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Do the impossible
See the invisible
Row, row
Fight the powah!
Welcome to my 8th guide, and this was one I did not out of a base love of the class (although it's REALLY growing on me), but out of a community need. I wrote a bit before what makes a guide like this difficult, and I haven't changed my opinion on that one bit, instead knowing that this will not be an easy guide for me to write.
I'm not incredibly well versed on some of the tricks and such, so I'll be depending on the community to tell me if I'm missing something or have something rated incredibly wrong due to forgetting about something, but I'm confident together we can all put together a guide that'll help everyone out!
This guide will probably be moving along a lot slower than my other guides due to the fact that I'm writing other things, and I'll have to split my time between them and this. I do want to get this guide done ASAPossible, but I can't promise anything.
And if you'd like to say thanks by making a donation to getting this guide finished, please click on the link in the guide to show your support. It'd help me out and give me more time to work on this guide.
Races is (mostly) finished off although if there's anything that should be added from newer books, I'm up for including it. Blessings are finished, and I'll probably be moving onto feats next.
Also might eventually do some 3P work for this, but if I do, it'll be done just like how the kineticist guide's 3P section is, completely sectioned off from everything else.
Yay.
I am excited for this to develop. It will likely be extremely useful to me as well should I ever play this class. (And I kinda want to.)
Though, personally I would rate War Mind is much higher than this does. The modular nature of it and how ridiculously good the minor benefits are in terms of bonus type really gets to me.
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Yay.
I am excited for this to develop. It will likely be extremely useful to me as well should I ever play this class. (And I kinda want to.)
Though, personally I would rate War Mind is much higher than this does. The modular nature of it and how ridiculously good the minor benefits are in terms of bonus type really gets to me.
That's fair, it was high green to me before, now it's solidly blue.
Here's a trick I heard about:
The Quicken Blessing Feat is pretty cool in its own right, but also enables the Repose Blessing to take out any opponent for one round via two touch attacks with no Save. Do this to people someone else is adjacent to (and you don't have to be to start with, since this takes your standard and swift, but not your move action), and they can coup de grace, and you have one of the best insta-kill powers in Pathfinder.
And mentioned in the entry, as well as upgraded to green since this trick doesn't require a second character. You'll be taking quicken blessing no matter what, so I consider this a standard tactic.
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Here's a trick I heard about:
The Quicken Blessing Feat is pretty cool in its own right, but also enables the Repose Blessing to take out any opponent for one round via two touch attacks with no Save. Do this to people someone else is adjacent to (and you don't have to be to start with, since this takes your standard and swift, but not your move action), and they can coup de grace, and you have one of the best insta-kill powers in Pathfinder.
And mentioned in the entry, as well as upgraded to green since this trick doesn't require a second character. You'll be taking quicken blessing no matter what, so I consider this a standard tactic.
Well, it actually kinda does. Unless you inflict staggered in another way the duration of 1 round (Except against Undead) means you don't have the actions left for a full-round which the Coup de Grace is.
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And mentioned in the entry, as well as upgraded to green since this trick doesn't require a second character. You'll be taking quicken blessing no matter what, so I consider this a standard tactic.Well, it actually kinda does. Unless you inflict staggered in another way the duration of 1 round (Except against Undead) means you don't have the actions left for a full-round which the Coup de Grace is.
It still knocks 'em out (and thus prone, dropping their weapon, etc.) for a round. But yeah, to kill them you need some sort of help.
That said, all it requires is a melee character other than you in the party...or a caster willing to carry a scythe around. It's not super difficult to arrange.
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And mentioned in the entry, as well as upgraded to green since this trick doesn't require a second character. You'll be taking quicken blessing no matter what, so I consider this a standard tactic.Well, it actually kinda does. Unless you inflict staggered in another way the duration of 1 round (Except against Undead) means you don't have the actions left for a full-round which the Coup de Grace is.
I meant this in the aspect that you could use it with a party (no relying on someone else to stagger), it'd probably be blue if you could land the kill shot yourself.
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Half Orcs should be blue. Sacred Tattoo gives a +1 luck bonus to saves, which is boosted by Fate's Favored, which is a top tier choice for warpriests because of the reliance on Divine Favor. Added to that the fact that they can take the Human FCB makes them one of the top choices for the core races.
