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Wait, if you wanted to be a channeler, why wouldn't you be a cleric? They don't have the 3/4ths Channel Energy Progression like this guy has.
Channel Energy is clearly a secondary ability for the warpriest.
ou're missing the entirety of my (sarcastic) point.
Pharasma hates undead. She wants her followers to destroy undead. Pathfinder Devs decided her favorite weapon is a dagger. So you're telling me that Pharasma is happy with her Warpriest who literally cannot hurt a skeleton because he's too busy using the wrong weapon for the job, in an effort to appease her?I don't buy that.
Did I miss something? Did they change Damage Reduction from "slightly resistant to damage" to "completely immune to things that don't beat their DR" while I wasn't looking?
Look, the idea of tying mechanics to flavor is fine. But the flavor has to be designed with that in mind if it's ever going to work well. Deity favored weapons were absolutely not designed with mechanical effectiveness in mind - My point about Mystra and shuriken from above still stands as an example of that.
Which is why the class feature has to work with the mechanics to make them effective.
Shuriken aren't a terrible weapon after all, just expensive to use. The "Divine Soulknife" idea fixes that, at least somewhat. I can see this class being the go-to for a thrown weapons character if that's implemented.
And I kinda agree with other people, not every god is going to be optimal for every build or divine class. That's just a side effect of the Domain system. A Cleric of Gorum is probably not going to be as good of a healer as a Cleric of Sarenrae or some other god with the Healing Domain.
Likewise, a Warpriest with a less combat ready weapon is not going to be as good as a Warpriest with a better weapon. The ship has sailed on Domains and Favored Weapons, that's already a thing.
But making the class better for every choice is a good option, even if by nature some of these options will be better than others. And again, the addition of a Feat or an Archetype can fix that even better, so your Warpriest of Mystra can swing a Greatsword if he wants to.
Bonus, he'd have a powerful enchanted backup weapon in the form of those free enchanted Shuriken.
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Wait, if you wanted to be a channeler, why wouldn't you be a cleric? They don't have the 3/4ths Channel Energy Progression like this guy has.
Channel Energy is clearly a secondary ability for the warpriest.
Because I am an aasimar oracle with a cleric dip for sun/glory domain. Because uber-SAD caster oracle v. quasi-MAD channel cleric. :)
I second the feat notion for favored weapon (again). If there was a feat, or even 2 feats, that can give a different weapon I'd be fine. Because desnan warpriests should make good use of martial weapons. I'd still make Warpriests of Ragathiel/Iomedae/Sarenrae using favored weapons, but Desnan warpriests would probably take the feats to switch to something like warhammer. Lets different flavor options be there.
I would like to add to the action economy discussion by saying that I would like to see more blessings like the healing blessing that lets swift action self heals. More of that allowing things like swift offense buffs.
So, I took about twenty minutes to revise the warpriest entry in the ACG playtest. It was a rushed effort and I don't homebrew often, so this might be massively overpowered or just plain tripe. Still, I thought it would be useful to put down some of the ideas discussed here in a single place on Google Drive.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
Full BAB is riding the crazy train to OP city, imo. 6 levels of spell casting and full attack is unheard of right? If people were somehow okay with this then spell combat would be an "unnecessary evil" so don't worry about that.
Charisma and spontaneous casting makes me feel like this is a fighter oracle gish at that point (which could be fun but is definitely not a cleric/fighter).
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Let me try again, in an effort to be clear as to my suggestions.
Step 1. You replace sacred weapon with a flat bonus that increases with level.
Step 2. You remove the domain/blessing feature entirely.
Step 3. You add an ability to add various +1 weapon enhancements that are tied to Deities similarly to how the domains and blessings are tied to deities.
How often you can add these abilities depends on your level. I'm thinking something like rounds per level.
For example, Saranae could get something like flaming, furious, and merciful. Pharasma could get something like bane (undead), Ghosttouch, Deadly (these are off the top of my head, I'm very open to suggestion as to who gets what)
Step 4. Based on the favored weapon (or taking a feat that allows another sacred weapon) you enter into a weapon group for that weapon.
