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On question of the journey... from level 1-4 and 7-12, a whooping 10 levels and probably the most played levels in the game, warpriest is pretty much ahead and better equipped to take advantage of Cleric feats like Channel Smite, Restorative Strike and Cast Down
I value offense over defense more overall, I prefer to end the battles earlier than to survive longer.
Those spells are fine, for a rank 1 spell they are actually above average. If I would rank that category of spells between themselves would be Bless > Malediction > Benediction > Bane.
The fact that it would take you 3 rounds to max out the benefit means that even if you managed to consistently crit at least once a round (and used your reaction too, so bye-bye Reactive Strike), by the time you'd have maxed out your aura, the fight would be over. 4 rounds actually because of the "Once per round on subsequent turns, you can Sustain the spell to increase the emanation's radius by 10 feet." 1º round to cast the spell.
The chassis proficiency is fine, the problem is everything else. The font being a rank 1 spell that don't heightned effects just sucks and you don't even have the option reduce the number of actions to cast it until level 20.
The bless of Eternal Blessing does not work with Battle Harbinger feats, the feat calls for battle auras and battle auras are specifically bless and bane (also malediction and benediction if you pick the feat) casted from spells slots or font. And about Warpriest casting and not having time to strike, that is only if you wish to do that, as Cleric and the divine list itself have a bunch of options to strike and even use slots to aid the striking. Channel Smite is a way to expend extra spell slots striking, Restorative Strike is also a fun one, Warding Agression and Blink Charge are spells that strike and Zealous Rush let you Heroism + Stride and Strike right on the first turn. Also Cast Down that let you trip (that the enemy needs to critically succeed to not be prone) + strike.
I do like the class archetype by the fact this fell like what other class specific archetypes should be, in that they do indeed change the base class enough to play different, as most of the others feels more that could be a subclass Power wise though is kinda of a mess, having to use 2 actions on a rank 1 spell every battle to have your features feels really bad, could have used a feat or two of like strike and cast the battle aura or raise a shield and benediction and so on.
Level 12 to increase the bonus of the aura is indeed late, and you need to crit and then use your reaction to increase it, and because of how battle aura spells work, can only be sustained on subsequent turns of the cast, you will only see the benefit of it after 2 turns of setup (2 actions cast the battle aura, then next turn hopefully crit then use the reaction to increase by 1). Comparing Warpriest and Battle Harbinger, I would say that Warpriest is better for around 10 levels (1-4 and 7-12 range), so if the table will not play or reach the level 13-18 range I would say go Warpriest for the divine gish. You can pretty much put all the rank 1 slots on the battle aura spells at some point on Warpriest (like level 5).
While you don't have healing hands, Sorcerer have by default Sorcerous Potency, that gives +1 status bonus per spell rank to healing, that basically your dice d10 on average. Blessed one archetype might be interesting for you, it gives you another focus spell, a healing one, as well the access to mercy feats for condition removal. Character wise you might be blessed by Asmodeus if you wish.
So Cleric in book, receives a class archetype that changes their spellslots progression to be the same as the Magus and Summoner so they can get proficiency increase of the average martial character, expert at 5 and Master at 13. It also changes their font from Heal/Harm to Bless and Bane with the option to add Benediction and Malediction with a level 4 feat. It gets legendary class DC that can be used in the place of spellcasting for battle auras, but the spellcasting dc by itself caps at expert. The feats resolves mainly about sustaining the battle auras, but have one that gives studious spells like slots of Magus that have a few buff spells and Sure strike, as well another that works like the runes on weapon of champion (pre-remaster). It's a cool archetype, though I don't really like the fact that the font are rank 1 spells without heightened effects outside of counteract their opposites.
Interesting, I don't know that I've heard about group that only gives the archetype dedication feat for free, but it does help to mitigate any concerns about free archetype being a huge power level boost. I mean while Acrobatic dedication is really goof as a free feat, it would help address issues like the OP described about a barbarian taking dual weapon warrior and getting lots of big combat benefit for free. I kind of like it from the aspect of "if none of your class feats are attractive to you, this lowers the barrier of entry for getting other archetype feats". I definitely built some characters where like every few level ups there's not a class feat that really calls to me, but spending the feat on an archetype which in a lot of cases doesn't give a big benefit (I'm thinking martial characters taking martial archetypes) doesn't appeal either. I basically reached the same conclusion, I used to do a free dedication feat as well, but a Kineticist player was not interested on any of them, so I changed for an extra level 2 class feat at that point.
