The Cleric Remastered

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Hi, this is Landon! As Halloween and the Remaster approaches, one question burns in our minds: who’s going to torch all these undead while simultaneously healing the entire party? As you can probably guess, that’s still going to be the party’s cleric, but let’s dive into some changes.

Pathfinder 2e iconic cleric, Kyra

The cleric remains defined by their god, so before we get into the cleric, we should talk about the Remaster’s changes to deities and the cosmos. While the Remaster sees the removal of the nine alignments, edicts and anathemas still provide descriptions of a god’s desires and prohibitions to guide their followers’ behavior at a much finer level than alignment. But there’s still an endless struggle over the souls of the planes. The new system of divine sanctification (whether holy or unholy) represents a dedication to join that fight. Some gods now allow for sanctification—even when serving a goddess like Sarenrae who rose through the angelic ranks, joining her in the fight is ultimately a personal choice—where some gods now require that their clerics swear allegiance actively, like Asmodeus and Iomedae.

Alignment damage used to be a major tool here, but it sometimes got in the way of the cleric’s story. A cleric of Lamashtu might have dealt evil damage to scatter those standing up against the Mother of Monsters, but that often didn’t reflect the god’s will. Some gods were neutral, and all gods had enemies who opposed to their beliefs but weren’t of an opposite alignment. The Remaster’s new spirit damage type lets gods’ wrath manifest much more broadly, harming anything with a spirit, down to oozes that need to be scoured away. Clerics who undergo divine sanctification can infuse many of their spiritual abilities with holy or unholy power, so a divine lance cast by a holy character will still damage almost anyone, but it will also trigger the weaknesses of demons and devils. On the flip side of the coin, divine wrath excludes the allies who are helping a cleric do their god’s work, even if the alliance is a little peculiar.

Beyond these changes, we also took the opportunity to smooth out some rough edges. All clerics will see their divine font simply give them a number of bonus heal (or harm) spells regardless of their Charisma score, giving clerics a little more flexibility in how they allocate their attributes. The warpriest got improved weapon proficiencies where it could, raising martial weapons to expert at 7th level and their deity’s favored weapon to master at 19th. Along with Focus Point recovery becoming a bit easier for everyone in the Remaster, quite a few domain spells were improved or replaced, like pulse of civilization now giving wide access to the lore of nearby cities rather than one public fact and ignite ambition working as a reaction that the target notices only on a critical success.

A lot of the remastered classes have gotten a few new feats to help tell their stories better. Even with its changes, the cleric didn’t get left out on this front. As a powerful cleric, your god might protect you so dearly that they punish those who harm you, or you might reinforce your shield with the strength of your divine font. But there are also smaller miracles, like blessing the area around you to heal your allies out of combat or presenting your religious symbol to protect against the world’s varied hardships.

Raise Symbol [one-action] — Feat 4

Cleric
Requirements You are wielding a religious symbol.

You present your religious symbol emphatically. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to saving throws until the start of your next turn. While it’s raised, if you roll a success at a saving throw against a vitality or void effect, you get a critical success instead.

If the religious symbol you’re raising is a shield, such as with Emblazon Armaments, you gain the effects of Raise a Shield when you use this action and the effects of this action when you Raise a Shield.


Sacred Ground — Feat 4

Cleric, Consecration, Divine, Exploration
Prerequisites harmful font or healing font
Frequency once per 10 minutes

You pray continuously for 1 minute to call a subtle shadow of your deity’s realm over a 30-foot burst centered on you. It lasts for 10 minutes, and a creature that remains in the area for the entire 10 minutes regains Hit Points equal to your level.

If you have a healing font, this activity has the healing and vitality traits and heals living creatures. If you have a harmful font, this activity has the healing and void traits and heals undead creatures (or other creatures with void healing). Clerics with Versatile Font can choose either or both. It can’t damage creatures in any case.

Even my personal favorite cleric feat, Channeled Succor, spent some time in the fires of the Remaster to rise again as Restorative Channel, which interacts with the new, broader curative spells like cleanse affliction and clear mind. I’m stoked to have a new toolbox to channel all my new healing goodies. Especially with those spells all still helping when the counteract check doesn’t quite come through, it’s a good time to be freeing your friends from vexing conditions.

I hope you enjoy all these new options next month when Pathfinder Player Core is released. In the meantime, may your injured party be surrounded by a horde of low-level undead.

Cheers!

