full BAB, what's to stop them from just house ruling that? Not trying to be sarcastic, genuine query as I was thinking of doing it myself, but with a fighter's skill points.

In a home game? Nothings going to stop the GM to change the rules to fit the playstyle of the group.

At conventions and for PFS? Tough luck.

I have a question, and I hope this is the right place for it, and I don't mean to start any arguments. :)

If people want the warpriest to have full BAB, what's to stop them from just house ruling that? Not trying to be sarcastic, genuine query as I was thinking of doing it myself, but with a fighter's skill points.

What's to stop a home gm from requiring all Paladins to paint their armor hot pink? It's really the same kind of question.

Curious since a lot of people seem to have the PDF now - what's the verdict? Not looking for flames or arguments, just wondering what you think of the final-final version.

Curious since a lot of people seem to have the PDF now - what's the verdict? Not looking for flames or arguments, just wondering what you think of the final-final version.

The following is based on my playtests of the beta Warpriest and how that lines up to the final version of the class. I will be seeing a warpriest in play when it joins a new campaign in a week or two so my opinions may well change then:

The change from full to medium BAB progression hurt the class a lot, but I'm actually OK with that. I do wish they'd have used the design room opened up by slowing the BAB progression to tweak a few more issues.

It's a good class. It's not perhaps as great as it could have been. Compared to the play test version there are some things I was hoping they would improve.

Some of the blessings were improved quite a bit, some are still borrowed from domain powers. Quite often I've found myself wishing I could use domains or inquisitions instead of blessings, an opinion I've also heard from the player that's making a warpriest at the moment.

There are still a lot of swift actions competing for attention. Sacred Weapon, Sacred Armor, Fervor and a lot of the blessings still use the swift action. Having the option of activating both Sacred Armor and Sacred Weapon from the same action or making Sacred Weapon a viable pre-combat buff would have been nice.

Sacred Weapon has horrendous duration, which means you can really only apply it mid-combat. Therefore it headbutts with Fervor or blessings for buff options in the crucial first two rounds of combat, so it takes a surprisingly long time for the class that's all about personal-range buffs to really build up steam in combat.

It still gets 2 skill points per level, but it doesn't need charisma anymore so it's no more MAD than the paladin, the magus or the bard. Great change!

Sacred Weapon improving your damage die is still in, and I love this mechanic - it makes tons of new weapon options much more viable! It's one of the few class mechanics I really wish was available to other classes as well though. Perhaps as a feat in Origins?

The Sacred Weapon buff effect still has a duration of 1 round/level, which I struggle to understand since Sacred Armor is mechanically similar but has a duration of 1 minute/level. The warpriest already has a multitude of buffs available mid-combat, so this feels like too much of a good thing. I'm considering a houserule that Sacred Weapon and Sacred Armor work off the same pool and have the same duration, both to make Sacred Weapon more useful and to give you less resources (atm fervor, spells, sacred weapon, sacred armor, AND blessings all work off of different resource pools) to keep track of.

Sacred Armor is really strapped for interesting enchantment options. This seemed like a really good chance to showcase some of the new armor enhancements found in the ACG (Sensing, Spell Dodging, or Vouchsafing would all make good examples) so I'm a little sad the list is so short. Going outside of the ACG I can think of at least five enchantments that make more sense to me than glamered.

It gets Lay on Hands and channel as the revised playtest version did, but it's still on a slower progression than the paladin. LoH doesn't have amazing output to begin with unless you invest in it, burning precious fervor for 3d6 healing at level 10 is kind of lackluster. Since the Warpriest doesn't get mercies, most of the LoH options (like Greater Mercy) are unavailable to him.

Compared to other classes it breaks down like this:

Assuming no short-duration buffs, the Warpriest will most likely outdo a fighter 1/cleric x and perform on par with an inquisitor. Judgements and Bane balance reasonably well Fervor buff spells, and both classes have a clear action economy advantage over the cleric. It's worth noting that at the end of that encounter the warpriest has used two fervor charges AND two spells, while the inquisitor has used one charge of Judgement and some rounds of Bane but still has his full set of spells available - Surprisingly I think the inquisitor has more staying power than the warpriest.

Assuming full combat buffs, both the inquisitor and the fighter/cleric will blow a warpriest out of the water. The inquisitor has both better class mechanics (judgement, bane and domains > blessings, sacred weapon & armor) and access to unique buffs (litany of X) that the warpriest does not, while the cleric benefits greatly from his faster spellcasting progression allowing him to access high level buffs faster and gaining spells via domains that the the warpriest cannot use.

