| Alkathor |
So what role is the Warpriest trying to fill? Is he trying to be a WARpriest or a warPRIEST? As he is now, I think it's a fairly common opinion that he's a slightly better combatant than a cleric, but a vastly worse caster. The fighter part of his hybridisation seems to be missing.
I think the Warpriest needs to borrow more from the fighter, to get the feel of the fighter he needs a few things - the ability to hit things, the ability to make scary full attacks, the ability to obtain feats to build his combat style and the ability to take a hit and keep fighting. This means fighter BAB, HD and bonus feats (at obviously a slower progression) plus another mechanic to make the Warpriest even better when fighting in his gods favoured way - I'd be a fan of simply the fighters weapon training with the favoured weapon. In this way they could still use a non favoured weapon but would be encouraged to use their deities weapon.
So far we have him feeling like a fighter with less bonus feats, no bravery or weapon training and no capstone. He now needs that priest feel to him. Giving him the first 6 levels of the cleric spell list might work here, but this breaks the class mold of full BAB classes only being allowed 4 levels of casting, or none at all. We could steal the paladin list, or take the first 4 levels of the cleric list, which both feel like sub par options. I would suggest we give him no casting (for now) and find that cleric feel through domains, and channeling energy. I would suggest giving both domains and channel energy to the warpriest, but with the following modifications:
Channel energy scales at the same rate as the cleric, however it can only be activated as a swift action on an attack. In addition, the channel is placed as a cone originating from the cleric - the effects are as per normal channel. This gives the warpriest a unique and interesting way of doing in combat healing/smiting (depending on alignment and feats).
Domains I would give to the warpriest just as they are for the cleric - this prevents having to keep the blessing list updated as new domains and subdomains are added to the game. The warpriest could then have an ability that he gains at 2nd level, and every 2nd level thereafter that allows him to cast a number of domain spells from his domains, using his warpriest level as his caster level. This could even key off Cha to keep the warpriest from being too MAD. This would give him pseudo 9th level casting in a characterful way.
Now we have a character who can fight nearly as well as a fighter, can cast at the same power as a cleric (but in a very limited way) and can in-combat heal/smite. It wouldn't be unreasonable to add an ability to use spell trigger and spell completion items based on the entire cleric list, at some point.
This gives the warpriest a number of levers to pull for balance (feat progression, number of domain casts/day, number of channels/day), but does this dilute the power or feel of the class as a battle cleric too much?