Under that weapon group are the bonus feats you can choose from, as well as special abilities for those weapons at appropriate levels.
Replacing Sacred weapon is less space.
The Weapon property section going to take a page or two, as it is more or less listing the various weapon properties and gods with them.
The 15 Weapon Groups is actually less than the number of domains currently listed, so that would take less space.
So lets say you are a Warpriest of Pharasma. You will have a Weapon Focus at first level with your favored weapon and instead of a blessing you pick an enhancement you can add for one round a day. You pick Bane:Undead and for one round a day your daggers are undead bane.
Rather than getting arbitrary combat bonus feats, you get bonus feats specifically for your weapon group as bonus feats similar to Ranger Combat Feats, including the not needing pre-requisites.
Under these groups you include bonus abilities at appropriate levels.
Because I am an aasimar oracle with a cleric dip for sun/glory domain. Because uber-SAD caster oracle v. quasi-MAD channel cleric. :)Wait, if you wanted to be a channeler, why wouldn't you be a cleric? They don't have the 3/4ths Channel Energy Progression like this guy has.
Channel Energy is clearly a secondary ability for the warpriest.
And therein lies the problem with stat consolidation. The class that's meant to be the best is outshone by a class that only a specific build gets it. Guess the oracle should've been a bit more MAD.
But isn't that how it goes? The spontaneous classes don't really have the abilities that rely on secondary ability scores.
Hm.
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Because some people just won't let it go until a dev speaks. At this point the ONLY thing we as playtesters can do is actually playtest, put up the numbers and let it be.
It's even worse for this class because we don't know exactly what parts are locked and what parts are still up in the air AND it's a holiday week in the US AND the developer in charge of this class is busy with another class that needed major reworks as well (seems Jason got the two tough ones...wondering if there are as many major reworks going on in some of the other classes, as I'm only really watching 3 of them at the moment).
Did I miss something? Did they change Damage Reduction from "slightly resistant to damage" to "completely immune to things that don't beat their DR" while I wasn't looking?
Use your head, man.
Daggers do d4 damage. Skeleton's have Bludgeoning/5. Warpriests need Str, Wisdom, a halfway decent Con, and really shouldn't be dumping Dex or Cha (and Archers have it worse). So most aren't going to be getting a ton of extra damage from Str alone.So that low-level Warpriest is looking at 1-2 damage per hit, on an obvious enemy encounter considering his faith, with the best of damage rolls.
There's no way Pharasma cares more about the dagger than she does about destroying the skeleton. Because of her flavor. And if flavor is the key to everything here...
Look, the idea of tying mechanics to flavor is fine. But the flavor has to be designed with that in mind if it's ever going to work well. Deity favored weapons were absolutely not designed with mechanical effectiveness in mind - My point about Mystra and shuriken from above still stands as an example of that.Which is why the class feature has to work with the mechanics to make them effective.
Shuriken aren't a terrible weapon after all, just expensive to use. The "Divine Soulknife" idea fixes that, at least somewhat. I can see this class being the go-to for a thrown weapons character if that's implemented.
And I kinda agree with other people, not every god is going to be optimal for every build or divine class. That's just a side effect of the Domain system. A Cleric of Gorum is probably not going to be as good of a healer as a Cleric of Sarenrae or some other god with the Healing Domain.
Likewise, a Warpriest with a less combat ready weapon is not going to be as good as a Warpriest with a better weapon. The ship has sailed on Domains and Favored Weapons, that's already a thing.
But making the class better for every choice is a good option, even if by nature some of these options will be better than others. And again, the addition of a Feat or an Archetype can fix that even better, so your Warpriest of Mystra can swing a Greatsword if he wants to.
Bonus, he'd have a powerful enchanted...
The difference between a Cleric with the Healing domain and one without it is minimal. The difference between an unarmed strike and a greatsword is absolutely huge.
And yes, every faith will have Warpriests. Why? Because there isn't a deity restriction on the class. Does that make a lot of sense? No, but it's less restrictive on player options that way, which is why you don't see the class saying, "Only X, Y, and Z gods have Warpriests."
(And for what it's worth, don't you think the god/ess of Magic would much prefer their closest followers to be wielding magic, and not give a hoot what physical weapon is in their hands?)
