I assume that you're being funny to point out that it doesn't help much. If that's the case, I agree but feel that it is on-par with the Magus, which seems, really, like the exact standard to which the Warpriest should be measured.This allows them to take Weapon Spec at 8th level, Greater Weapon Focus as 16th, and Greater Weapon Specialization at 24th. You can also pick up Critical Mastery at 28th level, Disruptive at 12th, Spellbreaker at 20th, and Penetrating Strike at 24th. Then there's Greater Shield Focus as 16th and Greater Shield Specialization at 24th.My question would be then what the point in nixing the channel is. Leaving the warpriest's channel intact could be a good thing, although I will admit it's difficult to make it have any sort of worthwhile DC on it, meaning for offensive purposes it's not going to be THAT good. Maybe if it ran off wisdom like their spellcasting, but I doubt that's something Paizo would consider. The warpriest is currently pretty MAD, but I won't say I know of a particularly effective way to fix that. Unless, as master marshmallow suggested, channel was simply taken away. 'Course removing channel would basically make it a requirement that they get some major compensation. It's an extremely useful ability.Ah, yes. Another change I would make.
Fighter Training (Ex): Starting at 10th level, a Warpriest counts 1/2 his total Warpriest level as his fighter level for the purpose of qualifying for feats. If he has levels in fighter, these levels stack.
The magus with designed thinking you might dip into fighter for a more martially focused character, or perhaps dilly-dally on to Eldritch Knight for a different blend of abilities and a pretty good shot at grabbing some of those feats. Suggesting the warpriest have the same ability suggests that that it should be a good idea to go Fighter 2/Warpriest X. To me that seems incredibly strange. Fighter 2/Cleric X is a much more natural progression.
The magus with designed thinking you might dip into fighter for a more martially focused character, or perhaps dilly-dally on to Eldritch Knight for a different blend of abilities and a pretty good shot at grabbing some of those feats. Suggesting the warpriest have the same ability suggests that that it should be a good idea to go Fighter 2/Warpriest X. To me that seems incredibly strange....I assume that you're being funny to point out that it doesn't help much. If that's the case, I agree but feel that it is on-par with the Magus, which seems, really, like the exact standard to which the Warpriest should be measured.This allows them to take Weapon Spec at 8th level, Greater Weapon Focus as 16th, and Greater Weapon Specialization at 24th. You can also pick up Critical Mastery at 28th level, Disruptive at 12th, Spellbreaker at 20th, and Penetrating Strike at 24th. Then there's Greater Shield Focus as 16th and Greater Shield Specialization at 24th.My question would be then what the point in nixing the channel is. Leaving the warpriest's channel intact could be a good thing, although I will admit it's difficult to make it have any sort of worthwhile DC on it, meaning for offensive purposes it's not going to be THAT good. Maybe if it ran off wisdom like their spellcasting, but I doubt that's something Paizo would consider. The warpriest is currently pretty MAD, but I won't say I know of a particularly effective way to fix that. Unless, as master marshmallow suggested, channel was simply taken away. 'Course removing channel would basically make it a requirement that they get some major compensation. It's an extremely useful ability.Ah, yes. Another change I would make.
Fighter Training (Ex): Starting at 10th level, a Warpriest counts 1/2 his total Warpriest level as his fighter level for the purpose of qualifying for feats. If he has levels in fighter, these levels stack.
Do you mind extrapolating? I've never really felt that the Magus had much to gain by dipping Fighter but I typically like the Paizo philosophy of ONE class. The WP can't possibly benefit from Fighter X, anyway, since it is forbidden by Hybrid rules.
That said, is there any plan to "Hybrid-ize" the Magus? It kind of seems like there should be, you know, to keep rules similar?
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Ehhh, I dunno about converting the channel into lay on hands. Maybe make it more in line with an oracle's channel. They are generally able to do it on a 1 + Charisma mod basis to account for it going off their primary stat rather than forcing a secondary. This same thing could be applied to a warpriest, albeit off wisdom rather than CHA.
The magus has its own class ability progression and spell list, so the usual concerns about multiclassing into an existing class don't really apply. So, anyway, yeah, you can build something like Fighter 4/Magus 10, grab Greater Focus, and then run a victory lap into Eldritch Knight for a final BAB of +17, casting as a magus level 15 with 5th level spells, and the ability to learn feats as a 15th level fighter (so, Greater Weapon Focus/Specialization and Critical Mastery).
