best build for a guided hand user:


Advice


Guided hand feat open the "best" path for a battle cleric in my eyes.
one that can hit hard but also cast supreme.
i plan on channeling negative energy, os the channel smite will actually add some power.

what's the "best" melee & caster options ?

1. Small size with Feather mount worshiping Geon or Eligos and using a lance for a charger build? (will take for ever as it need to many feats...)

2. Evangelist of Gorum for a 2 handed sword heroism cleric? light armor buffer (low AC though).

3. Fire master (Theologian) with a decent weapon and power attack for fireball melee cleric ?

anything else?


Perhaps a Warpriest.

I played with a guy who did a Guided Hand Warpriest. He did come in at level 5 so he had the feats for it. Had slightly less damage than the STR builds but had more Fervor and spells per day. So he could push out a few more combats before being tapped out. He only used Channel Smite once tho. He did not like expending 2 Fervor for a Channel energy unless the payoff was good enough to end the creature.


war priests normally dont lack the STR, as WIS of 15 top is all that is really needed.
the 2 feats are much better used else where

Dark Archive

I find that Guided Hand is ideal for weapons that can be used as ranged options, so either Bows or Daggers (which can also be thrown). This eliminates the need for a high Dex AND high Strength on a Battle Cleric. Now you only need a moderate Strength (12/14) and high Wisdom.

I find that it kinda misses the mark when it comes to Melee weapons, because you still calculate damage with Strength. Why would you separate the to-hit and damage over two different stats if they were on one stat before?


Mr. Bonkers wrote:

I find that Guided Hand is ideal for weapons that can be used as ranged options, so either Bows or Daggers (which can also be thrown). This eliminates the need for a high Dex AND high Strength on a Battle Cleric. Now you only need a moderate Strength (12/14) and high Wisdom.

I find that it kinda misses the mark when it comes to Melee weapons, because you still calculate damage with Strength. Why would you separate the to-hit and damage over two different stats if they were on one stat before?

because to hit is mostly what matters.

cleric get the + to damage from plenty of places, but need to hit after the power attack minus.
trait boosting divine favor, divine power, evangelist, flag bearer.


Archery is great for Warpriests. As a Cleric, it will eat up all your feats and won't get good until the high levels. Assuming you go Human, it'll take until level 5 before you can use it as your go-to combat technique (i.e. you have both Precise Shot and Guided Hand), and all the damage feats that make archery great (Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, Manyshot) will be delayed until level 7+. You won't qualify for Improved Precise Shot until level 15. At least at 8th level you can borrow a feat for your level in rounds per day as a Swift Action, if you take the War domain. And of course, since you'll still have a good Strength, you can go with a Longspear or something for most of the game.


Problem is that Guided Hand is only good for your Deity's favored weapon and not anything else that Warpriest might have a connection with.

As far as I know, unless you worship Erastil, Guided Hand won't apply to Archery. That isn't to say it's bad, but it is certainly quite limited in what you can accomplish.

The Exchange

As I explained in another thread about Sacred Fist recently, Guided Hand makes for a great Sacred Fist Warpriest build, creating a very WIS focused character.

Wisdom and WIS enhancing items give you +hit, +ac, +will save, +spells/day, +spell DC, +blessing DC, +fervor/day, +ki pool and +wis skills.

For a fun way to play it without using your fists, going Cleric (Crusader) 1, Sacred Fist X.

Cleric (Crusader) will get you armor proficiency to use until level 3, along with Weapon Focus and Proficiency with your deity's favorite weapon (whichever god you want, sacred fist doesn't require you to worship a specific deity anyway) as well as set you up for Guided Hand.

A human can take Channel Smite and Guided Hand at level one, which enables taking Crusader's Flurry at level 3.
That enables you to flurry with your deity's weapon using wisdom, and now you take off your armor (since you don't get the wisdom ac bonus or flurry with it on) and continue as you please.

Cutting the Cleric (Crusader) dip is possible, it just pushes the feats back a little (needing to take Weapon Focus, but let's be honest, you are going to take Weapon Focus with your weapon anyway) to everything coming online around level 5. It also requires a race that will get you the weapon proficiency.

This lets you do some fun builds like Elf SF of Cayden Cailean with a rapier (the true divine swashbuckler complete with flurry-critical fishing), or a dwarf SF of Torag with a warhammer (flurrying warhammer? Dwarf wisdom racial bonus?), tengu of Iomedae for longsword (or Shizuru for flurrying katana), or a half-elf with ancestral arms and [insert weapon you want to flurry with here + deity].

It's just a very diverse chassis. Some domain options are pretty cool and can outlast the one level dip in Cleric, though with Crusader you only get one. Some options I thought about when making a greatsword-flurrying champion:

Spoiler:

Painful Smite (Destruction, torture subdomain) lets you convert weapon damage to nonlethal (which is occasionally useful anyway if you want to capture)and add your wisdom modifier to the damage, you also get a free intimidate check to demoralize with a bonus to the intimidate check equal to the amount of nonlethal damage you dealt. 3+Wis times a day.

or

Seize the Initiative (War, Tactics subdomain) Whenever you/allies roll for initiative, can let one ally within 30 feet roll twice and take either result, 3+Wis times a day. Pretty nice ability, will always be useful.

For Cayden Cailean, a true affable rapier swashbuckling dandy who eschews armor:

Travel Domain gives +10 movement speed for a true monk-feel and Agile Feet lets you ignore difficult terrain as a free action 3+Wis/day.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Problem is that Guided Hand is only good for your Deity's favored weapon and not anything else that Warpriest might have a connection with.

As far as I know, unless you worship Erastil, Guided Hand won't apply to Archery. That isn't to say it's bad, but it is certainly quite limited in what you can accomplish.

If you're going Erastil, there's already a feat for wis to bow hits: Erastil's Blessing. The BEST thing is that it works with ALL bows, meaning a horn bow works.


A N Separatist cleric of Torag who uses Blessed Hammer based in conjunction with Versatile Channeler to deliver Channel Smite and a spell through a hammer all based of WIS seemed like a decent build to me.

STR needs to be anywhere from [number needed for carrying capacity >0] to 13 (lest 13 not be enough for the aforementioned carrying capacity). Through feats and/or magic items this means that it is possible to also throw in Power Attack at some point, should the damage from spells and channeling not suffice.

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