I said it in the stickied thread but I will repeat myself here: very much a need and appreciated for you making the guide. When you start going into archetypes I cannot stress how much fun the mantis zealot is and it is one of the few warpriest base class or archetypes that works very well multiclassing, in that case with a slayer.
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Half Orcs should be blue. Sacred Tattoo gives a +1 luck bonus to saves, which is boosted by Fate's Favored, which is a top tier choice for warpriests because of the reliance on Divine Favor. Added to that the fact that they can take the Human FCB makes them one of the top choices for the core races.
I've gotta agree. Divine Favor + Sacred Tattoo + Fate's Favored is amazing.
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One nitpick.
You constantly use "Fevor" where the term is "Fervor."
Should be easily fixed with a search/replace.
No wonder my spell check was flipping out at me, thanks!
Half Orcs should be blue. Sacred Tattoo gives a +1 luck bonus to saves, which is boosted by Fate's Favored, which is a top tier choice for warpriests because of the reliance on Divine Favor. Added to that the fact that they can take the Human FCB makes them one of the top choices for the core races.
And here I forgot about Divine Favor being a luck bonus, I could almost see making them purple due to that, I'll stick with blue for the time being.
I said it in the stickied thread but I will repeat myself here: very much a need and appreciated for you making the guide. When you start going into archetypes I cannot stress how much fun the mantis zealot is and it is one of the few warpriest base class or archetypes that works very well multiclassing, in that case with a slayer.
No problem, sometimes people just need a guide for things, and I'm there to help.
I'm looking forward to getting to archetypes, it's one of my favorite sections. I'll be sure to note that, Mort has been pointing me in the direction of feats I should include as well.
Let me ask something here; would anyone actually like to make the flavor text for some sections? I want the community to be involved, and if you'd like your characters included in the flavor text, feel free to post a quote and such and I'll look it over, see if it fits what I'm going for here.
I definitely think the Alignment Blessings could/should be rated higher. A long duration swift action summon is pretty hard to turn down.
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I definitely think the Alignment Blessings could/should be rated higher. A long duration swift action summon is pretty hard to turn down.
The battle companion blessings?
I'd like them more if they were at the relevant level of summoning spells you should have at this point. My problem is the SM spells are IV, and SNA spells are V but SNA is worse than SM's list.
I mean it's swift if we're burning blessing, but at the level you get it, it's not technically long duration, it's standard duration for the spell's level and doesn't get any longer, making the duration even worse. I wish they were better, if the SM spell was V instead of IV, it would rate higher, but I can't validate pushing it higher just yet.
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I definitely think the Alignment Blessings could/should be rated higher. A long duration swift action summon is pretty hard to turn down.The battle companion blessings?
I'd like them more if they were at the relevant level of summoning spells you should have at this point. My problem is the SM spells are IV, and SNA spells are V but SNA is worse than SM's list.
I mean it's swift if we're burning blessing, but at the level you get it, it's not technically long duration, it's standard duration for the spell's level and doesn't get any longer, making the duration even worse. I wish they were better, if the SM spell was V instead of IV, it would rate higher, but I can't validate pushing it higher just yet.
Cyclops are on the SNA 5 list. Auto-critting is very powerful.
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Cyclops are on the SNA 5 list. Auto-critting is very powerful.
I'd argue auto crit, and say auto crit threat since it still needs to confirm. Give it auto confirm, and yeah, I'm sold. Once a day auto crit threat is nice enough, but it doesn't scale well to what you're fighting. It's nice, it's just not amazing.
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The blessings do increase the spell used as you level as well. Every two levels it increases to the next summon tier.
Oh, I know. I mean that at base when you get it, it's not at the same level as a caster who would have that spell for the SM spells.
At 10th, a sorcerer would have just gotten SM V, while a wizard would have had it for a level already. It's at this point that you're getting SM IV. So you're a level behind the curve in SM for spells from a spontaneous caster's point of view, which makes your battle companion that much weaker. At that point, they'd mostly be an SLA user to me, which isn't terrible, but also isn't amazing.
