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A bunch of friends recently joined PFS and want me to play with them, so I have to make a new character. I want to make something a bit different and I feel like I have never seen anyone in Societies play a priest of Pharasma, so I figured I would give it a try. But I am having some trouble figuring out how to build them. Having several other characters, I know the undead are a pretty common enemy, so a character with a passionate hate for the Undead would be useful. I am just uncertain if I should build him as a Cleric, an Inquisitor or a Warpriest. All three can let me play a very front line fighter with support abilities. Also, the divine casters are in low demand in my area, so I know a lot of tables with benefit from the spells.
Any thoughts on what I could build or which would be more fun to play? I'm not looking for full builds, just ideas or suggestions.
Bonus points to anyone who can help me figure out how to wield a scythe. I had originally planned on using it until I realized Pharasma's favored weapon is actually a dagger. And mostly because it would be kind of awesome, not because it is any good. (Although that x4 crit looks nice...)
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Just realized that a Oracle technically fits the bill too, although not as much thematically. Never played an Oracle either, but maybe Ancestor or Bones would work? IDK
Envoy of Balance is... different, I will give you that. Being able to channel both energies would be interesting. But I almost feel the biggest problem with channel just doubles. Assuming no one has an animal companion or a familiar, you need a Cha of 20 to Selective Channel your allies out of the negative energy. Not hard to get with items/levels, but then if someone does have a pet or you are at a large table, then you might cause some friendly fire. I'm never ok with intentionally harming your allies. (And I curse every Alchemist who doesn't pick up the talent to exclude their allies from their bombs or Caster that throws a fireball into melee.) Depending on the scenario, if you are fighting large numbers of enemies (we got swarmed by 10 low level dudes last week), you might also end up healing the enemy. Take 3d6! Now heal 3d6!
Now that I think about it, what order do they go off? I guess you could theoretically kill an enemy before the healing goes off.
(This is all generally moot anyways, since most of the time, you fight only a few enemies at a time).
If you want to do support in addition to fighting, don't play a Warpriest. They will wreak combat, but don't have spells or skills to spare for much else. Inquisitor gets plenty of skills to support out of combat, and Clerics have spells and channeling. It just depends on what kind of support you want to do.
I'm not sure about the other 2 but inquisitor lets you use your dieties favored weapon. So if Pharasma is the Scythe then you can use it that way. Im not sure how well it will fit your concept though.
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All three get their deities favored weapon as a proficiency and no, Pharasma's favored weapon is a dagger. (Because death is always associated with no other weapon than a dagger. Can't think of a single other weapon that better personifies Death.)
For a brief moment, I contemplated a dual wielding, dagger throwing Pharasma Warpriest because it might be the ONLY Warpriest that makes use of the Sacred Weapon bonus damage and Weapon Focus would reduce the pain of dual wielding to pretty much negligible. Oh no, my attacks are at a -1? Whatever shall I do with my double 1d10 that crit on 19-20 (at level 10). But it gave me more of a Rogue-ish vibe and I see this character as a slayer of the Undead.
If you wanted both you could take the Bones mystery and be a Spirit Guide and bond to the Life Spirit. Then you can channel positive energy to heal/harm, channel negative energy to command undead, all of your casting runs off charisma so your DC is strong and you have masses of uses of both options.
Pharasma is a Death goddess, not Undeath. Worshippers of Pharasma hate the Undead and hunt down Necromancers and Undead down. They don't command Undead.
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If you do decide on using daggers, there is a trait called River Rat that will give you a flat +1 to damage with them. There is a feat Deific Obediance that gives a boon for each deity. Pharasma's is a +2 to hit with daggers.
A warpriest of Pharasma is deadly with knives, as is a Sanctified Slayer inquisitor.
Honestly I'd just play a Support Cleric who worships Pharasma. A lot of people choose the Healing and Death domains. The 8th level Death Power lets you heal off Negative energy so you could channel it if you want. I'd rather channel positive because I find the group healing/undead harming more useful, and simply consider the power a neat little defense against negative energy wielding undead or even against Necromancers who channel offensively.). The downside to this is that you really don't have any particuarly unique or juicy domain powers. But the Cleric is already such a strong and flexible class that you'll never feel like you aren't contributing.
Divine Protection is the reason to have a Charisma of 14+. Focusing on Channeling is just suboptimal. Clerics are feat starved as it is, so think really carefully about your other class features before burning feats on things like Selective Channeling, Improved Channeling, Extra Channeling, Quick Channeling, etc.
Repose's 1st level domain ability is actually a pretty nice Debuff. If you get a decent strength and pump up wisdom, you could try your hand at making a Bad Touch Cleric.
As a final note, Pharasma's clerics really aren't any more suited to slaying the undead than any other cleric. Heck, Clerics of Iomedae and Sarenrae are blantantly better undead slayers because they get access to the Sun and Glory domains, and actually receive proficiency with a decent weapon in addition to the Cleric's usual Morningstar.
If you plan on any sort of channelling with a Pharasma worshipper then I second Fateful Channel. I would definitely consider Oracle for a channel-based character to minimise MAD though.
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I once had plans for an Inquisitor of Pharasma who favored the scythe. The weaopn was called something like "Traitor's Promise" and the whole idea was to add insult to injury by killing wretched Urgathoa worshipers with their own deity's weapon of choice. You could always take that angle.
