I assume you are talking about an arsenal chaplain archetype warpriest. Because even if they count as fighter, they still need weapon training (a class feature, not a feat... unless I missed some new book).
Even a fighter can't take advanced weapon training if they don't have weapon training. If you are playing a fighter with an archetype that trade away weapon training (and your replacement doesn't still count as weapon training), then you are out of luck.
But it does seem kosher for them to grab advanced weapon training. Arsenal chaplains can grab weapon training, and they count as fighters for the purpose of feats. So there is little reason why they couldn't grab AWT as far as I am aware.
For the warpriest it's only a feat away.
Another way to get Weapon Training (and thus qualify for Advanced Weapon Training) is to use Variant Multiclassing, selecting Fighter as your secondary class. This consumes **5** feats at fixed levels, so make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot with respect to feats before trying this. Also, it takes quite a while to get online.
At level 3, instead of a feat you get Bravery. Not great, but not totally useless.
At levels 7 and 15, instead of feats, you get Armor Training.
At levels 11 and 19, instead of feats, you get Weapon Training.
This can also work for classes other than Warpriest, although in many cases you will end up even more feat-starved (Warpriest at least gives some Bonus Feats), and again it still takes a long time to come online. The benefits even stack if your primary class also has Armor and/or Weapon Training (for instance, Myrmidarch Magus or Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest).
So .... that sucks. The 'militant' Warpriest gives up the awesome base weapon damage, AND gives up channel energy. Interesting interpretation of 'militant'.
Well, they assumed you would pick a weapon with huge base dice anyway. Y'know. Like every other class.
This isn't an archetype for training to make daggers into deadly weapons. This is an archetype that grabs its greatsword and just gets to swinging.
And it is interesting. Since the fact that it not only gets weapon training, but retains the ability to do the usual divine favor tactic. So it can actually have as high of an attack as a fighter. It is basically running around as a full BAB character with a further boosting ability.
Plus, you can use AWT to cheat and grab the change in damage dice anyway.
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So .... that sucks. The 'militant' Warpriest gives up the awesome base weapon damage, AND gives up channel energy. Interesting interpretation of 'militant'.
Also, channel energy is a worthless class feature on a warpriest. It takes two uses of precious fervor per channel, making it a huge trap to use.
I'd trade it away in almost every situation, unless you need channel energy as a prerequisite for another ability like guided hand. Even then I'd never actually use it.
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Another way to get Weapon Training (and thus qualify for Advanced Weapon Training) is to use Variant Multiclassing, selecting Fighter as your secondary class.Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Variant multi-classing is not allowed for Pathfinder Society, right?
No, but the Arsenal chaplain is prevented from taking advanced weapon training in PFS anyway.
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No, but the Arsenal chaplain is prevented from taking advanced weapon training in PFS anyway.Another way to get Weapon Training (and thus qualify for Advanced Weapon Training) is to use Variant Multiclassing, selecting Fighter as your secondary class.Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Variant multi-classing is not allowed for Pathfinder Society, right?
Even take the feat?
So .... that sucks. The 'militant' Warpriest gives up the awesome base weapon damage, AND gives up channel energy. Interesting interpretation of 'militant'.Well, they assumed you would pick a weapon with huge base dice anyway. Y'know. Like every other class.
This isn't an archetype for training to make daggers into deadly weapons. This is an archetype that grabs its greatsword and just gets to swinging.
And it is interesting. Since the fact that it not only gets weapon training, but retains the ability to do the usual divine favor tactic. So it can actually have as high of an attack as a fighter. It is basically running around as a full BAB character with a further boosting ability.
Plus, you can use AWT to cheat and grab the change in damage dice anyway.
Note too that the damage increase from Weapon Training is about as good, damage-wise, and gives an attack bonus the regular Warpriest can't match:
A Warpriest 20 with a dagger does 2d8 damage at +15 (before any other factors are accounted for, just base damage and BAB)
An Arsenal Chaplain 20 with a dagger does 1d6+4 at +19
Average damage on a hit? 9 for the vanilla Warpriest, 7.5 for the Arsenal Chaplain. But, one can expect the Arsenal Chaplain to hit significantly more often, thanks to his extra +4 to attack. DR will hurt him more though.
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No, but the Arsenal chaplain is prevented from taking advanced weapon training in PFS anyway.Another way to get Weapon Training (and thus qualify for Advanced Weapon Training) is to use Variant Multiclassing, selecting Fighter as your secondary class.Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Variant multi-classing is not allowed for Pathfinder Society, right?
Which is incredibly sad :(.
Why can't they take advanced weapon training?
Why can't they take advanced weapon training?
Because:
Special: This feat can be taken more than once, but at most once per 5 fighter levels.
Warpriests are fighter for feats requirements only
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Realistically, I feel AWT just isn't as exciting for Warpriests as it is fighters, anyway. Focused Weapon isn't impressive until at least 12 or so, and most of the options just don't scale particularly great. Warrior Spirit is nice but distinctly less valuable for the class that can already buff like crazy and slap Holy or Vicious on their weapon effortlessly.
