Craft Cheese's page

Fractional BAB and Saves: Yes! I don't know why these aren't the default rules, really.

My rule for PrCs: All entry requirements are waived, with two exceptions.

- Each PrC has a minimum entry level, decided by me, that cannot be bypassed by any means. In most cases, this is equal to the number of skill ranks required by the class (for 3.5 classes, the number of skill ranks required -3). However, exceptions can occur when a PrC's main barrier to entry is a high BAB or spellcasting requirement, and not its skill rank requirements.

- Class features that are meaningfully advanced or otherwise utilized by the PrC are still required: To enter a class that advances spellcasting, you obviously need spellcasting to be advanced.

The only potential problem with this rule is that many PrCs are "balanced" by requiring you to take completely worthless feats in exchange for class features better than what you'd get from the logical entry base class. In practice, I don't think this is an issue.

First, I'm of the school of thought that the only type of balance that matters is the intra-party balance between player characters. As far as balance is concerned, it doesn't matter how powerful the PCs are (as the DM can just step up the obstacles to match), so long as we don't have an Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situation.

Second, this actually helps out the lower-tier classes more than the higher-tier classes, because they can benefit much more from PrCs and multiclassing in general. Also, PrCs intended for fighters and rogues tend to have much, much harsher requirements than those intended for wizards and clerics.

Third, the seriously overpowered PrCs (like Incantatrix, Emissary of Barachiel, Rainbow Servant + Dread Necromancer) are just as disruptive with this rule as they are without. If a PrC lets you break the game in half, then it's worth entering no matter how crap the requirements are.

As for PrC levels stacking with class levels for class features... I dunno. There are a few things where it'd be fine (familiar level, channel energy dice) but that's only because these features are so minor as to not matter anyway.

Really, it's up to you to breathe life and fun into your character AND to take advantage of rules that were put into place to make the game fun and enjoyable for everyone.

Disappointed in your combat options? You CAN do things other than full attack, you know. Do you use Vital Strike? Did you take feats that let you demoralize effectively? Did you take Saving Shield? Is there a rogue in your group? Why don't you take a 5-foot step so he can flank more effectively? Baddies moving toward the spellcaster? Did you take Stand Still and plant yourself between the baddies and your wizard?

Outside of combat .... did you take any feats or traits that make things more interesting? Cosmopolitan gives you two extra class skills. Intimidating Prowess makes sure everybody recognizes your mighty thews. If you're still feeling useless, why don't you aid another? RP it a little bit, roll a die semi-well, and you can give somebody else a +2 bonus to his next skill roll. Did you (again) explore archetypes? The cad and the tactician both bring something to the noncombat fighter.

Finally ... did you bother to give your fighter a personality? Is he a loud, boisterous bruiser? A contemplative weapon master? A sly, sneaky flanker?

You can have fun playing a fighter, and you can do things other than "full attack, full attack, full attack." But it takes a little effort on your part.

The problem with the fighter is, yeah, you can totally breathe life into your character and have lots of fun, but you can do this with any class you care to play. The argument isn't that you can't have fun playing a fighter, the argument is you can have just as much fun with a Magus, Inquisitor, Alchemist, Paladin, or Barbarian and get useful class features too.

As already mentioned, you can be neutral evil as a druid. So if you just wanna make a lich druid who still has their spells and class features, there are no problems even within the rules. And even if there was a problem, it's an NPC: Just tell your players that it's a special homebrewed Lich template (without specifying the exact changes), they'll never know the difference.

If you want the lich to atone and become nonevil for fluff reasons... Don't forget that you are the DM, and you get to decide how these things work. Maybe there's nothing stopping liches from being redeemed, most just don't because the process of becoming one goes pretty far over the deep end in the first place. Maybe liches normally can't be redeemed, but this one is special for some reason. Maybe *most* liches redeem themselves eventually after they have a few thousand years to really take a look at their place in the universe, but usually get slain by adventurers before they get that old. Maybe your campaign setting is non-standard and liches are good guys by default.

My "quick fix" rules:

- None of that stupid charisma penalty crap. Really. There's no reason for this except to further shoehorn them into being a Barbarian Only race. That, and, you know, maybe someone at Paizo doesn't trust that groups will roleplay the downsides of walking around with a freaky appearance in town and feel the need to tack on a mechanical penalty so players don't just stay shifted 24/7. (Then again from how I hear PFS games go, this lack of trust may be justified...)

- You always get your physical stat and natural armor bonus, shifting just changes what traits you get. Unlimited shifting uses per day (seriously the only reason I can think of for why this is limited is someone at Paizo is terrified of at-will abilities). Swift action to transform, and a swift action to change your traits (don't need to change back to human, then transform again).

- Extra Feature still exists, but you start taking two traits whenever you transform instead of just one.

Honestly? The race is still underpowered for everyone except Savage Barbarians (claw claw bite hoof hoof gore) and they're a sad joke compared to real lycanthropes, but this at least makes them more playable.

I guess the first question to answer when making any new class is: what about it is most appealing? Are mystic theurges cool because they have a lot of utility because of the vast amount of spells they have? Or is it some flavor reason like "I think it'd be great to play a mage who became a preacher after he found some sort of spirituality in the wonder of magic." ?

Mystic Theurge has more than one reason it appeals, because there's more than one combination it can work with. With just the core classes, you can use it to make a Cleric/Wizard, Cleric/Bard, Cleric/Sorcerer, Druid/Wizard, Druid/Bard, or Druid/Sorcerer. Arguably, a faithful base class rendition of the mystic theurge would have to cover (at least) all of these. And even within each combination, there are many different character concepts.

That said, if I were to make a Cleric/Wizard hybrid class, I'd make them a sort of magical anthropologist. A scholar on a deeply personal quest to travel the world and learn as many different philosophical and cultural perspectives as they can, whether to gain a more complex understanding and context for their own beliefs and values or to find themselves new ones, and drawing divine spell power from this understanding.

A quite like clerics (especially caster and support clerics over battle clerics) so this class is right up my ally. I also like it quite a bit better than the Priest from Adamant Entertainment, but it's not perfect. Thoughts:

- I don't like how the "default" of the class is Good, and to play other alignments you need archetypes. I get that you want different abilities for different alignments, but I'd prefer for this to be baked into the class. Also, no love for law and chaos?

- Are there any dogma spell lists that are different from their respective domain lists? I didn't check every single dogma, but I couldn't spot any differences as I was browsing through them. If there aren't any, it'd be easier to say "You get the same spell list as that of your respective domain."

- Dogmas overall feel weaker than domains. I don't know if you intended this for balance reasons (since the class also gets Holy Strike, "Holy Arcane" (which would be much better named as Holy Arcana btw), and spontaneous dogma casting), or just because you wanted dogma powers to be more beneficial to a full caster and just made them weaker than domains by accident. It also has the unfortunate problem that dogmas aren't compatible with subdomains: This locks out a lot of really interesting options.