Landon Winkler (they/them)
Developer

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Tags: Pathfinder Pathfinder Remaster Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition
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S. J. Digriz wrote:
Note that if you emblazon your weapon to become a holy symbol, you can use Raise Symbol with two handed weapons. That's nice for clerics of a number of faiths. Also, a war priest with weapon and shield can spend 2 actions to raise symbol, and then raise shield, if they want. +2 to saves is sometimes going to be worth it, especially if you are raising shield and striking anyway. Its a nice 3rd action.
Raise Symbol wrote:
If the religious symbol you’re raising is a shield, such as with Emblazon Armaments, you gain the effects of Raise a Shield when you use this action and the effects of this action when you Raise a Shield.

So a Warpriest with an Emblazoned Shield and this feat can Raise Shield and Raise Symbol as part of the same action.


Gortle wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Bp3500 wrote:

My kneejerk here is that 19th is still too late for warpriest clerics to get master proficiency in weapons. Speaking from the experience of "I played through edgewatch with a warpriest cleric", having to deal with expert weapon proficiency through the bulk of the teen levels is suffering.

Otherwise, I like what I see, and still nice to see that it's getting master proficiency at all.
Very true; personally, I would move it to 15th level, and make it to where they get Master in their Armor proficiencies at 19th, since they are meant to actually get in the thick of things like everyone else, even despite their 8 HP per level;

They are still a full caster. Very likely they won't be sacrificing Wisdom now.

Your proposal would be far too good.

Wisdom wasn't really a dump stat for them anyway, since it determines Will Saves and Perception, the two probably most important proficiencies in the game. But they will never match a full spellcaster by nature of proficiency scaling (they hit Expert and Master 4 levels later and never acquire Legendary) and the factor that their Wisdom will not match up (they'll have a +6 at-best, more realistically a +5); really, having slots for them is mostly just to power their True Strike/Channel Smite play loop and maybe throw a buff or two. They otherwise can't make much use of their slots other than for healing bloat (which, guess what, Font already basically does this anyway) or for non-DC-based effects. Counteracts? Good luck, even true spellcasters struggle with those, and you're already upwards of 3-4 points down compared to them.

As for it being "too good," they also won't ever be ahead of martials either for the same reasons (delayed progression, can't start with a +4 Strength/Dexterity, caps at maybe +5-+6 Strength/Dexterity, restricted to one type of weapon, no Greater Weapon Specialization, which adds up), and their ability to match martial damage is limited by their slots/Smites, whereas other martials can basically go all day and always having their bonus damage, which is probably vastly superior.

Compared to a Magus, the closest analogue we have, a Warpriest will never outpace them, nor will the Warpriest really outspell them either.

Personally, I would have just treated Warpriest as Wave Casting and gave them full Martial progression, providing them Channel Smite at 1st level with a specialty class focus cantrip that lets them Smite all day long at a reduced value (1D4 per level), but I guess that was too ambitious for the Remaster, and will have to wait until a PF3 comes out for that to even be possible.

It makes me genuinely curious if the Warpriest would be at all different if Wave Casting was ever introduced back when PF2 was in its playtest days, if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting in mind, and how different the subclass would be compared to what we have now.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Personally, I would have just treated Warpriest as Wave Casting and gave them full Martial progression, providing them Channel Smite at 1st level with a specialty class focus cantrip that lets them Smite all day long at a reduced value (1D4 per level), but I guess that was too ambitious for the Remaster, and will have to wait until a PF3 comes out for that to even be possible.

It makes me genuinely curious if the Warpriest would be at all different if Wave Casting was ever introduced back when PF2 was in its playtest days, if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting in mind, and how different the subclass would be compared to what we have now.

What you are describing is a Magus class archetype. Change the spell tradition to Divine and give the Channel Smite Conflux Spell as part of the archetype.

Which feels like something that is completely doable in PF2. I see this as a better use of class archetypes than Spellshot.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Cleric is the first class I've seen one of these blog posts that looks unequivocally good. Lots of nice changes.

If I had one complaint, it's that I'm a little bummed at Paizo's decision to double down on inconsistent scaling.

It feels janky as hell to me that the Warpriest is behind on proficiency for... some levels. Playing one at 6 or 18 is going to feel noticeably worse than playing one at 7 or 19 and I still really don't quite get how it makes the game better. Especially since now in Remaster the warpriest has martial level proficiency for the majority of a full campaign.

But that's nothing new so not really a remaster specific complaint.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The new raise emblem ability is much better than spellguard shield. It is better than sparkling targes class ability.

Spellguard only works on spells targeting you, no AoE spells, no spell like effects.

This new ability works on everything. Every spell, every save, even against trip and grapple. It is really really good.

Liberty's Edge

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Remastered Cleric sound good, as in less monodimensional.

