Necro'd but I have finally had a chance to play my Warpriest through to level 16 and he's a monster.
I am currently Retraining out Steel soul to put in either Weapon Specialisation or Deadly Stroke.
The idea was to build around the Cruel and later the Fortuitous weapon enchantments to Debuff enemies and gain extra AOO's from tripping foes.
The tripping comes online at 5 with the Auto Intimidates at level 7. (Around the time (+1 Cruel Weapons start being affordable)
Now your first hit is dropping Demoralised and Sickened.
Follow up with Trips and take AOO's when they stand up.
At 9- Greater Trip doubles the AOO opportunitites and you need to buy Fortuitous on your weapon for 2 AOO's per opportunity. Felling Smash lets you drop the trip attempt in concert with your first Move +PA Cornugon Smash
(Wrathful Aura cast prebattle is also worth considering.)
Shatter defences at 11 has you dropping Shaken, Sickened, Flat-footed, Tripped on the initial Move+Cornugon smash combo.
Follow up with Trips/AOO's as long as the target is not overly large or flying.
(Having the mage cast enlarge on your should be a regular so you can trip huge opponents)
At higher levels,the Trip Combo destroys mooks but hasn't been as useful on the BBEG's and Mini Bosses as they usually are too big (unless you are enlarged) or flying.
The Big Demoralised Cornugon smash portion still works on most things. So I needed to come up with a 3rd Trick.
The Question is do I just add Weapon Specialisation and call it a day?
I generally get alot of AOO attack rolls from the trips but don't end up full attacking alot UNLESS the enemy is flying or too big for me to trip.
Mostly we fight outsiders or high CL undead as Bosses.
Giants are the Mini Bosses (Which Dwarven Seething has been awesome for)
When I drop Righteous Might I trip the giants no problem but the Outsider/Undead Bosses (examples are Nightshades or advanced Vrocks)
I can't trip these but since they are Team evil SMITE works fine. (I am Champion of Faith version)
So I am unsure if DEADLY STROKE would be better than Wpn Spl?
Deadly Stroke DOUBLES all flat bonuses as well as the normal weapon damage dice.(Which Would include my Smite bonus)
Also, Maybe just retrain out Felling Smash for Hurtful?
They both use a Swift action so no point in having both but Hurtful gets you the free attack vs things that cannot be tripped with Felling Smash?
1-Weapon Focus: Longsword, Combat Reflexes Minor Blessings-Holy Strike (Good), Iomedae's Inspiring Word, Aura, Sacred Weapon- Longsword, Chosen Alignment-Good
2- Fervor 1d6
3- Power Attack, Combat Expertise , Detect Alignment
4- Sacred Weapon- Alignment, Smite 1/day
5- Fervor 2d6, Improved Trip
6- Dazzling Display
7- Sacred Armor +1, Cornugon Smash
8- Fervor 3d6, Smite 2/day
9- Greater Trip, Felling Smash
10-Sacred Armor +2, Major Blessings- Cleansing Fire, Battle Companion
11- Fervor 4d6, Shatter Defences
12- Greater Weapon Focus: Longsword, Holy Weapon 1/day, Smite 3/day
13- Sacred Armor +3, Dwarven Hatred Style
14- Fervor 5d6
15- Deadly Stroke, Dwarven Seething
16- Holy Weapon 2/day
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So from what I'm reading, TWF is difficult to pull off for a Warpriest due to accuracy concerns... wouldn't Pharasma's Obedience offset that, though?
To avoid MADness, I'm thinking of going Str-based and taking two levels of Brawler (Snakebite Striker) for its Flurry (and the welcome addition of a die of sneak attack and a combat feat). It hurts to delay the spell progression, but an extra attack per round is certainly significant, I get to carry a shield, and the caster levels are salvageable with the Magical Knack trait. I'll never get off-hand iteratives, but that's less of an issue for a 3/4 BAB class anyway.
Whaddya think?
Half-Orc (sacred tattoo)
Str 17 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 07
Class Levels: Warpriest 2/Brawler (Snakebite Striker) 2/Warpriest
Feats:
1 Additional Traits* (Fate's Favored; River Rat) — Blessings, Spells
1B WF: Dagger — Fervor
3 Deific Obedience: Pharasma — 1d6 Sneak Attack
4B Power Attack — Brawler's Flurry
5 Cleave
5B Weapon Specialization: Dagger
7 Quick Draw
8B Improved Critical: Dagger
9 ?
11 Quicken Blessing
11B ?