...I think I just learned another one of those unwritten rules of the game. That's useful to know.
So, I took about twenty minutes to revise the warpriest entry in the ACG playtest. It was a rushed effort and I don't homebrew often, so this might be massively overpowered or just plain tripe. Still, I thought it would be useful to put down some of the ideas discussed here in a single place on Google Drive.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
Full BAB is riding the crazy train to OP city, imo. 6 levels of spell casting and full attack is unheard of right? If people were somehow okay with this then spell combat would be an "unnecessary evil" so don't worry about that.
Charisma and spontaneous casting makes me feel like this is a fighter oracle gish at that point (which could be fun but is definitely not a cleric/fighter).
I don't think that full BAB and 6-level spellcasting is intrinsically insane, but it depends on the spell list. The 3.5 Duskblade has full BAB and a weird five-level spellcasting setup and it isn't remotely busted, but it also has a narrow and intentionally limited spell list that contains almost exclusively single-target zaps, short-term combat buffs, and a handful of very light utility spells, like, uh, Rouse, which wakes people up. The few serious spells they get are hard to deploy properly because you're not going to have a wizard's casting stats. They do get spotty utility - they get Dispel Magic, for example - but they're generally pretty innocuous.
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For the most part, they just need to copy-paste Magus.....
Blessings, Sacred Weapon and Sacred armor replace arcane pool
Warpriests get spell combat. Spell combat can be used without a free hand, but only for self-targeting spells OR blessings.
Evil warpriests get spontaneous Inflicts and can "spellstrike" with them.
Good Warpriests get spontaneous Cures and can use them with spell combat to target someone other than themselves, or use them to "spellstrike" undead.
done and done.
The arguments about favored weapon are whatever... if it is a huge imposition on you, then talk to your GM about working up something different. Frankly, it makes sense that there would be more warpriests of Gorum anyway.
Or they could change it... I really don't care. Or they could have a feat that either (A) gives a special bonus to favored weapons or (B) one that changes your favored weapon.
Heck, they could also just have a new weapon special property that turns your weapon into a holy symbol/divine focus for a particular deity, and from that point on it counts as a favored weapon. Serenrae would probably be okay with granting some special god-juice to a glaive bedecked with her heraldry and motifs.
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Full BAB is riding the crazy train to OP city, imo. 6 levels of spell casting and full attack is unheard of right? If people were somehow okay with this then spell combat would be an "unnecessary evil" so don't worry about that.
Charisma and spontaneous casting makes me feel like this is a fighter oracle gish at that point (which could be fun but is definitely not a cleric/fighter).Well, what are your suggestions? He could definitely be dropped down to 4th level casting, or we could omit spell combat. Either way, he'd start with spells at first level, unlike the paladin. I just wanted to emphasize his martial nature over his spellcasting ability.
We can switch him over to WIS casting, but then it's a fighter/inquisitor gish so there's really no winning. Still, it might be thematically appropriate to use WIS.
Well, I have been advocating a spell combat ability or other action economy ability. I would gut out channel energy and put in lay-on hands or even remove it entirely if that is what it takes for the class to get that action economy power.
I think dropping the Warpriest to 4 levels of casting could be a problem because then you would have a Paladin (especially if everything moved over to charisma). It is not completely crazy, though? If the class got LOTS of spells up to level 4 (like an unprecedented amount) and the ability to apply those buffs as a free action then you might have something that could run with a fighter or slayer and not overpower them.
That is a crazy different class at that point though.
@The Beard
Ciretose keeps bringing it back to favored weapons.
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I just want to clear something up on the metamagic front for a second.
I had suggested giving the warpriest the capability to extend without adjustment and eventually alter extend metamagic so that it would alter a spell by one time increment.
For clarity:
At whatever level seems appropriate a round/ level spell would become a minute/ level spell etc...
I never suggested persistent metamagic for free at any point... because that's crazy.
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@trogdar - The problem being that you are then changing the spell.
If the intent is to make a buff functionally always on, make a buff that is always on.
When you start messing with spells in the way you are describing you are functionally adding metamagic effects.
