Renegade Paladin's page

Over the course of the COVID-19 shutdown I've had a lot of time on my hands, so I've started working on something I haven't had time to do in a long time: Write my own adventure material.

Of course, I know that once it's over I'll be back to work and won't have time to keep up with it, so what I'm doing is writing a framework designed to slot the Villain Codex and Monster Codex into. My start was reading the various geography-based cues in the Villain Codex and making a map to fit.

Map gallery on Imgur.

I plan to run this as a sort of intrigue-filled sandbox. I'll write up short gazetteers over the coming days, but here's a quick rundown.

The Unified Kingdom of the Marklands is the working title for the conjoined realm ruled by the Regal Court. The elven nation that the elven spy represents as ambassador is tentatively slated for the unlabeled landmass east of the Tramian islands.

The Barony of Westhaven is the holding of the Baroness who has allied with the Lord Marshal of the Cruel Musketeers - it's a larger territory than the other western principalities because, as noted in the book, she has expanded her holdings with the help of the Musketeers.

The Tramian Atoll is an obvious source of havens for the Scandalous Pirates.

The hills and forest on the northern boundary of Northmark is intended as a home for elements of the Musketeers and/or the Ruthless Brigands - who may be hired as mercenaries by the Baroness or the Regal Court as events progress (the petitioning paladin from the Regal Court entry is the lord of the border settlement on the road to Northold and will appear in the Court at the proper time asking for help with the bandits). The free cities dotting the southward coast are there because they're mentioned in the Ruthless Brigands introduction, and variety in locations is always a good thing.

The southern forest, by contrast, is home to the Merry Outlaws - and may be overtaken by Nature's Scourge as events progress.

The Arcane Society, Secret Society, Thieves' Guild, Slayers' Guild, and Corrupt Guard can slot into any of the cities as needed. I'm thinking the Secret Society might be best based in Southaven, filling the role of nobility loyal to the Queen as well as their clandestine role.

One of the ruins in the mountains can be home to the Fang Monastery, though I'm admittedly not sold on including them.

The Diabolical Church can start insinuating themselves into one of the western territories apart from Westhaven - possibly setting themselves up as a counterbalance to the burgeoning power of the Baroness. If the players' intervention makes things go to hell in the Marklands, though, they might set up there and make the expression literal. ;)

The Savage Marauders, and later the Demon Knights, are more an event than a pervasive threat; they can sweep in from the north or east at any appropriate point if the players seem lost in the sandbox and need something to do. The same can be said for any of the villainous organizations making a power play, of course; the world isn't going to sit around waiting on the PCs to do things.

The Brutal Slavers, Merchant Caravan, and Carnival Troupe are all by nature mobile and prone to sticking to small towns - and possibly even preying on each other.

The Death Cult can arise as a threat basically anywhere, coming from within the realm familiar to the PCs in contrast to the marauders. The Sinister Cult is set up as a sort of ultimate threat, and I don't know that I'll use it; I don't tend to like Lovecraftian horror.

The Monster Codex (which I picked up for $10 in the spring sale!) comes in as you get into and east of the mountains, where I've marked a few orc villages, but that will get developed further when the book gets here.

My fellow GMs are free to use any or all of what I put in this thread. I don't intend to homebrew rules content for it; this is purely a setting project using Pathfinder 1e rules. I hope you like it, and I welcome feedback. :)

My group went from D&D 3.5e to Pathfinder for a reason. We like that style of game and plan to stick with it. I just finished Rise of the Runelords and started running Shattered Star (using Roll20). In person one of the other players is going to start running Hell's Rebels, but that's on hold until it's safe to gather again.

They reconsidered over the intervening week, pulled a "We didn't say we were doing that!" (when they totally did) and went about pushing into the cave, which proceeded as written with Arkrhyst hiding while they took his treasure and went through the portal.

Oh, man! I was paging through a friend's copy of this the other day, and I am filled with a manic urge to stick the Regal Court in a River Kingdom somewhere, have the Cruel Musketeers in their logical position relative to it, the Corrupt Guards as the city watch, either the Merry Outlaws or the Ruthless Brigands (or both, competing!) in the woods around, the obligatory thieves' guild, and set up a scenario where some major player therein makes a move that disrupts the delicate balance between them and just let the PCs do what they will about the results.

Of course, that would probably end badly; I find players rarely do well with a true open scenario that doesn't have a side that they're predetermined to come down on. :P My local store says the book is out of stock; when is that expected to change?

This is a great scenario...as long as the GM has full prep time. Running it cold would be abysmal.

Tell me about it. I had to do just that on Saturday when I got railroaded into GMing something, anything, because it turned out that we had multiple players who had played every scenario that was planned to be on offer. DO NOT, under any circumstances, run this cold. It wound up devolving into a free-for-all of skill checks because I only had a tenuous grasp on how it was supposed to work (having only read through the Influence rules once when Ultimate Intrigue first came out) and my players had absolutely no idea because they'd never even looked at them. I as the GM didn't even know they would be used until we'd already started playing.

Fromper wrote:

ermak_umk3 wrote:

Wouldn't Robin Hood count as a chaotic good bandit?

Or Han Solo?

Now name a non-fictional person who has ever been described as a "pirate" who qualifies.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Numerous non-evil file sharers around the world? Various members of Sea Shepherd?

At that... one man's 'pirate' is another's 'privateer'. So... Sir Francis Drake?

Tim Curry's got some ideas. :P

Quandary wrote:

To be fair, RP's stance is pretty much identical to what James Jacobs/Paizo's stance has been up to this point.

I find it strange how other classes are allowed to have archetypes that changes the concept but somehow if you make a paladin archetype that makes it not the horrible cliche they're not real paladins.

Sure you can! Just call it something else. Note that Tyrant is in the same book and I haven't had a peep of complaint about that; in fact I'm rather excited. Had they cribbed Unearthed Arcana and called it "paladin of tyranny," though, I'd have blown a gasket. :P Antipaladin is a ham-handed design (there should be more to a champion of Evil than just inverting the paladin, if nothing else because offensive abilities and inflicting status effects are inherently more powerful than cures and removing status effects), but that's a separate problem.

The problem is that words have meanings, and titles especially do. You don't call any schlub who took a first aid course Doctor, you don't call a county councilman Senator, and you don't call some random guy with a sword out for himself a paladin or a knight (and if the setting you're playing in is a chivalric and aristocratic society, heaven help you if you called him Sir). If you want a CG-aligned champion of freedom class, Liberator or something would be appropriate, and I would totally play one, especially if it had abilities that appropriately reflect championing freedom rather than a direct port of the paladin's skill set. But if you start calling any champion class of every alignment "paladin of X," the word ceases to have meaning, or at least meaning beyond "can smite people he disagrees with."

Renegade Paladin wrote:

No, because a character that is not lawful good cannot be a paladin, by definition.

1. If your going by proper meaning on Paladin, then lawful good has nothing to do with it.

2. If your going with the games meaning of Paladin, then yes you can, you take the archetype.

3. If your going by a different meaning of Paladin, then that meaning only exists in your head.

I'm using the definition of the Pearl Poet as recorded in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and translated by Brian Stone in 1974. Gawain's behavior that caused the Green Knight to say that he "truly seem[ed] to be the most perfect paladin ever to pace the earth" was the epitome of knightly and chivalric virtue; honesty, forthrightness, courage, fidelity, and faithfulness to his word. Slackers who don't want to live up to that don't get to claim the title.