- The Madness dogma refers specifically to the Touch of Corruption ability that Dark Priests get, but there are good-aligned deities that get that domain: Chucaro and Tsukiyo, for example.

- Holy Strike, well... doesn't seem to *fit*, really. It seems like this was an ability designed for a completely different class, that was just stapled onto the Priest just because. It feels like Eldritch Blast, except with a daily limit on its uses for some reason.

- Holy Strike's damage output is really really low: It has the same problem as the Arcanist's blast exploits. At level 19 you'll be doing 40d6 damage assuming you invested in all five Empowered Strikes. At this level, it's hardly even worth the standard action.

- Permanent Shield is weird. It says it lasts until dispelled, but supernatural abilities normally can't be dispelled. So you just get CHA as a Deflection bonus to AC, all day er'ry day? 6th level seems kinda low for that.

- Quick Strike feels really pointless. I assume that by "attack action" you mean that you can full attack with it (since an attack that isn't part of a full attack is still a standard action). Except the Priest gets only half BAB, so that's a maximum of 2 attacks. Whoopdie do.

- Give the lay on hands range improvements a consistent, regular progression instead of making us look it up on a table. It's much easier to remember and apply "10 feet at 5th level, and 5 additional feet for every level afterward" than a table of arbitrary ranges.

In order for the Warpriest to be full BAB, his spell casting has to drop down to 4 spell level progression, like Ranger, Paladin and Bloodrager.

Says who? Full BAB isn't all that it's cracked up to be, really. WotC vastly overvalued full BAB (and attack/damage bonuses in general) for years and their class designs were crippled by it.

Scribe Scroll? Yes.

Eschew Materials? I don't see any reason for it, it's primarily a flavor feat.

I don't think Dex-to-damage is worth a feat, let alone two, for the same reasons I don't like Dervish Dance. Why?

Imagine there were two feats that replaced Dex with Strength for your reflex saves, AC (following the same armor limitations as Dex), and Initiative. Would you take them?

Could you do a comparison with some other classes? I'd like to see how it would stack up with an inquisitor, a bard or a magus. The class should really be compared to partial casters.

This. Complaining "This class out-fights the Fighter!" is a non-starter because, well, it's other parent class already out-fights the Fighter. It's the Investigator problem again. If anything the class actually comes up kinda sub-par (but still perfectly functional) when compared to an Inquisitor, Bard, or Magus.

From what I gather there are two schools of thought on House Rules

Group A) uses House rules to Fix problems. They see something going on in their particular game that they don't agree with or that is causing them problems and they come up with a Rule to stop it from happening.

Group B) Uses House rules to adjust the tone of their campaign and make it reflect a different feel than normal. Their House Rules are part of their world building and they might use a different set from one Campaign to the next because they are running a different game with a different theme or mood to it.

How do you approach House Rules. Are they for Problem Fixing or for World Building, or a little bit of both?

Terminology issue: I'd call group A "House Ruling" and group B "Homebrewing", and both of them are 100% healthy behaviors. One of the big reasons I can't get interested in PFS is because in those games you can do neither: I can't imagine playing in a game where the DM can't make a call in the name of common sense when a weird situation pops up, or the player can't take a homebrewed feat or spell to make their character concept work.

One request: Please no ability to spend AR points to gain metamagic reduction. At least not without severe restrictions. "Reduce any metamagic's level adjustment as much as you want with any spell you want" is one of the most powerful features a caster can gain, arguably second only to features like Wild Arcana/Inspired Spell and Uncanny Forethought. If you must though, make it work like Theologian's and only work with specific spells and with specific metamagic feats, maybe something like this:

Favorite Spell - The Arcanist selects a single spell in her spellbook. By spending a number of arcane reservoir points equal to the feat's level adjustment when casting this spell, she can apply one of the following metamagic feats to the spell without increasing the spell level or the casting time: Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Intensify Spell, Maximize Spell, Reach Spell, Widen Spell. She cannot apply more than one metamagic feat at a time to the spell this way. Whenever the arcanist gains the ability to cast a new level of spells, she may change which spell this exploit applies to.

1. And? If divine characters can use their deity's favored weapons, pretty sure they are accustomed to their use.

2. Again, and? The mace, spear, dagger, sickle and crossbow are viable.

3. You might wanna blame Paizo for not expanding racial panthéons as much as the Forgotten Realms did.

Point is, you're a divine soldier who's supposed to be an expert of his or her deity's favored weapon, regardless of what it might be.

- An Abadar warpriest should be a crossbowman.
- A Cayden Cailean warpriest should be a swashbuckler.
- An Erastil warpriest should be an archer.
- An Irori warpriest should be a monk.
- A Norgorber warpriest should be a rogue.
- A Rovagug warpriest should be a barbarian.

I used classes as general ideas here.

Like Kudaku said, there's 50 pages of arguing about this back in the old warpriest thread, which is still available for reading.

- Many fighting styles simply Do Not Work without taking levels in an entire class built around making them work, and/or dumping lots and lots of feats and magic into making them just barely function. And several (whips, crossbows, thrown weapons) just can't be made to work at all with the material we have in the game right now, no matter how much you invest in them. Right out the gate you're giving a huge advantage to warpriests of gorum, lamashtu, shelyn, and szuriel while giving everyone else the middle finger.

- You can argue that deities with impotent weapons shouldn't have warpriests (many people in the old thread did) but this makes no sense: I can come up with reasons for just about any deity to have militant, offensive worshippers. Pharasmins who hunt undead. Desnans who fight the Umbral Court in Nidal. Black Butterfly worshippers who fight the cults of the Old Ones. You're killing off perfectly good character concepts for literally no reason.

- Most deities (especially minor deities like empyreals or demon lords) had their favored weapons basically picked out of a hat with no relation to the deity's flavor at all. Tanagaar favors the Kukri... why exactly?

- For most deities it makes no sense why they'd require the warpriest to stick to one fighting style. Why does Gorum refuse to bless you if you're not using a greatsword? The deities's Heralds completely ignore favored weapons: The herald of Abadar uses a giant gavel. It's unfortunate that "All clerics must be depicted wielding their favored weapon" seems to be an art requirement, because the idea is very silly.

- Many deities who actually have a reason to favor their particular weapon do so for non-combat purposes. Shelyn's glaive is never used in combat because it eats souls. Pharasma's skanes are used to cut the umbilical cord and many priests refuse to use them to take a life. Requiring warpriests of shelyn to run around killing people with glaives and warpriests of shelyn to run around using their skane actually goes against the established flavor of that deity.

- Finally, doing this kills many, many character concepts: Kudaku posted a really good Archer cleric of Irori concept in the old thread, one that would have been impossible to build with a warpriest if they were restricted in fighting style choice.