If you want to have buffs, have buffs. At this point the class buffs armor and weapons as a swift.
There seems to be decent consensus that the swift isn't the way to go, and that these bonuses should probably just be "on".
When you start messing with spells without changing levels, bad things tend to happen in the land of unintended consequences...
Thats your opinion, and it isn't without any president. I do, however, prefer it when my ideas are not distorted into persistent metamagic for free.
It just isn't true.
I do not think such consensus exist.There seems to be decent consensus that the swift isn't the way to go...
A total of one guy on the last page said that he didn't want swift actions. However, in addition one guy said the class was already swift action heavy(which isn't far from the truth).
After the Mythic Rules, I'm starting to get leery of the Swift action going from being something that is mostly used as a safety net against piling on a ton of effects within a single turn and controlling timing issues to being something that's a valuable resource that you have to carefully track how you're using and think about how you're spending. Different classes and builds are already there to a certain degree, and I think it adds a lot of extra fiddling to the game. That's not to say that individual things can't use swift actions if they need them, I'm just leery of swift actions being something that requires an additional extra layer of decision-making on each turn.
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For the most part, they just need to copy-paste Magus.....
Blessings, Sacred Weapon and Sacred armor replace arcane pool
Warpriests get spell combat. Spell combat can be used without a free hand, but only for self-targeting spells OR blessings.
Evil warpriests get spontaneous Inflicts and can "spellstrike" with them.
Good Warpriests get spontaneous Cures and can use them with spell combat to target someone other than themselves, or use them to "spellstrike" undead.
done and done.
The arguments about favored weapon are whatever... if it is a huge imposition on you, then talk to your GM about working up something different. Frankly, it makes sense that there would be more warpriests of Gorum anyway.
Or they could change it... I really don't care. Or they could have a feat that either (A) gives a special bonus to favored weapons or (B) one that changes your favored weapon.
Heck, they could also just have a new weapon special property that turns your weapon into a holy symbol/divine focus for a particular deity, and from that point on it counts as a favored weapon. Serenrae would probably be okay with granting some special god-juice to a glaive bedecked with her heraldry and motifs.
This.
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1) Relying on 4 ability scores is something the Cleric has to struggle with as well, unless he's a dedicated caster. Monks have it harder, but are fine. Str 14, Con 14, Wis 14, Cha 14, racial bonus to Strength, or rearrange the stats a little bit. Not a huge deal.
2) Requiring pre-buffing before battle is an issue, one that SHOULD be remedied by:
3) Sacred Weapon/Armor: In order to make the Warpriest truly awesome, we need this class feature to be better, and the more I think about it, the more I think it needs to be a COMBINATION of Weapon Training and its current implementation: Make the bonus to weapon/damage with the favored weapon fixed, and have special abilities be either fixed OR added via swift action (preferably tied to deity's favored weapon, and/or provided by your blessing).
AND
3.5) Blessings. We REALLY need to look at the Bloodrager for inspiration in this department. Bloodrager has distinctly applicable bonuses granted by its bloodlines, some of which are even new melee abilities, and Warpriest should get the same. What if the Holy blessing had attack ability that dealt additional damage to evil-aligned creatures? Or how about if Artifice domain, rather than requiring an action, gave a flat bonus to damage to objects?
THAT would work well at remedying a majority of the issues the class MAY have atm.
Oh, one more thing:
You don't need to use the favored weapon to be effective You don't need to use the favored weapon to be effective You don't need to use the favored weapon to be effective POWER ATTACK You don't need to use the favored weapon to be effective You don't need to use the favored weapon to be effective...
Davor if Sacred Weapon only functions for your Favored Weapon then the Warpriest has no way of upping his to hit like every other capable melee combatant. Other than pre-buffing.
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I played a 6th level WarPriest tonight and it made me pretty sad. I was looking foreword to this class.
First off this class need a full BAB anything less just has it trail to far behind the other classes. Everything that was fought in this scenario was killed in two or three rounds. I played with two druids, a wizard and a paladin. All these classes have a far higher damage output then i could muster. I have a level 12 cleric and i had enough spells or heals to feel left behind but the warpriest just trailed behind everyone.
