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I'm a charlatan unchained rogue in hell's rebels, so the charisma is useful. I'm almost certainly going into the prestige. It looks like every feat I have is going into two weapon fighting. Thankfully the DM vetoed combat expertise, so I can take two weapon feint without it and use my enhanced bluff score in combat. The adventure path also gives the prerequisite feats out as the game progresses, so that's another boon. It seems like the only chance I'll ever get to try it, do I am.

Thanks for the input folks!

I've been looking over the Master Spy prestige class and I suspect it might be replicable using abilities from the unchained rogue and Eldrich Heritage Rakshasa.

Master of disguise and quick change get surpassed by the disguise skill unlock and the quick disguise rogue talent.
Glib lie is replicated by the first tier of Rakshasa's bloodline.
Nonmagical aura can be taken as major magic rogue talent.
Superficial knowledge can be made up with esoteric scholar, though not identically. (And I kinda like the cartoonish idea of quick changing into a university professor to rant on about a subject for thirty seconds and then change back.)
Elude detection can be taken as the 9th level Rakshasa ability for constant nondetection.
Slippery mind is just slippery mind.
Death attack comes with assassin, although that comes with an evil alignment. The assassinate ninja trick is comparable.

Features I haven't been able to replicate without magic: concealed thoughts (bluff skill unlock falls short), mask alignment, shift alignment, fool casting (great for an npc, but for a player? Maybe against vampires.) hidden mind, and assumption.
I'm a little behind on the books, mostly anything after ARG. I think alchemists can replicate some of these abilities, but it still requires magic.

Has anyone ever used the master spy as a PC?

This is post errata and the question stands, what do you do with Master Tactician?

Nobody else is reading over the cavalier I see.

Emissary got the wrong fix. The capstone ability still gets replaced, although no longer at 17th, now at twenty. The problem is that the final instalment of Tactician doesn't get switched out. Errata the errata please! That particular ability still floats there doing nothing.

Also, I think switching out supreme charge is against the spirit of the class.

A wand of Silent Image is one of the trickiest things you can have in the right hands. If you're DMing, maybe throw a wand of that spell with seven charges on it into the dropped loot and see if they get used well. Minor image kicks it up a notch.

Easy suggestions: mimic obscuring mist, create walls or false floors over pits and drops, use it while invisible to create false threat, enclose a combatant inside a barrel with a diminutive glowing fey floating in front of him. (That last will trigger a save,the others not necessarily right away.)

Otherwise, wand of acid arrow is a personal fave, esp against wizards.

For a long while now, I've wanted to make a Surfer themed halfling. Slipstream being the spell of choice obviously, I'm intending to go with the Seaborn wildblood of the aquatic bloodline.

Themes: NG, surfer/stone, lots of water based spells. In addition to the bloodline spells, Hydraulic Torrent and perhaps Touch of the Sea.

Going to play it in PFS. Faction suggestions?

Spell suggestions? Particularly for first and second level spells. In combat will probably end up being more buffing or battlefield control than straight up damage. All the usual first level spells don't really fit the theme, (mage armor, magic missile, etc) so other ideas are welcome.

Thanks for the assistance.

It's entirely up to you as to how you describe it.

I've always wanted to play a nice creepy HV worshiping Calistria with scars under her eyes: "I WEEP FOR MY GOD'S PLEASURE!" Then laugh maniacally and slaughter the PC's... as the GM of course.

Thanks for all the advice, you groovy cats.

A gold star for Cartmanbeck for that... character?

And to WWJ for the complete list. I'm only going to 12th, but that list makes lawful look like the way to go.

For the practical purposes of actually making this dude, I'll probably just stick with Fighter, Barb, Cav and Ranger as their first two levels function the best... if'n I can figure out a way to make the ranger bonus feat function in heavy armor, or trade it away in such away that I won't lose favored enemy. If'n I can't, I'll take gunslinger levels in their stead, or keep the ranger levels and swap the Fighter to Lore Warden.

As a thought experiment and potential PFS build, I'm trying to mix every full BAB class together one level at a time. I can't figure out how to go above 6th very easily. Preferably using hardbooks only as I'm sure it'd be plenty easy with splats.

Human
S14 D16 C14 I10 W10 H14

1. Fighter (Unbreakable), Feats: Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Diehard, Endurance
2. Barbarian (Drunken), Rage, ability to extend rage by drinking alcohol.
3. Ranger (Guide -or- Favored Enemy: Human), Toughness (Gain lots of class skills)
4. Cavalier (Standard Bearer - Banner instead of Mount), Order of the Seal, Challenge (with Trip on a full attack via Order), Tactician (Outflank) (Gain Linguistics and Disable Device as class skills), level bump to Dex
5. Gunslinger (Mysterious Stranger w/ Blunderbuss -or- Musket Master, and swap Cha for Wis get Rapid Reload), Dodge
6. ????? If I can't do anything else, a second level of fighter
7. Horizon Walker, Improved Two Weapon Fighting
8. Stalwart Defender

I could also take a bard level at 6th and then qualify for the Battle Herald, which would push Stalwart Defender to 9th, but I wouldn't actually have full BAB. If I pick up weapon finesse and Mobility I could go Duelist, but the class features aren't likely to do anything for this build.

Anything for 6th level? Suggestions for beyond Stalwart Defender?

If I'm not going through the prestige classes, I could just take second levels of each and that would take me to ten.

If I went Lawful, I'd be skipping Barbarian, but pick up Paladin and potentially Monk, although it's also a pseudo full babber.

Could you use it as a source for Pyrotechnics?

I made a goblin alchemist with Explosive Missile and a +1 distance heavy crossbow. The advantage of the Exploding Missile discover is that you get to load the weapon as a part of a standard action, meaning you don't need to invest feats into your crossbow any more than you would with other ranged feats. (Read: Rapid Reload.)