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Well unsurprisingly, the paladin got no love.

I am interested in the spiritualist archetype(s).

We've been told the Grey Paladin is in this book. It probably in "Other class archetypes" section.

See: Posers pretending to be paladins.

I'm also looking forward to using this on my Kingmaker players...** spoiler omitted **

Well unsurprisingly, the paladin got no love.

I am interested in the spiritualist archetype(s).

You're damn right it didn't. Just anti-paladin and some posers pretending to be paladins. :P

Renegade Paladin wrote:

Profession (barrister),

This is not the correct 'Law'.

Nothing says they can't do both. ;) In any case, I've played a paladin in 3.5 Forgotten Realms who hewed to the code while running an effective counterinsurgency campaign and shadow war against the Night Masks, and my first Pathfinder Society character is a paladin actively scheming to bring down Hamaria Blakros for her evil ways and handed the means to do it through her violation of Absalom's slave trading laws in The Penumbral Accords (hence Profession [barrister]). The overarching point is that relaxing the definition of "paladin" to include not-good and not-lawful is both a perversion of the concept and not at all necessary to make them fit in a campaign heavy in political intrigue.

I defy anyone to tell me with a straight face that a paladin needs to stray from law and/or good to competently deal with or even in intrigue. I've done it before and will do it again, no "gray paladin" required; they have all the tools as-is. Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Knowledge (nobility), Profession (barrister), and best of all a commitment to Law. Nothing drives intrigue quite like knowing all the ins and outs of the rules. ;) Something like the 3.5 Grey Guard or the gray paladin archetype talked about here only serves as a crutch for those who want the glory without the guts. :P

*vein pulses in forehead*

WHY CANT I PLAY AS THE GLORIOUS RECLAMATION.

You totally can. Play a Vigilante, be a double agent, and secretly sabotage the party. :P

Man, now I need to go make a god-wizard for PFS just to annoy this guy. :P

Kitty Catoblepas wrote:

I had a vision of "the token roleplayer" in one table getting banned for "excessive powergaming" at another.

This has partially happened to my bard (except for the 'banning' part) and he doesn't have anything really 'powergamish' about him.

Playing in *redacted* the bard was big about social interactions and the only thing that kept the party from muttering about 'filthy roleplayer' was the fact he was bringing Inspire Courage and Triple Time to the table, which was really helping out in fights.

Was being very respectful but by the end of the session of the 'touchy situation' there were grumbles about the 'Bard knowledge monkey -GO!' and no one else wanted to make knowledge checks 'Oh, the bard's got it.' and 'Why do you keep talking us out of all the fights?'

And no, there was no roleplay of arrogance, if anything, he was *encouraging* folks to try to remember what they knew, because he knows he's not always right and having backup on knowledge is crucial.

Run them through Fortress of the Nail; it'll kill that attitude real quick. :P

Hail and well met? I like this one already. :)

Alexander Augunas wrote:

She's a fan of George R.R. Martin?

BRACE YOURSELVES! SEASON 8 IS GONNA GET A WHOLE LOT DEADLIER!

So completely unrelated question, Alex: who is your favorite NPC?

No reason...just asking...

*Prepares to George R.R. Martin whichever character seems popular*

Drandle Dreng. Definitely Drandle Dreng. :P

Actually the Game Preserve stopped 40k tournaments not too long ago since that meta definitely was toxic. (I went to a tournament up there once. Once.) I don't know, he just told me he was playing M:tG across the room from the game in question and didn't say anything. That's all I really know about it; glad to hear it wasn't representative. :)

Mirza of Osirion wrote:

One could assume that Signature Skill was a legal feat because of how its awkwardly worded.

They could have worded it as:
"Skill Unlocks: The Signature Skill feat is not legal for play."

Boom. Done. No discussion needed.

If only. If they did that, I guarantee that some GMs will rule that the Rogue's Edge does not work in PFS because it says right there that it's not legal for play.

As is often the case, the more you try to clarify something, the murkier it becomes. And these writers have to consider those few readers out there who will purposefully stir up the waters to get concealment from the murkiness. I can't say that I envy them in the least.

If they did that and some GMs ruled that way then those GMs would be patently and obviously wrong because, as is the crux of the entire issue, Rogue's Edge is not Signature Skill and does not grant Signature Skill. There's nothing murky about it; the wording of the ability is crystal clear and doesn't mention Signature Skill at all. Wording Additional Resources as follows:

"Skill Unlocks: the skill unlocks are only available through the rogue's edge class ability."

Would work just fine and not allow any leeway to interpret Rogue's Edge as banned. It would also by default ban Signature Skill, but you could add "The Signature Skill feat is not legal for play," as a second sentence to eliminate any possibility of misinterpreting it. As worded currently the rule also bans Cutting Edge by default; I'm not sure if that's the intent or not but I assume no since the blog says that the talents and advanced talents presented in Pathfinder Unchained or mentioned in the sidebar (and only those) are legal for the Unchained rogue. Wording it this way:

"Skill Unlocks: the skill unlocks are only available through the rogue's edge class ability and Cutting Edge advanced talent. The Signature Skill feat is not legal for play."

Would clear this all up and not allow any reasonable room for error.

Renegade Paladin wrote:

The Additional Resources page says that the Signature Skill feat is available through the Rogue's Edge class ability (that it is only through that ability is irrelevant to the argument; that still means it is available).

It is incredibly relevant. You cannot claim that you are following the literal wording of whats written when you're removing words from whats written.

No it isn't, because of how sentence structure works in the English language. The fact that it's available through that ability means that it is available through that ability, which is the object of the discussion. No one is arguing that it's available without Rogue's Edge, so the fact that it isn't available without Rogue's Edge doesn't matter to anyone.

Quote:

The Rogue's Edge class ability itself does not give Signature Skill. Taken together, those two facts can only mean that if (and only if) you have the Rogue's Edge class ability, you may take Signature Skill.

Or it can mean that the additional resource document is the work of failable human beings and not the lexiconal manifestation of the laws of physics.

It can also mean that the Signature skill feat is NOT available, and they wanted to stress that the rogues edge class feature was though in case someone took the two very similar abilities to be the same thing.

It can also mean that the feat is not available(but may open up on a chronicle)

Yes, it could mean that the document is the work of fallible human beings. That's the point. If this isn't pointed out to them, it will not be fixed; that's why this matters. It's far better that we do this here and get it changed now than a bunch of players do it to their GMs next week and we wind up with a bunch of necessary character rewrites after the eventual clarification. The fact that it calls out skill unlocks and Signature Skill separately is the real kicker here that makes it more than possible to argue that they're referring to both things, not just one and using Signature Skill as shorthand. It's sloppily written, but the literal reading is that Signature Skill is available to characters with Rogue's Edge (and only characters with Rogue's Edge). We can infer a whole bunch of things about what was intended, but none of those are what it says.

I'm expecting that they disallow the feat and edit the wording because they're game designers, not implicit logicians.

It's clear that they don't want the feat to be legal- -they want the only way to gain the effects of the feat to be via the rogue's edge class ability.

It's arguing like this that gets things banned.

Well yes, that's the point. I strongly believe that allowing Signature Skill is not what was intended; I'm just not pretending that everything is already fine with the wording to make that happen.