It's a popular variant rule but I personally don't like it. As I GM for a variety of players, like you some would love unrestricted free archetype and I also have some that already choice paralysis with only the feats of their own class. What I did to try to appeal both sides (and my own bias against the variant rule admittedly) was give a single extra level 2 class feat, so the person can pick an archetype with it if they want, or just another feat of their own class.
Surprised that people didn't mentioned Oracle Archetype, access to cursebound feats like Foretell Harm, and two different sets of focus spells with the Oracle ones and domains for charisma classes.
Yeah, as Graystone wrote, it's basically only a few feats that wants strength. Devouring Dark Form: for grapples, but it's really inefficient, needs to use an additional action to grapple in the turn that you cast the spell. lvl 6 Roaring Heart: Stride twice and Shove. Lvl 8 Instinctive Maneuvers: Requires Relinquish Control Lvl 16 Forest Heart; Again to be able to grapple, with the reach of 30ft. So you basically need to build around the strength options as it will also take your skill ups to be used on Athletics
The stat spread you can just use a basic 18 WiS/ 16 dex, as it also works with finesse weapons as well. But as you mentioned action economy with it is hard and now you need to keep a weapon up to date with runes and that is expensive.
I think that people are overrating STR, the only thing that it gives over Dex, is a grapple on the devouring dark form, that by the way is incredible action inneficient for a glorified grapple as you have to cast it to gain the form and only on the second turn sustains that you begin to grapple, and the grapple of the forest heart feat. It's fine, if you build around (athletics, heavy armor, probably liturgist), but not something that I would look at most animist builds and take it.
Just to say... the best way to actually to shut down a caster is actually combine grapple with rank 4 silence, that is present on the occult and divine list, cast on ally or have an ally cast on you and then grapple. Only subtle spells can be cast under silence, and those are like at max 20 spells.
One thing that a player can take advantage is how sustained durations work, they last until the end of your next turn, to be able to play around the action economy. This is mostly for Vessel spells that affects yourself, like Peru example you can use embodiment of battle, stride and strike then next turn sure strike grudge strike and on the 3rd turn use another focus point for embodiment again. You gain one action with that by using an extra focus point (though you lose the reactive strike between your turn 2 and 3 in this example).
Wizard don't even have anything that makes it really shines as a control... If anything it again favors animist that because is divine have access to Calm spell very early, and later easily pick Wall of Stone and Quandary with apparitions. But yeah I agree with Teridax, animist is really over the top, heck it even gets the armor increase to expert at 11 instead of 13, just to show how special it is and the multiclass don't even let you get a single focus spell. About the Liturgist vs Medium, if the person is not using something like Elf step to step twice and sustain twice, the Medium with 2 main apparition is indeed close action wise, but Liturgist having Circle of spirits as the lvl 1 feat still puts it ahead though.
Investigator mainly, hate the Pursue a Lead and That's Odd.
While the exemplar archetype is busted, you can't even pick a focus spell on Animist archetype with a lvl 4/6 feat like every other caster archetype...
I am kinda feeling that Liturgist is so good that makes the other subclasses appear bad.
Putting action taxes and duration to the ikons of the dedication would do well, it's not uncommon feats that you spend one action to increase the damage of other strikes in the game per example. Like 1 action, now you activate the spark and the you get the immanence effects until the end of the next turn, and you have that time as well to transcend it if you wish. After that the spark returns to your soul and you have to use another action for it to go to the icon again.