I like the blesses but they just seem to be weaker domains that require a standard to use so i lose a round to deal an extra d6 the next, while the druids have both themselves and their pets beating on the mob, The paladin gets to swing twice on it. If its is around more then 3 rounds (which its not) the action cost would break even.
Swing 1d6 plus 4 str or used action to get 1d6 plus 4 plus 1d6
round one round two round three round four total
avg 4+4= 8 4+4= 8 4+4= 8 4+4= 8 32
avg bless 4+4+4= 12 4+4+4= 12 4+4+4= 12 36
That is not including weapon bond or misses but it still shows that the bless only starts to gain after 4 rounds and it doesn't stack with the similar type in enchant.
If bless granted a passive ability like say if you crit and you had the healing bless you could heal everyone back a d6. Maybe if you were a Warpriest of Serenrae and you scored a crit you could burn a use of your channel to add 4d6 fire damage. If your a WarPriest with the war bless you could burn a channel to get an extra attack. I can see the blesses can really add some flavor to the class based on their deity, the idea is great but they could be so much better. What if the blesses where more like bloodlines and not domains, you only get one but they give you a lot of specialization into the role that fits to the deity.
Also the class is very stat heavy so you cant use stats to make up for the slower BAB, either get rid of Cha and use Wis for channels or maybe even let them add Wis to BAB and damage.
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I definitely love that it feels like the developer in charge of the Warpriest is avoiding this thread like the plague. At least the lead dev for the Investigator is talking to people.
Davor if Sacred Weapon only functions for your Favored Weapon then the Warpriest has no way of upping his to hit like every other capable melee combatant. Other than pre-buffing.Then you need to re-read Sacred Weapon, because it explicitly states that it can do the opposite of what you just said.
Uh, Sacred Weapon only functions for your Focus Weapon which is your Deity's Favored Weapon.
Without Sacred Weapon or pre-buffing your odds of hitting an enemy are the same as a Rogue's. Which is awful.
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I definitely love that it feels like the developer in charge of the Warpriest is avoiding this thread like the plague. At least the lead dev for the Investigator is talking to people.
I think it's Jason and he seems busy with the Arcanist. I'd find it hilarious if it were Sean, though.
I definitely love that it feels like the developer in charge of the Warpriest is avoiding this thread like the plague. At least the lead dev for the Investigator is talking to people.I think it's Jason and he seems busy with the Arcanist. I'd find it hilarious if it were Sean, though.
Would kinda suck if Jason released the Arcanist and while people were theorycrafting up a storm on that, looked at this thread and just sighed. "Gotta figure something out for this one too."
Like others they Dev aren't listening to us and that what sucks since we the players are wanting this to be great class to play.
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Like others they Dev aren't listening to us and that what sucks since we the players are wanting this to be great class to play.
Relax mate. The reason why the Arcanist was overhauled was because they listened to their players.
The playtest also still has quite a bit of time left on it (relatively to its total length), and it's not like they're immediately locking everything into place as soon as the playtest period ends. There's time for them to get to stuff, and if they didn't care about feedback or intend to change anything based on it, they wouldn't be doing a playtest (which requires substantial resources) in the first place.
Knowledge blessing is a little confusing:
Monster Lore (major): At 10th level, when you succeed
at a Knowledge check against an opponent to learn about
its abilities or weaknesses, you gain a +2 insight bonus on
attacks, saves, checks, and AC against that creature. This
bonus lasts for 1 minute.
What kind of action is that? Does it trigger immediately?
It's also kind of sad that you can't use it if you knew that you were going to fight a green dragon and rolled Knowledge:arcana in advance.
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Like others they Dev aren't listening to us and that what sucks since we the players are wanting this to be great class to play.
I spoke to a dev last night and they are certainly listening. Jason is the dev in charge of this class, as I understand it, and is busy with a total rewrite of one of the classes (arcanist) because it was deemed not ready. The only thing they kept was the casting. He's trying to ensure that the info for that hits this week, then I suspect he is going to come this way and get to work on this class, at which point we will know what aspects are up for debate.
