Unclejunzo's page

How much do you want? Dwarves of Golarion and Inner Sea Gods both have 1 page about them, but they are quite redundant. Torag gets a lot of additional attention in Inner Sea Gods.

... a twenty page spread ala 2nd Ed. Demihuman Deities?

Barring that, though, I'd be happy with a few pages about the dwarf gods that aren't Torag. A few more details about the other gods of the pantheon, maybe a few feats focused around the dwarven pantheon, and maybe a generally applicable cleric archetype for clerics who don't worship a single god?

I don't know. It just feels like the dwarven pantheon is something that's been addressed enough to make it a good candidate for a book like this, without having been addressed so much as to make it redundant.

I'd love to see some fluff and crunch about the worship of the Dwarven pantheon. Please?

With where the class is now, I feel like you could drop the blessings entirely without changing the overall feel of the class or its power-level too much.

Currently, most of the abilities feel like they make too little impact for the strain they place on the class's already over-burdened action economy. That being said, there is already the sentiment that this class is too good. Buffing the blessings to a point where they're useful and interesting would probably strengthen those criticisms.

If blessings do stick around, I'm sort of torn as to how they should be implemented. On the one hand, I'd prefer to see them replaced with domains minus the bonus spells. Domains are well-supported, and mostly likely will continue to be going forward, so it would help future-proof the class to a certain extent. But, it's a kind of boring option that doesn't do much to differentiate the warpriest from the cleric.

On the other hand, you could go ahead and beef up the blessings. Some of the suggestions that have been made here, such as stance-like abilities or more active blessings, do sound like they could be really awesome and flavorful. But, you would likely have to tone down some of the other aspects of the class to compensate. And frankly, I'm not sure what I'd like to see the class give up to accommodate that.

Okay, or drop the part about requiring the weapon focus, but still have the damage increase only apply to the favored weapon. Full BAB would still apply to any weapon affected by sacred weapon.

It just seems like there is some concern that giving the damage increase to any sacred weapon will lead to an imbalance. I personally don't agree with that line of thinking, but it seems to exist. Since I think the intent of the damage increase was to make sub-par favored weapons more desirable, it seems reasonable to restrict it to only those weapons if we're needing a compromise. Which maybe we don't.

So, question for the crowd concerning Sacred Weapon and crits...

A. All sacred weapons have a standard crit range and multiplier (19-20/x2 or maybe 20/x3)?

B. Whenever a sacred weapon scores a crit, all of the additional damage is based off the original weapon damage?

C. It works as is (weapon damage scales, crit stats are drawn from the weapon, which means some will crit more often, but only for x2, others rarely but for x3)

So....

1. Which is easiest to use?
2. Which is the most balanced?
3. Which is the most fun?

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

1. I'm going back and forth on this, but for now I'm going to say C. The very slight problem with A is that you've now added a second variable to the mix. Say I have a kukri as my sacred weapon - low damage, great crit. The way the ability currently works I can choose to keep my original weapon damage. In this revised version would that apply for my critical range/multiplier as well? Or is it an all or nothing proposition?

2. I think A is the most balanced. How could it not be? Everything is exactly the same! In my opinion, that also makes it the most boring.

3. C.

That said, now that we get the freedom to choose, I think it might be reasonable to scratch the damage increase. Since we get to pick what we want, nobody is in a tight spot they can't get out of, unless they put themselves in that spot. The problem with the original class was that it pretty arbitrarily stuck some warpriests in a tight spot, while others got on fine.

This problem only really needed one of two fixes, and I think giving them both is a mistake, as it leads to new problems.

I think the damage increase should be retained, but only if weapon focus is taken for the deity's favored weapon, and then only for that weapon. That way both sides of the previous debate get a bone thrown their way. Those who want choice now have it, while those who want the flavor of using their deity's favored weapon get a substantial, but not overpowering, boon.

Madness Blessing (major) – Very selective use, first you would have to cause all those creatures to become confused. Granted if you pull it off it would be deadly, but I believe one would have to design an entire character around it. One that would focus on being more caster oriented while the warpriest is designed to be a combatant.