Renegade Paladin wrote:

If you think Paizo's policies are hostile, you should see Games Workshop's.

I'm ignorant of all things Games Workshop. What do you mean?

Well it's not really on topic, but since you ask, they allow one of the lowest margins in the business between MSRP and what they charge wholesale, they're incredibly secretive about their upcoming release schedules (as in, nobody including the retailer knows until the week before), they're incredibly bad about barriers to entry in their games, and they won't even permit a la carte stocking (to be permitted to stock certain things that aren't just the basic model lines the retailer has to buy a full retail kit that they can't adjust to their customer needs - my local shop has no Warhammer Fantasy or LotR miniatures game players, so to do this they'd have to sink a bunch of money into stock that would never move), just to name the major issues. (This is separate from how they treat customers at their own company-owned shops, where they focus on hustling product to new people and established players really aren't welcome to stand around taking up demo space playing games.) The major game shop in the next city over from me stopped stocking their products a few years ago over it.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. :P

Okay, I'm not going to spoiler this deliberately because seriously players should know:

And, as an additional thought: All the Free RPG Day modules can be run for PFS credit. They all take about 4 hours to run, give 1 XP and 1 or 2 PP, and 2 GM table credits.

And will kill all your characters. :P

Getting to level 11 is not a difficult or time consuming task. We have players that started playing less than a year ago and have two 12+ characters and 3-4 in the 7-11 tier. We have people who have been playing about two years that have 5-6 12+ characters.

I do understand that not everywhere has the ability to field as many games as the NorCal but the assumption that level 11 is a hard to accomplish or even time consuming is just not accurate.

Yeah, it really kind of is. It's extremely difficult to get characters above 5th level around here because someone's always bringing a new character and you have to play down, and then the GMs (which will be the ones with the higher level characters) have to make new low-level characters to apply the credit to, and you wind up with a horde of characters in the 1 to 5 range and none above 6th level. My primary is newly 5th level and you know what I had to do to get to play him at all in the last year to get there? Go to a local convention and hope we got enough experienced players. Seriously. And I did get to play him once - in a table of 3, while there was a six person game of The Wounded Wisp going on at the next table over.

This isn't a bad state of affairs by any means; we have lots of fun with it. But it does mean that if any of our local core players and GMs (who are the same people, by the by) get to play in the upper mid levels at all it'll be because they went to Gen Con to grind for four days.

Hey just curious if we know the answer to this question. Does the Campaign management know all they are going to allow and not allow and whatnot already or are they going to need to figure things out for sure after it's released? If they already know are they going to publish that the same day it's released?

I'd like to know because the speed at which I buy unchained will be correlated to how much and how soon it's PFS legal.

They may know, but they won't tell us until after release... because that would necessitate telling us what's in the book before it's released. ;)

The cleric has a capstone. It is this entry on the table, under the subheading "9th" under the heading "Spells Per Day:"

4+1

That is all the capstone the cleric, or any other full caster, needs. Those who whine for more don't know what they've got.

This is Paizo's messageboard = all of your ideas are belong to Paizo.

Mr. Wertz has already alluded to this above, but that part of the TOS has to be there because if it wasn't some smartass could come post something potentially valuable on the message board and then sue Paizo for transmitting it without his permission. You'll find it's standard boilerplate on the terms of every major message board and social media platform there is for that reason.

The trouble with rewriting the Core Rulebook in the same organization as the Strategy Guide is not only that it would have to be two books (as already mentioned) - which isn't so much of a problem since in 3.5 it was two books - but that to follow that organization logically feats and so forth would be printed along with the classes that most usually take them, which even if the rules don't explicitly straitjacket how one builds, would leave the impression that they do just that. The Core Rulebook is a reference; it's difficult to read in the same fashion that a dictionary is difficult to read and for the same reason. It's not good for learning how to play from scratch, but it's great as a reference tool for someone who already does know how to play. That's why the Strategy Guide now exists, and it should have existed long before now.

And now that I actually have my hands on the book, I have to say that I am in fact not surprised - the book doesn't tell you to do any of the many possible broken combos that you can get in core. "If you're doing X, take Y thing that lets you do X" isn't min/maxing by any stretch, and that's all the book really does besides give simplified explanations of the rules.

Don't hate me... To me this is the WORST book out so far. I got mine and find this book great if you are a new player, or you want to Min/Max your character so bad it is not funny.

I am seeing more and more of Pathfinder becoming a Min/Maxer system. I see it in PFS, I see it in regular play. This book offers nothing to a player of more than 5 year.

If your new to Pen and Pager RPG, then this book might be for you, that is if you want to make a character that is so bad arse they can kill a dragon at 5th level. If you want to play a good realiastic flawed character that is far more fun to RP... then avoid this book.

But do not take advice from a gamer of 30+ years, unless you want good advice

Given how phenomenally bad Paizo's design team seems to be at building min/maxed or even effective characters (to judge from the NPCs present in every AP, module, the NPC Codex, or the Pathfinder Society pregens), I'll be genuinely surprised if this is actually true.

PS: "Take power attack" doesn't count as min/maxing; that's basic competency.

I have to wonder about the design reasoning behind making the swashbuckler have a poor Fortitude save when both its parent classes (fighter and gunslinger) have the good Fortitude save progression. It leaves a gaping hole in the defenses they really need in their role on the front line, and I don't see any reason why it would be a balance concern - they're not so ungodly powerful that they need to fall over dead the first time a necromancer looks their direction just to make up for it.

Here is one round for my high level cleric (who was a straight CRB cleric, human, healing and knowledge domains).

Free action (from Relentless Healing 1st mythic tier ability): Intensified Mythic Heal from a distance of 30 ft (using Faith's Reach 1st mythic tier ability) to get the paladin from -200 hitpoints to positive 100.

Already you're breaking the rules. Even mythic heal caps at 225, and Intensified Spell alters damage dice, which heal doesn't have.

Swift action: Mythic maximized empowered persistent blade barrier (maximized using divine metamastery 3rd tier ability [taken three times] in order to maximize all spells for a minute) placed through the mass of bad guys. Remember, mythic blade barrier is an immediate not a standard. They all make their saves and avoid damage, choose to stay in front of it.

That's a tenth level spell, even with Divine Metamastery. This isn't 3.0 D&D Epic rules, so where did you get the slot?

Standard action: Do another blade barrier in same spot. Same results. (note that the previous round I also did this twice in the same way)

So you have four tenth level spell slots?

At this point my intelligent cloak which casts as a wizard drops enervation on the one enemy who has teleported behind us.

Given the limitations of the Spellcasting legendary ability for legendary items, I sincerely doubt it actually casts as a full wizard. Also, it specifically says that the wielder must activate the spellcasting, so what action did you spend on doing this?

Second standard action: (from burning a mythic point, everyone who's mythic gets this at I think 3rd tier or so). Shape Channel at the mass of bad guys in front of me, deselecting the three party members in melee with them. Regardless of whether they save against the channel, they get pushed back thirty feet. So take 10D6/2 damage from the channel, and then get thrown through 4 mythic empowered persistent maximized blade barriers. Roll your saves twice. DC 35 I think is what it was up to. This killed four of the five bad guys in the fight regardless of whether they made every single save. I think it was something like between 400 and 800 damage to all of them, which none of them were surviving even at full health.