If you did, sadly our lovely lady lacks a set of domains that really complement a Battle Cleric proper. Even with good strength and power attack you can expect fishing for x4 "chunky salsa" crits to often take a backseat to support, debuffing, and sometimes spot healing. It's for this reason that I advise you take positive channeling. Plus, even if you cannot hope to match the Glorious Sarenrae, it's a great backup against those pesky incoporeal undead.
All three get their deities favored weapon as a proficiency and no, Pharasma's favored weapon is a dagger. (Because death is always associated with no other weapon than a dagger. Can't think of a single other weapon that better personifies Death.)
Pharasma is the goddess of birth as well as death. Her priests carry sacramental daggers called skanes, used to sever the umbilical cord of newborns and to give mercy to the dying.
I guess you could use a two-handed scythe for those duties, if you don’t mind horrifying onlookers.
Worshippers of Pharasma hate the Undead and hunt down Necromancers and Undead down. They don't command Undead.
Some white necromancers serve Pharasma; they command undead in order to destroy them.
A Spirit Warden shaman of Bones can take levels in Soul Warden and be able to take both the Turn Undead and Command Undead feats through Channel Damage (it's positive energy, but is treated just as "channel energy" for prerequisites, RAW).
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All three get their deities favored weapon as a proficiency and no, Pharasma's favored weapon is a dagger. (Because death is always associated with no other weapon than a dagger. Can't think of a single other weapon that better personifies Death.)Pharasma is the goddess of birth as well as death. Her priests carry sacramental daggers called skanes, used to sever the umbilical cord of newborns and to give mercy to the dying.
I guess you could use a two-handed scythe for those duties, if you don’t mind horrifying onlookers.
Worshippers of Pharasma hate the Undead and hunt down Necromancers and Undead down. They don't command Undead.Some white necromancers serve Pharasma; they command undead in order to destroy them.
Both of these things are interesting and I didn't know. I am going to factor both into whatever I do end up rolling.
The ideas presented so far are really awesome and have really inspired me.
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Skylar ninja'ed me. Envoy of balance is THE way to play a priest of Pharisma. Just be a vanilla cleric with high charisma and take all the channeling feats and divine protection and your set. Human with a longspear reach tactics until you get deeper into the levels is how I'd fight. 14,12,12,7,14,16(18) is my stat array of choice.
This was going to be my recommendation as well. I've done something very similar with a Cleric of Naderi.
Not much to add, but the scythe is the favored weapon of Urgathoa, goddess of undead.
A priest of Pharasma would have many problems using a scythe.
Could someone explain to me the reason why some dieties grant proficiency with weapons that Clerics already have? It just seems like such a waste and inadvertent nerf to some deities compared to others. I mean, at least give Pharasman clerics free Weapon Focus [Dagger] or something.
That's what Warpriest is for.
It's the whole flavor thing.
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Could someone explain to me the reason why some dieties grant proficiency with weapons that Clerics already have? It just seems like such a waste and inadvertent nerf to some deities compared to others. I mean, at least give Pharasman clerics free Weapon Focus [Dagger] or something.
There are certain feats and abilities that only work with a favored weapon, and it's nice to be able to use those with a a dagger if you want to. Guided hand, the Weapon of the Chosen chain, and so on.
If it really bothers you, Pharasma does have the best deific obedience benefit. River Rat makes it the same as a shortsword but it can still be thrown. Dagger really is one of the better weapons in the game despite being simple.
I'm currently playing a Samsaran Warpriest of Pharasma and have been struggling with my feat build ( I like to plan out all the way to level 20, even if I know I won't be going that high). It's not a PFS game, so I've had some flexibility with my DM (he allowed kukris to be considered as daggers from a different culture, since there's a huge part of his world that's modeled after Asia [including India]). I've been playing my guy as a sword and board, high armor combatant and he's been very effective (using a bastard sword) but getting scaling damage on a light weapon is a way to really surprise the hell out of enemies.
I don't know what combat style you were considering, but dual weilding daggers as a Warpriest and sticking to medium armor or lighter (even robes) really isn't the worst plan in the world. If you're playing a human, you might want to look in to Martial Versatility to expand your free Weapon Focus (and therefore Sacred Weapon powers) to all light blades. That should open up some options for you.
If you're looking for a cool take on priests of Pharasma, pick up the Pathfinder novel The Redemption Engine - the main character is probably the most unique concept for this kind of character I've ever come across.
Good luck - I hope you're able to find a build to fit your playstyle and have fun with.
Wow, didn't expect someone do do this so soon!
My Core Campaign character I made about a month ago is pretty much exactly what you're doing except that she's CORE only That, and that she's a Reaper of Pharasma as opposed to a High Priest.
Was originally going to be a Barbarian/Cleric of Pharasma/Shadowdancer, but I have since decided on 2 levels of Fighter, 3 of Cleric, and the rest as Shadowdancer. As for the Dagger as Pharasma's weapon of choice, I'm limiting myself by having them be my ranged weapons. I also chose to wield a scythe for thematic reasons as well as hoping to get that crit at some point during her career...Masterwork Silver Scythe ghetto crit in third scenario and confirmed crit later that same scenario...TOTALLY WORTH IT!
Anyway, I hope your priest works out for you! I just had to comment as this came up only a week after I reached lvl 2. Have fun!