I suspect the brawler will also be fighting lower-CR foes, even when she's at level 20. So "I can't make use of this" is hyperbole and inaccurate. "Rarely works on the boss encounter" is accurate... and something I'm comfortable with.

Take a look at this spreadsheet. Notice how the mean CMD value doesn't dip below 40 after CR 14? The class's main ability working less often than not on anything stronger than APL-5 is completely unacceptable. That's like a spellcaster tossing DC 25 saving throws around at level 20. (Hello, Bloodrager!)

EDIT: Or even less than that, since I forgot about that stupid size modifier thing. Why do these even exist?

How does he know how to magically enhance his fists?

"Well, this one day my horse decided to swallow some nails... and well, let's just say I did what I had to do."

I disagree: At low levels is when the Arcanist is (currently) at its most disadvantaged when compared to its parents. At 1st level, an Arcanist with 20 INT has 2 1st-level spells prepared and 4 spell slots per day. A Sorcerer with 20 CHA knows 2 1st-level spells and has 5 spell slots per day. A specialist wizard with 20 INT has 4 different spells prepared. And with no higher-level spellslots they can't take advantage of spontaneous metamagic, which is one of their most powerful advantages (esp. with metamixing). It's not until around level 6 or so when the Arcanist starts to outpace its parents, and by level 10 the wizard and sorcerer are total jokes.

I find this odd that this post has got such a negative reaction. Cha is the most underused stat in the game and yet it is the most interesting for roleplaying purposes. What is wrong with encouraging the use of it?

look, your character's stats only mean what you choose for them to mean. You can play a well-read character with 3 INT. You can play a very unlearned character with 18 INT. You can play an obstinate jackass with 18 CHA. You can play the friendliest person ever with 3 CHA.

You can argue that this is "Roleplaying your stats wrong" all you like, but fact of the matter is your stats don't cleanly tie to particular aspects of your character and represent a bunch of jumbled up (and often mutually contradictory) things. Does a supermodel who is also an entitled brat have an 18 CHA, 10 CHA, or 3 CHA? How about the reverse? Does a bookworm with no mind for logic puzzles have an 18 INT, 10 INT, or 3 INT? How about the reverse?

It all depends on how you choose to weigh the different factors, which is 100% subjective. Stats only have clearly defined effects to the extent that those stats have an effect on the game's mechanics, and those effects are necessarily abstractions: For some reason, being good at lying also makes you good at being scary. Being good at wizardry makes you good at forging documents. Having a close tie to the divine makes you hear things better. For some characters you can rationalize these effects, but try to do it for all the inconsistencies for every character concept imaginable, and you'll break your spine bending over backwards.

Stats aren't "interesting for roleplaying purposes," they're numbers that mean whatever you want them to mean, even if you try to play them as "faithfully" as possible. You can roleplay just as well, if not better, by ignoring them.

1) MAD is good. It forces more rounded characters rather than people picking classes which reward boosting a stat to 20 at 1st level and dumping the rest, Wizard being the most notorious perpetrator.

For mechanical reasons MAD is very, very bad. And for roleplaying reasons... look, your character's stats only mean what you choose for them to mean. You can play a well-read character with 3 INT. You can play a very unlearned character with 18 INT. You can play an obstinate jackass with 18 CHA. You can play the friendliest person ever with 3 CHA.

You can argue that this is "Roleplaying your stats wrong" all you like, but fact of the matter is your stats don't cleanly tie to particular aspects of your character and represent a bunch of jumbled up (and often mutually contradictory) things. Does a supermodel who is also an entitled brat have an 18 CHA, 10 CHA, or 3 CHA? How about the reverse? Does a bookworm with no mind for logic puzzles have an 18 INT, 10 INT, or 3 INT? How about the reverse?

It all depends on how you choose to weigh the different factors, which is 100% subjective. Stats only have clearly defined effects to the extent that those stats have an effect on the game's mechanics, and those effects are necessarily abstractions: For some reason, being good at lying also makes you good at being scary. Being good at wizardry makes you good at forging documents. Having a close tie to the divine makes you hear things better. For some characters you can rationalize these effects, but try to do it for all the inconsistencies for every character concept imaginable, and you'll break your spine bending over backwards.

2) This is far more important - Pathfinder PCs are essentially superheroes. Everyone who has played this game has seen a superhero film or comic or story. NO proper superhero dumps Cha.

Even with my prior complaints about stats and roleplaying ignored, this makes two very erronous assumptions.

1. That the players are valiant heroes, which they may very well not be. My favorite games are the ones where heroes don't exist.

2. That your idea of a valiant hero is based upon the image established by Superman. I can't speak for you, but when I think "Hero" I don't think of Superman. I think of Rorschach, a man with no superpowers at all who kept trying to do good after the rest of the world gave up. The only person in that entire story to not compromise his values to take the easy way out. And if *anyone* can be argued to have dumped their Charisma score, it's Rorschach.

- I plan on adding an exploit to get a familiar.

Unnecessary, IMO. Familiars (esp. Improved Familiars) are extremely powerful, and being unable to get one without Eldritch Heritage is one of the few weaknesses the Arcanist has when compared to its parent classes.

- Are there any other exploit ideas that folks would like to see. We've got a few that we are planning to add, but I want to see what you have to say.

I still want to see my Blue Mage idea worked in, if only as an exploit and not a central feature of the class (DC 15 + twice spell level Fortitude save to learn a spell after you get hit with it).

And FYI... RAW runestones do not work for consume spells class feature.

They might as well: The point of using runestones is you expend the spell slot to gain AR, then effectively replace the spell slot with the runestone. It's better than eating scrolls or potions for the same reasons a Healing Belt is a better investment than a potion of cure moderate.

- Instant Study: standard action spend Arcane Reservoir points equal to the spell level to replace a spell prepared with one from your spell book

Hey look, it's our old friend Uncanny Forethought!

To me, it's obvious the best way to go is to give them more to do with Inspiration.

Automatically give them Infusions at level 1.

Dump studied strike, studied combat, and sneak attack.

Dump the 1d6 thing and make it a flat Intelligence bonus, adding +1 to this bonus for the purposes of Inspiration every 4 levels (to a maximum of INT + 5 at level 20).

Applying Inspiration to an attack roll or saving throw uses only 1 point of Inspiration. If you apply inspiration to a weapon attack roll, the bonus applies to the damage roll as well. Taking Combat Inspiration lowers the cost of applying inspiration to an attack roll to 0 points, but not saving throws. Let combat inspiration be taken earlier.

8 + INT skill points per level.

Give them the following ability:

Exceptional Preparation (Ex): An Investigator always has a trick up their sleeve. As a swift action, the investigator can spend 3 inspiration points to retroactively change one of their prepared extracts that has not yet been imbibed into another extract in their formula book. This even works with an infusion currently being carried by an ally.

It's a start.

If I recall the ancient tales correctly, weren't the 1E/2E rulebooks nearly 60% tables and spreadsheets?