Second tier, actually; it's part of Amazing Initiative. It's worth noting that the extra standard action can't be used to cast spells, though you didn't do that here. I sincerely hope that your opponents were undead, by the by, since Shape Channel's knockback effect specifically says it happens when you damage creatures, and the next thing you did pretty clearly says your character is a positive channeler.

Move action: quick channel just for the hell of it, to heal everyone close to full.

It's the individual power of anything I did, it's the fact that without doing anything cheesy I effectively got to take 6 actions in a single round. Yeah, it burned a half dozen mythic points ... but I had over twenty and this was a boss fight, so that's not even an impressive number of resources burned.

You noted you did this for two rounds, so it's more than that. ;) Also, it means the combat actually lasted for two rounds. When playing high-level rocket tag, even without mythic rules, that's pretty good.

At any rate, your account is pretty questionable by the actual rules involved.

I was a big naysayer about this book when it was announced. After all I've been playing this game (and its predecessor) for fifteen years and almost everyone in my group is the same way; when we get a new player we teach him or her better than a guidebook ever could. But last Saturday I had a large influx of new players at the local shop's monthly Pathfinder Society meet, and I didn't have time to help them all make characters - and wound up running with what turned out to be a druid who had not only made some suboptimal build decisions (I can handle that much) but hadn't even prepared spells.

It was kind of eye-opening. That sort of event is wonderful; I love seeing new blood in the game. But the session wound up being below my usual standards; most of the other veterans didn't show up this month for one reason or another so I had to do everything myself and didn't have all the time I needed to prep the adventure and still help everyone with their characters - so we wound up with unprepared characters and a half-prepared GM. Having something I can just hand a new guy and let him loose with (other than the CRB, because that clearly didn't work) would be a godsend if that ever happens again - and I sincerely hope it will, less the preparation issues. If this book is that, then I'll gladly pick up a copy just to have on hand at PFS, though I'll likely never use it myself.

Is Onyeka Chaotic Good or True Neutral? Her stat block says one and her description says the other. Either one is legal (wouldn't have been in 3.5, which almost threw me for a second) but they're radically different in how they behave beyond the narrow confines of her description.

Edit: Also, I believe from context that Fimbrik has a cane in his hand, not a can. ;)

Alignment is basically a mechanic for spells and abilities.

Someone who is 100% Lawful Good is probably worse than someone who is Chaotic Evil.

They really are exactly the same, except that the Lawful Good, claims divine right, while the Chaotic Evil claims well nothing not even that they did it.

I'm thinking maybe I need to do some research on the most vile code of conduct in history and base a paladin on that, and then totally justify why I am slaughtering everything. All I need is to start with a convert to my religion or die, now I can kill everyone with impunity and be just as bad as any chaotic evil, maybe even worse.

in other words : do not fret about alignment it is just a mechanic for spells, everything else is justifiable.

That's exactly what an evil person would say. :p

Saint, let me give you a real-life, not-making-this-up example.

I've met a pair of GMs who've advanced the following argument: "the Pathfinder Society uses smugglers to get goods into Absalom. Missions often involve breaking laws to get into a site or get out stealing artifacts. It is, essentially, a criminal enterprise, wrapped in lofty rhetoric. Paladins cannot function as pawns of that organization. If I have a paladin sit at my table, I'll ask him if he accepts the mission briefing. If he does, he falls." They are otherwise okay GMs.

So, let's say your only character in-tier is a paladin. Are you sure you'd want to bring him to that table, to argue for an hour? Wouldn't you rather play a pre-gen?

Dude. There are canon examples of Pathfinder paladins, Ollysta Zadrian foremost among them. They can't do that. Do they also do this to clerics, warpriests, etc of lawful good/paladin-sponsoring deities? A cleric of Iomedae isn't held to much in the way of a different standard.

Edit: Actually I'm hitting FAQ on this, because it's a major problem. Is the above-described behavior actually within a GM's authority?

Chris Mortika wrote:

Nicely said, Sebastian.

Saint, let me give you a real-life, not-making-this-up example.

I've met a pair of GMs who've advanced the following argument: "the Pathfinder Society uses smugglers to get goods into Absalom. Missions often involve breaking laws to get into a site or get out stealing artifacts. It is, essentially, a criminal enterprise, wrapped in lofty rhetoric. Paladins cannot function as pawns of that organization. If I have a paladin sit at my table, I'll ask him if he accepts the mission briefing. If he does, he falls." They are otherwise okay GMs.

Then those GMs would be welcomed to my banned list. There's no way I'd want to play with someone pulling that kind of GM power-trip dick move. PFS is supposed to be fun, not incessant mental gymnastics pimped around by abusive fiat pedants.

Hear, hear!

Depending on the scenario, it can be trivially easy to solo the final boss. I did it accidentally once because it turned out that the boss in tier 3-4 was a second level caster multiclass, and she stood in charge range. No pounce shenanigans involved; it was literally one shot one kill, basic greatsword power attack plus smite evil. So I suppose, since Pummeling Charge would let the monk roughly equal that damage, it could let the monk solo some final encounters in similar manner, but that's the scenario's fault. The bottom line is that there's nothing broken about the ability, and the only reason for the ban that I can see is some vague, unsubstantiated sense of "That's not a thing he should be able to do."

Just like Precise Strike and two weapon fighting, even though that's totally a thing. :p

Valeros, just for the novelty of the fact his build cheats. He gets two listed attacks with his short sword as part of his full attack, despite not having Improved Two-Weapon Fighting. :p I suppose whoever wrote the pregens realizes the undeniable truth that the whole TWF feat chain should just be one feat that scales with BAB. ;)

Mahtobedis wrote:

Prestige has less purchasing power that gold.

Except for retraining.

And having your corpse scraped off the dungeon floor.

Some classes are designed to do lots of damage. Some are designed to cast spells. Some are designed to pick locks and disable traps.

The Monk has a bunch of other things they can do. Their schtick is not just to deal damage. But if you put their damage output even partially on par with a Fighter or Barbarian built specifically to do tons of damage, and they still can do all the other things a monk can do without damage output... you start to merge into the realm of unbalanced.

So while the base damage output might not be gross when compared to a reasonably powered Paladin or Barbarian, it is gross when compared to what a Monk should be doing.

Balance between classes is not all about DPR.

The other things a monk can do are relatively negligible, on par with the other things a barbarian or paladin can do at best. Barbarians have the skill points and class skills to do all manner of things other than beat people with an axe, and paladins have pretty beefy party buffs and healing as well as non-combat class skills (my paladin single-handedly carried a scenario earlier this month on the strength of his Diplomacy skill; the aforementioned greatsword only came out once to smite a bearded devil that was hiding in a closet). Monks have a lot of corner-case and outright extraneous abilities, but that doesn't make for extraordinary utility accounting for what most of them actually do.

I created a Brawler (mutagentic mauler) / Bloodrager 2nd level character. When raging and mutagen enhanced I get two claw attacks for 1d6+7.

If I dipped MoMS at 3rd level and took Pummeling Charge, I could do 4d6 +28 damage on a crit.

Does that sound like the damage a 3rd level character should be doing?