Ehhh, I dunno about converting the channel into lay on hands. Maybe make it more in line with an oracle's channel. They are generally able to do it on a 1 + Charisma mod basis to account for it going off their primary stat rather than forcing a secondary. This same thing could be applied to a warpriest, albeit off wisdom rather than CHA.
Nah it works.
It allows Warpriests without the Healing domain to keep themselves alive without concentration checks.
It thematically fits better than channeling because channeling is supporty, not war-like.
Channeling already sucks and having a reduced channeling progression hurts.
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I'm not looking at it from the healing perspective. I'm looking from an offensive perspective, namely the application of channel negative with the channel smite ability. Of all the people I know, only one of them has a cleric that is capable of channeling positive. That being said, I'd say the ability to run negative energy through a greatsword and into someone's face would be nice. :P But then, not a lot of people seem to think as aggressively as I do in PFS. Buuuutt I do see your point as well. Lay on hands would be better for the warpriest's survival in a pinch if you do positive energy. However, what of negative energy? Being able to do a negative lay on hands would ultimately prove inferior to a negative channel, thereby discouraging people from making bad touch warpriests.
I actually thought they would have already hardwired Lay on Hands into the Warpriest. Seemed pretty obvious. Having the Antipaladin version for evil Warpriests would be cool too.
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It has been noted a few times that these classes will count as their parent classes for the purposes of qualifying for feats. So every level of Warpriest counts as a fighter level for the purposes of feats. Let's move beyond this in our discussions.
Citation please. I've heard that the Brawler does, but not all the classes.
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A lot of people seem hung up on trying to make the warpriest into a paladin clone, when that's not what it is, not what it's intended to be, and if we believe what the designers have to say about how much they're (not) willing to change the basic design goals of the classes, not what it's going to be turned into.
I don't have the ear of the designers, but paying attention to the development of the cleric class through 3rd edition D&D and Pathfinder makes it pretty clear what the class is actually going for. Time for a short history review.
In 3.5, Clericzilla reigned supreme, able to act as a martial character in addition to full spellcasting thanks to the wide array of combat buffs (that unlike their arcane equivalents, did not nix spellcasting while active) on the spell list. This was firmly cemented with the introduction of Divine Metamagic, allowing the cleric to cast his buffs as a swift action or to simply extend their durations to 24 hours and leave them on all day. This persisted all the way from the publication of Complete Divine at the latest through the end of 3.5's publishing run.
Then 4th edition D&D started playtesting (which is a can of worms not relevant here) and Paizo, rather than accept the licensing terms, announced that they would be developing their own system on the 3.5 chassis under the OGL rather than pursuing publishing for the D&D brand. This, obviously, was the beginning of the development of Pathfinder. After the Pathfinder core playtest, much of what made the cleric overtly martial was taken out of the class - between the beta document and the printing of the core rulebook, the class lost heavy armor proficiency and many of the previously combat-oriented domain granted powers were changed to either be applicable only out of combat or at least not for directly hitting things (as in the Strength domain), restricted only to buffing the cleric's allies (as in all the domain powers that last a round and take a standard action to use on an ally), or in the case of domains that really, really wouldn't make sense to not apply to combat and be personal to the cleric (Destruction) the powers were scaled back pretty hard. Most importantly, though, there is no equivalent in Pathfinder to Divine Metamagic (or, for that matter, for the metamagic feats that were most useful with it bar Quicken Spell, namely Persistent Spell) nor is there likely to ever be, and one of the staple cleric buffs (divine power) was changed from 3.5 to not stack with certain other cleric buffs (it's now a luck bonus, the same as divine favor) or recalculate the caster's base attack bonus, which in terms of things like Power Attack as Paizo rewrote them is huge.
All this hasn't stamped out Clericzilla as much as Paizo might like it to have, but it has set it back quite a bit. Now, with the introduction of the warpriest, which has heavy armor proficiency back and martial weapon proficiency thrown in, blessings that are more directly combat-oriented like some of the old domain powers (compare the 3.5 Strength domain, the Pathfinder Strength domain, and the warpriest's Strength blessing if you need to check, though somewhat amusingly the Destruction blessing went to the "standard action to buff ally" model while the Destruction domain did not), fighter bonus feats, and weapon/armor buffs built into the class, what's going on here is that Paizo is trying to bring back the beatstick cleric in a form not quite as overpowering as it was in 3.5, by giving it only 6 level casting.