Hope the endless struggle over the souls of the planes still involves the Law-Chaos axis. And that my worry that Holy vs Unholy overshadows the rest as far as PCs are concerned is not too substantiated.

Grand Lodge

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Captain Morgan wrote:
Good point on multiclassing. I'm predicting the cleric dedication to be the quickest route to Sanctification for a lot of characters, which is a major damage buff against the right foes.

I expect there will be a normal archetype focused around sanctification. Though I think we only get non-multiclass archeypes in Player Core 2?

Grand Lodge

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breithauptclan wrote:


What you are describing is a Magus class archetype. Change the spell tradition to Divine and give the Channel Smite Conflux Spell as part of the archetype.

Which feels like something that is completely doable in PF2. I see this as a better use of class archetypes than Spellshot.

Maybe that is how to do Inquisitor in 2e.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I do feel slightly sad though because I liked having reason to aim to have +5 charisma as cleric x'D (now what the heck my 10 wisdom warpriest should focus on? ;P Strenght? Pfft). But would probably be more equal if all classes had more uses for cha rather than just cleric out of non charisma casters.

Like yeah, I agree that just having straight up 4 extra heals/harms is just better all around, but I do like my fiddly bits x'D

(not even gonna comment on Law/Chaos thing since I think I said enough about that already elsewhere)

Shadow Lodge

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Cyder wrote:

I think cleric is my favourite of the remasters so far.

I kind of wish sanctified ground was a skill feat based on religion to open it up to more classes (even if it required ability to cast vitality energy spells as a pre-req). I find feats that grant pure out of combat utility something I want for skill feats not class feats. My divine sorc and summoner would love this. It would also buff the non spell cast utility of magic knowledge skills (arcane, occult, nature, religion).

Otherwise I love everything presented here. Cleric was already a super strong if a little boring class, not sure why it got a lot more love and help over ranger/wizard.

Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.


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Dragonborn3 wrote:
Cyder wrote:

I think cleric is my favourite of the remasters so far.

I kind of wish sanctified ground was a skill feat based on religion to open it up to more classes (even if it required ability to cast vitality energy spells as a pre-req). I find feats that grant pure out of combat utility something I want for skill feats not class feats. My divine sorc and summoner would love this. It would also buff the non spell cast utility of magic knowledge skills (arcane, occult, nature, religion).

Otherwise I love everything presented here. Cleric was already a super strong if a little boring class, not sure why it got a lot more love and help over ranger/wizard.

Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.

I'd be very surprised if it was. PF2E requires a lot of tracking to keep all your abilities in mind between ancestry, skill, general, and class feats. Free archetype being the base assumption is not something you would want to teach the system on simply by way of mental load. A good portion of the hobby still plays without digital tools to automate a lot of that tracking.

Envoy's Alliance

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Would wonder if there are feats so you can use Raise Symbol to grant the bonus to others?

And yeah, I do hope there is a feat line or something attached to Sacred ground.

Also, the change to spirit damage they call out here is a major buff to Clerics who's cantrip list is frequently short of universally damaging cantrips. While there are still some limits, Divine Lance is now much more flexible, and unless you will be facing a lot of constructs early on, much more useful.


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Cyder wrote:
I kind of wish sanctified ground was a skill feat based on religion to open it up to more classes (even if it required ability to cast vitality energy spells as a pre-req). I find feats that grant pure out of combat utility something I want for skill feats not class feats. My divine sorc and summoner would love this. It would also buff the non spell cast utility of magic knowledge skills (arcane, occult, nature, religion).

Yeah, Sacred Ground is exactly the kind of feat I would want to see as a magical skill feat.

That said, perhaps there will be a skill version? I could see a level 7 Religion/Nature skill feat that provided a similar effect.

Vigilant Seal

I'm pretty excited, do you get to update your existing society cleric to the new remastered type?

Dark Archive

Sacred Ground would be fanastic if it worked in the same 10m period as your refocus activity.

In actual play, will that extra minute really matter? Probably not 99.9% of the time, but it still would have been nicer to be baked in for tighter time useage. I'll probably just let my players fold the two in anyhow if they want it.

Raise Symbol and the move away from font being tied to Charisma are all solid wins for the class.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
S. J. Digriz wrote:
Note that if you emblazon your weapon to become a holy symbol, you can use Raise Symbol with two handed weapons. That's nice for clerics of a number of faiths. Also, a war priest with weapon and shield can spend 2 actions to raise symbol, and then raise shield, if they want. +2 to saves is sometimes going to be worth it, especially if you are raising shield and striking anyway. Its a nice 3rd action.
Raise Symbol wrote:
If the religious symbol you’re raising is a shield, such as with Emblazon Armaments, you gain the effects of Raise a Shield when you use this action and the effects of this action when you Raise a Shield.
So a Warpriest with an Emblazoned Shield and this feat can Raise Shield and Raise Symbol as part of the same action.