14 Str, power attacking greatsword paladin, critting on smite at 3rd level. 4d6+18 and I'm not trying very hard. Let's make it a greataxe; 3d12+18 instead. Go for a Strength build; 16's easy to do, 18 if you're willing to dump Int and/or Wis. It's very easy to get in that ballpark if you're talking about crit damage; we didn't even go into scythes.

Michael Brock wrote:

Why arbitrarily put a cap limit on initiative. If we put a cap on max damage, wouldn't that also solve the problem? If you capped damage at 4 per character per round, that means every player would get at least one turn in a combat. If this is a problem, this is something that needs to be addressed at the core game level, not just PFS.

Because initiative would be the easiest issue to fix. If the damage was capped at 4 per attack, you could easily get extra attacks through several other means. Once the initiative modifier is in place, it's not as easy to increase as the number of attacks.

But initiative is not the issue. If your combats are ending in one round, they would end in one round whether the person ending them went on 15 or 35; the problem is the encounter being too easy or not played to its strengths, not the initiative scores being too high.

As I discovered in my very first run through First Steps, it turns out a first level paladin with a greatsword and Power Attack can one-shot an imp. =D I bombed initiative, and went after the rest of the (large) party flailing uselessly at it before calmly stepping up, activating Smite Evil, and cleaving the rat bastard skull to sternum. Damage reduction? What's that? :p

I just got done putting a level 7 TWF slayer through his paces over in the Playtest Feedback forum if anyone wants to give it a look. :)

As I pointed out in the post, it isn't as simple as saying "We don't want the spells we don't want included, we only want the spells we want included"

You make it personal only and not only do you you include a bunch of spells you probably didn't intend, but you miss a lot you did, including the weapon buffs.

You make it touch...good lord then do you include to many problems...

...the warpriest can cast any one warpriest spell prepared with a casting time of one standard action or less by expending one point per two levels of the spell (minimum 1), provided the spell targets the warpriest, his wielded weapon, or his worn armor.

There. Done. Two pages ago, in fact. Actually thirty pages ago, for the iteration that was written with uses/day instead of a point pool shared with Sacred Weapon/Armor. Includes the Target: You spells as well as the weapon and armor buffs (though GMW and magic vestment are both hour/level duration, so there's no real need to use them as a swift action anyway), shield of faith, and the stat buffs. Excludes every offensive spell with the exception of prayer, which is dual use. So what's the problem?

I've secured the kind permission of Squirrel_Dude to use the scenario he playtested a solo warpriest in to test out the Slayer. I'm not a charop genius and the build could probably be a lot better, but I'd like to think it's competent. :p

At any rate, our intrepid hero, Slayer McSlaytester, has been hired to retrieve some stolen items from a chest in an old temple ruin that is currently a Basilisk's lair. The stash is relatively small and lightly protected besides the nearby hostile inhabitants that sometimes wander through the area. It is located in a canyon cut into the mountains west of the Katapesh desert, so the Slayer may need to be prepared for less than hospitable conditions during the 2 hour trek back and forth. You've heard rumors that some gnoll mercenaries have been hired to prevent you from achieving your goal, and that they left for the region the evening before.

The challenges required are:

1.) The two-hour trek through the desert.
2.) 2 Gnoll mercenaries at the mouth of the canyon CR 4
3.) Climbing a cliff face
4.) 2 Ships in a bottle CR 4
5.) Locked Door
6.) Basilisk CR 5
7.) Trapped Chest CR 3

Challenge 1: The Trek Across the Desert.
The DC for Survival checks to keep from getting lost and to gain a bonus to saves against extreme weather are 15. Slayer's bonus is +14. Fortitude save each hour against extreme heat: 23, 20. Success.

Encounter 1: 2 Gnoll Mercs As Slayer walked towards the location of the cave entrace, he moved around a hill and saw smoke rising from behind the rocks in front of him. It was clear, the gnolls had already arrived and were waiting for him. Slayer drew his longbow and began sneaking toward the cave, moving between rocks and scrub sage trying to catch the gnolls before they caught him.

Challenge 2: Climbing the Wall
On the path to the stash, there is a large stone wall with some small handholds that the slayer is going to need to climb (DC 20). The wall is 30 ft. tall, so it will take at least two success for Slayer McSlaytester to successfully climb it. Failure by 5 or more slides him 10 ft. back down the wall. It’s a simple skill challenge. Trying to see how long this takes.

Encounter 2: Flying Bottles

At the top of the cliff was a large open area of sand, across which was the ruined temple Slayer sought. As he tucked away his climbing gear and stepped out towards it, however, he noticed the sun glinting off a pair of objects in the air between him and his objective. Looking up, he saw a pair of model ships in bottles flying towards him, miniature ballistae drawn back menacingly.

Challenge 3: Getting In

Slayer has found the entrance to the lair, but the door is locked. Not being particularly skilled at picking locks, he resigns himself to an unstealthy entrance and gets out his crowbar.

Encounter 3: Basilisk

Warned of the nature of the beast he hunts, Slayer got out the set of smoked goggles in his rucksack and put them on. The sunlight dimmed, but he could see well enough, and would be protected from the basilisk's baleful gaze. He moved to the ruined doorway, looking inside at the L-shaped room. Besides a chest lit by sunlight from a hole in the wall, the room is dark. There is no sign of the basilisk. Slayer lit the hooded lantern he carried and, sword in one hand and lantern in the other, stepped through to the room beyond. He heard a hiss and snapped his head and sword to the right to find himself starting straight into the eyes of the monster.

The beast slain, Slayer took off his smoked goggles and turned his attention to the chest at the back of the room. Sheathing his swords, he went to pick up his lantern and examined the chest.

Two hour trek home through the desert, still DC 15 per hour. 6+14=20, 8+14=22. Success.

Overall, having a lone, non-magical melee type go on a solo mission is just asking for trouble. Barring specialist equipment he'd have failed beyond recovery. However, he chewed things up and spit them out in melee and was competent at ranged combat.

Favored Target being a move action to activate was kind of a pain. It limited mobility, greatly limited two-weapon fighting (though that's more an issue with two-weapon fighting than the class; I could have just used a greatsword), and was just a general drag on the action economy for a pretty minor bonus. Of note: When you get multiple favored targets at 5th level and beyond, I presume it's a move action to designate each one, as readers of the playtest may have noted. I'm pretty sure that's how it reads, in which case it becomes more of a drag on the action economy until 10th level when it can be done as a swift or move action, but even then you can designate two per round (if you still lose your move action for it) and have 3+ simultaneous uses of it to distribute.

Sneak attack only came into play once in a surprise round. Not too shocking considering he had no one to flank with, but there it is. The class needs to look elsewhere for reliable damage.

Skills felt a little constrained; you may notice I chose to use my favored class bonus on skill points rather than HP, and that was with being human.

Mobility was pretty nice, but then I consciously chose the light armor route and ranks in Acrobatics and Climb.

That's about all I've got. Hope it's useful. :)

I will also say that the Range: Personal, Target: You cleric buffs, especially divine power, are standard actions because the theory at the time (in 3.0 D&D design) was that the spells would be used as a last resort, that the cleric could stand in as a second-line combatant when the fighter needed help. Of course it didn't work out that way with Divine Metamagic, but we need to keep in mind that while that's a balancing factor aimed at the cleric, what's being designed here is the warpriest. He's not a second-line combatant; it is his job to wade into the fray right alongside martial characters without a second thought. That is why allowing casting buffs in combat is a good idea; it's what lets him fill his role in the traditional manner of the combat cleric (again, while not being as overpowering due to delayed spell access).