The trouble is that they're not quite succeeding, because only some of the elements are there - heavy armor and some martially oriented domain powers is nice, but what really made Clericzilla at the end of the day was easier metamagic for the buffs - something that the warpriest doesn't have; in fact thanks to his slower spell progression it's harder and he will never be able to quicken any spell above 2nd level, and then only at the highest levels of play. The problem isn't the ability set - the tools are all there; Pathfinder still has great combat buffs on the cleric list - but that the warpriest doesn't have the action economy to use them the way the 3.5 cleric could or any better than a Pathfinder cleric can. Combine with the fact that what swift action offensive buffs the class does have are tied directly to wielding the deity's favored weapon and you have a decidedly underwhelming substitute for the design space it's meant to fill, that of the buff monster combatant. Unless and until it somehow gets better spell action economy than the cleric (at least for in-combat buffs), it is very little better than a cleric in the hitting things department, which is its entire reason to exist.
tl;dr: It's the (action) economy, stupid. ;) Let warpriests cast in combat and they will have a firmly defined role that the class fills very well, without being as overpowering as 3.5 CoDzilla due to the delayed and smaller spell progression, with no need to move to full BAB or 4 level casting.
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I'm a bit sad that nobody of the Paizo devs seems to be able to formulate what their intended role for the Warpriest really is. Even the defined role in the playtest document makes the class sound like a worse Cleric.
"Although not as capable as a cleric, the warpriest can still serve as a capable healer or spellcaster,..."
I wonder if any other class already declares in its flavor text "Yo, you better play a Cleric, son!". ;)
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Nicely said Renegade, I'm fairly certain the design concept they were shooting for with the Warpriest is a more melee capable cleric. As it stands now, they're just gimped clerics with a few more bonus feats.
I would be happy if they got some sort of class feature that bumped a minute per level spell to hours per level if its a buff spell that only effects the Warpriest. That way they can tote some nice bonuses daily.
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Nicely said Renegade, I'm fairly certain the design concept they were shooting for with the Warpriest is a more melee capable cleric. As it stands now, they're just gimped clerics with a few more bonus feats.
I would be happy if they got some sort of class feature that bumped a minute per level spell to hours per level if its a buff spell that only effects the Warpriest. That way they can tote some nice bonuses daily.
Now see, THAT would be a nice replacement for channel energy, if they were going to throw it out. Really, it would be a nice addition period.
"Do you miss the Divine Champion from the Forgotten Realms book? No? You don't even remember it? ... Uh, well, here's some stuff that is cool. Sort of a, you know, champion of the divine."
Maybe this has been suggested before in this thread, but what if some of the major deities were given a second favored weapon? That would allow a broader range of weapon/alignment/concept combinations in PFS without a whole lot of muss and fuss. It's a little more stay-on-theme than just letting anybody pick any weapon, but it expands things considerably, especially for gods that would thematically have Warpriests but who have a weapon that works poorly for the class, and it would expand ranged options.
Of course, the "just pick anything" idea is probably fine too.
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I cringed at that too. The introduction reads like it could be swapped with the paladin except for the last sentence that basically says, "This is pretty much exactly a paladin, the only difference being that it doesn't have to be lawful good."
Oh, man, the Warpriest wishes that it would be as good as a Paladin in smiting fools. Sadly, it isn't, a Paladin will outfight it at every level (caveat: "when facing evil opponents").
Maybe this has been suggested before in this thread, but what if some of the major deities were given a second favored weapon? That would allow a broader range of weapon/alignment/concept combinations in PFS without a whole lot of muss and fuss. It's a little more stay-on-theme than just letting anybody pick any weapon, but it expands things considerably, especially for gods that would thematically have Warpriests but who have a weapon that works poorly for the class, and it would expand ranged options.
Of course, the "just pick anything" idea is probably fine too.
It is generally more difficult to make wide-ranging fluff changes.
Suggestion: A Warpriest can designate a spell with a duration of 1 minute per level be increased to 1 hour per level. It must only effect him. This spell must be one spell level lower than the highest he can cast.
