The warpriest can decide to use the weapon's base damage instead of the sacred weapon damage—this must be declared before the attack roll is made. (If the weapon's base damage exceeds the sacred weapon damage, its damage is unchanged.)Does the parenthetical information mean a warpriest's Elven curve blade deals 1d10 damage at level one and wouldn't get the chance to increase until level fifteen no matter what?
Yep.
Correct. You can't choose to use the lower damage from Sacred Weapon if the weapon already deals more. Think of it this way; you have a dagger, but it is blessed by divine energy to deal way more damage than a dagger should. It's still stabbing people, but that damage is supernaturally emphasized. You can shut down the supernatural mojo at will if you want to use it just as a dagger. But you can't shut down the physical nature of the weapon; it's still there, but it's already more than what the supernatural mojo would have done. This is why Sacred Weapon is most useful on low-damage weapons because relatively smaller damage dice usually offsets the addition of other useful qualities on the weapon so you get to have your cake and eat it too by magically pumping up the damage dice.
I don't think that's what the poster was looking for. I suspect that he was hoping that the warpriest would be BOOSTING a curved blade's damage before Level 15.
I think the purpose of Sacred Weapon is to allow a warpriest of a deity with a bad favoured weapon to still be effective. If the weapon is already viable, it's not so important to boost it
That is exactly the purpose. How many complaints have you seen from players who want to pick their clerics based on the greatsword?
I think the purpose of Sacred Weapon is to allow a warpriest of a deity with a bad favoured weapon to still be effective. If the weapon is already viable, it's not so important to boost it
Yeah, it's not a super useful trait for a lot of weapons. Even the warhammer or longsword are going to be waiting for a while before they're useful. It's by far more useful for niche weapons.
There are lots of other features for the warpriest that are cool - the swift-action self-buffs are what make them at least as effective as any martial at melee range.
An FAQ has clarified that you count as your own ally.
It affects so many other things, though.
There are plenty of abilities that reference "your ally", it would be ridiculous for them to put it in every single FAQ entry.
I just wish there were more archetypes that traded away sacred weapon, for all of those warpriests who would like to use more traditional weapons.