With Explosive Missile, Immolation Bombs, a Distance weapon, and targeted bomb admixture, you'd be doing 1d10/1d8 + 1d6 + INTx2 on the first shot, then, 1d6+Int over the consecutive rounds while being 240 feet away in the first range increment. You can shoot them a few more times while they're still trying to get to you.

Granted, this doesn't have that much of an effect in close quarters and I have since rebuilt the goblin (as the party doesn't need more ranged capability.) I just liked it because it allowed me to use a crossbow more efficiently than most at minimum cost of feats.

If your fighter got an extra move action at 5th level, what would that change? If that move became an extra standard at 10th? Then, an additional move/standard at 15th and 20th. Caveat: No casting spells/sla's. Using potions probably okay. Of course you need five levels of fighter under your belt so any spells you have might not be that great, but racial SLA's are a thing.

At 5th level, you get something like spring attack built in, or you can take your full attack. Come 10th level, you can Vital strike, move, and vital strike again. You could still full attack, but you should probably waste your extra actions if you take any full round actions.

A 20th level fighter that could move standard standard (-5) standard (-10) or full attack for -0, -5, -10, -15 sounds pretty potent. Game breakingly so? Well, they're not able to use those standard actions as world-bendingly as a wizard can. In terms of game balance? That would require playtesting.

It needn't be limited to the fighter. All characters could get extra actions as per leveling, tied to BAB. Martials = more actions per round. Casters = more potent single actions. Getting rid of the necessity of the full attack changes things allowing for greater cinema, but occurs at such a grounded base to the rules that it would have to be rewritten. It's a change that couldn't be implemented any time soon.

I'm brewing up an alchemist for a home game and have come to the Ultimate Equipment and... wow! Lots to choose from.

Poisoner's Gloves: A must have. Full attack with combined extract infusions on allies? Yes please! The Lawful-Evil personality will have a fun time with that.

Poisoner's Jacket, Lesser: Probably not as good in a level ten game, and I'm not especially focused on poisoning, but it is flavorful. Large Scorpion Venom is decent nice way to take out low strength casters. Pays for itself ~20 doses later.

Vest of Stable Mutagen: I will probably want this after I've picked up greater mutagen at 12th. Until then, it's a tad pricey.

And a question, which is better? Or both?

Boro Bead: It's pearl of power for potions! (Well, infusions really.)

Preserving Flask: It's like and extra spell per day if you have downtime. Kinda like a staff for an alchemist I suppose.

Beads would probably be better if we don't have much downtime, while Flasks would be better if I'm not going through my entire list in the course of a day or if there's plenty of time with which to do it. If I use a Bead on a Flask...?

Some notes on the character: It's dex based, going for a high AC, flight via the Beastmorph archetype... and it's a Goblin. Bombs are my main mode of attack, but I would like to get in there with claws once in a while, even if only for 1d6+2d4 plus Mighty Fist properties. Any suggestions? Agile isn't allowed or I wouldn't be asking.
How would a cloak of resistance work with wings on the back? Any fluff suggestions?

Thanks for the assistance.

Edit: Oh, PS. I have the Leadership feat. It gets me a 7th level Goblin Gunslinger (made by the GM, have no control over the build and will not be accompanying me through all missions, but occasionally will.) If you have any suggestion for 'quipment I can give to him, that's cool too.

You do get a feat at every odd level. Point Blank Shot is a perfectly valid choice.

Worry not! Keep the feat.

When I started out my 2nd PFS character it was a Druid, but by 2nd level I decided I would try a Ranger. Well, I didn't really have a roleplay hook for it and it's fallen well behind. So, I'm retraining it to be a Druid again.

Human
Stats
Str 18 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 10 Wis 13 Cha 10

These can't change.
Feats: 1st - Power Attack (Human Bonus), Quick Draw

He's at 3rd level, so he's taking one Druid level and then retraining the rest. I get a feat for 3rd, and then it will take me until the end of 4th level to retrain any other feats: Quickdraw. Currently I'm thinking of Improved Initiative as my 3rd level feat.

I'm looking at the Bear Shaman (Ferocity Sub of Strength) to augment my spellcasting and because I like bears [and hate cats]. Unfortunately the lack of WIS means my original Spellcaster idea is moot.

Flavor stuff not likely to change: 60 year old human hunter worshiper of Pharasma and hates undead.

Story to go with retraining: While calling my animal companion as a part of my druidic initiations I was assaulted by a Bear. We fought and I ended up slaying it. I had his pelt turned into a cloak and use it to perform my magics; transforming part way into a bear, casting my domain spells, etc.

It could also be a Wolf Shaman with the Liberation domain. (Entangle spell + freedom of movement like effects -> Happy good times?) I wouldn't get the same attacks. Was thinking of going for TWF and using bite with a Sheleighleigh (sp?) quarterstaff, but that wouldn't hit until level 5 and I couldn't use my level ability bump for Wis.

Of course, if anyone has any other mechanical ideas I'd like to hear 'em. Won't be taking an animal companion.

I have a PFS Ranger that I'm bored to death of and it's sitting mothballed. I have come up with a concept I could conceivably use now, and I'm looking at retraining it. This comes with a few questions.

General background: Two levels of Ranger, just hitting 3rd, but haven't played the third level yet.

Am I Third level for the purposes of retraining or can I retrain before applying the XP from a new sheet? I assume 3rd and as such will pay the three levels of gold per level.

God and Domain: I am becoming an animal shaman with the Ferocity Subdomain of Strength, do I need to worship a God with that subdomain? If yes, my current iteration of the character worships Pharasma... can I change that? I'd prefer to run the Green Faith if anything.
(I never quite understood how druids and domains work exactly.)

Traits: I have a Pharasma religion trait. I am completely OK with it sitting around being useless, but is there anything I can do about that? If not, so be it.