Suggestion: Drop Channel Energy entirely or give it from level 1, you already give it out to the Shaman and Oracle. If you don't have it from the getgo, chances are you won't make it to get it. The only Warpriests who really benefit from Channel Energy are evil ones who can channel smite with it.
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I like that.Do you have a quote? Because I would actually be very surprised if Paizo went through all effort, and then gave us the all-alignment paladin, or a magus with cure spells.
No, that's not really okay. All those bonus combat feats are not likely to stick around because Paizo is going to offset their fix to the class's fundamental issues by removing them. They're not going to leave this class as it is. It's almost universally derided. They're going to choose to give in to one side or the other. Either the warpriest will get spell combat or move to the Paladin/Ranger chassis. In either case they'll recalculate the balance and the bonus...Indeed. It'd be such a waste of what they've done so far.
Solution to the silly favored weapon problem.
War Dedication: At 1st level a Warpriest gains Weapon Focus in any martial or simple weapon. His choice is forever considered to be his Favored Weapon and cannot be changed. A Warpriest alternatively may select his Deity's Favored Weapon and receive Weapon Focus for that weapon instead.
I dislike it.
Having your deity not have the most optimal weapon is not a problem. The vast majority of your bonuses are not coming from the base stats of the weapon, and frankly the whole "If it's not the best, it sucks" mindset shouldn't be fed into.
This is a concept. You are playing a warrior for a deity. Of course you should encourage that warrior to wield that deities favored weapon.
Of course that deities favored weapon should be the weapon that is the best for them.
Because that weapon isn't the uberbestpossibleimaginablable is not a problem in any sense of the word.
Please don't use the above advice. It defeats the whole point of having a favored weapon since then...hello...it isn't actually favored.
Weapon stats DO matter. Its why folks don't use only daggers at low levels and low crit range weapons at higher levels. Being pigeonholed into using a Starknife as a Warpriest of Desna sucks. Plain and true.
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I'm a bit sad that nobody of the Paizo devs seems to be able to formulate what their intended role for the Warpriest really is. Even the defined role in the playtest document makes the class sound like a worse Cleric.
"Although not as capable as a cleric, the warpriest can still serve as a capable healer or spellcaster,..."
I wonder if any other class already declares in its flavor text "Yo, you better play a Cleric, son!". ;)
At spellcasting.
But don't let the actually meanings of words interfere with making snarky and unhelpful comments...
The intent of the class is to make a frontline combat class that can also heal.
It should be better in combat than the cleric, because it is trading off 3 levels of spells.
The flavor of the class is the warrior priest, with the cleric being more of a priest warrior.
My suggestions of how to achieve this.
1. Give weapon training to the weapon of the favored deity, which is also going to be the sacred weapon. Make it work with dualing gloves. This person has been training with the chosen weapon of their deity quite literally religiously. They can be on par with a fighter using a range of weapons. This in and of itself is a fairly big boost.
2. In addition, give them access to some fighter feats for this weapon only. This will not step on the fighters toes as the warpriest is still a 3/4 casting class.
If you do this, the Warpriest will, situationally, but right there with the fighter AND be a 3/4 caster.
Which is the goal.
Please don't strip all of the flavor out of this class because some people want to play GURPS...keep it just the favored weapon of the deity.
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Weapon stats DO matter. Its why folks don't use only daggers at low levels and low crit range weapons at higher levels. Being pigeonholed into using a Starknife as a Warpriest of Desna sucks. Plain and true.
And flavor matters more.
A warpriest of Desna would use a starknife, because that is the favored weapon of the god they worship.
If done properly, player will be rewarded for using this weapon with bonuses to the weapon and special abilities. I proposed earlier adding returning to the sacred weapon list as well as adding weapon training.
If you don't care about flavor, there are lots of other RPGS out there.
If a Warpriest of a god doesn't even use the god's favored weapon, what is the point of having a favored weapon?
Almost all of the deities had their favored weapons chosen basically at random (for no reason other than "every deity must have a favored weapon") and their weapon has nothing to do with their flavor as a deity. "Thou Shalt Use Longswords" makes sense for Iomedae, sort of, but I have a hard time imagining Desna, Cayden, Pharasma, or Gorum getting hung up over what weapon you're using.
The intent of the class is to make a frontline combat class that can also heal.