So the Vindicator(also know as Inquisitor) is a class archetype for the Ranger in the book. They change the Nature stuff from Ranger to Religion and Primal to Divine, but I am kinda worried about the action economy of the archetype, as their damage bonus comes mainly from the focus spell Vindicator's Mark Spoiler:
VINDICATOR’S MARK [two-actions] UNCOMMON MANIPULATE SANCTIFIED Range 60 feet; Target your hunted prey Defense AC; Duration 1 minute You launch a magical dart at your hunted prey, which marks them with a nimbus only you can detect. Make a spell attack against the target. On a hit, you deal 2d4 spirit damage and the target is marked by a glowing nimbus of energy that only you can see. For the duration of your spell, the marked target takes an additional +2 damage from all your weapon or unarmed attacks. Invisible targets marked by your vindicator’s mark are concealed to you, rather than undetected. You can Dismiss the spell on your turn if your last action dealt damage to the target with a weapon or unarmed attack, instantly dealing an additional 2d6 spirit damage to it. Heightened (+2) The initial damage increases by 2d4, the additional damage you deal increases by 1, and the damage dealt when the spell is Dismissed increases by 1d6. So it requires 1 action to Hunt Prey and then another 2 actions for the focus spell, and then you have to hit the spell attack (the Edge do help the accuracy as it gives +1 status bonus to hit spell attacks), so 3 actions total. Though to be fair, the main objective of the archetype might be just be good with focus spells as it still have access to the Ranger ones and also the Domains feats from Cleric, so you can per example use Fire Ray as well. Also another exclusive one with Vindicators Judgment at level 10 that is 1 action and gives weakness 5 (scales to max 15) with fortitude save for 1 minute if the enemy fails or just the next strike/spell if they succeed.
Ops sorry, the exact text says Spoiler:
You gain a +1 status bonus to your spell attack rolls against your hunted prey, and they take a –1 status
penalty to their saving throws against divine spells you cast. So yeah, it's only against divine spells, at least the saving throw part.
People didn't ask but I will post anyway, as it's an archetype that I was interested in. Vindicator is basically the Ranger that specializes in focus spells. The Hunters Edge is the Vindicator one that gives +1 status bonus to spell attacks and -1 status penalty to saves on the hunted prey against your spells. (Increase to 2 at lvl 17). It also gives the Vindicators Mark focus spell, a 2 actions focus spells that can only be used against your Prey, spell attack do 2d4 spirit damage and for 1 minute after your attacks deal +2 damage against the enemy, you can dismiss the spell on the turn that you hit an enemy with an attack to deal extra 2d6 spirit damage. Scales every 2 spell ranks for 2d4 initial damage, +1 damage to attacks and 2d6 to the dimissal. Lvl 10 have another exclusive focus spell on the Judgment that gives weakness 5 (scales to max 15 at max spell rank) against fortitude save, for 1 minute (or the next strike/spell if the enemy succeed the save).
The simple way is just picking more domains with domain initiate to get to 3 focus points quickly and going Rogue archetype, as it also gives you light armor for the lvls 1-12 and access to feats like Mobility, Trap finder and Skill Mastery.
Is Paralyze 7 even that good? Seems to me that spells like Slow 6 would be much better would it not? It's mostly momentum and number of actions disabled. Per example let's assume a severe encounter of one lvl 15 boss and 2 lvl 11 lackeys against a lvl 13 party. Let's assume that the 2 lackeys fails the save and the boss succeed. Paralyze 7 will take out 6 actions on a single round, as an incapacitation spell the boss would get a crit success. Slow lvl 6 will take out 3 actions on one round, then 2 on the second then another 2 on the third round. So it was necessary 2 extra rounds for slow to surpass the paralyze and have a good chance that a lackey was killed on round 2 or 3. And enemies of the levels that those spells are avaliable usually hurt or have annoying stuff against you even if they are lower level than you, so taking them out an entire round is nice. Against a group of enemies paralyze 7 usually gives a huge amount of frontloaded action denial and because they are a group, likely they are lower level than you, slow 6 is better against smaller groups of enemies of your level and up like a lvl 15 boss and a lvl 13 lackey against the same previous group.
The build looks fine now, you could delay raise symbol to lvl 8 and pick channel smite at lvl 4 if you are starting at lower level, so you have a cool strike earlier. Abandoning the shield like you mentioned would also work, the character have heavy armor and access to Lay on Hands and Heal and later you can prepare stuff like Vital Beacon as well. Liberation Step interesting part is the free step, against some enemies it might make the ally that did the step be outside of Reach, though if you are in range they might just change the attacks to you.