The OD&D rulebook was Gary Gygax's personal manifesto with some rules for a roleplaying game sprinkled in random places.

So, thoughts:

- You dumped reliance on the deity's favored weapon. Great!

- Fervor being based on CHA sucks hard, because aside from spells it's easily their most powerful ability. It's like if a Magus needed WIS to use Spell Combat. I do like that you implemented most of my suggestions for it, save that you made it a swift instead of 1/round free action.

- The blessings still have lots and lots of problems, but I think I covered those pretty thoroughly in the other thread.

- I'm not sure why you don't just go ahead and give the class full BAB, unless it's written somewhere THOU SHALT NOT GIVE FULL BAB TO ANY CLASS WITH USEFUL SPELLCASTING, especially now that you've just given full BAB to them while they're using their focus weapon.

- Move all the bonus combat feats 1 level earlier, and give them an additional one at level 20. Also, a new capstone is needed.

- This class simply has too much competition for the swift action each round, and thus can't properly take advantage of the action economy. Going with my suggestion of making fervor a free action would help with this a lot.

Is there a reason the Skald only gets certain types of Perform skills as class skills? Adding Sing to the list is nice, but they still don't get one that would work with a warhorn. And if this is a more martially-inclined performer, having them play a string instrument while they try to swing a sword looks awfully strange.

It's not strange in the slightest.

First impressions from reading the class.

- Arcanist spells prepared per day were not changed. This makes me sad.

- Consume Magic Items and Counterspell were nerfed rather senselessly. Parry Spell seems to be completely gone.

- Bloodline Development looks really good: There's plenty of good bloodline arcanas to choose from, and you don't even need to lose a caster level by dipping sorcerer! Clarification though: Can you use this with Wildblooded variants (or Subschools for Wizards)?

- Spell Tinkerer went from Incantatrix-on-Crack to waste of an exploit slot. Can't say I'll mourn its loss.

All I have to say for now really as the class wasn't changed all that much from last week's revision.

For domains, you have a lot of good choices. I'd personally advise against the Fire domain and its subdomains

Smoke subdomain is pretty nice, actually.

I don't like banning anything: You need to trust that your players want to play the game and not disrupt it. If you don't have that trust, you'll have far, *far* worse problems than you'll ever get from an obscure PrC or feat combo.

My first response when I'm not sure about something is to allow it and see what happens: First party, second party, third party, 3.5 (incl. Dragon Magazine), homebrew, it's encouraged. (Though in the case of third party and homebrew, I do require to have a copy of the material for myself, which in most cases the player can easily provide since we do everything digitally.) Having an interesting and exciting experience is far more important than having perfect balance. If accidental disruption does happen, though, I do one of two things.

First, give the weaker characters in the party a boost. Let them have a few free bonus feats, or apply a free template to themselves. Let them rebuild their characters a bit and help them optimize better.

Second, if I can't boost the other characters to the level of the problem character without causing total narrative breakdown (like in the case of infinite action loops and such), I try to work out a houserule fix, making sure to work with the player so something crucial to their character concept doesn't accidentally get hit in the crossfire. (Unless their character concept is "I want to utterly decimate anything I want instantaneously and with no risk because I'm just that awesome" in which case I shouldn't be trusting them to play in my games anyway.)

That said, there are a few things I will just flat-out veto.

- Leadership/Thrallherd. If you want a cohort/faithful minions, talk to me and I'll see if I can work it into the story. Making this sort of thing available through feats and class features causes all sorts of mechanical and pacing problems, mostly because doing these things this way makes too many expectations of entitlements to what the feat/class feature provides. If a player takes leadership at 7th level, then they generally expect to get their cohort exactly as they want it in exactly the circumstances they want, as soon as they hit 7th level and take the feat. I don't really blame the players for this because such expectations are healthy and conductive with other abilities you gain through character advancement: You'd be rightfully upset if I told you that you couldn't take advantage of your +1 to BAB until you left the dungeon and trained in town for a few weeks.

- 3.5 content that has been subsumed or updated by PF. No getting 3.5 versions of monsters (e.g. Nightmares) through Planar Ally/Planar Binding. No using 3.5 versions of spells, classes, or powers that have been updated (e.g. Polymorph, Divine Power, Wish). Supplemental material that wasn't updated is fair game. (For now, mixing of Path of War and Tome of Battle material is allowed. I'm still figuring out how to blend them together best, since it's only spiritually an update. I'll probably end up dumping the ToB classes and adding some methods for PoW classes to get ToB maneuvers.)

- Spell to Power. If you want to play a spell point-based caster, ask to play that. If you want to play a character who can use spells and powers, play a Cerebremancer. This variant is problematic because it allows you to use all the various psionic toys with spells they were never, ever intended to be used with. It causes nothing but problems and opens no possibilities that aren't already available through other avenues.

- Archivist is *not* banned, but you're limited to the Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin, Ranger, Healer, Shugenja, and Adept lists, as well as all domain spells. Homebrew or third party divine spellcaster lists may also be used with permission. More accurately, all the various methods of converting any arcane spell you wan into a divine spell so you can scribe it in your prayerbook are banned. Otherwise, I think it's a fine class.

- Artificer is banned for now, at least until I figure out how to make it function appropriately with the new PF crafting and magic item rules.

- Spelldancing and Metaphysical Spellshaper. Effectively unlimited metamagic reduction is too tempting to abuse when making yourself immune to the downsides (fatigue and ability damage) is so trivial to accomplish. Incantatrix is allowed so long as you don't break its uses/day limit.

- Illithid Savant, Beholder Mage, Hathran, and any class that uses the Taint mechanics. Just no. If you've got your heart set on something similar to these, ask me to homebrew something myself and I'll see what I can do. (An Arcane counterpart to the Ur-Priest could be interesting, but 10 free action spells per round and spontaneous casting of every spell ever are just eww.)

- Polymorph Any Object. Somehow survived the change to PF unscathed. Open to all the madness you could pull off with the 3.5 polymorph line. There's no use of this spell that isn't covered in a much saner way by other spells, or isn't horrible, horrible nonsense.

- Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos. If you want to retrain, ask and I'll say yes. This method opens up far too many avenues for abuse, like shuffling out elven racial proficiency feats, or abuse with Vow of Poverty. I used to ban Psychic Reformation too, but I think DSP's rewrite makes the power acceptable.

- Body Outside Body. It really should have been designed with a whitelist of what the clones *can* do, rather than a blacklist of what they *can't*. Like PaO, it's hard to imagine a non-disruptive, legitimate use for this spell that isn't covered much more sanely by something else.

- Ice Assassin. As many free, superpowered minions as you want! Simulacrum does basically the same thing with more restrictions and is thus allowed, but don't be a jerk with it.

- You cannot gain Epic Spells by any means. Only epic feats listed as fighter bonus feats are permitted.