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Couldn't really get into this class enough to judge it. You mention you prefer it to the paladin, but how do you feel it holds up in terms of power? Mechanically, what should I find impressive compared to other classes?
Paladins are probably better tanks and slightly more accurate, but they're also single focused which can be detrimental. Warpriest ability to swift cast though is really what made me enjoy the class, it allows for what feels like a very fluid form of fighting, whereas the paladin needed certain spells to achieve the same thing.
Both are solid, but the flexibility of the warpriest is a big feather in its cap, and blessings help set it apart from a lot of other things, even if a few are pretty garbo.
One thing I've found that really helps out Vital Strike for Warpriests aside from scaling weapon damage (which I agree, really doesn't go places by itself) is that they're able to pick it up quite in advance of their corresponding iterative attacks.
They can get Vital Strike at 6, and won't get their first iterative until 8.
Then they can get Improved Vital Strike at 12 (11 with retraining), and won't get their second iterative until 15!
A fully buffed full attack is still going to pull better numbers for them, but Vital Strike keeps pace far better for Warpriests due to the early entry.
Warpriest ability to swift cast though is really what made me enjoy the class, it allows for what feels like a very fluid form of fighting, whereas the paladin needed certain spells to achieve the same thing.
This is basically Magus: Swimsuit Divine Edition then.
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One thing I've found that really helps out Vital Strike for Warpriests aside from scaling weapon damage (which I agree, really doesn't go places by itself) is that they're able to pick it up quite in advance of their corresponding iterative attacks.
They can get Vital Strike at 6, and won't get their first iterative until 8.
Then they can get Improved Vital Strike at 12 (11 with retraining), and won't get their second iterative until 15!A fully buffed full attack is still going to pull better numbers for them, but Vital Strike keeps pace far better for Warpriests due to the early entry.
Add to that the fact that warpriests can easily qualify for Greater Weapon of the chosen, which can be used with vital strike to allow you to roll twice, significantly increasing your accuracy and chances of a critical hit.
One thing I've found that really helps out Vital Strike for Warpriests aside from scaling weapon damage (which I agree, really doesn't go places by itself) is that they're able to pick it up quite in advance of their corresponding iterative attacks.
They can get Vital Strike at 6, and won't get their first iterative until 8.
Then they can get Improved Vital Strike at 12 (11 with retraining), and won't get their second iterative until 15!A fully buffed full attack is still going to pull better numbers for them, but Vital Strike keeps pace far better for Warpriests due to the early entry.
That is something I have been looking at and thinking about mathematically for Warpriest. I've been a bit on a bent with theory building Startoss builds that get a nice bonus from Vital Strike and wondering how viable a switch hitter would be.
There's a nice little bonus hidden away in Two-Handed Weapon Tricks that lets you cleave using the Vital Strike feat immediately lower than the max one you know. (And presumably all the followups on great cleave.) Not a bad switch hitter for someone that wants to keep those move actions free. (To use them on more Swifts?) The problem I have right now is bridging the gap between a two-handed weapon and throwing.
A Belt of Mighty Hurling would make it a lot less MAD. A spear would let you use both weapons. You can get Ricochet Toss to then bounce your spear around back to you.
This also kinda works for Arsenal Chaplain. They loose Sacred Weapon scaling, but can take the Advanced Weapon Training feat for Focused Weapon. You end up about even on feats since you can get Ricochet Toss without the feat tax.
It's a bit of a kinky concept, but I can see it working in practice to make Vital Strike viable. Especially with all the actions Warpriests want to take.
Add to that the fact that warpriests can easily qualify for Greater Weapon of the chosen, which can be used with vital strike to allow you to roll twice, significantly increasing your accuracy and chances of a critical hit.
I don't think I am a fan of Greater Weapon of the Chosen since you can only make one attack and there are some ways to get vital strike on other attacks. And Swift Actions are at a premium.
So, Weapon Master's Handbook was written for Warpriests right? I can't imagine another class getting that much benefit out of the book. :p
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So, Weapon Master's Handbook was written for Warpriests right? I can't imagine another class getting that much benefit out of the book. :p
Well, there's Fighter...