Strike activities are usually divided in two categories, the normal amount of actions but ignore MAP for one of them (like Double Slice) and the other that reduces the number of actions by one (Like Flurry of Blows). Spellstrike interesting enough, breaks that norm and do both in a way at the cost of having to recharge, if you just use an action to recharge it becomes something like a double slice, if uses a conflux spell you even go plus on the action economy. An 1 action spellstrike, would need so many limitations that would not be fun to use (like being an unique action with Flourish trait plus the -5), or be absolutely broken, like allowing Expansive Spellstrike with it and now it have access to 1 actions Fireballs and other save spells, even if Magus have a lower DC it having access to all day Quickened spell would not feel good for the other Spellcasters). And for reactive strike... putting manipulate trait on melee options is such a bad move, Thaumaturge have that problem as well and it sucks. While I find easier to make arcane cascade a free action (currently I homebrew that), the suggestions of keeping the action but making it more useful with it recharging the spellstrike, or making that you don't provoke while on cascade, or even just be having the spellstrike charged you are on Cascade are all cool, I might implement one or another in the place of how I currently do.
The simplest solution of not changing of who likes it now and people that wants more variation on action, it's mostly more conflux spell options, the class already have a few, but more specially lower level options would do wonders. Strikes imbued with energy, sword beams, teleports and so on. And I find funny people talking about using spellslots for spellstrike, I find way more effective to use in stuff like Walls spells per example, you get them at the same level as a spellcaster, and something like wall of water change the flow of the battle like crazy. And while I don't use it, I would not like that people that enjoy it to loss that option by default, the playtest of the class years ago did show that this is something that most players want.
I am pretty much in the same position as Deriven, that it have problems with reactive strikes and how Arcane Cascade works (could like be a free action if you use a non-cantrip spell per example), but outside of that the class works well and have a decent flow with the conflux spells. The rest is the choice of the player, want to go into a spell attack focus spell for spellstrike instead of the action economy of conflux spells? Let them. Wants to use spell slots for spellstrike? Good as well, just like if if they want to use for buffs or one of the "martial spells" introduced on the same books as the class, like Blink Charge and Warding Agression.
Yeah, pretty much is trying to do too much, but the build is functional, just the armor proficiency that is redundant and that you don't have a free hand for battle medicine. I will agree that the versatile font is not necessary, but I will disagree with Emblazon + Raise Symbol, while nice to have, depending of your playstyle, you will might not even have the actions to raise it often. But if you go into that direction, might be good to pick bastion at lvl 8, for the extra block reaction at lvl 10. And Channel Smite and Cast Down do well together, they do indeed both use harm/heals, but the first is used for a damage burst and the second for a really good chance trip, so you can easily separe lower ranks harms for cast down, and higher ranks harm for a burst with channel smite. While it competes with your reaction, Zealous Rush is good for the first turn specially, as you are of Ragathiel, can easily (2a)Haster + (R) Zealous Rush to move in position and still strike, intimidate, raise shield with the last action.
Hey, we have 8 , the Red Mantis exists... that the focus spells are literally the mentalism ones with another name.
On class archetypes that I would like to see on Wizard would be Mystic Theurge, something like loosing the 4th slot but can now learn and prepare both divine and arcane spells, with domains as focus spells and being able to be sanctified. And about rival academies, I would not put many expectations on it to give a lot of new Wizard schools, a good amount of the academies are not even Wizard ones, like have a Bard and Monk based ones. Also it's like a 130 page book heavy on lore (which is good for people that wants to play a campaign based on them). If I am being optimistic I would say 10 new schools, and that's because Runelord have 7, one for each sin and those will likely use domains as focus spells like secrets of magic again. And have a good chance that Diviners Sight and Physical Boost makes a comeback.
Druid is a way more vanilla caster than Wizard, but we don't really see complaints about it very much. Why is that? Outside of the better chassis (8hp, medium armor) the druid has way better feats and focus spells to fall back even if you mess the entire spell preparation. The feats also have better flavor...
I did homebrew something similar way back, but I just unlocked the 4th slot and let substitute any prepared slot to a curriculum spell, kinda like Magus Standby Spell feat. Worked well, the player could prepare niche spells without fear of it becoming useless if the situation didn't come up.
Depends of the level, because I would not be spending gold on a weapon as a full caster when striking runes are a thing unless I am using it regurlary, those runes are expensive, and I would already be expending on staves, scrolls and in the case of wizard also learning spells.
In theory future options could help the Wizard... In practice, Pathfinder 2 is 5 years old and Wizard was in the very first book of the game, so my expectations are basically nonexistent.