Don't play the blame game: These guys are (hopefully) your friends. Hostility will only make these problems worse. Always keep the discussion focused on solutions. "Hey guys, I want to play a battle cleric and devote more of my spell slots of buffs and attacking and less of them to healing. What can we do to make this work?"

Ask your DM if the party can buy Healing Belts (Magic Item Compendium). 750 gp each. Standard action to heal 2d8 points of damage, 3 times per day. Can expend additional uses at once to heal up to 4d8 points. Much cheaper than healing potions in the long run, since the charges refresh each day, and better than popping a spell as it uses their actions, not yours.

Talk about pooling the party wealth to buy a wand of cure light wounds or two, so you can activate it after combat to get everybody healed back up.

Maybe take Leadership and get a Vitalist cohort to take care of in-combat healing duties.

Obviously to make this viable we just need a lot of full BAB PrCs to go dipping around in while leaving the actual class empty. I welcome our new useful and tasteful PrCs!

If I could have made that character with 20 levels in a base class, believe me, I would have. Requirement juggling sucks and is the worst part of making characters for 3.5.

I would much rather see the class be powerful at the cost of some flavor than a flavorful, but helpless class, the way it is right now. People can clamor for favor all they want, but not a lot would play it if it was allowed to continue lagging behind the rest of the classes. As it stands, it's looking like Paizo is going to be able to preserve the flavor while (hopefully) making it every bit the equal of a cleric or a fighter, if nothing else.

I don't think flavor and power are opposed: In the best class designs, they compliment each other. A character should be as interesting in play as they are in your head.

I just hope they choose not to concentrate the class around healing too much. If I wanted a healer, I'd make a life oracle or cleric. Most people that make a warpriest will want to do so for the WAR part, not being forced to disengage from the enemy to heal someone that should already be getting healed by the actual healer. More than that, focusing too much on the healing aspect would be detrimental to people that might like to, oh I don't know, blow things up with negative energy. Sure, they might be losing channel, but I hope they at least retain access to their inflict spells.

So long as the class has the ability to heal, there will be people expecting you to spend the entire combat standing behind them and curing them each round instead of, you know, having fun. Short of removing healing capability altogether, nothing they can do with the class's design can help with this.

There is, however, plenty that can be done to exacerbate it. Like removing the Warpriest's ability to cast anything but Cure spells. Don't think they'll do that.

THIS is one of the biggest problems with the Summoner, and one of the reasons why so many GMs, my own included, have banned the Summoner class from any games. The Summoner should NEVER have gotten SM as a spell-like ability, and especially not in a manner that breaks the rules. IF it was meant to have SM as a SLA, then it should still act as the spell, standard to cast and 1 sec/level duration, and not the current, hideously broken manner it now is. If anything, Summoner should have gotten spontaneous SM by sacrificing a spell much as a druid does for SNA. Add to that a full BAB and d10 hit die for the eidolon, and we have a broken class with a companion that deals heavier damage per round than the party fighter, and now you want the Hunter to go in THAT direction as well? Make him a divine version of Summoner? Yeah, the class is weak, and yes, I can see a need for improvement, but if you make him like the Summoner, you'll just get yet another class that nobody wants in their campaigns because it's "broken and too powerful".

I disagree: There are archetypes for the Summoner that weaken (or even give up) the Eidolon in exchange for improving the Summon Monster ability.

The consensus on these archetypes, more or less, is that they're bad deals. The "problem" with the Summoner is in the Eidolon, and IMO it's not actually a problem; It just does what melee/skill monkey classes should be able to do, but can't.

I honestly have noted a correlation between these new classes and design directions that don't seem to be well considered.

The most obvious being that feats, no matter how many, will never overcome slow casting progression and the loss of the top three spell levels.

Feats are not good. You can't replace good magical class features with feats and expect some sort of equilibrium. If this class got two feats a level for every level I would still choose a cleric. Better spells at earlier levels that will, in some instances, outstrip a feat by several orders of magnitude cannot be so easily stripped off the cleric chassis.

Feats are not good.

Especially combat feats, because they seem to be balanced with the assumption that only Fighters will be taking them. Notice how much more powerful in general caster-oriented feats are than combat-oriented ones?

Anyway, I'm gonna say my piece on the favored weapon thing since Jason seems to be reading the thread now: Shelyn never actually uses the Whisperer of Souls in combat because it has the power to eat souls. Warpriests of Shelyn getting bonuses for using a glaive, thus, makes absolutely no sense: Why would Shelyn *want* her followers to fight with something that symbolizes such an evil weapon?

The only justification I can come up with at all for such a bonus is that, for some reason, Shelynites are usually pictured wielding a glaive. Why is this?

I'm not even going to complain about mechanics. From an RP perspective the idea of a favored weapon seems like something that can work for a couple of deities (Iomedae) but completely breaks down when you apply it outside of this context, even though these deities have no less potential to have more militant followers: Some Desnans, for example, work to help overthrow the Umbral Court in Nidal, and hunt down the abominations spawned by Ghlaunder and Lamashtu. What reason could she possibly have for giving them bonuses for wielding starknives?

Heretical idea: Make their casting based on CON, just like their bloodline powers.

I'm going to disagree here. Not all favored weapons are favored for the same reasons, and Pharasma is a great example of this. Do you really think she expects her followers to be hunting undead with daggers? I'd say it's more likely the dagger is "favored" for ritualistic purposes. Why do we all jump to the conclusion that all deities favor weapons for the same reasons, and why do we assume that reason is always combat?

Nooooooo we had finally gotten a couple pages of discussion without this D:

So I played a bloodrager today. Honestly, I'm not seeing where all these cries of "OMG, OP!" are coming from. If anything, I think the bloodrager is in desperate need of help.

First, their spells are worse than useless. You can't even cast at all until 4th level. You don't get cantrips. They arrive too late to be relevant as combat spells (Cause Fear as a 7th-level bloodline spell? Really?). You're restricted to the inferior Magus spell list, and unlike a Magus have no way to get access to Sorc/Wiz spells outside of bloodline spells. Your save DCs will absolutely blow unless you invest in Charisma, which will ruin your ability to melee effectively. You can't cast and attack in the same round. I thought I'd have to limit my spell selection to buffs and BC (True Strike, Grease) in order to be relevant like other spontaneous casters, but this was a massive mistake: I never *ever* got the chance to usefully cast in combat, I was always better off attacking instead. Paradoxically in order to get the maximum effectiveness out of your spellcasting you have to choose non-combat utility spells, even though your selection of spells is even more limited than a Bard's. You play like an even worse version of a Paladin or a Ranger: You'll forget you even have spellcasting half the time because it's not relevant, and trying to utilize it will hold you back from your class's actual strengths.