I think you're looking at this blessing too narrowly. It can also be used on the defensive. As it stands, it's basically 3+1/2lvl rounds of "get out of confusion effects free" cards. I know the warpriest in my playtest last week wished he'd taken this blessing when the party bloodrager got confused. It is a very situational blessing, but I think it's a pretty good one.

Fervor… I like the name and the base idea but I’m having trouble with the execution of the abilities. You can swift action cast a spell on yourself, or “lay on hands”….. I feel that this just made the d6 healing “lay on hands” superfluous because a warpriest can spontaneously convert Cure spells. The d6 healing will not be better than a swift action cure light till 8th level and by then you could be using Cure Moderate. The Cure Moderate will be better than the healing of fervor until 17th level when you get up to 6d6 so you can switch to Cure Serious...

My assumption when reading Fervor is that it can only be used to cast prepared spells, not spontaneous cures. Definitely something that needs to be clarified.

actually, i think what he was getting at though was that improved unarmed strike isn't actually the appropriate feat equivalence since you can still benefit from weapon focus (unarmed strike). that golarion specific ruling really should just be a general ruling. IUS is equivalent to a weapon proficiency not weapon focus.

Right! Seems to me the way to fix this would be to remove the IUS from focus weapon and offer it instead of the favored weapon proficiency for deities that favor unarmed strikes.

A question and a comment:

The Sacred Armor ability states: 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. How does this interact with using the minor protection blessing increased defense to grant enhancement bonuses to ones armor? Can a warpriest with the protection domain basically use these abilities in tandem to negate the need for magical armor? Or does the base +1 enhancement have to come from SW or from the armor itself?

On a general note, one concern I have with the warpriest using blessings rather than domains is that they won't receive additional support outside of this book. There are some interesting things going on with blessings, but on the whole, they don't feel different enough from domains as they are currently written to warrant the risk that this will be the only time they are addressed. Granted, this could be a baseless concern, but it is something that has crossed my mind nonetheless.

Now that I'm going back and reading this class more carefully, I noticed something else. Fervor takes a standard action to use on somebody else and requires a touch. Channel Energy is gained two levels later, heals in a 30-foot burst, also uses a standard action, and shares its usage pool with Fervor. I realize Fervor gives you the option of healing yourself as a swift action, but is the single-target standard-action touch version ever likely to see use after 3rd level? If you can spare the standard action, why aren't you channeling? I guess maybe because you don't have Selective Channeling, likely because you don't have the requisite 13 Charisma? (:

Probably because you're in the position to do a needed spot-heal and you don't want to spend the two uses of fervor channeling requires. :)

That's a good point about selective channel though, and does put a damper on the idea of tying their abilities to WIS. I guess they could errata selective channeling to tie it to the character's channeling stat, or add in a new feat that does the same thing with a wisdom base.

Or we could just accept that a warpriest's version of selective channeling is to just beat any unintended channeling targets back into the dirt!

I'm rewriting my warpriest to incorporate these changes, so I'll have some playtest data later this week. Non-blessing related questions/concerns that I've noticed thus far:

1. As it stands, the class is still quite MAD. This may be intended to account for the other class features, and I'm okay with that. If the decision is made to ease this situation, though, I would like to see spellcasting/fervor/channeling/blessings tied to WIS rather than CHA to differentiate from the paladin.

2. The armor properties selection for sacred armor feels a little too limited. Here is a list of other properties that apply to all types of armor and don't have any per day abilities that seem thematically appropriate: benevolent, deathless, ghost touch, grinding, impervious, invulnerability, rallying, stanching. I'm not saying all these would need to be added, but a little more variety would be nice. Perhaps they could be available based around alignment restrictions kind of like axiomatic and holy are for sacred weapon.

3. The ability in fervor to swift cast spells should allow for spells that target the warpriest's weapons and armor as well.

4. With the BAB change to sacred weapon, aspect of war feels a little underwhelming for a capstone. Perhaps an additional attack at the highest BAB that doesn't stack with haste would be a suitable replacement? Also, the ability needs to be cleared up to state how often it can be used. I'm guessing once per day?