Like Blave wrote, the combination of bad feats, super limited curriculum slots, bad focus spells and questionable thesis is what break wizards legs. Class archetypes could fix that, but I don't like it mandatory options to fix a class, it limits character building, with that the lvl 2 feat is used and also locked out of another archetype until lvl 8 assuming that only picked feats from that class archetype.
To be straightforward, the skills are not equal. Athletics per example is loaded, having all combat maneuvers and basically anything related to a physical activity and then Performance exists. Then there skill feats, having a few good ones that add something new or cool to do like Bon Mot and Read Lips and on the other side skill feats that are so specific that are mostly useless or just something dumb that people would have assumed was already part of the skill (looking at you group impression) So yeah, not surprising that people would gravitate towards a few skills/skill feats.
I like deadly encounters personally, when I GM I do say from the start that character death is on the table. I will play the enemies as I think they would do, like zombies just attacking the closest thing of them while trained mercenaries would be targeting healers and using more advanced tactics. Last character death... last month, against drug smugglers that the boss had a trained red wyvern, the Barbarian critically failed the fireball breath and took some more blows as it was the only one in the front. But I am aware that most others tables GMs avoid players deaths at all costs.
I will try to keep the character concept as best as I can Maybe use Anadi instead of Awakened animal for the giant spider thing? The human form can also be used as a form of trickery. That also makes easier to keep having the Int and have a stats spread of 0STR/1CON/4WIS/2DEX/2INT/0CHA. Then prepare mystic armor for the lvls 1 and 2 for AC and at lvl 3 pick the armor general feat, and use something like trick magical item for tailwind.
Increase the level of the players, 1 level higher than the reccomended might be enough to not need to rebalance the encounters.
Reactions. Like it's good to have at least one reliable reaction in the build somewhere, you gain one every turn might as well use it, be it Reactive Strike, Shield Block or even Nimble Dodge. Same with Spellcasters, have a lot of reaction spells now, so you don't even need to go into archetypes anymore to get it, Blood Vendettas, Interposing Earth, Acid Dragon Bile and so on
Depends of the party, level and experience of the players and place. Most of the time will be as many as it takes to be full. With more experienced players and higher level they might go to the buff rush. Cast Heroism and other 10 minutes buffs and try to chain 2-3 encounters to take advantage of it.
These days we do have a few specific familiars with some combat actions like the ones that graystone mentioned. Also something like the Spellcasting familiar ability to cast a spell 5 lvls lower than your maximum once per day. Laughing Fit is popular on an independent familiar on this one.
New druid orders come, here at least 3-4 new feats on theme. New Magus studies? Here 2 new feats. Schools right now are basically only a limiter for the 4th slot, I would rather just scrap schools and let the Wizard just choose their flavor of below average focus spells that they have. And about asking GM about changing schools from curriculum? Any class could do that. Like a Imperial Sorcerer asking the GM if they can switch the Force Barrage sorcerous gift for Sure Strike, or an flame oracle asking for Floating Flame instead of Blazing Bolt and so on.
Because the schools do nothing outside limiting the spell choices of the 4th slot and giving a weak focus spell. Also does not help that it don't have school feats that plays on theme. I will compare to the current prepared casters, cleric and druid as Mathmuse mentioned that might be a better way to do it. Druid orders only gives a feat and a focus spell as they can pick other orders, but Storm per example as it's the more spellcasting one, have a flavorful feat, a strong focus spell and if you want, it have more feats ahead on theme, also helps how easy it's to increase the focus pool on druid feats alone so they can use even more Tempest Surge. Cloistered Clerics we could say that the deity is the subclass, giving you the type of font, being able to pick 1 out of 4 focus spells on domains and also spells outside of the divine list that clerics of other deities likely don't have access and like the Druid, the feats ahead also support it, either by picking more domains from that deity or making the font that they grant better of having new effects.
I am rather curious: why do people in this thread compare the wizard to the spontaneous casters sorcerer and bard? The wizard has more in common with the other primary prepared casters cleric, druid, and witch. The Sorcerer is simple, as both are cloth casters of 6hp and 4 slots and Sorcerer also having access to the Arcane list. The bard I don't know, probably because they are able to recall knowledge on everything on a single skill, and people feel that as a schoolar wizard should probably be able to do some of that.
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