Thankfully I'm NG so I don't have to change my alignment... not sure how that would work.

Useless Feats: Could I take Spell Focus (Conjuration) as a 3rd level feat and retrain one of my first level feats to Augment Summoning later on or is that a faux pas? I can't find prohibition by RAW.
I also have Power Attack as my first level feat, but would not have a +1 BAB were I a druid at that level. Does that matter? It doesn't seem to.

Human Feat?: Oh no! I just thought of this. Is my Human feat a Race Trait or is it still a feat? Do I retrain it as a feat or a racial ability?

No Favored Class Bonus: It seems I cannot retrain my favoured class. Fine by me, although I'd like to if I could.

Skills: Reading the retraining rules, it appears that I get to retrain all of my skills ranks from Ranger. Is this correct?

Thank you for your patience.

Well, aside from the fact I probably will be animating the dead at some point, yes I'd prefer not to use the evil descriptor. (I wonder what *good* purposes you could set the dead to. Farming skeletons? Zombeasts of burden? Evil in nature but not in use.)

There's also the Occult patron, which ignores Animate Dead, but does get Black Tentacles. I get to keep detect and command undead. Unfortunately Twilight Knife is probably useless, but so is Contagion for most purposes.

Edit: I guess Black Tentacles is already a witch spell, so Plague patron still reigns supreme.

I'm not particularly interested in the Slumber hex as it's too good. Spammable. Broken even. I think Evil Eye/Misfortune looks like more fun.

Scar hex: Absolutely! Merciful heavens!

The hexes I need: Evil Eye, Cackle, Misfortune, and at some point Flight.
The hexes I want: Scar! Unnerve Beasts! (on self or familiar) Smell Children! I mean really... SMELL CHILDREN?

Ooh! Staring contest with a rat!
And any game I play it almost automatically takes a nonserious tone. I just don't have much fun with nonserious types. Gnomes all the way.

Show don't tell might be hard for me as I tend to beat a concept to death pretty quickly. I also like the name Scotoboros the Totally Not Evil. I think I'll just leave it at that, and then do all this evil sounding stuff. I just like the idea of getting indignant at people calling me evil, to the point where I made it a part of my name. (Which actually has the opposite of the desired effect. Perhaps I aught to dump wisdom...)

In terms of animating and controlling undead, I was thinking... "Oh, Mr. Fluffypants here told me about how cast raise dead! Does anyone have any onyx? No. That's okay, I'll just bleed some out." *hastur hastur hastur* "A SKELETON?!~ Mr. Fluffypants, what have you done!"

I'm pretty sold on Witch. I lose out on a lot of the poweful debuffs... but I can cackle, which makes me look so evil. And I can use the Totally Not Evil Eye. I can also get an extra hex for 6th and 12th.

Most of the really evil looking spells hit at the higher levels. Swarm Skin for example. Skinsend is really, really gross too, and thankfully only 2nd level though I'm not sure if I should actually use it. Bein' so dangerous and all.

Vomit Swarm: Now THERE's an evil looking spell. Oh I am so using that.

Sleep and Ill Omen: Dandy first level spells that require some form of material component I can waste some blood to cast, should I desire. Sleep would look particularly menacing. That effectively means I'd get only one spell per day, so I don't think I'll do it often. Perhaps I can just go through the motions of casting Blood Money and "just" deal 1d6 nonlethal to myself somehow. GM approval required I suppose.

I'll probably take the Plague patron, unless there's a more evil one.

NOTE: If you're easily bored, skip to the bottom.

I have a character concept for a Gnome spellcaster that does things that make him look evil all the time... but he ain't evil! He's probably not good, but he's not evil.

I'm having a hard time deciding whether to go Wizard or Witch. Taking the fell magic alternate racial ability for certain. I would probably like to have a little rat familiar that is "possessing" me and tricking me into making my magic look evil. I might like to animate dead at some point.

Mostly I'm aimed at the spell Blood Money. It doesn't actually have the Evil descriptor, although it looks REALLY, REALLY EVIL when you actually go to use it. I would like to use it to cast spells with even negligible material components, just for the sheer shock value. When I finally use it for it's broken purpose, it will be a little more worn in.

If anyone ever points out that I could just use a spell component pouch in character, I'll blame the misinformation on my pet rat.

Before casting a spell, I'd say stuff like, "Just a reminder, I'm not evil!... *cuts hand and stares off into the distance chanting in a different voice* BY THE POWER OF THE UNKNOWN MASTERS, I TAKE YOUR SIGHT!" *Glitterdust*

I'm probably leaning towards witch as most of it's flavor stuff is TOTALLY evil sounding. (Cackling madly whilst someone suffocates? That looks SO evil.) It won't benefit as much from blood money, but that doesn't really matter.
If I go Wizard, it would probably be Necromancy subschool. I'd get more spells per day that way and all the better necromancy debuffs.
Either way, I'm taking a familiar. A little albino rat that I greatly resemble. (White hair, red eyes.)

TL;DR 5/- So, which spells sound or appear to be the most evil, vile things ever, especially the lower leveled ones? Any that have interesting material components I could bleed out with blood money? Which class looks the more evil, witch or necromancy wizard? Also, which would be the more fun to roleplay in your honest opinion?
PFS play intended. :)

If you're comparing Vimes' charisma to Carrot's, you're not doing it fairly. ANYONE is going to have their charisma pale in comparison to a six foot four dwarf with a panache for languages, the law, knowing damn near everybody, interesting hobbies (and 'specially the uninteresting ones)...

Vimes definitely has Wisdom in spades. Carrot has had a Wisdom dump-stat, not sure if that holds as true anymore.

If you could drop the magic from most of the characters, Carrot holds truest to Paladin without any of the spells.