Second, bloodline feats are just as worthless for you as they are for a sorcerer. Everything you actually want, you're going to take yourself long before level 6 when you can pick them up as bloodline feats. And unlike fixed bonus feats, you don't get to trade out your old feat for a new one when the bonus feat comes up. "I already *have* Power Attack, Improved Initiative, and Combat Reflexes, so I might as well take Iron Will for no reason except I have nothing better to pick." This is junk and comes nowhere close to making up for the lack of rage powers like some folks are trying to suggest.

Third, bloodline powers suck and made me wish I could trade them for rage powers. At first I was excited for Abyssal Bloodrage... until I did the math and realized you could do exactly the same thing (and 1 level earlier) by just playing a Barbarian with Eldritch Heritage. And your CHA requirements would be no worse than what you're required to have as a Bloodrager! I save myself some feats, whoopdie do.

The key thing is that it's the reverse of the Arcanist exploit problem: You're limited to taking all the bloodline powers in a package, but with rage powers you can take whatever you want (barring some restrictions like minimum levels or power chains). A Bloodrager bloodline can only compete with rage powers if all of its powers are as good as the best rage powers. None of the bloodlines live up to this.

Sure, some of the powers are competitive with the best rage powers (Reach? Yes please!), but in even the best bloodlines several of the powers are fluff at best. You're getting into Abyssal because you want Demonic Bulk and Abyssal Bloodrage, which are awesome. The other powers aren't even worth thinking about: Claws are nice at level 1, but fall behind two-handing rather quickly. Resist 5 to some energy types at level 8? Hope you're not playing a tiefling. Immunities to poison and electricity? If you wanted these things you'd have gotten them from magic items a long time ago. Fire Aura? Would have been minor at level 5 let alone level 20. The Elemental and Fey bloodlines are just SOL.

I guess most of us think the Pathfinder setting is more renaissance than modern. And back then, the sum of all knowledge was such that a single person could have a good sense of most of it. That is why we talk of renaissance men and exalt the great names from this time. Today the sum of all knowledge is such that even a genius can only grasp a little bit of it. Not so in heroic fantasy.

Arcanists are the renaissance men of magic, wizards are the scientists/engineers, and sorcerers the end users or battlefield specialists.

The mechanics don't support this. Wizards have huge heaping piles of skill points due to their high INT, and not much worthwhile to spend it on. Most wizards max out their knowledge skills and become exactly the "Renaissance men" you describe.

Once again, I'm not seeing how the current flavor of the arcanist is supposed to be anything but "Super Wizard."

Oh please no...

The warlock was nothing more than a broken vehicle to that other game 4.0 dumbed down to the point absurdity. No class should ever have an ability to do direct damage infinitely. Doesn't matter if its 1d4 or 10d6. The with the mechanics that pathfinder uses, someone would stack bonuses with it and twist it, augment with a feat, bloodline, tattoo...

Just a really bad idea.

Not to be too negative but I had really bad experiences with the warlock in 3.5.. ad nauseum.

You mean the way a Fighter can by picking up a weapon and bashing the enemy to death? Yeah, those Fighters should totally have a weapon swings/day limitation.

People get their panties in a twist over at-will abilities, but in the end there's very little meaningful difference between an at-will ability and one limited by uses/day, but with enough uses to get you through the day. And no meaningful difference at all for something that just deals damage like eldritch blast.

... the arcanist DOES have a niche.

Wizards get power though sheer effort, study and hard work.

Sorcs get power from their blood, they're born with it and it comes to them when they call (Not always as they want it... but it comes)

An arcanist is what happens when a sorcerer... studies up.

Someone with innate power that also puts in serious effort to learn how magic works.

Its a niche, its a good one. Why are we arguing about this?

"Some spellcasters weave magic into a beautiful tapestry. Others draw upon their innate gift to produce magic. _____ take a different route—seeing magic for what it really is, _____ are able to pull apart magic, deconstructing the bonds that hold it together and forcing it to obey their will. It is not an easy task, but this talent allows them to wield magic like no others."

"Beyond the veil of the mundane hide the secrets of absolute power. The works of beings beyond mortals, the legends of realms where gods and spirits tread, the lore of creations both wondrous and terrible—such mysteries call to those with the ambition and the intellect to rise above the common folk to grasp true might. Such is the path of the _____. These shrewd magic-users seek, collect, and covet esoteric knowledge, drawing on cultic arts to work wonders beyond the abilities of mere mortals. _____ prove a cunning and potent lot, capable of smiting their foes, empowering their allies, and shaping the world to their every desire."

Show this to a person who's never read PF before. Ask them which one is the Wizard.

Favored Enemy sucks because you have to pick one (barring an archetype that trades it) whether your concept actually calls for it or not.

It's one thing to say "I'm an expert demon hunter, I have lots of special skills specifically for taking down demons. When people want a demon dealt with, they call me." Situational abilities that fit the character concept I'm fine with. It's another thing to say "I'm a ranger with no particular desire to specialize in taking down particular types of enemies. Might as well pick humanoid since every campaign has you fighting some eventually." Abilities that have nothing to do with your character concept are unnecessary fat dangling off the character: If you have more than a few of them it means the class isn't a good fit for the character.

Likewise, "I'm a fringe cultist of Iomedae who refuses to use anything other than a longsword, because that's what my religion is all about" is fine, and the rules should support it. It's another thing entirely to shoehorn every warpriest into that type of obsessive-compulsive concept that doesn't even fit the lore for most deities.

Just had an idea about how to fix the flavor problem. Ditch the spellbook. Remove their ability to learn from scrolls.

Instead, Arcanists represent rare individuals to whom arcane magic "sticks". They have an aura of crackling, swirling spell energy that constantly surrounds them. They study magic not through formulas and books, but by learning to tamper with their aura directly. They prepare their spells for the day by taking individual spells in their aura and "grabbing" them, becoming able to control when and how the energy is released.

They add two spells of a level they can cast to their aura each time they gain a level. When they are affected by an arcane spell they don't know (even if they succeed on their saving throw for the spell), they add the spell to their aura if they succeed at a will save with a DC equal to 15 + twice the spell's unmodified level.

You can also add an option for arcanists to craft "spell crystals" that other arcanists can use to add the spell to their aura.

Thoughts?

It is not forbidden for a priest to use a skane to draw blood or take a life, but some refuse to do so, and carry a different weapon if they must fight.

Once again, a deity's actual flavor illustrates why Sacred Weapon is a bad idea.

Ok since you literally cherry picked the one weapon with good backstory hows about you tell us the story of phasmara dagger abadars crossbow erastils bow or gorums. Greatsword. Ill wait

IIRC there are some fringe cults of Iomedae who believe in only using longswords, ever, as a way of expressing their devotion to her. The main body of her church in Lastwall considers them to be whacko heretics.

Which should tell you just how stupid of an idea sacred weapon actually is, even from a roleplaying perspective.