In any case, I think this is a huge improvement over the initial design. Kudos to you guys for listening to your playerbase and finding some great compromises between competing ideas about the role/function of this class!

Finally, why so many melee only blessings? Is there any particular reason why the minor effects of, say, Good and Law can't be used on a Bow?

I second this. Particularly for the static "add +1D6 X damage" blessings like Good and Law, what would be the problem with allowing them to be used with ranged weapons. There are several deities with ranged favored weapons, and there are many people who will want to use their deity's favored weapon for flavor reasons. Is there a reason the warpriest needs to be a melee-oriented class?

The minor magic blessing, Hand of the acolyte: how does this interact with the restriction on the 4th lvl sacred weapon ability that ends the bonuses when the weapon is no longer held? Does the "return instantly" line from Hand of the acolyte mean that it doesn't technically leave your possession? Or do you lose the SW enchantment bonuses when you use this minor blessing?

I too would like it if Sacred Weapon lasted a minute per level, for the sake of ease of tracking and to make it a more useful ability at lower levels. Would that be too powerful? I don't rightly know.

I can understand the complaint that nothing has been done to reduce the MADness of this class, but at least now there are worthwhile abilities to account for it. I wouldn't complain if they tied spellcasting, blessings, and fervor to a single stat (preferably WIS to further differentiate the class from the Paladin), but I can also see the multiple stat dependency as part of the price to pay for an effectively full BAB/6lvl caster class that is paladin-like without the alignment restrictions.

First blush, this revised version is GREATLY improved. I love the additions, scaling back the front-loading, and the new version of weapon focus/sacred weapon. I'm reviewing the blessings now, but at first glance they don't look to have changed much.

One thing I did note, it doesn't look like the proficiency in the deity's favored weapon made it into the revised document. Given previous information, I realize it's probably just an oversight, but I did feel the need to point it out.

One thing I've found interesting while reading this thread is how many different conceptions people have for this class. When I saw this class listed for the ACG, I was hoping for a full BAB class with some fighter features who also had a pared-down spell list focused on healing and condition-removal and possibly some sort of swift-casting mechanic. Something that would throw a bone to those players who wanted to be able to mix it up in combat but played in a group that insists on battlefield healing. Others on the boards have had very different takes on the class, some of which I love, others of which I'm hesitant about.

The problem I have, and the problem which has led to much of the rancor in this thread IMO, is that I can't tell what Paizo intends for the class. Is the warpriest supposed to be the battlefield healer who can mix it up between heals, the front-line fighter who can toss off a few heals and condition removals when needed, a watered-down clericzilla 2.0, or some sort of divine weapon-fetishist? I don't know, but I really hope the upcoming rewrite picks a single concept and runs with it. I feel like the current implementation suffers from being a lot of nothing for trying to be a little of everything.

Not an argument, but I'm curious. I'm also not suggesting that this will be the way it's handled, (and lets assume that both are balanced and reasonably flavored and mechanically sound options). How do people feel about these to options?

1.) The Warpriest is kept with the Deity's Favored Weapon as the only Focus Weapon option (outside of Feats), but an Archtype option is also included that focuses on trading out the Focus Weapon for a single one of your choice.

or

2.) The Warpriest is changed so that it's Focus Weapon is general, but an Archtype option is included that focuses on boosting the Deity's Favored Weapon (only) as the Focus Weapon.

Which option, keeping all things and the different sides and PoV's in mind, which overall do you think is a better option? In both cases, both sides are pretty evenly allowed without making the other compromise. As a player of a different class with a Warpriest in your party, or against an enemy Warpriest, what would you think? Or if you are a Cleric, or Fighter, (or similar class like Inquisitor), how do you feel about Favored Weapon? Which, in general, do you think is the better route, both for what you would want, but also for the potential abuse either might allow?

Honestly, I'd be fine with either, but I'd prefer the 2nd option. Like others, I think the base class should be as inclusive as possible. Also, I think the second option offers more clear choices of class features to remove (like martial weapon proficiency for instance) to enable something like a bolstered favored weapon.