Vimes has favoured enemy Human, Dwarf (after Thud), and sense motive as a class skill. His favoured terrain is urban (cardboard soled boots to feel the cobblestones; He knows where he with his eyes closed.) Dirty trick feats (he lights a match with his eyes closed and then strikes the highwaymen when they're blinded in 5th Elephant.)

You'd need custom races to get the Discworld trolls.

As a custom class, Rincewind should be a rogue with the eidolon class feature instead of sneak attack progression. Otherwise a straight up summoner would be fine, so long as you don't actually use the spells. Having 10 charisma could help with that. (Although rincewind would actually have more, methinks.)

Nanny Ogg is the only witch who really feels witchy, as she's the only one with a proper familiar. (He's an old softie, really.)

Granny doesn't have the familiar, nor does she really use hexes.

You could get away with Angua being a druid using wild shape ifn' you aren't going down the actual werewolf pipeline.

Vimes is an urban ranger, methinks. He knows the city. He'll need Greater Dirty Trick as well.

Carrot is absolutely a paladin in terms of his social graces, but he gets no mechanical benefit.

Cassanunda is probably a bard of some kind.

Susan would be a Sorcerer. Invisibility is at a high priority. Undead bloodline is highly probable, although not a perfect fit.

The Patrician is the ultimate DM NPC.

Given that there are so many personal targeted buff spells on the cleric list it would be nice if there was a way to spread those around. Like an aura effect or something. Get buffed up and anyone with in 10-15-20 feet or what have you gains the benefits of that spell. Perhaps the distance increases with caster level or a feat of some sort.

So for example, a Priest casts Divine Favor, Protection from Evil, and Comprehend Languages. Somehow, everyone with in a certain distance gets +1/+1 Hit/DMG, +2AC vs evil, and can understand what the goblins are saying. If cure light wounds could have even a partial effect within that radius it would make combat healing far more viable an option.

I certainly agree that more spell slots would be warranted. As many or perhaps more than the sorcerer per level.

That luck ability is crazy powerful if it has no limit. Why would I activate anything else as a swift if I can have two rolls to hit? Swift action saving throws are rare also, so Immediate may be necessary.

Either it needs to deplete a resource (IE, once per day per type of roll), or it should only apply to one. It could also only work under specific circumstances so as not to make it so spammable. "Once per minute as a swift or immediate action..." would be fine.

A (hopefully) simple question.

If I'm throwing a splash weapon and miss, it deals splash damage randomly, possibly including a PC. If there exists a chance that some direct action I take could harm another PC, could a player veto that action declaring PVP?

Even the Precise Bombs discovery doesn't give a 100% guarantee that I won't hurt an ally. I would like for Bombs to be my primary combat tactic. I don't want to get any allies in trouble.

@Craft Cheese: Broadly speaking I like it. Monopolizing the swift action prevents it from being too crazy. Good you have as having the Unholy property as of now. It should also overcome alignment DR (as should the one in the playtest methinks) and the Charm ability should only be useable on a creature 1/24hours as per a hex otherwise you just command the big-bad all day.

Of the blessings as they stand, I like the Air and Water abilities, although I don't know why not all of the Elemental abilities are symmetrical and Weather gets to fit in where air ought to be.

I don't particularly like the ones that have you make a touch attack (Like Repose does), considering you should always have your hands full as a warpriest. Rather, I should say you should expect to have your hands full. If it could activate on a hit or something, forcing a will save and 1/24 hours or something I'd be better with it.

I don't want to have the frustration with this class that I have had with the Holy Vindicator. I wanted a Vindicator of Gorum holding a BIG BAD GREATSWORD... but then I felt like I was losing out on a huge boon because I couldn't carry a shield for the Channel bonus to AC at the same time. That character is a battle oracle now.

Also note that a Warpriest doesn't ever lose class features for any reason.

Yup. Chaotic Neutral Warpriest of Torag is totally allowed by RAW thus far.

Given that clerics and wizards have the same general number of spells per day, a Priest ought to have a sorcerer's number of spell slots per day. Yes/no?

As for Armor...

I too was thinking general nonproficiency would be fine, but yes, it doesn't have any direct drawback.

Faith in the Divine: Priests wearing armor can only cast half as many spells per day as prepared as they defy their god's protection.

Doesn't exactly cut it for the evil gods.

Armor of Faith: Priests are protected by their god rather than by the works of mortals. Whenever a Priest casts a spell that gives herself a bonus to armor class, no matter the type. Increase that amount by 1 if the priest isn't wearing any armor. At fourth level and every three levels thereafter, this bonus increases by one.

Yes, very Monk like, isn't it? Must be the robes. They're contagious.

I also think a Priest aught to have a way to cast what would be personal spells on other characters, as so many cleric buffs are self-only, having a half-babber get all those seems like a waste if they can't be used. I mean, certainly by all means waste them. There are plenty of arcane spells that don't make a lot of sense for half-babbers either. It's just that I'd like to see Divine Favour cast on an ally.

After a lot of thought, I've decided that my preferred solution would be to rework the favored weapons list from the ground up. That's unlikely to happen, so I'll just count myself lucky that I don't play PFS, so I can do the work myself.

Y'know, that isn't a bad idea. All of these favoured weapons come from table 3-6 of the core rulebook and they come WAY before the Warpriest.

Why not give each god a table of favoured weapons the same way Fighters have a table of weapon groups? Each god could have an array of a few select weapons that allow for multiple styles of combat. It would give design another tweak to fix things around. Clerics still maintain their standard favoured weapon, but Warpriests have a much better selection that their church trains for. Clerics get much of the same training, but skip out on the extra stuff to get all those extra spell slots. ;)

Another way to do it would be to have specific materials matter, although there aren't as many to tweak things around for design in that case. Cold Iron, Silver, Wood, plain old steel. Mithril and Adamantine put a pretty penny on admission to the class for those that favour those material, so that idea might be dead in the water.

