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Like, crazy good. So good I can't help but wonder if it was intended to be this good, but it has survived 6 updates, so I guess it's kosher!
lawful alignment
Frequency once per round
When you select this feat, choose chaotic, evil, good, or lawful.
Your choice must match one of your deity’s alignments. This
action has the trait corresponding to the chosen alignment.
You touch a weapon. That weapon deals 1d6 additional
damage of the chosen type to creatures of the opposed
alignment. For example, if you chose evil when you took this
feat, the weapon would deal 1d6 evil damage to good creatures.
Special You can take this feat a second time, choosing one of
your deity’s other alignments. When you Align an Armament,
you can choose either alignment. If you Align the Armament
again, the most recently applied alignment overrides the
previous one, so you can’t use Align Armament to make the
same weapon deal both 1d6 evil damage and 1d6 lawful damage
simultaneously, for example.
So what really makes this crazy is that there is no duration listed. That means you can effectively permanently add 1d6 damage to a weapon. That's basically a free property rune. Admittedly, it won't work on neutral creatures, but even damaging all evil creatures is amazing. And then you have to consider weakness: you can now absolutely mulch fiends with this.
But wait, there's more! While you can only apply one alignment to a single weapon, there's nothing preventing you from applying this to multiple weapons. So now all your back up weapons do this damage forever too.
Wait wait wait, it doesn't end there? The text specifically says "the weapon deals this damage." It doesn't say "while wielded by you." So congratulations, you can Align every weapon in your party. Pound those demons into holy guacamole, gang!
So all that makes for a truly stupendous feat that turns your party into the ultimate slayers of [opposed alignment.] I mean, by comparison Blade of Justice requires an action every round (though it can be extended based on enemy actions), only can deal good damage, only applies to your righteous weapon, and will probably deal less damage until high levels. So Align Armament might be too good already. It seems like it would absolutely be a deciding factor in beating Heroes of Undarin, for example.
But where I think it actually starts to break down the game is when you consider that it isn't limited by distance from the cleric. There's no limit to the number of weapons you can Align, and no cost to do so. This means that a single cleric could produce a limitless amount of aligned weapons, and effectively outfit an entire nation. It also means you can get a bargain brand version of the alignment runes that costs nothing to produce, and is therefore probably sold at a relatively low price.
I'm not sure what the actual intention of the feat is, but I can't imagine it was supposed to do all this. The last bit in particular just alters the world of Golarion in a way that the playtest rules and economy doesn't seem prepared to support.
One possibly interpretation that would severely limit this is if the Frequency: Once per round bit applied to rolling the damage. That would mean you only get the damage once per round. You could take it even further and say this is the case no matter how many weapons you've aligned, so if you outfit an entire party the first person to land a hit hat round is the only person to deal the 1d6. The problem is I'm pretty sure that isn't what the feat means by RAW, looking at how other Frequencies and feats are written.
Making the duration last 1 round would bring the feat more in line with other content. Blade of Justice could last longer, but Align Armament would be more flexible in what/whose weapons it was applied to, which feels appropriate for the cleric equivalent of a paladin ability. But if you are fine with how powerful this feat makes a party as written, I still think it needs some kind of limitation to keep Aligned Armaments from showing up in every discount bin in Golarion. A distance limitation could work, or simply making the duration one day.
Until then, go out and smite the enemies of the faith, true believers!
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Like, crazy good. So good I can't help but wonder if it was intended to be this good, but it has survived 6 updates, so I guess it's kosher!
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Frequency once per round
...
While I'd certainly say it isn't crystal clear, I'd definitely interpet that as meaning that it takes an action every round for this to work.
Not at all a bad use of your third action, mind. But definitely not game breaking good
Like, crazy good. So good I can't help but wonder if it was intended to be this good, but it has survived 6 updates, so I guess it's kosher!
...
Frequency once per round
...
While I'd certainly say it isn't crystal clear, I'd definitely interpet that as meaning that it takes an action every round for this to work.
Not at all a bad use of your third action, mind. But definitely not game breaking good
That's certainly a less broken way to look at things, but the language of the feat has doesn't really support it when you compare it to stuff like Blade of Justice or Magtical Striker. And even running with that idea it isn't clear how it would work exactly. Is the weapon aligned for the rest of the turn, or just for the one attack it makes?
I think a reasonable GM is probably going to just need to house rule it.
It's a bit hard to tell what the intent of this feat is, just looking at it. It takes a single action, and the frequency suggests that it can only be cast once per round. Was this intended to be a short-lived self-buff, to allow a Cleric to bash heads a bit better but otherwise not be used by other party members? Even that alone seems like a fairly useful thing to have, so my guess is that that was the intent and that the feat was poorly written.
It's a bit hard to tell what the intent of this feat is, just looking at it. It takes a single action, and the frequency suggests that it can only be cast once per round. Was this intended to be a short-lived self-buff, to allow a Cleric to bash heads a bit better but otherwise not be used by other party members? Even that alone seems like a fairly useful thing to have, so my guess is that that was the intent and that the feat was poorly written.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable... Except if that's the intent, I'm not sure why the whole clause about Aligning the same weapon exists. Surely spending two of your three actions to add 2d6 damage to only chaotic evil enemies isn't overpowered enough to add a whole clause to a feat, especially when to do it you had to take the feat twice?
I mean, using your third action to give 1d6 extra damage for a round is certainly reasonable, especially when you also use it on allies, so your ranged gets it on every arrow they fire, for example. But I still have a hard time figuring out why it was written this way if that is the case.
I think we should leave the arguments as to exactly what the words mean until the words are actually written :-).
Hopefully Paizo will notice this thread and clarify the wording in the release to better reflect their intent.
Indeed, or at the very least fix it up for the final version of the game.