So I've never been a fan of the Sacred Weapon Damage mechanic of the WarPriest as I've always felt it favored character concepts with extremely nitch builds, such as specializing in a whip or shuriken. And while that works fine for players that were actually going for that sorta thing, what about the rest of the world which features WarPriests as part of standing armies where your typical long sword, axe, mace or bow were the most commonly seen weapons. In other words about 95% of the world would never see the benefits of such a core class feature until at least 10th level. Given that most campaigns rarely make it much past this point, and even PFS caps out at 12th level, the issue here becomes apparent.
Bare in mind this is a core class ability for the WarPriest we are talking about here. It is on par with a Wizard not getting a familiar until level 10. Ok, perhaps that is a mild exaggeration, but not much of one considering the WP get this ability from level one but it remains largely useless (for most builds at least) until mid level range when most campaigns are about to cap out anyway.
How about this instead: Exchange the Sacred Weapon Damage for the Ranger class ability Favored Enemy. This scales well because it is still limited to what will get these bonuses and thus won't be useful in every combat. Such Favored Enemies could even be restricted to campaign specific problems such as undead, evil dragons, and evil outsiders (assuming the WP is good aligned obviously).
This ability would still be restricted to only usable with the weapons the WP has already taken Weapon Focus with as per normal for their Sacred Weapon requirements.
This also scales well in comparison with the Sacred Weapon bonus because the WP would be at say a + 3 vs everything, and a + 6 vs enemies of their temple, community, kingdom, etc.
Thoughts?
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I feel like Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain and Shieldbearer work quite well in armies. Especially for those worshippers using a diety's favored weapon and having bigger dice from the weapon itself.
As NPC armies though, yeah, favored enemy is a good swap.
Anyone else?
For comparison:
Hateful Rager Barbarian: replacing 1 rage power per selection/increase
Royal Accuser Inquisitor: replacing solo tactics + 1 teamwork feat per selection/increase
Troll Fury Druid: single selection, replacing nature's lure (seriously?)
Bare in mind this is a core class ability for the WarPriest we are talking about here.
Not unless we're talking about the entire class feature.
The problem with your comparison is that for most rangers, it would be a straight upgrade - a gorumite Warpriest doesn't have any gain prior to 20th level!
I feel there should be some further limitation: Slower progression (every 6th level instead of 5th), only one type, removing one blessing, and/or limiting the blessing choices.
@Derklord
While I appreciate your feed back, I really did not understand where you were going with this. I THINK you were suggesting that removing the Sacred Weapon Damage feature for a straight swap with a Ranger's favored enemy would not be balanced. From that point however I don't follow your logic. Any chance you would care to possibly restate this differently?
Is it possible that part of your intended post was lost when you submitted it? Or that you were posting to the wrong thread?
For example: "The problem with your comparison is that for most rangers, it would be a straight upgrade - a gorumite Warpriest doesn't have any gain prior to 20th level!"
Umm...what in the world do you mean? A Warpriest is getting upgrades to SWD every 5 levels however they are not benefiting from that upgrade if they use a weapon of long sword (1d8) or great until they hit 10th level. And we are not discussing the benefit that a Ranger gets from this trade as the Ranger class isn't impacted by this at all.
Oops, "for most rangers" should be "for most warpriests". Sorry.
My point is: The sacred weapon damage is but a minor class feature because not all weapons profit from it. If you grab a high damage weapon (like a greatsword), SWD does not increase your damage in any way until very high levels. A user of such a weapon would thus lose nothing or almost nothing while gaining a seizable damage increase - thus, it would be a straight upgrade.
The base of archetype design is that what is gained should not be more (nor less) powerful than what is lost. An archetype should normally replace general abilities with more narrow ones, you're kinda doing the opposite (you've basically said it yourself - SWD "favor[s] character concepts with extremely [niche] builds"). This does not mean the basic idea isn't possible, you just need to add more limitations to the archetype.
In the original Warpriest playtest it was argued (many times) that the beta Warpriests were heavily encouraged to worship a god that gave them a good favored weapon. The result was that players had to choose between worshiping the deity they wanted, and using a good weapon. Sacred Weapon's scaling damage was introduced as a patch for that, letting you worship whatever deity you wanted and still do "okay" with their favored weapon. Sacred Weapon's scaling damage is not expected to be a power gain for every Warpriest, but rather help those that get stuck with the figurative tambourine at the bottom of the instrument box. Think of it as an equalizer for favored weapon deities.
By introducing a really good trade-off for Sacred Weapon scaling (and Favored Enemy is definitely a good trade if you're already using a big weapon) you go back to punishing the poor saps that didn't want to sacrifice their character concept and decided to stick with the crappy favored weapon deity. For what it's worth, if a player came to me with this suggestion I'd probably either turn him down or require him to modify some other class features as well. As a straight trade, SW's scaling damage for Favored Enemy bonuses is way too good.
If you decide to go through with this, I'd be very careful with spell list shenanigans. With the right options a level 7 Warpriest would be able to cast cast Instant Enemy. That could get problematic.
@Derklord - I think I understand now. You were thinking I was suggesting an archetype for the WarPriest. In fact I was suggest a house rule change to the class which would become the new norm in my campaign setting. I do however agree with you, this change would be a straight upgrade where as I was hoping for something that was a little more modest of a power increase.
@Kudaku - Thank you for explaining where the SWD came from and why it was there to begin with. Given the current power balance of D20 RAW / PF it makes perfect sense. However my campaign setting is a lower magic setting which favors a Game of Thrones / 12th century earth sorta feel where virtually all combatants (warriors, your typical orc, etc) would be assumed to be carrying around at least a 1d6 weapon. Non-combatants would possess 1d4 damage weapons such as daggers and what not, while professionals would be packing the 1d8's and higher. Thus in my specific case the premise that the SWD class feature is there to off set the penalties of a non-optimal build is less of a concern than it might be in other campaigns. There are very few (if any) whip / shuriken warpriests in my campaign setting outside of something a PC might come up with.
I thank you both for your input, as it has been most enlightening considering you input.
Direction I decided to go with this: I allowed the Warpriest to gain a "sacred enemy" bonus, while dropping the SWD entirely, as an alteration to the base class itself. This is typed as holy damage, and only applies to enemies of their temple (evil dragons, evil undead, and evil outsiders + campaign specific black guards / hell knights, priests of opposing churches, etc)
The sacred enemy bonus is gained at the same rate as SWD from the base class (once every 5 levels, beginning at 1st). Unlike the Ranger's favored enemy bonus however it scales at a + 1 per 5 levels (vs the Ranger's + 2).
And lastly this ability does not alter the WarPriest spell list, so Ranger spells which augment Favored Enemy will still remain largely out of reach.
Alternative: One of my players suggested allowing the WarPriest to spend uses of Fervor and get the SWD as bonus damage towards attacking a Sacred Enemy, in a fashion similar to that of a paladin smite but without the additional benefits of smite. The details of how long it would last, etc were still being worked out. It was however felt that this might be a less invasive option for conversion purposes.