Weapon proficiencies could also come part and parcel with different blessings, so a Pharasman Warpriest might get the Mace or Handaxe as additional favoured weapons under the Repose domain. The theivery domain blessing might grant Dagger, Brass Knuckle, and Sap proficiency as favourable.

I notice that the devs say they're going to make the class about fighting and healing, possibly removing the Channel Energy ability. That's a neat development. I wonder what they have in mind? If they're making the class more WIS based, here's the changes I'd make to my proposed alterations.

Favoured Weapon

Energy Burst

With the mock-up of my previous version, this leaves no dead levels (assuming you include gaining a level of spells as not being a dead level) until the Warpriest hits 19th level. This would be an opportune time to have a semi-capstone like the fighter...

Energy Blast

With an ability like this, you are simultaneously encouraged to use your deity's favoured weapon, heal in combat, and REALLY get in there and fight. Swift action might not be necessary. This gives the Warpriest UNLIMITED daily healing so long as they are in combat.
It also makes undead Warpreists a seriously savage opponent and one that should strike fear into many a gaming table.

Those of you who don't like the favoured weapon tie in probably won't like it much, although while this model allows a Warpriest of Nethys to use a Greataxe as favoured starting from 5th, you won't get your bonus to hit. But you WILL always get the same amount of Energy Burst.

Possible feats include...

Furthermore, First I'd like to say, wow! I really really like what you've done with that. I'd suggest toning down Favored Weapons to possibly increasing every 6 levels, so it isn't obviously better than a Fighter's Weapon Training. With buffs worked in as well the class also might be a bit too powerful, but it is a most definitely good start!

I would say it isn't strictly better as it doesn't apply to damage rolls the way the Fighter ability does and you pick a single weapon as opposed to a whole group of them. Also, if you're using a Greatsword when your favoured weapon aught to be Light Crossbow, you're going to be 1 behind a fighter on BAB alone. All the ability does is match BAB at the levels whre BAB does not increase. You don't get the benefits of extra attacks with BAB progression that a fighter does at the same time. When you cast Divine Power, now you have the same approximate stats and damage output as a fighter, but it cost you a standard action and you can't do that until 10th level.

I'm not entirely happy with the Glory pool. It does much of what I wanted; giving bonuses no matter what your weapons abilities are, be they thrown, double, or light rather than just favoring one handed weapons. I'd prefer to drop the ability entirely actually, but it is quite handy for providing a resource for blessings that should have limited uses in a day.

I've charted out a revision to the class that has no dead levels, keeps 3/4 BAB, HD, six levels of casting, and the saving throws, cuts a lot of the volume out of the first level dip, restores some of the fighter feel that is missing, and has no dead levels.

Flavor Stuff

Blessings

Channel Energy

Favoured Weapon

Spells/Spontaneous Casting

Bonus Feats

Glory Pool

Martial Perfection

Sample Blessing Domains

Problems solved:
The To Hit issue (scaling favoured weapon bonus). The favoured weapon issue levels (solved at 5th and later). The MAD issue (if the spells suggestion is applied, it becomes a physical and charisma based class.) The ability to cast spells. The flavor issue of not feeling enough like a different class from the cleric or inquisitor (You have to WORK for it like the Fighter). The problem of not having a direct indicator of which features stop functioning on a fall. The large volume of resource tracking (Spells, Channels, and Glory pool are it. Individual blessings may change that, but aren't necessary to select.) The HUGE first level is distributed largely over the rest of the levels, so you'd need to get to level two to get your bonus feat and you don't ACTUALLY get Weapon focus, although you get something very similar.

I'm pretty sure this will get lost in the noise. I hope it doesn't. I spent quite a bit of time on it, but I'm willing to spend lots more. I won't please everybody, but I think it makes a fair compromise.

Nobody seemed to notice my earlier post.

Currently, rules as written, the Warpriest suffers no ill effects for violating their god's rules. Dip for a level, get weapon focus, "Peace out Lamashtu, I'm going to join team Good as a Paladin. Thanks for the feats!" Continue in whatever your multiclass. Somehow I think Lamashtu might have some beef with that.

Which elements vanish upon turning your back on the faith? Just channeling, spells, and blessings or do the bonus feats and magic blades vanish too?

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but I can't find which class features vanish if you become of an unsuitable alignment to your god. If, for example, a Warpriest of Desna gets converted somehow by Norgorber's followers... what happens? Loss of spells, channels, weapon focus? Immediate flip of Weapon Focus and all those bestow abilities? What happens if you just become true neutral and stop worshiping Desna? There's text that the god influences alignment and all that, I didn't see anything that prohibits it. The cleric has those handy lines spelling out precisely what occurs should they turn their back on their god. (Or draw poorly from the deck of many things, for example.)

At least, I presume that's a bug and not a feature.

Anywho, if anyone is still reading these things, some simple, suggested changes, keeping most things intact:

Other suggestions that are perhaps more radical...

I really like this class' central tenants and want to see it live. As it stands it has something of an identity crisis. Sometimes the combination of two different elements leads to something greater than the sum of its parts. Not necessarily in terms of power or combat prowess, but in terms of flavor and coolness. Fighters are cool. Clerics are cool. I want to be able to say that Warpriests are cool too.

It's based all around the favoured weapon, which is a neat concept that doesn't get enough love from the cleric proper because the cleric proper has so many spells it doesn't need a dagger or a quarterstaff.

I second that motion. I don't like that my Trident of Gozreh build can't throw his pointy stick without losing all the weapon buffs. (I do ignore range increments with the Air domain though, which is nice.)

I also am not particularly keen on getting no weapon buffs for being true neutral, but eh, I guess neutral gods don't really go to war or something.

Pretty sure SKR stated that the core concepts of the Hybrids aren't changing, only mechanics involved will.

Can't see a Fighter/Cleric ending up with 1/2 BAB.

Others are out there playtesting warpriests and I'm just sitting here caster mating.

