Speaking strictly from a game mechanics standpoint, would the following Bard variant be too powerful?
Drop martial weapon proficiencies and gain a single exotic weapon proficiency.
Drop current spell list and gain cleric's spell list.
Drop armored casting.
This seems like a slight increase in power, but not an unbalancing one.
Am I missing something?
Speaking strictly from a game mechanics standpoint, would the following Bard variant be too powerful?
Drop martial weapon proficiencies and gain a single exotic weapon proficiency.
Drop current spell list and gain cleric's spell list.
Drop armored casting.
This seems like a slight increase in power, but not an unbalancing one.
Am I missing something?
Assuming it still has bard casting progression/spells known i dont see why it would be an increase in power. Level for level i dont consider the cleric list to be inherently superior to the bard's. Would the class still be an arcane caster? Or does it become divine? My assumption is it is divine, since you droped armored casting.
The universe will not fall if its too powerful. With general cooperation you could just try it and see.
I'd rather see it approached from the cleric side than the bard. After all, then you have the whole excuse of making it a variant Cult.
Sigurd
Here's the fluff:
Evangelist (Variant Bard)
A priest leads a congregation,
An evangelist creates one.
Evangelists dedicate their lives to spreading the tenants the faith, not through force of arms, intimidation, or the use or display of miracles, but through the persuasive power of their voices and personal convictions. Evangelists are the vanguard of the faith, whatever faith that may be. They travel in hostile lands, must be ever wary of those who do not wish to see the status quo changed, and must be ready to vanish at a moment's notice, only to appear again, in another town, another land, another nation. As likely to preach in the back room of a tavern as from a pulpit, the evangelist is often the first representative of a new faith that future congregants ever see.
A tension usually exists between true clerics and evangelists, even those of the same faith. The older and more established a religion, the less likely the church bureaucracy is to have a good opinion of evangelists, seeing them, instead, as barely useful, inferior substitutes for ture clerics. The younger or less established religions, however, depend upon evangelists to spread and stregthen the faith, and thus rank them higher in church hierarchy. By the time a congregation is formed, a church built to house it, and a priest to lead it, the evangelist is usually long gone, searching for new challenges, more darkness to illuminate, and more congregants to be converted.
Mechanics: As Bard. Replace martial weapon proficiencies with a bonus feat granting proficiency in the evangelist's God's favored weapon. If that weapon has both martial and exotic versions, the evangelist gains the exotic version. Should the evangelist's faith later change, the bonus feat does not.
Spells: As per Bard, but spell list as Cleric. The evangelist is touched by the power of faith, but not as strongly as a true cleric. Those who follow the path of evangelist choose to share what the voice of their god tells them with others, rather than retreating into quite contemplation to further develop their relationship with the divine. A condition that could be remedied, clerics say, if the evangelists would just stop talking long enough to listen. Evangelists are divine casters.
Golarion Fluff: When Cayden Cailean first ascended in a drunken haze, the first of his fatihful were bards and minstrels who began to spread word of the new faith. Granted divine powers by their worship, they spread news of his ascension throughout Golarion by performing and singing his praises wherever revelers were found.