Magus does it just fine and the game hasn't come crashing down around our ears. And the magus' mechanic is much less limited than anything anyone's proposed for the warpriest so far.

Revision, accounting for suggestions from Craft (Cheese) and Psyren, bringing the swift casting function more into line with the power level of Spell Combat while retaining a separate mechanic, and further enhancing the favored weapon:

Sacred Power (Su): At 3rd level, the warpriest gains a reservoir of divine power that he can call upon to aid him in battle. This reservoir has a number of points equal to 1/2 his warpriest level + his Wisdom modifier. Once per round as a free action, the warpriest can cast any one warpriest spell prepared with a casting time of one standard action or less by expending one point per two levels of the spell (minimum 1), provided the spell targets the warpriest, his wielded weapon, or his worn armor. This does not provoke an attack of opportunity. This use of the ability must be used in conjunction with a full attack or the charge action, and occurs at the beginning of the warpriest's turn.

Alternately, as a swift action, the warpriest can spend a point from this pool to add a +1 enhancement bonus to any weapon he is holding for 1 minute. For every four levels beyond 3rd, the weapon gains another +1 enhancement bonus, to a maximum of +5 at 19th level. These bonuses can be added to the weapon, stacking with existing weapon enhancement to a maximum of +5. Multiple uses of this ability do not stack with themselves. If this ability targets the warpriest's focus weapon, the weapon gains an additional +1 enhancement bonus, adding another +1 enhancement bonus for every three levels beyond 3rd, to a maximum of +7 at 18th level. This stacks with existing weapon enhancements on a focus weapon to a maximum of +7. At 6th level, the warpriest can imbue a weapon with any of the following weapon properties: brilliant energy, defending, disruption, flaming, frost, keen, and shock. In addition, if the warpriest is chaotic, he can add anarchic and vicious. If he is evil, he can add mighty cleaving and unholy. If he is good, he can add holy and merciful. If he is lawful, he can add axiomatic and ghost touch. Adding any of these properties consumes an amount of bonus equal to the properties base cost (see Table 15–9 of the Core Rulebook). Duplicate abilities do not stack. The weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus before any other properties can be added, whether normally from itself or granted by this ability.

At 7th level, the warpriest can expend one point from the reservoir to imbue his armor with divine power for one minute as a swift action. This power grants the armor a +1 enhancement bonus. For every three levels beyond 7th, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 19th level. These bonuses stack with any existing bonuses the armor might have, to a maximum of +5. The warpriest can imbue armor any of the following armor properties: energy resistance (normal, improved, and greater), fortification (heavy, light, or moderate), glamered, and spell resistance (13, 15, 17, and 19). Adding any of these properties consumes an amount of bonus equal to the properties' base cost (see Table 15–4 of the Core Rulebook). For this purpose, glamered counts as a +1, energy resistance counts as +2, improved energy resistance counts as +4, and greater energy resistance counts as +5. Duplicate abilities do not stack. The armor must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus before any other properties can be added, whether normally from itself or granted by this ability.

And yes, I do realize that this makes the warpriest, at high levels, able to just pick up a completely mundane example of his deity's favored weapon and boost it to artifact levels of power. I'm fine with that, considering what else they lose out on at high levels with only six level casting. The scaling mechanic for focus weapons might be a little borked, but numbers are easier to tweak than the base mechanic they're attached to. Ideas always welcome; I'd like us to have something useful for the devs to consider when they get back on Monday. :)

Okay. Just to get away from the Sacred Weapon thing for a bit, I'm going to bring back some suggestions for the class's other mechanics that kind of got buried under the back and forth. I'll give each topic its own post for ease of quoting and discussion. First, Craft (Cheese)'s idea for revamping Blessings:

Hey guys, I've been spending the past day or so going over and playtesting various Warpriest ideas, and I've decided to rewrite every single blessing available for the warpriest at the moment. I'm pretty happy with most of the results, save the following: I'm not really sure what to do with the Nobility or Rune blessings, so I've left them pretty much as-is. I also don't feel the current Death blessing abilities are appropriate for a Warpriest of Pharasma, but neither were the originals. Also, we still need blessings for the Scalykind and Void domains: I'm guessing those were low-priority since none of the core deities have those. I'm not sure what to do with those, either.

Spoiler:

Air
Deities: Gozreh, Shelyn
Zephyr's Gift (Minor): Any ranged weapon the warpriest holds gains the quality of air. Making ranged attacks with this weapon never provokes an attack of opportunity, and the range increment of the weapon increases by 5 feet per class level.
Soaring Assault (Major): The Warpriest gains a fly speed of 60 feet with average maneuverability, and a bonus on fly skill checks equal to his class level. Whenever you succeed at a charge attack while flying, that attack deals additional electricity damage equal to your class level. This is a supernatural ability.

Animal
Deities: Erastil, Gozreh
Animal Fury (Minor): The Warpriest gains 2 claw attacks or 1 bite attack (the decision is made when the ability is gained). These attacks deal appropriate damage for the warpriest's size. These are primary natural attacks that replace any similar primary natural attacks the warpriest may already have.
Call of the Wild (Major): The Warpriest gains Scent, Low-Light Vision, and Darkvision out to 60 feet (if he already possessed Darkvision, its range extends by 60 ft.). As a swift action, the Warpriest gains a +2 morale bonus to Strength or Dexterity (warpriest's choice) until the end of his turn. This bonus increases to +4 at 15th level, and +6 at 20th level.

Artifice
Deities: Torag
Crafter's Wrath (Minor): The Warpriest gains a +4 morale bonus to damage rolls against constructs and objects (including damage rolls for sunder combat maneuvers). The warpriest also gains Improved Sunder as a bonus feat.
Enhance Magic (Major): As a swift action, you may activate your Sacred Weapon or Sacred Armor ability, gaining an enhancement bonus on your armor or weapon 2 points greater than otherwise. These points may be used to grant the item magic properties, as normal.

Chaos
Deities: Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Desna, Gorum, Lamashtu, Rovagug
Anarchic Strike (Minor): Any weapon you hold deals an extra 1d6 points of damage against lawful creatures. This bonus damage doesn't stack with the anarchic weapon special ability.
Strike of Limitless Chaos (Major): As a swift action, the next attack you make with your weapon stuns a lawful creature it strikes, unless that creature succeeds at a will save. A Lawful Outsider takes a -4 penalty to this save. If the creature it strikes isn't Lawful, or misses, this ability does nothing and is wasted.

Charm
Deities: Calistra, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber, Shelyn
Forceful Domination (Minor): As a swift action, you can issue a Command (as the spell) to 1 enemy within 30 feet. It must succeed at a will saving throw or submit for 1 round.
Charming Presence (Major): The warpriest becomes strangely mesmerizing, as the effects of a Sanctuary spell, save that if the warpriest attacks an enemy the effect is only broken towards that enemy. This is a mind-affecting effect.

Community
Deities: Erastil
Communal Aid (Minor): Whenever the Warpriest uses the Aid Another action, the bonus is increased to +4.
Arrow Deflection (Major): As a swift action, you can touch a shield to give it the Arrow Deflection ability for 1 minute. In addition, any projectile or thrown weapon aimed at a target within 30 feet of the shield's bearer diverts from its original target and targets the bearer instead.