Yes, of course, but you then would not have the extra damage from an emplazoned weapon. Its a call a war priest needs to make. Do they want to save an action when they raise a shield, or do they want bonus damage.


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Dragonborn3 wrote:
Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.

I remember it being announced that Free Archetype is still going to be a variant rule and not a core assumption. I expect the same for Ancestral Paragon.

Both will still exist in the core rules because they are very popular, but they still have to be allowed by the table, not just automatically given by the rulebooks.

Liberty's Edge

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breithauptclan wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.

I remember it being announced that Free Archetype is still going to be a variant rule and not a core assumption. I expect the same for Ancestral Paragon.

Both will still exist in the core rules because they are very popular, but they still have to be allowed by the table, not just automatically given by the rulebooks.

Free Archetype as core would be pretty incompatible with previous published books.

Also it is easier to add something to a chassis.


breithauptclan wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Personally, I would have just treated Warpriest as Wave Casting and gave them full Martial progression, providing them Channel Smite at 1st level with a specialty class focus cantrip that lets them Smite all day long at a reduced value (1D4 per level), but I guess that was too ambitious for the Remaster, and will have to wait until a PF3 comes out for that to even be possible.

It makes me genuinely curious if the Warpriest would be at all different if Wave Casting was ever introduced back when PF2 was in its playtest days, if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting in mind, and how different the subclass would be compared to what we have now.

What you are describing is a Magus class archetype. Change the spell tradition to Divine and give the Channel Smite Conflux Spell as part of the archetype.

Which feels like something that is completely doable in PF2. I see this as a better use of class archetypes than Spellshot.

Never said it wasn't doable, since it's basically a mirror of the Magus (just different), but Paizo has already set the class' chassis in stone, and Warpriest was developed before Wave Casting was even conceived. I was just wondering if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting if such a concept was around during the original playtest, but I honestly don't think it would have.


S. J. Digriz wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
S. J. Digriz wrote:
Note that if you emblazon your weapon to become a holy symbol, you can use Raise Symbol with two handed weapons. That's nice for clerics of a number of faiths. Also, a war priest with weapon and shield can spend 2 actions to raise symbol, and then raise shield, if they want. +2 to saves is sometimes going to be worth it, especially if you are raising shield and striking anyway. Its a nice 3rd action.
Raise Symbol wrote:
If the religious symbol you’re raising is a shield, such as with Emblazon Armaments, you gain the effects of Raise a Shield when you use this action and the effects of this action when you Raise a Shield.
So a Warpriest with an Emblazoned Shield and this feat can Raise Shield and Raise Symbol as part of the same action.
Yes, of course, but you then would not have the extra damage from an emplazoned weapon. Its a call a war priest needs to make. Do they want to save an action when they raise a shield, or do they want bonus damage.

IMO, if a Warpriest is going full damage (such as Greatsword via Gorum), they wouldn't mess around with a shield anyway, and even if they did, they are already action-intensive as it is between Channel Smite being 2 actions and being inclined to acquire and use True Strike, which takes their last action.

It is really only good for Clerics who either don't get/need True Strike, or for Clerics that have a bonus action they aren't using. On paper, it's excellent, but in practice it feels better as a dedication feat for another character (like Shield Champion/Fighter).


Yeah... Cleric just became the obvious default first archetype for shield Paladin FA.

Not that that's... bad, necessarily? I mean, the fact that all of the paladins are going to want to dip their toes into the more martial side of the cleric pool actually feels pretty reasonable, especially as compared to some of the other incentives we've seen from time to time. The only real question it raises is one of balance.


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Sanityfaerie wrote:

Yeah... Cleric just became the obvious default first archetype for shield Paladin FA.

Not that that's... bad, necessarily? I mean, the fact that all of the paladins are going to want to dip their toes into the more martial side of the cleric pool actually feels pretty reasonable, especially as compared to some of the other incentives we've seen from time to time. The only real question it raises is one of balance.

Well, a Dwarf Champion of Torag with Emblazon Armament, Shield Ally, and Dwarven Reinforcement will have upwards of 4-6 more Hardness on a given shield, at the cost of a class specialization, 2 class feats, an ancestry feat from a specific ancestry, and Expert to Legendary in Crafting.