Weapon Training is still amazing for the extra to-hit (Warpriest's biggest wekaness) and access to Weapon Mastery feats. It's a huge upgrade from the scaling damage bonus.
Read this post for a breakdown of why Weapon Training is so much better - in the example given, a 1d6 damage weapon used.
Mind, the Arsenal Chaplain I ended up building was an Archer. It has to consider if a standard to get bane is better than just full attacking anyway - which, between weapon training and divine favor, it often isn't.
Hey my post got linked in! ^_^
The reason in PFS the chaplain can't take AWT is it says it can't take it in the additional resources or clarification. There's a chance that the feat will be opened up to them allowing them to take it with one of their "count as fighter" feats. But the PFS leadership need to meet and talk about that, and they have a lot to talk about.
So .... that sucks. The 'militant' Warpriest gives up the awesome base weapon damage, AND gives up channel energy. Interesting interpretation of 'militant'.Well, they assumed you would pick a weapon with huge base dice anyway. Y'know. Like every other class.
This isn't an archetype for training to make daggers into deadly weapons. This is an archetype that grabs its greatsword and just gets to swinging.
Arsenal Chaplain does just fine with daggers (this is probably the preferred archetype for a throwing weapon warpriest, because it saves you a feat on martial focus to get ricochet toss.) The "sacred weapon stops at 1d6" thing is just to keep damage on pace with the vanilla warpriest.
At 5th level with sacred weapon
Warpriest deals: 1d8, average 4.5
Chaplain deals: 1d6 +1 (weapon training), average 4.5
10th Level with sacred weapon
Warpriest: 1d10, average 5.5
Chaplain 1d6+2, average 5.5 (Chaplain gets this damage at level 9, is briefly ahead)
Level 15 with sacred weapon
Warpriest: 2d6, average 7
Chaplain: 1d6+3, average 6.5 (Chaplain gets this at level 13, is ahead for 2 levels, then falls behind)
So up until level 15, the Chaplain is ahead of or even with the vanilla warpriest, even if they rely on their sacred weapon die. So this is just fine with daggers and starknives and the like. People tend to overestimate the effect of sacred weapon. For the first 15 levels it's just +1 average damage every 5 levels, which is worse than weapon training.
Normal WP accuracy by level
lv1 1 from WF
lv2 3 using DF no trait
lv3 4
lv4 5
lv5 5
lv6 7
lv7 8
lv8 9
lv9 11 Greater weapon focus
Now levels 4-7 a WP can get another +1 by activating sacred weapon and 8+ gets a +2 for
lv4 6
lv5 6
lv6 8
lv7 9
lv8 11
lv9 13
Now a fighter getting weapon focus and greater weapon focus has
lv1 2
lv2 3
lv3 4
lv4 5
lv5 7
lv6 8
lv7 9
lv8 11
lv9 13
So the base WP actually does quite well on accuracy, and that's assuming no fate's favored trait to up it by 1 lv2 on. Not to mention you're not taking power attack penalties as fast.
Damage they do well in too, assuming taking weapon specialization and factoring sacred weapon on
Damage
F WP
3 0
3 1
3 4
8 5
9 5
9 11
7 11
10 12
11 13
So we see that the base WP fairs very well to a fighter for accuracy and damage per hit. The damage downside is iterative attacks later.
So what this means is that a chaplain with WT will now get even more accuracy and damage.
The reason in PFS the chaplain can't take AWT is it says it can't take it in the additional resources or clarification. There's a chance that the feat will be opened up to them allowing them to take it with one of their "count as fighter" feats. But the PFS leadership need to meet and talk about that, and they have a lot to talk about.
The ambiguous part is if we allow the Arsenal Chaplain to take AWT via a feat (or a bonus feat), then how do we handle situations where the AWT option refers to a weapon group? Do "Sacred Weapons" make up their own group? Do we refer to whatever fighter group the sacred weapon would be in (and IIRC there are still a bunch of weapons without a fighter group)? Is the weapon group the AC has simply null, so for example "Versatile Training" would only give Bluff and Intimidate? Is it null so that every AWT that refers to a weapon group simply does not apply, but things like trained throw and abundant tactics are allowed?
There's a fair bit to talk about just there alone.
OH for sure, they'd have "clarification" of some sort saying how it works or if those options aren't but things that don't need a specific group are okay to take. So I wouldn't wait for the ruling or assume that the ruling will change and allow it. Just that we've been told that they'd take a look since they didn't really look at the feat when they made their ban.
Another way to get Weapon Training (and thus qualify for Advanced Weapon Training) is to use Variant Multiclassing, selecting Fighter as your secondary class. This consumes **5** feats at fixed levels, so make sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot with respect to feats before trying this. Also, it takes quite a while to get online.
At level 3, instead of a feat you get Bravery. Not great, but not totally useless.
At levels 7 and 15, instead of feats, you get Armor Training.