It should be better in combat than the cleric, because it is trading off 3 levels of spells.
The flavor of the class is the warrior priest, with the cleric being more of a priest warrior.
Mechanics speak much louder than class descriptions, however.
Simply put, how can your assessment be true when the class is 3/4 BAB and a d8 HD?
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The intent of the class is to make a frontline combat class that can also heal.
It should be better in combat than the cleric, because it is trading off 3 levels of spells.
The flavor of the class is the warrior priest, with the cleric being more of a priest warrior.
Mechanics speak much louder than class descriptions, however.
Simply put, how can your assessment be true when the class is 3/4 BAB and a d8 HD?
The inquisitor says hello...
The Inquisitor has Judgement and Bane.
The only time the Warpriest is doing better than the Inquisitor is level 4. Every other level (1-3 and 5-20) the Inquisitor has an easier time landing their hits.
And it should be pointed out that at level 4, they both have the same chance to hit - The Warpriest just has the extra point of damage that the Inquisitor doesn't. That quickly changes at level 5 though.
Aaand that isn't even taking into account how much more versatile Judgement is than Sacred Weapon. It's a lot.
Oh snap, Spell buffs? Inquisitors get their own tailored spell list instead of late-access Cleric stuff. More likely the Inquisitor has their buffs when they need them instead of late.
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The Inquisitor has Judgement and Bane.
The only time the Warpriest is doing better than the Inquisitor is level 4. Every other level (1-3 and 5-20) the Inquisitor has an easier time landing their hits.
(And it should be pointed out that at level 4, they both have the same chance to hit - The Warpriest just has the extra point of damage that the Inquisitor doesn't. That quickly changes at level 5 though.)
(Aaand that isn't even taking into account how much more versatile Judgement is than Sacred Weapon. It's a lot.)
Yes. Which is why I am advocating giving weapon training favored weapon.
I'm not against that at all. Frankly I think they need Full BAB on top of Weapon Training with their favored weapon.
How else can they keep up with a Paladin? (And if this really is supposed to be the "martial arm of the faith" then it absolutely needs to be able to keep up with a Paladin.)
(But then you have Full BAB and 6-levels of spells, and I don't think they're willing to give that to a single class [rightly so].
So we come full circle to, "Why am I not playing an Inquisitor?")
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Weapon stats DO matter. Its why folks don't use only daggers at low levels and low crit range weapons at higher levels. Being pigeonholed into using a Starknife as a Warpriest of Desna sucks. Plain and true.And flavor matters more.
A warpriest of Desna would use a starknife, because that is the favored weapon of the god they worship.
If you don't care about flavor, there are lots of other RPGS out there.
And if you don't like the flavor of a given deity's chosen weapon, pick another deity. Or play another class. As Ciretose says, the favored weapon is one of the hallmarks of this particular class. They are the chosen warriors of the deity, and it only makes sense that they would primarily use the deity's favored weapon.
Desna doesn't strike me as the type to have warpriests either.
I think that we will have to accept the fact that warpriests of desna, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.
Just as it is integral to the paladin that he's lawful good, it's integral to the warpriest that he's only sponsored by gods with favored weapons that won't get laughed at by an enemy fighter.
A starblade isn't a viable weapon to base a medium BaB warrior class, that has little access to static damage increases around.
Nor are daggers, shortswords, whips, light crossbows or unarmed strikes.
Longswords, morningstars, quarterstaffs, rapiers(this'll be one of those wierd str-rapier things. But it'll work allright.), warhammers, scimitars, tridents, maces and longbows fare a little better.
For the great stuff, we get glaives, greatswords, spiked chains, scythes, falchions and greataxes.
This means that in order to get a good favored weapon, we look to
Shelyn(NG), Gorum(CN), Zon-Kuthon(LE), Urgotha(NE), Lamashtu(CE) and Rovagog(CE).
Does it make sense for these gods to be the ones to sponsor warpriests? Mostly. Except for Shelyn, the only good god on that list. Which is a shame, because most people play good characters, or at least neutral. So most of the PC warpriests will be using medicore or bad weapons, while the evil NPCs get access to the fun stuff.
I'd like to see this problem fixed, and I do think that there is a problem here.
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If a Warpriest of a god doesn't even use the god's favored weapon, what is the point of having a favored weapon?