At this point I'll just be glad when the revised playtest comes out so we can hopefully move on from the great favored weapon debate!

Thanks, blahpers! Good to know I had the right of it (even if I worded it poorly).

I couldn't find a direct answer to this in the forums: If an enemy is pushed out of a character's threatened area by pushing assault and they have movement remaining, would they provoke another AoO by moving back through that character's threatened area?

I believe the answer is no, since it still part of the same move action, but I'd like to confirm.

Thanks!

Im a huge fan of the Shaman's Wandering Spirit ability. I'd actually like it if the Warpriest was grounded with one Blessing and could change the other as the situation fits. That way theres still an underlying principle the Warpriest dedicates himself to.

Yeah, I was thinking that about that too, but I felt like I'd already put up a wall of text. That option would be pretty neat, really, kind of a blend between worshipers of an ideal and those of a deity. The only problem I could see with a second sacred weapon based on a deity would be those cases where the favored weapon is exotic, but I guess that could be dealt with by a temporary EWP while under the deity's blessing. I don't know, maybe too strong?

And I agree about the gods. The gods could chose to empower an oppositely-aligned warpriest to further their own goals. They work in mysterious ways, after all...

A Warpriest is dedicated to battle moreso than anything else. He may not be concerned with particularities of the deity. Just whichever gets him back into the fight soonest.

Ok, this is an out-of-left-field kind of idea, and there are probably a thousand reasons (which you guys will explain to me in detail) why it wouldn't work, but what if they took this idea and ran with it? What if the warpriest was primarily dedicated to battle, and took a pragmatic, pantheistic approach to beseeching the gods for the power he needs?

This is a very rough sketch, but what I'm envisioning is something similar to the Shaman's Wandering Spirit ability. When the warpriest prepares spells for the day, he selects a deity to pray to for his divine power. The warpriest may select two of that deity's blessings as his blessings for that day. He may select an alignment blessing only if his alignment matches that domain. While a warpriest is under a deity's blessing, he must follow that deity's code of conduct. Grossly violating this code of conduct results in the warpriest losing access to his blessings until he prepares spells again.

Mechanically, this would give the warpriest some additional versatility (particularly if the suggestion to add domain spells to the blessings is adopted). Flavor-wise, I think this idea is particularly exciting. It gives us a divine caster who is effectively unaligned, but who still receives his power from the gods, rather than from a divine concept or from nature. It also takes an odd class "feature", the lack of alignment restriction by deity (which admittedly may be an oversight), and gives it an in-world explanation.

I hate to even type the words, but, sacred weapon: Decoupling the warpriest from a single deity would necessarily make the favored weapon=sacred weapon idea unworkable. My suggestion would be to alter sacred weapon to be applicable to one weapon in which you have proficiency when you gain the ability. If you wanted to take an EWP at first level to emulate a certain deity's favored weapon you could do so. The special properties by weapon group advocated by Ciretose and others to encourage weapon parity could still be in place in the sacred weapon ability to encourage the use of uncommon sacred weapons.

Thoughts?

I'm not entirely sure how to parse the statement in the blog post that they're looking for "the class to be among the best in healing and casting spells on itself." Is it: the best at healing and the best casting spells on itself; or the best at healing and casting spells on itself?

If it's the latter, and I personally think it is, I think the class really either needs its own spell list focused on buffs and self-heals, or it needs for the blessings to allow appropriate early access to those spells as Scavion suggested. Couple that with some ways of incorporating casting into other actions, like Scavion's Charge of Valor, and I think you're well on the way to building a coherent class.

If it's the former, I think a version of spell combat would be in order, though without the free hand requirement of the Magus version to allow for the variety of two-handed favored weapons out there. Allow the favored weapon to act as a divine focus, and maybe add in some sort of limited reach spell mechanic so that the Warpriest could provide some combat support to his party members while taking the fight to his opponents.

What do you guys think?

Charge of Valor: Once per day at 5th level, the Warpriest may cast one spell on himself with a casting time of a standard action as part of a charge action. This spell can only effect him. The movement part of this charge action does not provoke attacks of opportunity. He gains an additional use of this ability every 3 levels.