The class is one of the ones I'm interested in. If it must remain as a fighter/cleric, I'd like to have it feel more like an actual fighter and have some full bab and drop the casting down. It's MAD. If it stays as is, the main way I could see it stay un-mad would be to make strength it's casting stat... like dat goan happen. At the end of the day (or high level) you'll need 16 wis to cast your spells, decent strength to stride in combat, decent dex to not get hit, decent con to not fall dead, good wis to cast your spells, and non-dumped cha to use your channels. I have a suspicion therefore that there will be a lot of dumb warpriests.
Only having 4 levels of casting based on Wis means you need a max of 14 and can focus better on STR. Changing the casting stat to CHA makes your channels more effective and makes you less MAD, and now you're starting to feel like the Paladin of any alignment.
But this isn't the spot for that discussion.

Others have come to much the same conclusion.

This is speculating over entirely new territory, and I'm having fun with it. I do intend to test out the priest, although perhaps I'd better not as I might only give into confirmation bias. I would really like to see something like this in the future. Fully caster focused divine spells. Hey Paizo, there's folk who'll play it! Maybe not in this iteration, but if you build it they will come.

Priest, Scholar, Philosopher, Archivist, any name should be chosen that really gives an idea as to the role of the character. I think Priest does it best and has minimal change from the proposed Warpriest. (I mean swapping Fighter for Wizard is about as opposite a change as you can get. I refer to this change as to the name only.)

A lot of this comes together right out of the box. I'm not sure I'm keen on specialized schools for a cleric spell list. For one, there's no handy index of schools associated which would be off-putting for all but the most die-hard data entry technicians. For another, the arcane spell list was designed more or less with that system in mind and the cleric spell list has an awful lot of conjuration (healing), necromancy, enchantment, and abjuration, but evocation is not nearly as well distributed.

A handy list for extra spells per day could come directly from the domains of the gods. As opposed to specializing in a single sect of magic, the proposed priest could select their extra spell per day from among any spell on the god's domain list. This would give about five options per god (not sure how to differentiate between domains and subdomains). For example, a Priest of Desna could take True Strike one day, Remove Fear the next, and Pro: Law the next as their bonus spell. They should probably get all of their associated domain spells per level in their prayer book gratis, plus one or two extras per level as per the wizard. They can ignore the domain powers themselves as so many of them come part and parcel with combat abilities that perhaps would be best avoided and we can focus better on direct spell-casting niche.
If that proves to be too many, perhaps they can choose two domain spell lists, although all of the spells in their domain should be acceptable for their list. They'd just have to buy them. Where the Inquisitor only gets the combat goodies and 3+Wis/day abilities of a domain, the Priest only gets the spells, with a bonus slot to prepare them. Alternatively they could prepare their daily Cure/Inflict spell in that slot, but I'm not sure if they should get full spont casting of Cure/Inflict or not. Not sure if that makes them too weak.

Which is the most flavorful casting stat? Int makes sense, because then you could have a person who had deep reverence for their god, but couldn't advocate the faith as a cleric because they didn't have the wisdom for it. They'd use their book-learnin' in its stead.

This is soooo far from the Warpriest. I don't think it would happen, but I certainly know a few players who would go for it.

While it may be too late in the day to get this done, I have to say I like the idea. Another 3/4 BAB cleric among other 3/4 divine casters doesn't exactly stand out. A full BAB or a 1/2 BAB stand out in other ways.

So, what would get mixed? The two real choices look like Wizard or Witch. Sorcerer and Cleric feels like the Oracle already. Shaman combines the divine with the witch already, so this leaves wizard as your main choice. Anything else has 3/4 BAB, so where would the loss come from?

Wizard/Cleric
So, how about a priest that has a prayer book instead of a wizard's spell book or direct invocation from the divine. Wisdom or Charisma based? (Wisdom probably.) Would they still channel energy? Instead of wizard based schools of magic, perhaps various Sects would be available. Would the worship one god or more, or just an alignment? Wizardy bonus feats for the divine.
Symbol bond instead of arcane bond. Bond with a holy symbol and get your "arcane" bond spell in the moment; all those niche spells like remove paralysis at your fingertips when most needed.

I also like the bard idea, but that was done in an archetype already. I like the archetype, though I haven't played it.

I really, really like this idea. It's not stepping on anyone's toes. I certainly have seen many a cleric not built for combat, it's true. I have seen a few clerics that like to get in there and hit. The inquisitors do that, and paladins do that obviously. This would give it a really clear niche.

Still, prolly to late in the game. ;_;

Sir Thugsalot wrote:

Now look at the Underhanded talent synergizing the Sap chain.

Did they ever fix the problem with Underhanded? I.E. the fact that drawing a hidden weapon is a standard action and you can't attack in the surprise round while doing so, making Underhanded completely useless?

Sheath of Bladestealth. It's a sheath, so if you have quickdraw, you can get your dagger out in the surprise. Not so handy with saps, but there you go.

I've been half-heartedly thinking of combining the nonleathal sap-master tree with Order of the Rose Cavalier. It could make for an interesting character. At the very least I could be a one trick pony riding a pony.

But really I'd prefer just to go straight up rogue, halfling, core book, core talents, and nuts to all the optimization. I'll take improved feint and I'll have fun with it. Nah, I won't be hitting for scads of damage, but I'll be around to flank and aid another. And as long as I'm around, traps won't stop us.

Gnomes of Golarion allows you a +2 perform bonus as long as you maintain a collection. This works only if you're a gnome, of course.

I suppose you mean "while" the sun is up. As long as the sun is up, you will do or will not do something. Must it always be a prohibition; a thing you cannot do, such as eating? That seems more Irori than Iomedae

I will watch for your messenger.
-Allows for DM plot-hooks, but you might see the messenger where it isn't. Even false assumptions could lead to further plot-hooks.