It's relatively frontloaded, but it's not that powerful in the late-game IMO, since it only saves an average of 8-12 more HP per round if you also take the Quick Shield Block feat.

Granted, you could also take Raise Symbol so that you get +2 to saves and AC as a single action, which is where the real strength lies, but that does require 3 feats.

Champion's real problem is that it doesn't have that many good lower level feats, and all of their higher level feats are basically spoken for, so it is prime for dipping into dedications a lot of the time, even disregarding Free Archetype.

Grand Lodge

We're talking about a more tank-role warpriest though, which plays quite differently to a pure damage one. I'm using a 1-handed weapon and a shield. I don't have a of of ways to do extra damage in this case, so the emblazon on the weapon makes a big difference to me cause I'm dealing less damage anyway, and if I take Raise Symbol as my 4th level feat then I don't have Channel Smite.

Tank & Spank cleric is a hard job and Raise Symbol will help with that quite a bit. Fortunately, you can switch the emblazon by spending 10 minutes inscribing a new armament so I can try it out both ways and see which works better.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Sanityfaerie wrote:

Yeah... Cleric just became the obvious default first archetype for shield Paladin FA.

Not that that's... bad, necessarily? I mean, the fact that all of the paladins are going to want to dip their toes into the more martial side of the cleric pool actually feels pretty reasonable, especially as compared to some of the other incentives we've seen from time to time. The only real question it raises is one of balance.

Well, a Dwarf Champion of Torag with Emblazon Armament, Shield Ally, and Dwarven Reinforcement will have upwards of 4-6 more Hardness on a given shield, at the cost of a class specialization, 2 class feats, an ancestry feat from a specific ancestry, and Expert to Legendary in Crafting.

It's relatively frontloaded, but it's not that powerful in the late-game IMO, since it only saves an average of 8-12 more HP per round if you also take the Quick Shield Block feat.

Granted, you could also take Raise Symbol so that you get +2 to saves and AC as a single action, which is where the real strength lies, but that does require 3 feats.

Champion's real problem is that it doesn't have that many good lower level feats, and all of their higher level feats are basically spoken for, so it is prime for dipping into dedications a lot of the time, even disregarding Free Archetype.

You do raise a good point. Those early lvl champion feats feel a bit sparse to me outside the domain feat for thematic reasons. I'll be interested to see how those tier one feats come out when core 2 drops. Honestly, I'm curious how the whole class shapes up with the alignment changes. I suspect it'll be less overall restrictive with the caveat of some subclasses being holy only and some being unholy only.

Grand Lodge

Hopefully they just give Champion a feat identical to Raise Symbol but it works with Blade Ally instead of Emblazon Armament. So no multiclassing needed.

Edit: Damn, I keep calling Champion Paladin.


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Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
WWHsmackdown wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.
I'd be very surprised if it was. PF2E requires a lot of tracking to keep all your abilities in mind between ancestry, skill, general, and class feats. Free archetype being the base assumption is not something you would want to teach the system on simply by way of mental load. A good portion of the hobby still plays without digital tools to automate a lot of that tracking.

I don't know that I'd call what PF2E requires as "a lot" of tracking, at least at low levels. And you do have that incremental learning curve. At level 1 most classes don't have a lot to track, and you have some time to get used to things before adding one or two more things at level two. Rinse and repeat. Unless of course your party is of the "we have to level every 4.3 seconds" persuasion. :-)

That said, I agree that Free Archetype, as much fun as it is, ought to remain an option to be added only when the group is totally comfortable with the basic rules.


Ed Reppert wrote:
WWHsmackdown wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
Kinda makes me wonder if Free Archetype might just be baked into normal progression. I know I'd love that and Ancestral Paragon (ancestry feats are soo cool but so few and far between...) for sure.
I'd be very surprised if it was. PF2E requires a lot of tracking to keep all your abilities in mind between ancestry, skill, general, and class feats. Free archetype being the base assumption is not something you would want to teach the system on simply by way of mental load. A good portion of the hobby still plays without digital tools to automate a lot of that tracking.

I don't know that I'd call what PF2E requires as "a lot" of tracking, at least at low levels. And you do have that incremental learning curve. At level 1 most classes don't have a lot to track, and you have some time to get used to things before adding one or two more things at level two. Rinse and repeat. Unless of course your party is of the "we have to level every 4.3 seconds" persuasion. :-)

That said, I agree that Free Archetype, as much fun as it is, ought to remain an option to be added only when the group is totally comfortable with the basic rules.