I'd tweak the increase of uses to better match the chart but I like the feel of this ability.

Its got a good image of the Warpriest charging through the enemy ranks to get to the BBEG commander.

This is an excellent idea! Supports the image of a divine warrior charging into battle with a prayer on his lips, and goes along with the dev's stated goal of making the warpriest the best at buffing and healing himself. I like it.

Like Lord Malkov and some others have said, the devs have stated they're working on favored weapons, so at this point we really are in a wait and see mode on that issue. There have been some decent suggestions in this thread amid all of the bluster, and I hope the devs have taken note of them. Now we're just chasing our own tails. There are other issues we could discuss, like the action economy of the class, but it's pointless to try and do it here. Until we've heard further from the devs on this issue, I'll be looking for honest dialog elsewhere.

Scavion wrote:

The Blessings having Favored Weapons were in addition to the one your Deity favors. His Solution gives you options. Yours is a feat tax.

So now you have doubled the number of weapons you get a bonus for.

Sacred Weapon(s)

Everyone roots to boost power. It's like handing out candy.

Why not make all martial weapons sacred...no, that is limiting. All weapons are sacred.

Yay!

There's actually a pretty simple workaround for this complaint:

Focus Weapon: At 1st level, a warpriest receives Weapon Focus as a bonus feat, selecting either the favored weapon of his deity or the favored weapon of his blessing. If the warpriest does not have a deity, he can select the favored weapon of his blessing or any simple weapon.

Would this be more agreeable?

Having each blessing have a separate weapon basically abandons the entire concept of favored weapons AND now you are just as tied down to a specific blessing to get a chosen weapon (not to mention the blessings are still tied to deities) as you were tied down to a deity.

So what exactly does that solve? If anything it makes it worse as now your weapon and blessing have to match, meaning the number of variables is actually narrowed.

Going to bed.

I'd counter that it doesn't abandon the concept of favored weapons; it expands it. Currently, each deity has one favored weapon, but several blessings/domains. By tying the concept of favored weapons to domains, the player now has several choices of weapons, each of which is tied thematically to the chosen aspect of the god they want their character to represent.

Sure, some players may make their choice solely based upon the weapon, others solely on the domain, but you can't stop players that want to "optimize" from attempting to do so. What this would allow, though, is for someone who really liked the flavor of a particular deity to have some choice about their sacred weapon while still limiting them to choices that work with that deity's themes. Complaining that having weapon choice and blessing tied together is somehow worse sounds suspiciously like a complaint based on optimization rather than flavor.

Anyways, thanks for the discussion. Have a good night!

How exactly do you think the bolt is used?

Come on.

You know what? I'll own up to that. I was paying more attention to the second sentence that describes what is done with the bolt, but yeah, it makes sense that it's the same bolt that used in the execution.

I cited something saying basically every priest of Abadar carries a crossbow.

But the herald uses a hammer. Chewbacca defense FTW...

I'm not trying to get embroiled in the hate-fest here, but I just want to point out that the passage you cited doesn't really say that. It says that every priest carries a crossbow bolt for a specific ritualistic use. It doesn't necessarily follow that routinely use a crossbow in their defense of the faith.

Okay, so all of the gods have domains. They're central to a god's flavor, but they also allow for a diversity of player choice. So, if the devs are looking at making favored weapons central to this class, my suggestion would be to expand the notion of favored weapons (which, save a couple of notable exceptions, seems fairly arbitrary and unflavorful anyways) by tying them into domains(or blessings as the case may be).

Essentially, each blessing would have a "favored" weapon. Air might be the longbow, for instance. Earth, a warhammer. The warpriest's sacred weapon would key off of the blessing choice. This would allow for greater player choice, while still keeping the selection limited to weapons that are flavorful for the deity worshiped. It would have the added bonus of thematically tying weapon choice and other abilities conveyed by the deity's blessing together.

To be clear, I would still rather see this sort of specialized interest in a favored weapon take the form of an archetype or feat, but if this is the way the devs wish to go with the base class, would this be a workable compromise?