I will speak only one word at a time.
-Interesting roleplay decision, but can make communication in combat complicated. "Smite." "Enemies!" "Blessings." "Agreed." "Look! (while pointing)" I wouldn't advise this if you are the one who does most of the talking.

I will tithe my findings.
-My Paladin did this anyway. Any gold you earn during the daylight hours, donate 10%, 20%, 33% or some other amount. Talk to your DM about what would be best. I donate 10 or equivalent value of items. 50% might be a bit steep, but that would depend on how you want to go about it. Requires book-keeping, but the roleplay of giving these things to orphans or war efforts can help to make you friends as well. (Things you find at night you can keep, if you like.)

While they're distracted discussing the Rogue as a class I've already tied their boots together, stolen their spellbooks, and traded them to one of my contacts in exchange for a fancy new cloak.

I'm pretty sure I will have fun with my Rogue when I get around to him. I'm having a blast with my bard and the majority of the time I'm doing skills.

I wish Rogues got all Knowledge skills in class. If I went Gnome or Elf I could get Breadth of Experience. I suppose Rogues are the streetsmart class as opposed to the booksmart types.

Minor speech impediments make for excellent tusked creatures. How do you talk if your teeth are too big for your face? Maybe your doubleyou's come out sounding wike Ewmur Fudd becawse yowu can't saiy dem wraight. Maybe you're a Naga and you hiss your Esses with an exssstra ssssbilant. Play with the consonants. Slide you're tongue across your teeth between a SSSSS and a THHHH. Form the W's in the back of the throat rather than with the lips for the Fudd speak. Heck, put pencils in your mouth and speak around them, then make that same voice when not having the pencils there, or at least a version of that voice you can maintain.

Watch Cartoons: Cartoon voices convey static things about a character that you may not realize and feed into subconscious stereotypes. They ARE their voice and every voice must be distinct. One of my favourites, Pinky and the Brain. One has a serious, deep voice based on Orson Welles. The other has the fudd-like speech impediment littered with nonsensical verbal clutter. You instantly know who's talking even if you're in another room. I could listen to a radio show with those characters and know what was going on. Imitate them, come up with your own variances.

Rolling Rs, Ls: Can you roll your R's? How about L's? How about you D's? (It's possible.) If not, don't worry about it. If you can, cool. At them in when necessary. This falls under lisping, accents, and verbal clutter and works well for Catfolk if you're stereotyping.

Plan ahead: How do they sound? If you have a sound in mind, you can create a character to accommodate. Otherwise, if you have a character and you need a voice, look at their facial structure and give them enough distinction to stand on their own.

Don't be too afraid to look silly: Experiment. Try to talk using only your lips and no tongue to make all the sounds. How many letters of the alphabet can you get through ventrilloquising using your tongue? These are just silly little ideas that might lead you to something you can talk as for a while. They're silly, but they warm you up. I've come up with characters that way, but the best way I make a character is:

Their Laugh: Very few people will laugh in the same way. A pixie will have no trouble laughing, but a serious, serene, necromantic sorceress may choke on her own laugh as it surprises her. I have a character (an actual character, not a character sheet) who's memory phrase is just his laugh.

Yeah actually. Limber up beforehand. It sounds silly, but muscle tension can inhibit vibration, and vibration is what you're after. Stretch things out, especially the shoulders and arms and the muscles on the side of your neck. If you can move better, your voice will carry better.

Otherwise, positioning has its greatest effect on the neck. Most of the changes will come from the mouth, lips and tongue. Anything else in the throat has to be done internally, which you may or may not have the talent to do. Like any muscle, training these things make's them more versatile and will have more brain-space connected to their use resulting in higher degrees of control.

Here, try this. I will assume you have the ability to cough. Cough while giving a sustained tone. Now, the cough constricts your throat resonator to a narrow point and closes it off. Now, try almost coughing, get close to fully closed and give your voice a strangled quality. With this new, narrow throat try talking. That's how I get to one of my old man voices.

WARNING! WARNING! You will want to warm up your voice before you try mucking around with this or you can lose your voice or otherwise cause discomfort. Say a few tongue twisters at a steadily increasing pace, sing something, (scales, anything), and give heavy voiced sighs for a period of at least five minutes. If you are in public, make sure you wave your hands a lot and jump up and down. (Sorry, a bit of the Gnome coming out there.)

Edit: OH! And drink water!

Start rewarding the improbable. If one of the two other PCs do things that probably aught not work, but you roll with it and something amazing develops, it could go two ways. 1. The Rollplayer begins to follow along and starts to take more risks. 2. The Rollplayer feels left behind and sulks. 2.5 The Rollplayer takes it half way or too far and sulks while trying overly outrageous things. I would take this as a good sign, although it would be frustrating at first.

Where things would really work is when he does something in line with what you're after, reward it immediately and with vigor. If his peasant boy gets injured and he leaves battle to go help, BAM! Peasant boy is actually a HAND-WAVEY in disguise. (You'll know best what will work well in your game.)

Backstory is sometimes hard for people to do, but future oriented stuff should work. What does Claymore want? Big swords and loot, sure, but what does he WANT that is not material. Infinite wishes? Power beyond reconing? A castle? Heck, sometimes if you want to see what a character is really like, throw them in front of the deck of many things. I was in a game where a character drew the Castle from the deck... and then fell in love with it! The character eventually retired to manage his keep and became an NPC so that's maybe not what you're after, but nonloot nonXP goals can go a long way to help.

Some of my character's improbable goals:
1. Tuntus the Eight Times Dead (Half-Orc Oracle.) Wants to get into Gorum's afterlife by dying in battle. Every time he dies, my DM changes his name to the next iterative of dead. (Below 0 HP, but still lives.) He also comes back with more scarring and death-like looks. (Wasting curse.)
2. Breegin, the Executive Producer (Gnome Summoner, +100 years or more). Somehow, this character developed a fondness of books. It was a post-apoc campaign, and he was old enough to predate the apoc so any creature comforts went along way. He was lured away from the party by a nice library of books and bottle of nice wine made from grapes that scream when you pick 'em on the darker side of the Abyss.