13 Divine Interference
I figure I'd load up that one dagger with all I have (blessing, sacred weapon > Holy, possibly a bane once I can afford it) and use Flurry and Cleave to use it as much as I can. When DR becomes an issue and switching daggers is not an option, I'll stow my dagger and quickdraw shield and draw an earthbreaker instead. The empty feat slots might get something like Toughness or Outflank.
Think it might be preferable to start with the Brawler and add Warpriest later? We should have another character in the party who can use a healing wand, so it's not urgent to get in that caster level.
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It's a bit late, but I should point out that my build above doesn't work as written. For some unfathomable reason, daggers are not part of the «Close» Fighter weapon group, despite being the most iconic close-quarters weapon, and therefore don't work with Brawler's Flurry.
I suppose one could either drop Fate's Favored and Deific Obedience (ouch) or the entire Brawler dip. The latter at least removes the loss of spell progression.
Warpriests are among the most level-sensitive classes. Any advantage a dip brings isn't worth the backseat the base concept takes. They're not the worst on the accuracy point due to their self-buffing
Why are they level sensitive?
I am currently playing a warpriest of Milani using a longspear as her favorite weapon and plan to take one level of Brawler to get feats like Weapon Versatility when I need them (we've been fighting a lot of undead lately). And Improved Unarmed Strike without hands is a nice bonus since it closes the 5ft gap my reach weapon leaves.
Sure, I will get my warpriest feats one level later, but there's nothing I am really excited for.
Sacred Weapon will maybe become interesting around level 10 when it catches up with my weapon's normal damage, but even then it's just one point of damage per attack.
The combat feats are delayed by one level, but Martial Flexibility from the dip allows me to test them before comitting to them.
Sacred Armor sounds nice, but I think I can survive one level without it.
So... did I miss something? What class feature is so important that it outweighs Martial Flexibility, +1 BAB and Improved Unarmed Strike? Is it because of the spells?
Hey y'all, what's goin' on in this thread?
Somehow I always just imagined that you were one of those mythical creatures who wrote guides back in the day, but no one has seen in years. I wish I had prepared for this day better, written down thoughts and questions. Curse my lack of foresight!
Hey y'all, what's goin' on in this thread?
I'd like to say thank you for your great guide. :-)
I've been reading it up and down for the last few days since we started our first pathfinder campaign and I picked a warpriest. :D
Brawler isn't the best class to dip in that case as the martial flexibility has a very poor action economy then. The players don't always have the luxury of having one round to get started as it's often the case they'll get slapped with a surprise round to their faces. And in general it's the kind of class who's better used as a main given its abilities.
Warpriests are spellcasters that be given a disservice in case of a dip, looking at the spell list and the fact they're 3/4. It's not like wizards who could afford losing one level of spell progression. Sacred Armor is one part of the issue, Focused Weapon is the other. Moreover, if feats are part of the reason taking the brawler level, then there's one less Warpriest bonus feat because of the class level being delayed too.
It would only leave the lack of Improved Unarmed Strike as a real problem, and it's not that big, the character might have enough feats to take it as a tax anyway.
Individually problems aren't that big but adding the sum of them, I do the math. No one is wrong but it's simpler for me to play a solo class.
I think the strongest argument is actually the spell casting, since the martial side of the warpriest will only improve by dipping into Brawler. BAB stays on track, Reflex gets a small boost and you can make unarmed attacks while wielding a two handed weapon (which Improved Unarmed Strike alone won't allow).
Sacred Armor is a bit sad, but at the level that would normally become available (7) you should be able to afford a +1 armor, same as a fighter, so getting that one level later means you will only have a normal armor for that level instead of a boosted one. And you still get the Sacred Armor, just one level later.
Sacred Weapon for the damage is not really strong if you're using two handed weapons, and the option to get an enhancement bonus to your weapon is heavily limited by the amount of rounds you can actually use it.
And you don't lose combat feats? They're multiples of level 3, so you'd get the last bonus feat at level 18. Which means you could get two levels in another class and still get all Bonus Feats warpriests provide.
So that leaves the spell progression. If you want to focus on spell casting taking a level away is obviously a bad idea, since your spell progression is already slower than that of a full caster. But since you are capable of joining melee combat with just weapons, armor and Divine Favor (a first level spell), I think you can get along just fine as long as you're aware that you're not a good spellcaster.
Please note that I'm not trying to say you're wrong, but in your first post you wrote that warpriests are among the most level-sensitive classes, and I really don't see why a level or two of multiclass would affect a warpriest any more than a wizard, a cleric, a rogue or any other class.
-casts Animate Dead-
Any chance of this guide getting finished/updated? I saw armor and example builds were still blank.
Not by N. Jolly, but you can find them on the Legendary Games discord if you'd like to finish off the guide and want access to do so.