The warpriest definitely has the advantage in proficiency over the inquisitor (he gains nearly the same proficiencies as the fighter/cleric) and his extra bonus feats makes him a good choice if you want to use a combat style that requires a lot of feats (TWF springs to mind). Using your warpriest levels in place of BAB is pretty damn cool, while qualifying for fighter feats is a nice little bit of frosting.

It is still a solid class, but I can't help but feel that it could have benefited greatly from one or two more tweaks.

My prediction that the playstyle would be highly similar to the Inquisitor seems true. As with my prediction that the Inquisitor would be better at most things.

This makes me sad, I wanted to be wrong.

My prediction that the playstyle would be highly similar to the Inquisitor seems true. As with my prediction that the Inquisitor would be better at most things.

This makes me sad, I wanted to be wrong.

Ironic that I'm planning an Inquisitor (Sanctified Slayer)/Warpriest gestalt. Best of both worlds. :D

That's disappointing, but not unexpected. The Full BaB thing was one of the major reasons it was even competitive with the other 6 level casters.

If they'd increased the duration of Sacred Weapon or improved Fervor it'd be a different story.

So, I'm playing a few PFS Warpriests that focus on To Hit and use a weapon the Sacred Weapon extra Damage does not affect. I seriously doubt that they are going to allow us to rebuild out of Warpriest. Are there any Archtypes that will make up for the loss of BaB (and probably a few Feats) and don't use the Sacred Weapon extra Damage?

Would you mind giving a brief rundown on the Warpriest Archtypes?

Did they specify with the Good Blessing (and other Alignments) that they overcome appropriate DR?

Is there a Divine Magus Archtype somewhere in there?

So, I'm playing a few PFS Warpriests that focus on To Hit and use a weapon the Sacred Weapon extra Damage does not affect. I seriously doubt that they are going to allow us to rebuild out of Warpriest. Are there any Archtypes that will make up for the loss of BaB (and probably a few Feats) and don't use the Sacred Weapon extra Damage?

Would you mind giving a brief rundown on the Warpriest Archtypes?

Did they specify with the Good Blessing (and other Alignments) that they overcome appropriate DR?

Is there a Divine Magus Archtype somewhere in there?

Sure, I'll see what I can do. Might take me a little while to type up though.

Edit: Here we go.

The Champion of the Faith is an interesting take on the Warpriest-Paladin idea. He tweaks the Sacred Weapon buff option, trades a bonus feat and Channel Energy for Detect and Smite Opposing Alignment options. Combined with a few feats and some other things found in the book you could probably make a pretty good knock-off alignment-free paladin with this archetype. Since Smite and Divine Protection both scale from Charisma it would be really MAD though.

The Cult Leader seems to be a "sneaky" warpriest. He gets 4 skill points, a better skill list, sneak attack, HiPS, and some other goodies and gives up armor and weapon proficiencies, most of his bonus feats, focus weapon and channel energy.

The Disenchanter is a warpriest who dislikes other people's magic . He can grant his allies save bonuses v spells, spend fervor to cast Dispel Magic, and has an interesting set of bonus feats with a lot of "I hate casters" options that he doesn't have to qualify for. He loses a few bonus feats and channel energy.

The Divine Commander is a Warpriest who focuses on leading men in battle. There's a fair bit of crossover to the cavalier. He gains a mount, teamwork feats and a mechanic for sharing them with his allies, and at level 15 he gets a pretty cool ability called Bless Army - it ties into the battleground rules found in Ultimate Campaign. Gives up blessings and most of his bonus feats.

The Forgepriest is a warpriest that focuses on crafting - he gains a bonus on craft checks, craft magic weapons & armor as a bonus feat, can take item creation feats with his combat bonus feats, and gains a few spells from various other spell lists. He loses a few bonus feats and channel energy.

Last but not least is the Sacred Fist, which is essentially a blend of monk and warpriest. He gains wisdom to AC, 'fortitude save evasion', flurry of blows, unarmed strikes that scales as a monk, and a ki pool. This archetype makes extensive changes to the class, so most of your class features will be changed or removed.

All of the archetypes use medium BAB (though the Sacred Fist has flurry as a monk) and have D8 HD.