For clerics to use. Also, to define the form of your spiritual weapon. Look, if you want to tell the paladin they are doing it wrong, go ahead. :)
Ok so the DM gives teh ranger an advantage (or using other words, the ranger advantage is a DM fiat thing), does the DM give the fighter an advantager (like never targeting his will save)?Umm, no. Because a really good GM will give a hint as to a wise favored enemy for the ranger to take due to the campaign, so to give him the best possible advantage. The GM will still target the fighter's will save. And the ranger's will save. And the pretty much every other martial's will save. The solution? Aasimars and tieflings. Because outsider immunities.
A good player should make their character according to a concept. Optimization within said concept is ok and expected, but you should always place the concept as first priority.
A good DM(or GM) should not give hints during character creation as to what the PC's will be facing. A good DM merely tells the player that the character concept does not fit well with the campaign and makes suggestions on how it might fit in his campaign with minimal changes.
A good DM does not go out of his way to make sure a players choice of favored enemy be sated. A good GM sticks to their planned story and watches for moments where said choices can be used without disrupting his plans.
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And if you don't like the flavor of a given deity's chosen weapon, pick another deity. Or play another class. As Ciretose says, the favored weapon is one of the hallmarks of this particular class. They are the chosen warriors of the deity, and it only makes sense that they would primarily use the deity's favored weapon.Weapon stats DO matter. Its why folks don't use only daggers at low levels and low crit range weapons at higher levels. Being pigeonholed into using a Starknife as a Warpriest of Desna sucks. Plain and true.And flavor matters more.
A warpriest of Desna would use a starknife, because that is the favored weapon of the god they worship.
If you don't care about flavor, there are lots of other RPGS out there.
The Pharasman vindicator stands before the skeleton army. He is a great image, spiked full plate, backup weapons on his back and potions in his bandolier and covered in holy symbols of his deity. He is the spitting image of a man ready for war... except that puny dagger in his hands. What's up with that? Dude knows skeleton's have DR/bludgeoning right? Get yo' hands on a mace bro. The big kind!
Does lead to some awkward moments.
If a Warpriest of a god doesn't even use the god's favored weapon, what is the point of having a favored weapon?
I always thought the answer was legacy and great flavor. Sucks that it suffers mechanically though. I like keeping a favored weapon for show at least if I play a divine class if its a horrendous choice, and it can add to the deity's flavor, though sometimes it'll never come up in the deity's writeup and you just can't figure out how it happened.
Yes. Which is why I am advocating giving weapon training favored weapon.The Inquisitor has Judgement and Bane.
The only time the Warpriest is doing better than the Inquisitor is level 4. Every other level (1-3 and 5-20) the Inquisitor has an easier time landing their hits.
(And it should be pointed out that at level 4, they both have the same chance to hit - The Warpriest just has the extra point of damage that the Inquisitor doesn't. That quickly changes at level 5 though.)
(Aaand that isn't even taking into account how much more versatile Judgement is than Sacred Weapon. It's a lot.)
I find sacred weapon to be inadiquite as a balancing mechanism myself also. The rounds per day are to low at all levels really but at low levels in particular. At high levels when PC's routinely have +5 items Sacred weapon becomes useless.
I think giving them weapon training in place of the sacred weapons would be the way to go. Make the first one that can go to +4 be the group containing their sacred weapon, let the character pick the rest.
An inquisitor is to the War Priest what the Ranger is to the Fighter in this analogy.
So, "two strong combatants, one of which is always superior to the other outside of combat?" :3
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On topic, this is a 6 level caster, not a 4 level caster. It is a 3/4 BaB class, not a full BaB class.It won't be a full BaB class, the Devs said that ship has sailed. So looking at what we have we seem to generally agree it needs more offense.
Nor does it need to be a full BAB class, take a cue from the monks flurry of blows while keeping the flavor of the war priest and give the Full BAB with only their diety's weapon.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, Contributor
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Desna doesn't strike me as the type to have warpriests either.
I think that we will have to accept the fact that warpriests of desna, for all intents and purposes, does not exist.
Just as it is integral to the paladin that he's lawful good, it's integral to the warpriest that he's only sponsored by gods with favored weapons that won't get laughed at by an enemy fighter.