And I believe the author of them has admitted that Ricochet Shot and the Startoss Style Feats were added to make their Flying Blade Swashbuckler more viable. ;)
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Add to that the fact that warpriests can easily qualify for Greater Weapon of the chosen, which can be used with vital strike to allow you to roll twice, significantly increasing your accuracy and chances of a critical hit.One thing I've found that really helps out Vital Strike for Warpriests aside from scaling weapon damage (which I agree, really doesn't go places by itself) is that they're able to pick it up quite in advance of their corresponding iterative attacks.
They can get Vital Strike at 6, and won't get their first iterative until 8.
Then they can get Improved Vital Strike at 12 (11 with retraining), and won't get their second iterative until 15!A fully buffed full attack is still going to pull better numbers for them, but Vital Strike keeps pace far better for Warpriests due to the early entry.
I will admit it's better, but I don't know if I consider that good still, at least good enough to build around. To me, vital strike is something that needs to be built around, but I can see it being viable. Right now it's high orange, but I can't really show that, so I'll keep my eye on it as I write the guide, see what I think. Furious Focus also pairs nicely here too.
Warpriest ability to swift cast though is really what made me enjoy the class, it allows for what feels like a very fluid form of fighting, whereas the paladin needed certain spells to achieve the same thing.This is basically Magus:SwimsuitDivine Edition then.
I actually like the differences between the two, as Magus can always cast/strike, but I feel like the warpriest gets more out of casting and attacking, and they can self heal. And really, I like the cleric list more than the magus list, even without domains. With domains it'd be amazing, but that's a matter for another time.
Also there's a solid chance another 3P book I write may be a part of this guide at some point, and as always, it will be kept separate from everything else just like in my kineticist guide.
Well, there's Fighter...
Who is this Fighter you speak of?
And Startoss Style does do just that.
bro is gotta give me some spacing in the blessings section
also dont forget to mention quicken blessing + unarmed strike to deliver touch attacks shenanigans
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Just started reading the guide, but as soon as I got to your description of fervor, I had to stop and comment. Why isn't this rated purple? And why do you treat the ability to cast self buffs as an afterthought?
The fact that you can occasionally heal as a swift action in an emergency should be the afterthought. You're treating warpriests like paladins, and thinking of fervor like lay on hands. But they're more like clerics or battle oracles that don't have to waste a round or two buffing before jumping in and attacking.
The cleric spell list has the best buffs around, and you can use them faster than anyone else in the game. That's THE defining ability of the class. That's the entire point of playing a warpriest.
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You don't need to use the swift action weapon of the chosen to use the roll twice from greater weapon of the chosen. You do have a point about weapon trick or forums swordsmanship, but greater weapon of the chosen is still quite good.
I'm trying to think of what size damage die I'd need to be comfortable suggesting vital strike, I want to say either 3d6 or 3d8, but you are right that there's potential for it.
Greater Chosen + Furious Focus + Power Attack + Vital Strike dishes out some decent damage, and I'm sure there's more I can add onto that. Perhaps vital Warpriest is a build worth looking into.
You can pull off some crazy shenanigans with the Repose Blessing and a conductive weapon. If you hit on an attack of opportunity, you can stagger your opponent without a save, quite possibly preventing the enemy from completing their actions. What's more, on your next turn, you can easily put them to sleep with a normal use of the blessing, or use Quicken Blessing to put them to sleep and perform a coup de grace in the same turn. All without saves. Eats through your uses very quickly, but totally worth it.
Still no love for cleaving warpriests? I know the tactic is typically heralded as a waste of feats and actions, and often rightly so, but the cleave line has some excellent advantages for melee warpriests. It completely bypasses the issue of slower iterative progression and takes advantage of the warpriest's efficient action economy and abundance of combat feats. Even more noticeably, almost every class in the game has substantial reasons to full-attack, and many have substantial reasons to continue attacking the same enemy - warpriests have neither. In builds like the one I linked, I think investment in cleaving can significantly improve a warpriest's combat performance.
Okay, consider me looking over this now. It's interesting, I will give it that. Really, I'm having a hard time saying anything is actually a bad idea with this class, which is something I really appreciate.