At levels 11 and 19, instead of feats, you get Weapon Training.
This can also work for classes other than Warpriest, although in many cases you will end up even more feat-starved (Warpriest at least gives some Bonus Feats), and again it still takes a long time to come online. The benefits even stack if your primary class also has Armor and/or Weapon Training (for instance, Myrmidarch Magus or Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest).
So Variant Multi-classing is something that is commonly misunderstood. Variant Multi-classing is not intended to award levels in the secondary class. It only states that it awards class features. While it doesn't exactly state 'variant classing does not award primary class levels to both primary and secondary class' it does state:
"It is probably a good idea to use either this variant system or normal multiclassing, but it’s possible for the two systems to be used together. In a game using both systems, a character can’t take levels in the secondary class she gains from this variant."
This supports the logic that in a game where both systems are used, placing levels into the secondary, variant class does not also award levels to the Primary class. If placing levels into the Primary Variant also awarded levels to the Secondary Variant players could simply level the secondary by targeting levels to the primary; thus, Primary, Variant levels do not ever award levels to Secondary, Variant classes.
What are you trying to say?
So .... that sucks. The 'militant' Warpriest gives up the awesome base weapon damage, AND gives up channel energy. Interesting interpretation of 'militant'.Well, they assumed you would pick a weapon with huge base dice anyway. Y'know. Like every other class.
This isn't an archetype for training to make daggers into deadly weapons. This is an archetype that grabs its greatsword and just gets to swinging.
Arsenal Chaplain does just fine with daggers (this is probably the preferred archetype for a throwing weapon warpriest, because it saves you a feat on martial focus to get ricochet toss.) The "sacred weapon stops at 1d6" thing is just to keep damage on pace with the vanilla warpriest.
At 5th level with sacred weapon
Warpriest deals: 1d8, average 4.5
Chaplain deals: 1d6 +1 (weapon training), average 4.510th Level with sacred weapon
Warpriest: 1d10, average 5.5
Chaplain 1d6+2, average 5.5 (Chaplain gets this damage at level 9, is briefly ahead)Level 15 with sacred weapon
Warpriest: 2d6, average 7
Chaplain: 1d6+3, average 6.5 (Chaplain gets this at level 13, is ahead for 2 levels, then falls behind)So up until level 15, the Chaplain is ahead of or even with the vanilla warpriest, even if they rely on their sacred weapon die. So this is just fine with daggers and starknives and the like. People tend to overestimate the effect of sacred weapon. For the first 15 levels it's just +1 average damage every 5 levels, which is worse than weapon training.
But Sacred Weapon is just a bonus to damage. Chaplain's Weapon Training also gets him a bonus to attack rolls, making him a more consistent hitter. Both of them still get Weapon Focus as a bonus feat, making them more liable to hit, but Chaplain's WT bonus makes sure their attack rolls scale as he levels.
Would that have an impact on the damage equation you posited?
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I'm saying that the official rules address the principle of Variant Secondary Classes as not receiving levels past level 1, ever.
You don't get any levels at all in the class on which your Secondary Class is based. Take VMC Fighter and you have 0 levels in Fighter.
"In a game using both systems, a character can’t take levels in the secondary class she gains from this variant"
The official rules include the previously mentioned clause to keep players from circumventing levels into a Variant, Secondary Class while combining both Standard and Variant Multiclassing methods of advancement. If Variant, Secondary Classes are not meant to receive levels past 1, as the clause indicates, it would also have to be intended that levels attributed to Primary Classes do not count toward Variant, Secondary Class level either; otherwise, one could simply circumvent the clause by increasing their Primary Class Level, which would defeat the entire purpose of the Clause's existence.
Because of this, a Variant, Secondary Fighter Class can never benefit from Bravery, or any other Fighter Class Feature that requires a Fighter level greater than 1 as a prerequisite.
That is incorrect. The Bravery ability from Fighter VMC functions by using your Character Level -1 instead of your Fighter level. No levels in Fighter are required. (Nor are they allowed by the rule that you cited earlier.)
Bravery: At 3rd level, he gains the bravery class feature as a fighter of his character level – 1.
So a 10th level Rogue with VMC Fighter has the Bravery Ability that functions as if he had 9 levels in Fighter, even though he actually has 0 levels in Fighter.
You will see this pattern repeated over and over in the VMC descriptions. When the description of a Class Ability requires levels in that class, the VMC description will specify how you calculate your equivalent level for the purpose of that ability.
Bloodline: At 1st level, she must select a sorcerer bloodline. She treats her character level as her effective sorcerer level for all bloodline powers.
Improved Uncanny Dodge: At 19th level, she gains improved uncanny dodge, treating her character level as her effective rogue level.
The examples go on and on. So if you take VMC Fighter you do not have any levels in Fighter, but that's ok because you don't need levels in Fighter to use any of your abilities. Your Character Level (often adjusted) determines how that ability functions.
And I still don't see what any of this has to do with the post from UnArcaneElection that you cited.