Other motivators include the deadly sins, hubris, revenge, collections, obsessions. Etc.

But as a rollplayer, you will see greatest effect when his roleplaying is rewarded as much as his rollplaying. He'll have to make the first real move there and that may be out of his comfort zone. I hope you'll consider it okay if that doesn't work for him. Some people enjoy the comfort of rules and may get upset if rules don't exist for what's going on.

Bam: Everything Anguish said. That's good stuff.

I have some voice acting training. I use voices often and have a proclivity for gnomes. (Most readers probably had a fit just then.) If you're just making a hobby of it, there's a few tricks you can do.

1. Practice your range. How low can your voice go. Start as deep as you can go and go as high as you can go. It doesn't have to be a song tone, just a natural voice tone.

2. Resonators. The main voice resonators are the chest, throat, mouth, teeth, nose, sinuses, and skull. Chest resonation leads to deeper booming voices and is often used by men for distances. The throat is probably where your normal speaking voice resonates, sex irrelevant, and for singing. The mouth is a loud, resonator without much force, like Mickey Mouse. (It's also the primary resonator for the Batman voice. Yes, I just tried it, sitting in front of my computer. Voice acting does that to you.) Very common cartoony resonator.
Teeth are sometime used by women and will make any voice sound smiley. Nose goes absent when you have a cold and makes anything sound flat. Teeth and nose are used often in french. Most people probably don't use their sinuses to any real degree, but those who can can do the Chewbacca grumbles.
The skull is a very loud resonator and reverberates higher pitches. Most high women's voices resonate here.

As you go through your range, place a hand over each resonator. You can feel the vibration move.

3. Mouth shape. The lips and tongue as well as the angle of your head over your throat can shape the sound that emerges. (Try this. Grumble a low note sustained, then tilt your head forward and backward. You'll hear changes. You may even stop making tone in some cases if you tilt your head back to far. Neat, huh?)
If you can control the shape of your throat and vocal cords to a high degree, you have a good deal of talent already and probably have the capability for a few impersonations. If you don't, the mouth will probably be where you have the highest degree of control.
Play with more O or E shapes when talking with a voice. Talk with your tongue hardly moving for a smaller voice. But of course, this leads to the next point:

4. Play. If you're just coming up with a voice for a hobby game and not looking to have it a huge part of your earnings, have fun with it. Go deeper, higher pitched, and you needn't go too cartoony, but play around with the voice and find something that fits. Impersonate people, or try to. Mix tones of voice with resonators. Find a tone and shape it around.

5. Saving a voice. When you find a voice, tie it to a certain phrase or sound effect. For example, if you've found a place where you can make you're voice crack and this is the perfect tone for someone's leadership feat, say, "Would you like fries with that?" over and over in that voice. The two would become interconnected and you can go back to a voice you've used before. This is very handy if you're impersonating voices. If you said, "I'M BATMAN" to get into the Batman voice, you've already done this.

6. Remember to breathe. Don't breathe at the neck or rib cage. Breathe with the belly. You'll get more air. And you'll probably need it if you aren't using your own voice for a period of time.

7. Verbal clutter and tics. Add a sigh. Click your tongue. Give a two-tone laugh like Jimmy Carr. Match these to character and don't mix 'em up. These can go a long way to fleshing out a character. Used too often and they may get stereotypical, but they will be recognizable. There's a reason sitcoms have catch-phrases.

In terms of accents, if you don't already have a basic accent impersonating technique, that would probably require a lot of time investment. Best recommendation I have would be to watch movie sources that use the accent and imitate them back into a voice recorder, and then listen to the recordings until you're no longer embarrassed by them. I will warn you, bad accents I react to viscerally. Oh, it hurts so bad!

I have to stop writing this now. There's more to say, of course. I have a book in mind, but it's more about doing sound effects. Mouth Sounds by Fred Newman. It comes with a CD.
My accent resources... I don't really have any that are for training purposes anymore. I did International Phoenetic Alphabet stuff so long ago it hardly registers. Not that I'd advise that, it's way too much work for what you're using it for.

Anywho, have fun!

Y'know, in terms of role-play value, I think I like Feinting the best. "You're boots are untied." "Look behind you!" "Excuse me, do you have the time?"

2nd best would be Dirty Trick, but that's a tricky thing to do with a halfling and as you say not great until later level. That would definitely be something I could pour GM credits into.

Greater Feint: ??? Wow, yup. Completely read that as until the "END" of your next round. Apparently my brain only wants to read things as though they make sense. That would make it only usable during an AOO, which is also highly situational as Rogues have few ways to provoke 'em.

So TWFeint has value, at least the improved version does.

Dual wielding for backstabs is a trap IME. People keep moving around the map, and killing off the thing you're setting up for, keeping that from happening

Seems to me Sneak Attack in general is a trap. It's something you take when you get it, but trying for it every single time is gonna leave you frustrated. If TWF and Feint and all the other things are traps, well, all signs point to Sneak Attack.

If the only real combat feat I take is Weapon Finesse, how much can I give my combat ability?

Bleeding Attack: One sneak attack is all I need to make my mark. At that point, I can just run away and let 'em bleed out.

Assault Leader: So when I finally get to that rare flank and miss my mark, instead of throwing up my hand, the guy who actually can hit and deal lots of damage hits and deals lots of damage. The one/day is probably fine for PFS if Flanks are hard enough to set up as is.

Stand Up: This allows you to do the worm across the battlefield. Highly advantageous when combined with Perform (Dance).

Does trap making do anything in PFS? I suppose only the core-book traps are allowed if at all.