Darkness
Deities: Zon-Kuthon
Enshrouding Darkness (Minor): The warpriest becomes cloaked in shadows. All attacks against him have a miss chance equal to 5% * half his class level (minimum 5%). This ability does not work in full daylight. Creatures able to see normally in supernatural darkness ignore this miss chance. This miss chance does not stack with miss chance granted from any other source, such as concealment.
Darkened Vision (Major): As a swift action, any successful attack you make with your weapon until the beginning of your next turn blinds the target as blindness/deafness for 1 minute, unless the target succeeds at a will saving throw.

Death
Deities: Norgorber, Pharasma, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon
From the Grave (Minor): You gain a corpse-like visage, making you more intimidating and giving you undead-like protection. You gain a +4 bonus to Intimidate checks, and to Disguise checks to resemble an undead creature, as well as a +2 bonus on saving throws against disease, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, and stun.
Death's Touch (Major): As a swift action when you hit an opponent with a melee attack, the target gains 1 temporary negative level for 1 minute. These temporary negative levels stack. You gain 1d6 temporary hit points when you inflict a negative level this way.

Destruction
Deities: Gorum, Nethys, Rovagug, Zon-Kuthon
Destructive Attacks (Minor): As a swift action, all attacks you make with your weapon this turn gain a morale bonus to damage rolls equal to half your level (minimum 1).
Heart of Carnage (Major): The critical threat range of any weapon you hold increases by 1. This benefit is not doubled by effects such as the Improved Critical feat or the Keen weapon property, but it does stack with those effects.

Earth
Deities: Gorum, Nethys
Acid Strike (Minor): As a swift action, all attacks you make with your weapon for 1 minute deals an additional 1d4 points of acid damage with each strike. This bonus damage does not stack with the corrosive weapon special ability.
Armor of Earth (Major): Your skin hardens like stone. You gain DR 3/-. If you already have DR 3/- or greater, this DR increases by 1 point, to a maximum of DR 15/-.

Evil
Deities: Asmodeus, Lamashtu, Norgorber, Rovagug, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon
Unholy Strike (Minor): Any weapon you hold deals an extra 1d6 points of damage against good creatures. This bonus damage does not stack with the unholy weapon special ability.
Strike of Unspeakable Evil (Major): As a swift action, the next attack you make with your weapon stuns a good creature it strikes, unless that creature succeeds at a will save. A Good Outsider takes a -4 penalty to this save. If the creature it strikes isn't Good, or misses, this ability does nothing and is wasted.

Fire
Deities: Asmodeus, Sarenrae
Flaming Strike (Minor): As a swift action, all attacks you make with your weapon for 1 minute deals an additional 1d4 points of fire damage with each strike. This bonus damage does not stack with the flaming or flaming burst weapon special abilities.
Armor of Flame (Major): The warpriest becomes wrapped in flames. You become under the constant effect of a Fire Shield (warm shield only). You may suppress or resume this ability as a free action.

Glory
Deities: Gorum, Iomedae, Sarenrae
Glorious Presence (Minor): The Warpriest gains Intimidate as a class skill, and may add his Wisdom modifier to his Charisma modifier for the purposes of making Diplomacy and Intimidate checks.
Demoralizing Glory (Major): As a swift action when you damage an opponent with an attack, you can attempt to demoralize that opponent with the Intimidate skill, using your Warpriest level in place of your ranks in Intimidate.

Good
Deities: Cayden Cailean, Desna, Erastil, Iomedae, Sarenrae, Shelyn, Torag
Holy Strike (Minor): Any weapon you hold deals an extra 1d6 points of damage against good creatures. This bonus damage does not stack with the unholy weapon special ability.
Strike of Overwhelming Good (Major): As a swift action, the next attack you make with your weapon stuns an evil creature it strikes, unless that creature succeeds at a will save. An Evil Outsider takes a -4 penalty to this save. If the creature it strikes isn't evil, or misses, this ability does nothing and is wasted.

Healing
Deities: Irori, Pharasma, Sarenrae
Close Wounds (Minor): As an immediate action, one ally within 60 feet heals 1d8 points of damage for every 4 warpriest levels you possess (minimum 1d8). If this ability is used in response to that creature taking damage, the damage this ability heals is considered to be prevented. (For example, if you use this ability when an ally would be reduced to below -10 hit points, and this ability heals them above -10 hit points, that ally does not die.)
Fast Healing (Major): The Warpriest gains Fast Healing 1.

Knowledge
Deities: Calistria, Irori, Nethys, Norgorber, Pharasma
Lore Keeper (Minor): Whenever you make a knowledge check to learn a creature's strengths and weaknesses, you may add your Wisdom modifier as a bonus to the check. You gain all Knowledge skills as class skills.
Monster Lore (Major): As a swift action, you may make a check against all creatures present to learn about their strengths and weaknesses (this is considered only one use of the blessing no matter how many creatures there are). You be trained in the appropriate knowledge skill to make this check. Against any creatures for which the check succeeds, you gain a +4 insight bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, AC, and saving throws for 1 minute.

Law
Deities: Abadar, Asmodeus, Erastil, Iomedae, Irori, Torag, Zon-Kuthon
Axiomatic Strike (Minor): Any weapon you hold deals an extra 1d6 points of damage against chaotic creatures. This bonus damage does not stack with the axiomatic weapon special ability.
Strike of Perfect Order (Major): As a swift action, the next attack you make with your weapon stuns a chaotic creature it strikes, unless that creature succeeds at a will save. A Chaotic Outsider takes a -4 penalty to this save. If the creature it strikes isn't Chaotic, or misses, this ability does nothing and is wasted.

Liberation
Deities: Desna
Liberation (Minor): As a swift action you can ignore impediments to your mobility for 1 round, as freedom of movement. You may activate this blessing even if you're unable to take actions, but not if you are unconscious.
Freedom's Call (Major): You emit an aura of freedom. You and all allies within 30 feet become immune to the confused, dazed, grappled, frightened, panicked, paralyzed, pinned, shaken, or stunned conditions.

Luck
Deities: Calistra, Desna, Shelyn
Lucky Surge (Minor): Whenever you roll an attack roll, skill check, or saving throw, as a swift action you can roll twice and take the higher result.
Unlucky Aura (Major): All enemies within 30 feet of you take a -2 luck penalty to attack rolls, skill checks, AC, and saving throws.

Madness
Deities: Lamashtu
Vision of Insanity (Minor): As a swift action, you may confuse a creature within 30 feet for 1 round that fails a will save, as the spell Lesser Confusion. The creature rerolls any result except "Attack Self" or "Babble Incoherently." This is a mind-affecting ability.
Aura of Nightmares (Major): Any creature that comes within 30 feet of you gains the Shaken condition. This bypasses immunity to fear, but does not stack with any other fear effect.

Magic
Deities: Asmodeus, Nethys, Urgathoa
Magical Surge (Minor): Any allied spellcaster within 10 feet of you gains a +1 bonus to their spell's caster level or saving throw DCs; The spellcaster chooses which benefit their spell gets at the time of the casting of the spell. This ability does not work on your own spells.
Eldritch Disruption (Major): As a swift action, you can select 1 creature within 30 feet: That creature loses all ability to cast spells or use its spell-like or supernatural abilities, as if it were in an antimagic field, for 1 round.