I'm REALLY not happy that things like Goblin Cleaver and Orc Hewer are dwarf exclusive. I think it can be done well enough, more of a fun build, but not below the bar that they're silly. I'll do this guide with the idea that a cleaver is viable, and review things based on that assumption, okay?
Just started reading the guide, but as soon as I got to your description of fervor, I had to stop and comment. Why isn't this rated purple? And why do you treat the ability to cast self buffs as an afterthought?
The fact that you can occasionally heal as a swift action in an emergency should be the afterthought. You're treating warpriests like paladins, and thinking of fervor like lay on hands. But they're more like clerics or battle oracles that don't have to waste a round or two buffing before jumping in and attacking.
The cleric spell list has the best buffs around, and you can use them faster than anyone else in the game. That's THE defining ability of the class. That's the entire point of playing a warpriest.
That's a fair point, it should be purple/blue. I didn't feel like I considered it an afterthrough, but I can change the text to help clarify that.
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I also think you are overselling the healing on fervor. The healing from fervor is very small. The swift action spell casting is going to be the primary use of the ability, using it for a heal is almost always going to be less useful than a swift action spell.
Fervor's text and rating have been updated to make sure people know the big sell here is the swift action casting, let me know if this needs to be focused on even more.
Marking for interest.
I'm REALLY not happy that things like Goblin Cleaver and Orc Hewer are dwarf exclusive. I think it can be done well enough, more of a fun build, but not below the bar that they're silly. I'll do this guide with the idea that a cleaver is viable, and review things based on that assumption, okay?
Well, a human (or half-human) can burn a feat to take racial heritage (Dwarf). You have a bunch of feats to burn, especially with the human FCB, but I'm not totally sure it's worth it, but it's not that much worse than taking quick draw to get ricochet toss, or any other prereq that does very little for you.
Just a note on the Sacred Fist - picking up a weapon is arguably pretty much flat-out better than going Dragon Style, since options like the 9-ring broadsword or sansetsukon are easy to grab. Picking up Crusader's Flurry at 5 with a powerful favored weapon like greatsword or katana is a little more feat intensive, but is a very potent upgrade. It's not really even that difficult for a Human Sacred Fist to go Crusader's Flurry and Guided Hand, which then allows for high spell/Blessing DC and high wisdom AC.
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Well, a human (or half-human) can burn a feat to take racial heritage (Dwarf). You have a bunch of feats to burn, especially with the human FCB, but I'm not totally sure it's worth it, but it's not that much worse than taking quick draw to get ricochet toss, or any other prereq that does very little for you.
I still don't like it, but I don't like any racial feats that don't have to do with the race's abilities either, so there's another thing I'm salty about.
Just a note on the Sacred Fist - picking up a weapon is arguably pretty much flat-out better than going Dragon Style, since options like the 9-ring broadsword or sansetsukon are easy to grab. Picking up Crusader's Flurry at 5 with a powerful favored weapon like greatsword or katana is a little more feat intensive, but is a very potent upgrade. It's not really even that difficult for a Human Sacred Fist to go Crusader's Flurry and Guided Hand, which then allows for high spell/Blessing DC and high wisdom AC.
Interesting, although I'm not big on guided hand due to the feat prereqs. Crusader's Flurry is a very interesting choice though.
Guided Hand does give me an idea on a (Likely extremely terrible) build idea. But, Crusader's Flurry is always nice with Sacred Fist.
EDIT: (Or could just use Guided Weapons...)
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Guided Hand does give me an idea on a (Likely extremely terrible) build idea. But, Crusader's Flurry is always nice with Sacred Fist.
EDIT: (Or could just use Guided Weapons...)
Guided weapons are silly broken for this class.
In case it's of any use...
I'll check it out once I get further in feats, right now I'm already deep into things.
I think some people will notice that I'm being very moderate about a lot of things, and that's mostly because the warpriest is so open that it makes a lot of things at least vaguely viable, so something has to be god awful (PUN!) to be red, and straight silly broken (guided weapons) to be purple.
Glad to see you took up making this guide.
As vital strike is very nice for Warpriest I wanted to mention Gorum's divine fighting technique as it allows you to a) Vital Strike as part of a charge b) get Vital Strike damage on one AoO per turn.