The alignment blessings do indeed make the weapon aligned for the duration of the blessing.

There is only one archetype for the magus in the ACG, the Eldritch Scion. Eldritch Scion is awesome but makes the magus spontaneous, not a divine caster. I think a warpriest of Torag with the blessed hammer feat from Inner Sea Gods is reasonably close to how I'd envision a divine magus.

Having the option of activating both Sacred Armor and Sacred Weapon from the same action

When the warpriest uses this ability, he can also use his sacred weapon ability as a free action by expending one use of his fervor.

Thank you, thank you.

Kudaku wrote:

Having the option of activating both Sacred Armor and Sacred Weapon from the same action

ACG PDF, in the Sacred Armor section wrote:

When the warpriest uses this ability, he can also use his sacred weapon ability as a free action by expending one use of his fervor.

Nice catch, thanks! I really don't see why it should cost fervor though?

So far I have very much enjoyed by final-version war priest, which I have been playing since April (advantage of working here). I've noticed a few things in-play.
Since blessings are their own pool of uses that don't get used for anything else, I'm willing to burn them when a situation seems *likely* to become a fight, even if occasionally that means a minute passes with no fight. I don't always get a blessing up before combat, but I *often* do, and that's great. Even at low levels you can lose a couple of uses a day without wasting all of them. And this strongly encourages team play, since the other PCs are learning to have stealthy folk scout potential encounters to see if they can get me a heads-up. Since the blessing can't be turned into healing or other options spells often represent, the other players never feel like I am wasting potential benefits for them, as sometimes happens with clerics who buff with spells.
Fervor is golden. It's great because with spontaneous casting I don't have to try to guess in advance which prepared spell I want up for a fight. I can afford to see if a spell is even necessary, which oddly makes it easier to conserve spells (and thus fervor). I have never cast a spell in an encounter that turned out to be APL -1 or -2, and then regretted it. While it is true a warpriest does't have as high-level a spell selection as the cleric, the ability to (effectively) quicken a wide range or spells is quite a boost. At 2nd level that's the equivalent of a 5th level spell. Even at 20th level the best a cleric can do as a quickened spell is five fifth-level spells. A war priest can do five 6th level, five 5th level, and a number of 4th equal to his Wis bonus (and those are also all effectively Still Spells).
It's true the war priest has a much, much narrower selection for those Quickened Still spells, but the option to decide you need a divine power, heal, or true seeing right NOW, can be a huge boost. This in turn helps develop new tactics and play styles that work well with the class.
The war priest operates at its best when you look at what it maximizes and work with that as a build, rather than try to make it work like an fighter, inquisitor, or cleric. For example, as a weapon focused character without a full attack bonus, Vital Strike is suddenly a more attractive option (since you don't get as many iterative attacks anyway, and they are less likely to hit). And thanks to bonus feats, you can pick it up well before an inquisitor or cleric can. Just a couple of levels after they could get Vital Strike, you are on to Improved Vital Strike if you want it. And if at that point you are fighting with a rapier, it does 1d10, or 3d10 with IVS, and still has its improved threat range.
What makes that build particularly attractive is Greater Weapon of the Chosen. It is easiest for war priests to pick up (since they get Weapon Focus and bonus feats & are less likely to be penalized for selecting their deity's favored weapon). A human war priest can pick it up by 3rd level, and everyone else can have it by 5th if they dedicate themselves to it (leaving their 6th level free for Vital Strike).
And why is this a great feat? because every time you attempt a single attack with the attack action using your deity's favored weapon, you get to roll the attack twice and take the better of the two.
Let that sink in.
If I'm a 6th level war priest of Gorum wielding a great sword, with Vital Strike and Greater Weapon of the Chosen, I can take an attack action, roll 2d20 and take whichever is better (bumping the chance of a crit), and deal 4d6 +1.5x Str on a successful strike. Power Attack and Furious Focus also play very well with this build. You don't even need fervor and blessings to be effective at that point.

Thanks for the insight, Owen!

Curious, since my PDF is still tantalizingly out of reach, does the Greater Weapon of the Chosen affect the roll for the crit confirmation, too? That is, does the character roll twice to confirm?

Ok, that's now becoming a bit interesting.

To piggyback off Owen's post, there's other interesting things you can do with those bonus feats, like for a TWF warpriest (maybe a sawtooth sabre-using Achaekek worshiper?), you can grab extra attacks with your off-hand before you even have them with your on-hand.