Nobility
Deities: Abadar
Inspiring Word (Minor): As a swift action you can speak an inspiring word to a creature within 30 feet. The creature receives a +2 morale bonus to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws for 1 round. You cannot use this ability on yourself.
Lead By Example (Major): You can inspire allies to follow your lead. If you take an action on your turn, all allies within 30 feet who take the same action on their next turn gain a +4 morale bonus to the attack roll, skill check, ability check, or saving throw to complete that action. For example, if you charge an opponent and make a melee attack, and an ally also charges an opponent and makes a melee attack, she gains a +4 morale bonus on her attack roll.

Plant
Deities: Erastil, Gozreh
Entangling Vines (Minor): As a swift action, you can summon vines to entangle a creature within 60 feet for 1 round (reflex negates).
Tree Guardian (Major): By spending 10 minutes meditating beneath a tree, you can turn that tree into a Treant that serves you absolutely. You may only have one Treant at a time created this way: Creating another one turns the old one back into an ordinary tree.

Protection
Deities: Abadar, Nethys, Shelyn, Torag
Increased Defense (Minor): As a swift action, you can give yourself a +1 resistance bonus to all saving throws for 1 minute. This bonus increases to +2 at 5th level, and +1 for every 5 levels after that (to a maximum of +5 at 20th level). This resistance bonus stacks with any resistance bonus to saving throws you already have.
Aura of Protection (Major): You emit a 30-foot aura that fills allies with feelings of warmth and safety. You and your allies within this aura gain a +1 deflection bonus to AC and resistance 5 against acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic. The deflection bonus increases to +2 at 15th level and +3 at 20th level. At 15th level, the energy resistance increases to 10.

Repose
Deities: Pharasma
Gentle Rest (Minor): As a swift action, you can fill a creature within 30 feet with lethargy, causing it to be staggered for 1 round. If the creature is already staggered, it instead falls asleep for 1 round. An undead targeted by this ability is staggered for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom modifier instead (minimum 1).
Back to the Grave (Major): You gain Turn Undead as a bonus feat, even if you don't channel positive energy, and the save DC to resist being turned is increased by your Wisdom modifier. Any undead that fails its will save by 5 or more when you use this ability is destroyed utterly.

Rune
Deities: Irori, Nethys
Blast Rune (Minor): As a swift action, you can create a blast rune in any adjacent square. Any creature entering this square takes points of damage equal to 1d6 + half your class level. This rune deals either acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, designated when the rune is created. the rune lasts a number of rounds equal to your warpriest level or until discharged. You cannot create a blast rune in a square occupied by another creature. This rune counts as a 1st-level spell for the purposes of dispelling. It can be discovered with a DC 26 perception check, and disarmed with a DC 26 Disable Device check.
Spell-Storing Weapon (Major): As a standard action, you can cast a spell into a weapon as if it had the spell storing special ability. If the stored weapon is not used within 10 minutes, it dissapates.

Strength
Deities: Cayden Cailean, Gorum, Irori, Lamashtu, Urgathoa
Strength Surge (Minor): As a swift action, you gain a morale bonus equal to your class level (minimum +2) to your Strength for 1 round.
Strength of Will (Major): You can ignore the movement penalties from wearing medium and heavy armor (or carrying a medium or heavy load). You may add your Strength bonus on your saving throws against effects that would paralyze, slow, daze, or stun you.

Sun
Deities: Iomedae, Sarenrae
Blinding Strike (Minor): When you strike an opponent with an attack, as a swift action you can make it glow with a flash of sunlight. If the creature struck by the attack fails a reflex saving throw, it is blinded for 1 round; otherwise, it's dazzled for 1 round. This is a light effect. Creatures with light blindness or light sensitivity take a -4 penalty on this saving throw. Sightless creatures are unaffected by this ability.
Bane of Undead (Major): Any weapon you hold gains undead-slaying weapon special ability.

Travel
Deities: Abadar, Cayden Cailean, Desna
Agile Feet (Minor): You ignore all difficult terrain and take no penalties for moving through it.
Dimensional Hop (Major): As a swift action, you can use Dimension Door as a supernatural ability. At 20th level, you can instead use Greater Teleport as a supernatural ability.

Trickery
Deities: Asmodeus, Calistria, Lamashtu, Norgorber
Distraction (Minor): Any foe adjacent to you is considered to be flat-footed for the purposes of all effects except your own.
Greater Invisibility (Major): As a swift action, you can turn invisible, as the spell Greater Invisibility, for 1 round.

War
Deities: Gorum, Iomedae, Rovagug, Urgathoa
War Mind (Minor): You gain a bonus on all initiative checks equal to your Wisdom modifier. At 10th level, when you roll initiative, you may roll twice and take the higher result. At 20th level, you're always treated as if you rolled a natural 20 for your initiative check.
Weapon Master (Major): As a swift action, you can gain the benefits of any combat feat for 1 round, but you must meet the prerequisites of this feat.

Water
Deities: Gozreh, Pharasma
Frost Strike (Minor): As a swift action, all attacks you make with your weapon for 1 minute deals an additional 1d4 points of cold damage with each strike. This bonus damage does not stack with the frost or icy burst weapon special abilities.
Armor of Ice (Major): The warpriest becomes wrapped in freezing mist. You become under the constant effect of a Fire Shield (cold shield only). You may suppress or resume this ability as a free action.

Weather
Deities: Gozreh, Rovagug
Storm Strike (Minor): As a swift action, all attacks you make with your weapon for 1 minute deals an additional 1d4 points of electricity damage with each strike. This bonus damage does not stack with the shock or shocking burst weapon special abilities.
Wind Barrier (Major): The Warpriest is surrounded by a barrier of fast-moving winds. You are constantly protected by the effects of a Feather Fall and a Wind Wall, save that it doesn't interfere with your own ranged attacks.

There's some wording that could be cleared up (the major Sun blessing springs immediately to mind) and numbers that could be tweaked, but moving all the blessings to one passive ability and one swift-action activation each goes quite a way toward evening them in power, or at least making them more consistent (compare the current incarnation of Strength to current Destruction blessings, for instance).

Scavion wrote:

Really? Because the Warpriest has no limitations on his alignment in comparison to a deity.

A Warpriest is a Clerical class and therefore subject to the god interpretation of his duties and behavior regarding divine granted abilities.

A classic example of why I make optimization vs roleplaying comments.

No, it isn't. It doesn't say "cleric" at the top; it says "warpriest." It's a separate class with its own rules. As Kudaku asked, do you also interpret this to mean Bloodragers must be non-lawful? Brawlers must be lawful?

Furthermore, not only is this most emphatically not optimization versus roleplaying (being Lawful Evil isn't "optimized" for anything in particular except not having to deal with unholy blight and order's wrath), but the two aren't even opposed. I'm not particularly interested in hyper-optimization myself, but one of my players is, and not only does he make unkillable multiclass monstrosities to play in my games, but they're the most well-developed and deeply roleplayed characters in the entire game, and no one in my group is a slouch at that. :p

Moreover, Paladin's don't have any restrictions limiting them to being within one step of their deity's alignment, that's pretty much only Clerics. Some of you may recall the infamous "Paladins of Asmodeus" incident from a certain scenario.....

Since noted as an editing mistake and retconned, it should be pointed out.