Kudaku wrote:

Renegade Paladin wrote:

Ciretose, I'm going to put this as succinctly as I can: One word on one line of a chart does not equate to flavor in any meaningful sense of the word. Saying that Shelyn favors the glaive tells me nothing about how to roleplay one of her followers, and in fact is likely to give the completely wrong idea taken in isolation. You keep harping on and on about flavor in relation to something that in the vast majority of cases is arbitrary; if you want to enforce flavor on the warpriest, devise deity-specific codes of behavior, religious dogma, the ideals of the deity, in short things that actually have some form of substance that informs how one would/should roleplay the character. Favored weapon doesn't do that in any meaningful way.

I promised myself I'd let this thread rest for a while, but...

*Slow Clap*

*Gradual increase in clapping*

*roaring applause*

Name me off some debilitating conditions it would be OP to suppress for a round or two that still allow free movement.

Because I don't see anything in the description of Su abilities that lets you use them when normally you would not be able to. They don't provoke AoOs, can't be disrupted mid-use, and can't be Dispelled, thassit. Spell Tinkerer isn't always on, so that doesn't allow it.

If you get Hold Person'd, you're still screwed.

Supernatural abilities, like spell-like abilities, require no verbal or somatic components: You can use them if you're paralyzed. This is precisely why I suggested that you give verbal/somatic components to spell tinkering.

Craft Cheese wrote:

Stuff.

Wizards study spells, Arcanists study magic.

What's the difference?

If you tried really really hard and did lots and lots of worldbuilding, designing a wizard culture and Arcanists as representing a magical counterculture, you could make that difference meaningful. For a setting-neutral core book, that's just not going to work.

1.) Metamagic is just a small variation on an existing spell. Not much research there. "My Fireball now burns things. How innovative."

The same level of variation the Arcanist is capable of achieving. This just isn't supported by the mechanics.

2.) If your GM lets you research a new spell he probably has a screw loose. Also, that is, again, studying SPELLS, not magic. It's the difference between studying theoretical physics and applied physics.

Arcanists use all the same spells and all the same abilities to modify those spells that Wizards have, except they get much better counterspelling/dispelling ability through their class features. If the Arcanist had exclusive access to the Words of Power mechanics or something I could see your point, but they don't. The distinction isn't supported by the mechanics.

Not particularly. Being able to carpet bomb an area with one of the better low level spells in the game (Stinking Cloud) with a higher DC than a Wizard could likely manage is pretty damn good, for example.

Immediate action counterspelling is vastly more powerful than anything you can do with alchemist discoveries.

You mean that ability that requires investment in a secondary stat for it to make any real difference in a combat situation, and requires the Arcanist (squishy, d6 HD 1/2 BaB class) to be adjacent to the effect or enemy?

Your definition of OP relies on the assumption that it works on the Arcanist himself, and that it would make a difference if it did. Most things that still allow you to move after being hit are Instantaneous or Permanent, which are invalid targets.

I'm hard pressed to think of a round/level targeted spell that isn't Permanent or Instantaneous and allows the target free movement.

Entangle, I guess?

Uhh, no? It's not until Stinking Cloud that you get the ability to completely shut down a character's abilities to make standard actions, which is all an arcanist needs since spell tinkering is Supernatural. It's insurance against anything short of dazing or stunning.

At level 10, that's 6 points a day. Enough for 6 uses of your abilities. Less if you use some of the Greater Exploits, since a bunch of those cost two points.

1-3 points each round? Maybe not.

But I would assume you'd like to use your abilities in other manners, since a good number of them are more useful outside of combat than in it.

I'd say if you're using more than 1-2 points per encounter, you're wasting them. You can afford to use a bit more later when you get the abilities that can recharge themselves.

Craft Cheese wrote:

Flavor: The problem with the "new" flavor is that, well, it's not really new. There's no character concept the arcanist fills that could not have been done with a Wizard. Wizards already tinker and search for new magics, that's the entire point of the spellbook and spell research mechanics. I guess Arcanists are supposed to be better at it, somehow? Why?

They're better at certain aspects of it, not all of it. The wizard is still the generalist (well, and a specialist in some areas); the wizard is the academic of the arcane world. He studies, creates reams of scholastic papers that sit in dusty shelves. He teaches and theorizes.

The arcanist takes shortcuts. He thinks outside the box. He's the prodigy that dropped out of school because it was too restrictive, and went off to court the venture capitalists and create a startup.

Once again, I don't see anything about this concept that isn't "Wizard". You could totally make "Prodigy that dropped out of school and taught himself" with a Wizard. Heck, that probably describes at least half of all Wizard PCs that have ever been made.

1.) Wizards don't tinker as written. They just learn. Arcanists analyze and fiddle with magic itself, while Wizards study spells specifically and Sorcerers just kind of do stuff. Very different theme.

So Wizards don't... analyze magic? What are metamagic feats and spell research for, exactly?

Wizards study spells specifically... and Arcanists don't? Then why do they have a spellbook identical to how a Wizard's works?

2.) Don't compare them to Arcane Schools and Bloodlines. Compare them to things like Discoveries (or Arcane Discoveries) and the like, because that's closer to what they are. Your only criteria for them being better seems to be "well you can pick and choose".

If you compare them to discoveries instead they're even more ridiculous.

4.) Yes some of the powers are very good. So are some Bloodline and School powers. And Domains. And Discoveries. And etc...

None of them come close to Spell Tinkering, even with it requiring a standard action. Furthermore with bloodlines and arcane schools you can't pick and choose the best powers from each one, you have to take them as a package deal (barring Wildblooded and Subschools, which are just sub-packages and still don't allow you to pick and choose powers freely). Only the best exploits matter because that's what every arcanist is going to have.

Most of these cost Arcane Points, and that's a resource that's hard to renew. You only get a fraction of your points back at the beginning of each day, not all of them, and the only other way to replenish them is those powers you say are useless and not cost effective.

1 + 1/2 Arcanist level each day is *more* than enough, unless you're burning through 1-3 points each round.

Was the reason really "this is too strong"? I thought it was "This is as boring as watching paint dry"?

Both. I'll take an interesting class over a balanced class any day, but the Arcanist was (and honestly, still is) neither.

Flavor: The problem with the "new" flavor is that, well, it's not really new. There's no character concept the arcanist fills that could not have been done with a Wizard. Wizards already tinker and search for new magics, that's the entire point of the spellbook and spell research mechanics. I guess Arcanists are supposed to be better at it, somehow? Why?

Spell Slots: While I appreciate the effort, the problem was never the number of spell slots per day, but the number of spells prepared: A caster's ultimate weapon is their flexibility, and in this the arcanist has the best of both the wizard AND the sorcerer.