You're right; It doesn't get all that difficult until much later. I was just imagining the lvl 20 character with a booklet of abilities to manage

Liberty's Edge

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Personally, I would have just treated Warpriest as Wave Casting and gave them full Martial progression, providing them Channel Smite at 1st level with a specialty class focus cantrip that lets them Smite all day long at a reduced value (1D4 per level), but I guess that was too ambitious for the Remaster, and will have to wait until a PF3 comes out for that to even be possible.

It makes me genuinely curious if the Warpriest would be at all different if Wave Casting was ever introduced back when PF2 was in its playtest days, if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting in mind, and how different the subclass would be compared to what we have now.

What you are describing is a Magus class archetype. Change the spell tradition to Divine and give the Channel Smite Conflux Spell as part of the archetype.

Which feels like something that is completely doable in PF2. I see this as a better use of class archetypes than Spellshot.

Never said it wasn't doable, since it's basically a mirror of the Magus (just different), but Paizo has already set the class' chassis in stone, and Warpriest was developed before Wave Casting was even conceived. I was just wondering if the Warpriest would have been designed with Wave Casting if such a concept was around during the original playtest, but I honestly don't think it would have.

I do not think either. Because the PF2 Warpriest is the equivalent to the base PF1 Cleric, which is a full caster.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Champion's real problem is that it doesn't have that many good lower level feats, and all of their higher level feats are basically spoken for, so it is prime for dipping into dedications a lot of the time, even disregarding Free Archetype.

Well, the important ones for a minimal dip are 2 and 4, and to get the Raise Symbol thing going, you'd need 2, 4, and 8. You're right about 2. Pre-remaster, Champion level 2 was pretty sparse. 4 has some decent stuff in it, but it's kind of take-or-leave. None of it is really important to the build. Level 6 gives you your first ally upgrade. That's a bit hard to turn down. Level 8 has both Quick Shield Block and Second Ally. From then on, for a dedicated shield Champion, every level after that will force you to pick between at least two different things that you want both of.

So, yeah, I agree with you in general, but I think that the "not many good lower level feats" zone runs out right before you'd need it to for Raise Symbol to be a comfortable pick.


Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite


Sanityfaerie wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Champion's real problem is that it doesn't have that many good lower level feats, and all of their higher level feats are basically spoken for, so it is prime for dipping into dedications a lot of the time, even disregarding Free Archetype.

Well, the important ones for a minimal dip are 2 and 4, and to get the Raise Symbol thing going, you'd need 2, 4, and 8. You're right about 2. Pre-remaster, Champion level 2 was pretty sparse. 4 has some decent stuff in it, but it's kind of take-or-leave. None of it is really important to the build. Level 6 gives you your first ally upgrade. That's a bit hard to turn down. Level 8 has both Quick Shield Block and Second Ally. From then on, for a dedicated shield Champion, every level after that will force you to pick between at least two different things that you want both of.

So, yeah, I agree with you in general, but I think that the "not many good lower level feats" zone runs out right before you'd need it to for Raise Symbol to be a comfortable pick.

Depending on how the Smite feat works in the remaster will really be what makes it difficult, as otherwise there isn't much reason to take AoO (unless you have a Reach weapon), since that reaction competes with the Champion reaction, and if you are Paladin, then it's essentially a better/more common reaction.

Otherwise, taking it by 6th level might be smarter than their other feat choices. Good point on the Quick Block, but could take it by 10th level instead.


aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.

Tanking becomes difficult with low starting con like that. It's a considerable tradeoff for the cleric dedication if you also want charisma.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Depending on how the Smite feat works in the remaster will really be what makes it difficult, as otherwise there isn't much reason to take AoO (unless you have a Reach weapon), since that reaction competes with the Champion reaction, and if you are Paladin, then it's essentially a better/more common reaction.

Otherwise, taking it by 6th level might be smarter than their other feat choices. Good point on the Quick Block, but could take it by 10th level instead.

Who said anything about AOO? My build isn't worried about AOO regardless. As you say, it competes with the Champion reaction, and I can't imagine choosing to play a Good Champion that wasn't a Paladin. As for past that...

8th: Quick Block and Second Ally
10th: Radiant Blade Spirit and Shield of Reckoning
12th: Aura of Faith and Divine Wall
14th: Divine Reflexes
16th: Shield of Grace
...and then 18 and 20 are your semi-capstone and full capstone.

You can certainly shrug and say that one or another of these just isn't that big a deal to you personally, but in order to actually free up any space in the 8+ feats, you'd have to discard four of them. I'd find it hard to justify doing that.

though, admittedly, I'm starting to slip pretty hard off topic... and who knows? Maybe the remastered Champion will be different.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.