So, for weapons that fall into more than one weapon group, would you just make a decision at first level as to which group's abilities you were focused on?

Unclejunzo wrote:

Well, since we're on the favored weapon thing, again, would it be okay if they opened up the sacred weapon to all proficient weapons and added a feat that gave you a bonus when using sacred weapon with your deity's favored weapon?

Why?

Just make it a feat to have it on any weapon that is not the favored weapon of your deity.

Why would the default not be using the weapon favored by the deity? It is literally the weapon favored by the deity.

Because I think that classes should be as inclusive as possible to as many character concepts as possible at their core. If you want to be a warpriest who fights for his god in the most practical ways possible, you have the base class. If you want to be a WARPRIEST who wants to dedicate himself to his god's chosen weapon as a symbol of utter loyalty, you take the feat, and the god gives you an extra bonus for it.

To be honest, I think the idea would work better as an archetype. But I kept seeing the idea of "if you want to use any weapon, take a feat" thrown around and wanted to demonstrate how the shoe feels on the other foot. A feat tax never feels like a feat tax until it stands in the way of something you're interested in.

Well, since we're on the favored weapon thing, again, would it be okay if they opened up the sacred weapon to all proficient weapons and added a feat that gave you a bonus when using sacred weapon with your deity's favored weapon?

To go back to the action economy for a minute (if only as a break from all this favored weapon back and forth), what is the preferred solution for the action economy?

I would like to see the Warpriest be able to, a limited number of times per day, cast a buff or a healing spell as part of a charge or full-attack action. The limiter on this could be a flat X number of times per day, or it could be tied to a 'divine pool' as some posters have suggested. I think it would be flavorful as heck (I charge at my foe screaming a battle-chant to my god, and am imbued with his power), and would allow the class its own little niche.

I too would rather not see the Warpriest tied to a deity's favored weapon. I can see the flavor argument going both ways, but at the end of the day, as a divine class, I think you get more flavor from the deity you worship than the weapon you use. I'd rather see player's saying "I really want to play a warpriest of Cayden Cailen" instead of "I really want my warpriest to use a rapier - guess I have to worship Cayden Cailen."

If the developers want that to be the unique hook of this class though, I think I'd like to see specific weapons gain specific benefits as some have suggested. Since Pathfinder is supposed to be setting neutral, however, I think you'd need to see those bonuses listed out by weapon (or at least by weapon group) rather than by deity. That could run into a space restriction problem, but would be the better way, in my opinion, of making sacred weapon a more interesting and flavorful feature.

I don't think that's the only way to give this class a unique, flavorful niche, however. Many people have suggested giving the warpriest a way to cast buffs and heals with better action economy, and I think that would fill a unique and useful spot in the class roster. The problem clerics have is that need time to buff up if they want to be truly effective in combat, and even when they do, they still face the round to round decision of whether to fight or cast. A warpriest with the ability to cast buffs or heals as a part of a charge or full-attack action would be able to bridge that gap. True, they still won't fight as well as a fighter, or provide support as well as a cleric, but they would have a unique and useful role to fill in a party, and isn't that what we're looking for: a reason for this class to exist?

The focus weapon ability states that if the warpriest doesn't follow a deity, he can select any simple weapon as his focus. Is this correct? If so, what is the purpose of the class receiving martial weapon proficiency, given the class's reliance on a single weapon type? It seems like a better option would be either to remove martial weapon proficiency and have warpriests automatically proficient in their deity's favored weapon, or keep it and remove the favored weapon restriction on focus weapon.

Is there anywhere I could find obediences/boons for the Empyreal Lords who didn't receive a full write up in Chronicles of the Righteous? I have a player who is interested in being a mystery cultist of Keltheald, but I'm at a loss for what his obedience/boons would look like.

I know you've probably already considered this for the next version, but the Summon Good Monster from Champions of Purity completely changes the dynamics of Sacred Summons. Suddenly, NG clerics go from zero to hero with a wealth of options. Granted, having to spend another feat to make it work is tough considering how feat starved this build is, but it seems like it would be worth it.