Arcane Exploits: Far as I'm concerned, arcane exploits need to be evaluated on two points. One, how do they compare with Arcane School Powers? Two, how do they compare with Bloodline Powers? Note that just as a system arcane exploits are superior to both, because while you need to choose all of the powers of an arcane school, or all the powers of a bloodline (thus arcane schools and bloodlines must be evaluated as packages), you can pick and choose arcane exploits individually. You get more exploits than you get of either arcane school powers *or* bloodline powers. Finally, most arcane school powers or bloodline powers have their own uses/day limitations but arcane exploits have the benefit of all sharing the same arcane reservoir; You get lots of freedom as to how often you can use each exploit.

And evaluated individually, most of the arcane exploits are vastly superior to most of the arcane school powers and bloodline powers. Let's go through them all:

Acid Jet, Flame Arc, and the other Blast exploits: Better than all of the blast powers Sorcerers and Wizards get, though still inferior to a 1st-level spell for most of your career.

Consume Magic Items: A horrible deal to begin with, and the various items aren't really balanced against each other. 1 reservoir point from a potion is costing you 150 gp. 1 point from a scroll is costing you 75 gp. 1 point from a wand is costing you 225 gp. The tradeoff gets even worse if you use spells higher than second level, and this is assuming you're only doing this with magic items you find: If you're consuming ones you've actually bought yourself, you're blowing through twice the gold. And considering what you can do with a spell is usually much better than what you can do with an exploit, you're better off keeping the item.

Counterspell: Hey look, it's our old friend Divine Defiance, except even better since you can get a bonus to the dispel check and you don't even need Dispel Magic prepared! While the lack of good counterspelling options in PF is infuriating, it's kinda sad that only the overpowered Mary Sue class finally gets one. Automatic choice.

Dimensional Slide: I'm not sure if you can use this to escape a grapple or not. If you can, then this is an automatic choice as it's a better version of the second-best arcane school power, Shift. (Forewarned is the best. Pleeeease don't write an exploit that gives 1/2 class level + INT mod as a bonus to Initiative!)

Metamagic Knowledge: Metamagic feats, whee! At least you aren't allowed to select this more than once.

Metamixing: Hey look, it's our old friend Metamagic Specialist! At least Arcane Spellsurge isn't around anymore.

Potent Magic: +2 to save DCs is like a +4 untyped bonus to INT, and +2 CL has all sorts of uses (making your spells harder to dispel among them).

Spell Tinkerer: Can an Arcanist use this on herself? Does it even require an action? If I'm reading this right, this is easily the most broken exploit an Arcanist has available. Spend one point to shrug off the effects of any spell affecting you. You can even do this if you're paralyzed, dazed, or even stunned!

Counter Drain: One of the best exploits gets even better, cause now it can fuel itself!

Disrupt Spell: Got hit with a debuff that still allows you to move? Touch yourself and get rid of it. You even get a nice bonus to the check. Use spell tinkerer to suppress the effect first for the really nasty stuff that leaves you unable to move. Oh, and this ability doesn't seem to require an action either, so if you fail the check you can retry so long as you have points left. Broken, broken, broken.

Greater Metamagic Knowledge: Another free metamagic feat, that you get to change every morning? Yes please.

Siphon Spell: Oh look, yet another of the best exploits gets the ability to recharge itself.

Spell Thief: Steal your enemy's buffs! Surprisingly, this isn't a very big upgrade to Spell Tinkerer since it doesn't upgrade the spell's best function.

And finally, Magical Supremacy: Meh, this is okay. Makes consuming your spell slots a bit of a better trade. Not all that impressive as a capstone compared to what the class gets before, but it's a lot better than most of the arcane school/bloodline capstones.

Conclusion: I don't think any sane DM would ever allow this class as-is. Suggestions.

- Lower spells prepared per day to the old Spirit Shaman progression. That class worked fine, really.

- Bundle up the arcane exploits into thematic packages: This will hopefully give the Arcanist some flavor to distinguish it from the wizard, and will help balance the arcanist against its parent classes better.

- Specify that Spell Tinkerer and Disrupt Spell can't be used on yourself. Also specify that they take a standard action that requires you to be able to speak and move (say that they have components like spells or something).

- Give Consume Magic Items, one of the class's only iconic and truly unique abilities, a better economy to make it actually worth using.

I like that Channel is heading out the door. One of the problem in playing a cleric is that everyone expects you to heal the, in battle and after battle, whenever and wherever.

I really like what is going on with the Warpriest.

I do wish they'd move outside the box of Cleric = Healing.

out of curiosity what is stormwind? i've seen the term tossed around a few times bit i haven't been able to figure it out.

The Stormwind Fallacy is the idea that people who are good at optimizing their characters are automatically bad at roleplaying, and vice-versa. It's a fallacy because you can easily do both, or neither!

ciretose is invoking the fallacy when he says things like "If you don't want flavor, play GURPS." As if having a flavorful character concept and having an effectively built character are mutually exclusive. As if using your deity's favored weapon is the sole difference between a flavorful Warpriest character and an unflavorful one.

Am I the only one who thinks that this free weapon focus thing is so minor that it should be beneath our notice?

Like: it is one godsdamned feat. I will admit that the new rule that warpriests got proficiency with their deity's favored weapon made things worse though. Can I just propose a fix really quick so we can go back to talking about how the warpriest is underpowered otherwise?

The real problem is Sacred Weapon (which is the ability that helps your attack and damage numbers keep up with other combatant-types) only works with your focus weapon which, if you worship a deity, must be your deity's favored weapon.

Anyway here's my proposal for an action economy ability: Starting at 2nd level, a Warpriest gets the ability to cast 1 spell per day with a duration of 1 hour/level as a Favored Blessing. The effect of a favored blessing lasts 24 hours, and if dispelled is only suppressed for a few rounds (just like a magic item).

At 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level, a Warpriest can cast one more favored blessing per day.

At 7th level, the ability also works for spells with a duration of 10 minutes/level. At 12th level, it works for spells that last 1 minute/level. And at 17th level, it works for spells that last 1 round/level.

Basically it's DMM: Persist but with tighter restrictions. Persist's brokenness always depended on what spells you were persisting and how many of them there are. The problem is if you can persist one spell, you can find ways to persist more. This ability tightly ties how many spells you can persist to your level progression instead of your turn attempts. It also ties what spells you can persist to your level progression: You can't persist the really strong 1 round/level buffs until very late, and you can never pull off crap like Persistent Wraithstrike.

Desna doesn't strike me as the type to have warpriests either.

I think that we will have to accept the fact that warpriests of desna, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.

There are *plenty* of reasons for a Warpriest of Desna to exist. Here's three concepts off the top of my head:

1. A revolutionary working in Nidal, striking against the agents of the Umbral Court where ever they can.

2. A hunter who tracks down and destroys the spawn of Lamashtu and Ghlaunder.

3. An anonymous hero who searches for the doomed and the damned and gives them hope in their darkest hour.

Cool character concepts are great, and you should never, *ever* have to choose between a cool concept and mechanical viability.