Excuse me while I'm over here not being excited by a class' unique ability to take Feats that existed in the CRB that anyone could take

Excuse me while I'm over here not being excited by a class' unique ability to take Feats that existed in the CRB that anyone could take

They are the only 3/4 BAB class that can take the feats Owen and I mentioned until later levels, though, or for instance Two-Weapon Rend and perhaps Critical Focus and associates. Staggering Critical for a cleric of inquisitor requires level 18, and Dazing Assault requires level 15 for them.

And Greater Weapon of the Chosen (and its two earlier feats) aren't in the CRB.
The war priest can use things in ways other classes can't, and I have found there are *extremely* competitive ways to use those abilities.

I appreciate them taking the time to share upsides that some of us may have overlooked.

Thanks, Owen and Mark!

Thanks for the insight, Owen!

My pleasure. It's not often people actually care if I talk about my character. :)

Curious, since my PDF is still tantalizingly out of reach, does the Greater Weapon of the Chosen affect the roll for the crit confirmation, too? That is, does the character roll twice to confirm?

While it doesn't call it out the answer to that specifically, and I'm a developer here at Paizo rather than a designer, my ruling would be that you don't roll twice for a critical confirmation roll. A confirmation roll gains all the same bonuses as the initial attack roll, but a bonus has a specific meaning in Pathfinder. This is a special power, rather than a numerical bonus.

And as it is, it's REALLY good. It increases your chance to threaten (because you have two dice that might roll in your threat range) in a way that actually stacks with keen (which you can add with sacred weapon if you want) or Improved critical (which you can take with your 9th level bonus feat, despite only having a base attack of +6 at that point).

Luckily you have to take 2 lesser versions of the feat first (although they'll let you reroll miss chances for targets with concealment (they take a swift action to activate, but you can just not activate them if a target doesn't have concealment, and Great WotC does NOT require any activation action), AND Weapon Focus (which you get as a bonus with warpriest). But as I mentioned, you can do that by 3rd if you play a human warpriest.

It's a shame that feats are the second weakest options, only just right above Rogue talents. If only they could be as awesome as Rage Powers, Discoveries, and actual class features.

Owen's awesome breakdown of testing the final version of the Warpriest.

Thanks for posting! Can I ask which blessings you were using and what deity your character worshiped?

Some feats are significantly more potent than others. and, of course, in this case they are backed by 6 spell levels of spell casting, and a slew of magic class features.

As someone who has been playing a warpriest for so long, how do you find the action economy?

As someone who has been playing a warpriest for so long, how do you find the action economy?

I second this question.

Also I would like to hear more about this Champion of the Faith archetype. I also hear there is a 'Divine Grace in feat form' floating around. Are these two things synergistic? Or will the champion of the faith suffer from MAD ala the paladins of 3.5?

I actually don't have any problems with the action economy. For example, while I have multiple options for swift actions, there's no requirement I do them all at once. With a good weapon and great armor, I don't need to worry about defensive spells unless things seem pretty serious, so those rarely go up on the first round.
As I mentioned I often spring a blessing before a fight, even at the risk of losing it, and even fi I don't they are no more action-intensive than casting a buff spell for every other class. Same with swift spells with fervor -- there's no need to do them immediately in most cases, and a few rounds into combat my swift actions are likely free. If I DO need to rev up quickly, I can fervor a spell s as swift and cast a spell as a standard action.
One of the strengths of the warpriest is that is can have a lot of options and that allows a tailored response to each situation. With better armor and offensive feats than a cleric, it can take a round or two to assess before worrying about if a fight calls for a lowly divine favor, or if bull's strength is more use, or if I need protection from energy RIGHT NOW.
Other things you only use if things go wrong. A warpriest is only using fervor to heal himself as a swift if he's miscalculated where a fight is going, though in a pinch it is VERY useful to be able to take a full defense action and heal yourself from 1 hp. But customizing your response to a specific encounter means you are less likely to try to have everything running before the fight anyway. During the fight many rounds are "Move-And-Attack-And-whatever swift action seems most useful right now." Since those swift actions don't prevent you from continuing to maneuver and attack (which may have you hitting as hard and often as a same-level fighter if you go with the feats mentioned above, depending on exact build and level), you have time to take a few rounds to rev up, if revving up is even needed.