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Completely agree with you. Also, I totally recognize that using favored weapons is a major restriction, but I think that making important choices like that has been an important part of playing a cleric-type character. Cure or inflict? Positive or negative channel? Domains? These are all limited by your deity, and these choices are imo, one of the most interesting parts of building a character.
If you use non-core materials, this becomes a less onerous restriction (just worship an empyreal lord). If you are using core only, worship an ideal, and work with you GM on the favored weapon.
There could also be an archetype, like separatist cleric, for people who don't like the idea.
Alternatively, you could open up weapon selection and make an archetype where favored weapon matters--I would play it!
Thing is, ideal warpriests are limited to simple weapons.
I'd like for them to be able to pick between simple and martial.
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An inquisitor is to the War Priest what the Ranger is to the Fighter in this analogy.So, "two strong combatants, one of which is always superior to the other outside of combat?" :3
Armor for one. Specific utility vs broad utility.
Always on powers vs sometimes on powers.
Hence advocating for more sacred weapon bonus for favored weapon and weapon training for favored weapons.
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Oh plase no to More recycled options. This class need really new mechanics.Yes. Which is why I am advocating giving weapon training favored weapon.The Inquisitor has Judgement and Bane.
The only time the Warpriest is doing better than the Inquisitor is level 4. Every other level (1-3 and 5-20) the Inquisitor has an easier time landing their hits.
(And it should be pointed out that at level 4, they both have the same chance to hit - The Warpriest just has the extra point of damage that the Inquisitor doesn't. That quickly changes at level 5 though.)
(Aaand that isn't even taking into account how much more versatile Judgement is than Sacred Weapon. It's a lot.)
Such as....
How often do you use words of power?
Exactly.
New is not always better. New creates new things to deal with, has no prior support, and will require future support.
If something works, use that. Don't reinvent the wheel when you don't have to.
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Nor does it need to be a full BAB class, take a cue from the monks flurry of blows while keeping the flavor of the war priest and give the Full BAB with only their diety's weapon.
On topic, this is a 6 level caster, not a 4 level caster. It is a 3/4 BaB class, not a full BaB class.It won't be a full BaB class, the Devs said that ship has sailed. So looking at what we have we seem to generally agree it needs more offense.
Which I also advocated earlier.
I think the best way to do this class is make the favored weapon use the key.
Want to be a Warpriest of Desna? Your starknife gets bonuses, weapon training and you can get returning weapon as a special ability with it.
Warpriest of Pharasma? Your daggers overcome any DR of undead.
Etc, etc...
That is an interesting class with interesting flavor.
Which is why I'm advocating for static damage increases like weapon trainiing...
A starblade isn't a viable weapon to base a medium BaB warrior class, that has little access to static damage increases around.
Weapon Training doesn't cut it. Viable Two-weapon fighters are classes with static damage boni the size of smite evil, sneak attack or (maybe) favored enemy.
There's also the fact that the warpriest is a good deal more MAD than the fighter, who can make it work through the combination of weapon training, specialization, double slice, and both high strength and dex.
The warpriest lack access to the fighter-only feats, and if I were to make a TWF warpriest he'd need: high str for damage and to hit. dex=15 for TWF, high to decent con for taking hits, and high to decent wisdom to cast his spells. In addition, he might need charisma if he cares about his channel energy. I wouldn't.
A TWF fighter needs high str, dex=15, decent-high con (has d10 hd).
And a single light weapon style Warpriest would be beaten soundly by a two-hander warpriest regardless of whether you give him weapon training.
I think the best way to do this class is make the favored weapon use the key.
Might make a pretty big list though, and inspire mix max choices for deity instead of basing it on who you think fits your character. I'd actually rather see a more flexible class. Also creates problems when you have a very large list of weapons or new ones/deities come along. Say we don't put in katana or forget somehow because its not core, warpriest of Shizuru are in a weird place. Say we don't put in the Nodachi, then a new tian deity comes in when we introduce Vudra type deities who uses a Nodachi, that deity is in a weird place too.
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Weapon Training doesn't cut it. Viable Two-weapon fighters are classes with static damage boni the size of smite evil, sneak attack or (maybe) favored enemy.
And those are full BaB classes without 6 levels of spell casting.
Hell Divine Favor is a first level spell...
@Mrsin - I'm sorry that is a problem in the groups and people you play with. That is unfortunate for you and your fellow players.