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Inquisitor called, he said you're incorrect about 3/4 BAB.
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What about the pool we (I) mentioned earlier used a mechanic similar to Grit/Ki etc. Slow progression of points that can be used in certain ways.
For example, for 1 point, as a swift action:
1. When using your gods favored weapon (or by my preference, favored weapon GROUP) you will act as a full BAB class for one minute.
-or-
2. Gain a +1 enhancement bonus to a weapon, ie. sacred weapon.
-or-
3. Gain a +1 enhancement bonus to armor, ie. sacred armor.
-or-
4. Cast any 1st level buff spell on yourself.
This is just off the top of my head, although I mentioned it about 150 posts ago before the crowd rage developed again and Chris had to step in . . . again.
It's also kind of sad that you can't use it if you knew that you were going to fight a green dragon and rolled Knowledge:arcana in advance.
Ideally you would roll it again at the start of a fight I would think. Knowledge checks can be a little weird. At least it doesn't devour a few actions.
I was making some builds with this class and I found the Focus Weapon a bit restrictive for a class feature that that scales up to level 20 (1,4,8,12,16,20). If it was just the Focus Weapon and Sacred worked with Focus weapon or any weapon the War Priest is proficient in that would make more sense. I just don't get the point of giving the War Priest all martial weapon then giving them a class feature that it is disadvantageous to use any weapon but you deities favored weapon. Basically any other weapon is back up weapon, that could have just left it with simple weapons for that.
Other that this issue I'm finding the class is quite interest. At glance it looks like a little weak but after a few builds I'm finding it's quite a solid class.
One thing I think should be added though is access to fighter feats the same as the Magus at 1/2 level and Level -3 for an archetype with diminished casting.
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Davor if Sacred Weapon only functions for your Favored Weapon then the Warpriest has no way of upping his to hit like every other capable melee combatant. Other than pre-buffing.Then you need to re-read Sacred Weapon, because it explicitly states that it can do the opposite of what you just said.Uh, Sacred Weapon only functions for your Focus Weapon which is your Deity's Favored Weapon.
Without Sacred Weapon or pre-buffing your odds of hitting an enemy are the same as a Rogue's. Which is awful.
So use your Sacred Weapon, and keep backup weapons that deal different types of damage for when you need them.
Also, Rogues hit fine. They're not AMAZING like fighters or rangers (vs. favored enemies) or paladins (while smiting), but they hit fine. They get flanking bonuses and can pick up bane weapons just like anyone else. I've played a rogue in SO many games, and have never once had a problem hitting.
@Frederic
The main reason why rogues struggle to hit is because it's a medium bab class that doesn't have class features that adjust for it.
Dervish Dance bards, inquisitors, magi and druids all have medium base attack progression. They're still perfectly capable of performing well in combat because they have access to spells and class features (Inspire Courage, Judgements/Bane, Wildshape, Arcane Accuracy, other assorted buffs) that help bridge the gap.
The warpriest doesn't necessarily need full base attack progression to do well on the frontlines, and it is very unlikely to gain full bab while keeping 6th level spells. The warpriest does need class features that will help him achieve a similar efficiency as a class with full bab.
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A total of one guy on the last page said that he didn't want swift actions. However, in addition one guy said the class was already swift action heavy(which isn't far from the truth).I do not think such consensus exist.There seems to be decent consensus that the swift isn't the way to go...
Pretty much everyone has agreed that the class is swift action heavy and therefore requires multiple rounds to activate what should be available in the round.
Or are people just disagreeing with me on principal without actually reading what I write.
That would explain a lot...
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Davor if Sacred Weapon only functions for your Favored Weapon then the Warpriest has no way of upping his to hit like every other capable melee combatant. Other than pre-buffing.
And pre-buffing is a thing that can happen, particularly with sacred bonuses that stack with pretty much everything.
I would suspect that is the fear in play and why the bonuses started so low.
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I definitely love that it feels like the developer in charge of the Warpriest is avoiding this thread like the plague. At least the lead dev for the Investigator is talking to people.
Jason wrote this according to Sean and he is busy with the Aracanist.
The play test will go for months, this is a marathon, not a sprint...