Vastlyapparent's page

Personally, I look at the warpriest and see the perfect vehicle for a party buffer/debuffer. Someone who can fight up front and nudge the fight in the parties favor, and provide some healing as needed.

These are my suggestions:

- Keep them at 3/4 BAB and spellcasting

- Give them access to certain buff spells earlier then normal (similar to summoners and haste)

- Allow them to spontaneously cast certain buff spells in the way cleric spontaneously cast cure/inflict; spells like divine favor, righteous might

- Give them an ability to cast personal buff spells as a swift action

- Give them a singular resource to key most/all of their limited use abilities from, I nominate channel energy

- Make blessings 1st level power act like an aura that buffs/debuffs allies/enemies, possibly keyed off channeling

- Weapon Focus can be any weapon they are proficient with, deities favored weapons are automatically a weapon focus

- Certain abilities receive a bonus if used with deities favored weapon

- Make them a little less MAD, key channel energy off something other then CHA

Being able to buff as a swift would solve the issue that plagues most melee oriented clerics, allowing the warpriest to show off. Also making it an area based buffer/debuffer puts it in a role similar to a bard, but with a more divine and martial focus.

This is the direction I'd like to see it go at least, less weaker cleric, more support/jack of all trades with a martial/front-line focus.

Take the sacred weapon concept, and make it usable with any weapon you wield, proficiency and feats being irrelevant to its usage. When used on your deities favored weapon it gains a bonus of some type, maybe the duration is extended (rounds become minutes used), or the equivalent enchantment bonus is considered to have an additional +1. The ability now incentivize the use of the deities favored weapon, while keeping it flexible and still functional with other weapons. This also wouldn’t require much in terms of additional word count or explanation.

Personally, I’d like to see sacred armor, sacred weapon, and the blessing concepts all tied together and attached to channel energy; make it function in some ways as the variant channeling in Ultimate Magic. When channel energy is used, all allies affected (when healing) receive a buff based off your blessings that lasts a minute, when using it to damage enemies it instead provides a debuff to foes based off your blessings.

Sacred armor and sacred weapon could also activate on the warpriest when either channel is performed, lasting up to a minute (any new channels would overwrite/reset the time, no stacking obviously). Sacred armor and weapon could alternatively be a separate buff that consumes the channel energy uses per day, preferably as a swift action.

Replace weapon focus of deities favored weapon with selective channeling for free, and also key channeling to work off wisdom, strength or constitution to make them a little less MAD.

tl;dr Tie abilities more closely to a single resource, like channel energy, make channel energy more about buffing and debuffing.

It should be a player's responsibility to help their character not lose their equipment. Neglecting your CMD, for example, and then arguing for a cheap recovery when your bow is disarmed and stolen is absurd.

Normally, I'd agree with you, it is a players responsibility to secure their equipment and try to keep it safe. The problem lies in how PFS functions, and the ramifications losing wealth has. In a normal campaign, if you have your bow disarmed and stolen, you can attempt to get it back. Maybe you infiltrate the lair/base of those who stole it, or maybe you under go a quest to acquire a new powerful bow to replace it. In PFS you have no such options, once the scenario is done, or a situation moves outside of the parameters of the scenario, you're effectively permanently damaged. Permanent loss of wealth in PFS is as debilitating and damaging as permanent strength damage to a melee fighter, or permanent negative levels (both of which, if are not resolved at the end of a scenario, retire your character).

Oh, and stating that my tongue-in-cheek response is not an appropriate response is merely your opinion, please refrain from stating it as a fact. I know many players who love the challenge their character has to face after their stuff gets stolen (right Chad?!).

Whether it was tongue-in-cheek is rather inconsequential, the conversation isn't "How do I as a player deal with my stuff getting stolen in game?" it's "A player had an item stolen and could be permanently lost, do they have any recourse?" Your response is not appropriate because it doesn't answer the question at hand. Being a joke doesn't negate that.

While your players may love the challenge faced after their items are stolen, it's the lack of recourse in PFS that makes this a jerk move, and the core issue at hand. Permanent lose of an item only promotes players to kill their characters and get them resurrected, rather then have expensive gear stolen or lost. I don't think anyone believes that's a good mentality to promote.

This isn't fun for anyone, except maybe the GM. And if a GM is taking pleasure in a players misery, they shouldn't be GMing at all. (Kyle note that this is not directed at you nor is it intended to imply that you're a bad GM or shouldn't be GMing, this bit is just a general statement and opinion.)

note: Maybe part of the problem is I've been mugged in real life, and so even virtual theft with threat of violence already has me emotionally charged and a bit serious. But even if that's true, I think my perspective and opinions still hold water.

I have a couple of questions regarding Channel Energy and getting it from more then one source (class).

Variant Channeling:
If you pick a variant version of channeling as one class, does the second class's channeling also get altered to the variant? Or does each channel pool have it's own choice of being positive/negative and/or variant style of channeling?

Example:
I have a neutral cleric/oracle of life, worshiping a neutral god, can the clerics channel energy be negative while the oracles channel energy is a positive? Could I in turn select the clerics pool to use a variant channeling while the oracles is the default?

Quick Channel Feat:
Can I spend a use from 1 channel pool to use a channel from a different pool as a move action.

Example:
I have a Hospitaler 4 (1d6 channel energy 5/day) / Cleric 9 (5d6 channel energy 5/day) Can I use one use of the paladins CE with one of the clerics to perform a channel energy of 5d6 as a move action?

Well my fears are alleviated for the most part. You all did a good job of countering my points on the subject, my point of view was skewed. Thanks for helping me in correcting it guys.

Nihimon wrote:

Why do you assume there won't be a "logical source" for the unit's magical resistance? Why do you assume there won't be "magical items or magical abilities" at play?

In general, players don't expect a magic user to be able to devastate other characters in "normal" PvP. Why should there be an expectation that they should be able to do so in "unit" PvP?

Indeed the formations sound to be based on the leader, what's to say it isn't a spell or ability of the leader cast in formation shape etc... or even an ability for a wizard in his position in the formation etc...

You have a point, my fear is based on assumptions. My opinion of casters is colored by my experience DMing and as a player in the table top, and I'm pulling more from that then from other MMOs.

Perhaps I'm just taking his wording too literally, as in by saying "Units get magical resistance for being part of a cohesive unit" I should take it as "Individuals in a cohesive unit get a bonus to resist magic". My brain just railed against the idea of 20 guys standing in tight formation somehow becoming better at not dying to a circle of death or other AoE magical attack.