Yeah but now we're talking about a champion with three feats in cleric and maybe looking at a few feats in sentinel so they can salvage their reflex saves because they've dumped dex... and maybe squeeze two feats in bastion somewhere in there so your entire character isn't defeated by a closed door.

That's a lot of investment.


aobst128 wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.

Tanking becomes difficult with low starting con like that. It's a considerable tradeoff for the cleric dedication if you also want charisma.

You would be able to reasonably start with a 14 Constitution instead, but it amounts to 1 HP per level and +1 Fortitude Saves, compared to +1 Will Saves and Initiative, being able to go before enemies is far more important. Going 16 Constitution is honestly too much investment unless you are going Barbarian dedication or something, which is kind of meh.

As for it being a considerable investment, the alternative is you have far less feats to pick from, and you would probably not be wielding a shield anyway, in which case the Cleric dedication wouldn't be considered whatsoever.


Sanityfaerie wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Depending on how the Smite feat works in the remaster will really be what makes it difficult, as otherwise there isn't much reason to take AoO (unless you have a Reach weapon), since that reaction competes with the Champion reaction, and if you are Paladin, then it's essentially a better/more common reaction.

Otherwise, taking it by 6th level might be smarter than their other feat choices. Good point on the Quick Block, but could take it by 10th level instead.

Who said anything about AOO? My build isn't worried about AOO regardless. As you say, it competes with the Champion reaction, and I can't imagine choosing to play a Good Champion that wasn't a Paladin. As for past that...

8th: Quick Block and Second Ally
10th: Radiant Blade Spirit and Shield of Reckoning
12th: Aura of Faith and Divine Wall
14th: Divine Reflexes
16th: Shield of Grace
...and then 18 and 20 are your semi-capstone and full capstone.

You can certainly shrug and say that one or another of these just isn't that big a deal to you personally, but in order to actually free up any space in the 8+ feats, you'd have to discard four of them. I'd find it hard to justify doing that.

though, admittedly, I'm starting to slip pretty hard off topic... and who knows? Maybe the remastered Champion will be different.

AoO because it's one of the few good feats at that level. I did forget Shield Warden, but if you are flanking enemies regularly, it won't get that much use. There is also the question of whether said allies would benefit from Raise Symbol, which by RAW is probably no.

Blade Ally is kind of meh and can be taken later when you don’t need a feat, really only kicking off when you take Radiant Blade Spirit, and Shield of Reckoning also takes your Champion Reaction (plus Shield Block reaction) away.

I think I will agree that further discussion will warrant its own thread (which I might just do, since I am curious on a couple things), so I will leave the speculation at that.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.

Tanking becomes difficult with low starting con like that. It's a considerable tradeoff for the cleric dedication if you also want charisma.

You would be able to reasonably start with a 14 Constitution instead, but it amounts to 1 HP per level and +1 Fortitude Saves, compared to +1 Will Saves and Initiative, being able to go before enemies is far more important. Going 16 Constitution is honestly too much investment unless you are going Barbarian dedication or something, which is kind of meh.

As for it being a considerable investment, the alternative is you have far less feats to pick from, and you would probably not be wielding a shield anyway, in which case the Cleric dedication wouldn't be considered whatsoever.

Every hit point counts. Especially for a class who's mechanics draw attacks to them. 16 con, 12 wis and 12 Cha is a common starting array for champ anyways.


Squiggit wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
aobst128 wrote:
Having to start with 14 wisdom also limits your starting charisma for things like your spell DC and smite

A Champion can run around with 4 Strength, 2 Charisma, 2 Wisdom, and 1 Constitution. Dexterity is basically a dump stat because of Bulwark and Intelligence is a dump stat because it's bad.

It's really not that detrimental, especially by the endgame, since you can't get 4 Charisma starting out.

Yeah but now we're talking about a champion with three feats in cleric and maybe looking at a few feats in sentinel so they can salvage their reflex saves because they've dumped dex... and maybe squeeze two feats in bastion somewhere in there so your entire character isn't defeated by a closed door.

That's a lot of investment.

Most Reflex-based effects always include damage, so having a +3 is almost always going to happen, and isn't terrible. Worst case scenario, take Canny Acumen -> Reflex. I did it. It was the best investment ever.

As for Bastion, Reflexive Shield is worse than Raise Symbol, and Reactive Shield competes with Champion Reaction. So I am not sure what else Bastion can offer that isn't already available elsewhere.

But again, we are getting off-topic, let's make a thread to discuss this further if we wish.