This is especially sweet because Vital Strike Builds will likely look to grow large for the the higher weapon base damage and thus be able to provoke some AoO. Being a Gorumite also allows you to cast Lead Blades which will further enhance your weapon die.
Anyways Divine Fighting Techniques are pretty sweet for warpriests as they can get them instead of their first level blessing powers. I like both Cayden's and Zon-Kuthon's.
As to traits Fate's Favored is naturally purple.
I also really like Fast Drinker for Vital Strike builds as you can chug that Enlarge Person as a move action grow in the direction you like, 5 foot step with and reach and thus often get a Vital Strike in on your first round of combat.
I think some people will notice that I'm being very moderate about a lot of things, and that's mostly because the warpriest is so open that it makes a lot of things at least vaguely viable, so something has to be god awful (PUN!) to be red, and straight silly broken (guided weapons) to be purple.
To be fair, Guided Weapon is a 3.5/third-party thing, and that's for the best.
Glad to see you took up making this guide.
As vital strike is very nice for Warpriest I wanted to mention Gorum's divine fighting technique as it allows you to a) Vital Strike as part of a charge b) get Vital Strike damage on one AoO per turn.
The later is really the only one I think is relevant to a Warpriest. Aside from being a Half-Orc and nabbing their teamwork charge feat into the immediate action one it seems.
Calistria is also not too bad. Sacred Weapon makes for natural whip builds, just need to actually have and use poisons in your campaign. Surely that's common, right?
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Super hype to see this here; the warpriest (and archetypes such as the sacred fist) has changed considerably since release and many of the guides are no longer applicable.
And of course, it's an N. Jolly guide (and a TTGL themed one at that).
The only guide for it which was horribly out of date actually got removed from the guide to the guides, which is what prompted me to do this. Never let it be said that N. Jolly doesn't care about the community.
Glad to see you took up making this guide.
As vital strike is very nice for Warpriest I wanted to mention Gorum's divine fighting technique as it allows you to a) Vital Strike as part of a charge b) get Vital Strike damage on one AoO per turn.
This is especially sweet because Vital Strike Builds will likely look to grow large for the the higher weapon base damage and thus be able to provoke some AoO. Being a Gorumite also allows you to cast Lead Blades which will further enhance your weapon die.
Anyways Divine Fighting Techniques are pretty sweet for warpriests as they can get them instead of their first level blessing powers. I like both Cayden's and Zon-Kuthon's.
As to traits Fate's Favored is naturally purple.
I also really like Fast Drinker for Vital Strike builds as you can chug that Enlarge Person as a move action grow in the direction you like, 5 foot step with and reach and thus often get a Vital Strike in on your first round of combat.
No problem, I'm here to help.
I'm seeing that vital strike is all the more useful for this class with a lot of its tools, and I'm really happy about that. Gorum's style is basically mandatory for warpriest, that's for sure.
Fate's Favored is super purple, it'll be fun to get to the others.
I just hit the WMH and...I'm gonna be here a while. I have 10 tabs open to make sure I get everything.
To be fair, Guided Weapon is a 3.5/third-party thing, and that's for the best.
It is published for the 3.5 gaming system, but it was published by paizo before Pathfinder was its own thing. It's in a murky area, although since it wasn't reprinted in ultimate equipment, that's their way of saying 'let it die.'
I do not plan on doing this.
I'm just gotta write down races that should probably get a once over and aren't here yet.
Skinwalker - I actually like base skinwalker for this without a heritage.
Kasatha - Unfair.
Wyvaran - The dragonborn are noble folk with great racials.
Syrinx - Arguably an upgrade to Strix. Probably comes down to Str. or Dex. build.
Orang-pendaks - You blew it up! Aaah. Damn you. Damn you all to hell.
The later is really the only one I think is relevant to a Warpriest. Aside from being a Half-Orc and nabbing their teamwork charge feat into the immediate action one it seems.
I'm afraid I don't catch your meaning...
There's a number of really good threads on this here board on the ins and outs of the warpriest.
Here's one on spells:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rqlf?Best-lvl-2-warpriest-buff-spell
Here's one on builds:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sqil?Warpriest-what-is-it-good-for-Post-your-b uild#1
Lot's of awesome advice to be found there...