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Sanityfaerie wrote:
I can't imagine choosing to play a Good Champion that wasn't a Paladin.

Well you should think about it. Glimpse of Redemption and Liberating Step are both good options with different strengths and playstyles.


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Gortle wrote:
Sanityfaerie wrote:
I can't imagine choosing to play a Good Champion that wasn't a Paladin.
Well you should think about it. Glimpse of Redemption and Liberating Step are both good options with different strengths and playstyles.

Oh, I'm not saying that they're bad... just that I look at Paladin, and I look at the others, and the one that involves smiting my enemies and protecting my friends at the same time just draws me in. The feel of it is just so satisfying.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Eoni wrote:
foxpwnsyou wrote:
Raise Symbol is fairly OP...not a fan of it tbh...Sacred Ground is cool though...was worried about power creep with the "Remaster" and it begins.
Can't consider it OP when we don't know the new power baseline across the board.

If the new baseline is higher across the board, how is that not power creep?


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Ravingdork wrote:
Eoni wrote:
foxpwnsyou wrote:
Raise Symbol is fairly OP...not a fan of it tbh...Sacred Ground is cool though...was worried about power creep with the "Remaster" and it begins.
Can't consider it OP when we don't know the new power baseline across the board.
If the new baseline is higher across the board, how is that not power creep?

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before.

The conclusion is that there are two different things that people mean by 'power creep'.

One is when the power ceiling increases. The other is when anything increases in power.

From the look of it, some classes are getting buffs to bring them up to the power ceiling. Especially classes like Witch and Cleric. Haven't seen Alchemist yet. Other classes like Ranger aren't getting as many power buffs - just some streamlining like not requiring 'hunt prey target only' for some of their feats (probably things like Hunter's Aim or even Relentless Stalker). And Fighter is, as far as I know, only having the Open trait removed. No power buffs at all.

So it isn't power creep in the meaning of moving the power ceiling upwards. Moving the power floor upwards doesn't qualify for that meaning of power creep. But it could be loosely called the power baseline.

If you want to call it power creep in the sense that some underpowered abilities of certain classes are being improved, make sure that you are specifying that you are using that somewhat less common meaning of 'power creep'.


Sanityfaerie wrote:
Gortle wrote:
Sanityfaerie wrote:
I can't imagine choosing to play a Good Champion that wasn't a Paladin.
Well you should think about it. Glimpse of Redemption and Liberating Step are both good options with different strengths and playstyles.
Oh, I'm not saying that they're bad... just that I look at Paladin, and I look at the others, and the one that involves smiting my enemies and protecting my friends at the same time just draws me in. The feel of it is just so satisfying.

I also consider applying Enfeebled (or possibly Stupefied) to also be "smiting my enemies".

Hit Points aren't the only things that can be attacked.


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breithauptclan wrote:
From the look of it, some classes are getting buffs to bring them up to the power ceiling. Especially classes like Witch and Cleric.

The cleric's a little weird, because in some ways it was already quite strong. Like, yeah, they have buffed it, but it looks like they did that mostly by bringing the floor up on "warpriests" and "clerics who don't use their ancestry to cheese into non-Divine attack spells", rather than augmenting the Cleric as a whole.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Has there been any word on errata for other classes?
Psychic, magus, summoner etc?


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MagnusPrime wrote:

Has there been any word on errata for other classes?

Psychic, magus, summoner etc?

Nope. We know there was supposed to be a twice-per-year errata process starting this year that would no longer be tied to book printings. But then the Remaster was announced, and I believe I saw somewhere it was confirmed the Remaster had stop that process.

We'll likely not see any of the new errata process until after Player Core 2 is sent to the printers. So probably nothing until July/August, sadly.


Sanityfaerie wrote:
breithauptclan wrote:
From the look of it, some classes are getting buffs to bring them up to the power ceiling. Especially classes like Witch and Cleric.
The cleric's a little weird, because in some ways it was already quite strong. Like, yeah, they have buffed it, but it looks like they did that mostly by bringing the floor up on "warpriests" and "clerics who don't use their ancestry to cheese into non-Divine attack spells", rather than augmenting the Cleric as a whole.

Yeah, I'm really more worried about the divine list than I am the cleric because like you said people currently use tricks to escape the divine list and the divine list is often seen as weakness of classes that use it.

I hope they can give it more of a niche in this remaster with the spirit damage change. It would be nice if rather than the divine list just being offensively weak it had a specific role related to attacking the spirit and discriminating between the holy and unholy.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

the spirit damage change alone does a lot to make the divine list significantly more offensively interesting (unless you're in a construct heavy campaign then you're just SoL).

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