Got a player trying to play a hellknight signifier alongside another player, a fighter. They're going through Age of Ashes, level 3 now. The wizard started looking into the signifier route. Turns out Signifier needs Armiger, which would be fine and sensical except that Armiger needs heavy armor proficiency, which is a steep path for an elven wizard.
Now we were prepared to write this off as signifiers normally being clerics and wizard being a hard path to take into it. But then several descriptions in Hellknight Hill describe signifiers as wearing robes. Robes implies no armor.
Am I missing something? Are signifiers supposed to be exempt from the heavy armor requirement and not mentioning that is an oversight in the book, or are the Hellknight Hill descriptions inaccurate?
Your middle paragraph is a little off. Wizard signifers are reasonably prominent in the lore, the founding and original hellknight signifer was a wizard even. So you could make a strong argument that Wizard is the iconic and defining signifer entry class.
As for the bit about robes. It could be robes over armor or robes that incorporate armor. Signifers wearing armor is intentional though, it was a big feature of what the PrC did in PF1 too and Hellknight Plate is pretty much the defining feature of the organization.
Signifiers wear plate.
Also, it is a general feat to qualify, not that steep of an intro.
Be warned though, qualifying for Signifier is going to be a hard challenge if only because it will be a spellcaster fighting a devil their level or higher 1v1. That isn't something I would want to go into without serious prep :P
(there is a picture of a signifier on page 84, order of the gate)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
You can't take Armor Proficiency and directly go for Heavy Armor. You need to be proficient with Light and Medium beforehand so that's 3 feats, which is the Signifier's issue.
Order of the Gate aside, you'll also need some form of weapon proficiency on top of that.
It's been discussed since the archetype came out, and I don't think I've read anything about about exempting wizards from the prereqs or making it easier on them. Nor do I believe the team's ever spoken on the subject?
Older threads might have more info and prove me wrong.
Also, it is a general feat to qualify, not that steep of an intro.
Three feats, you need to qualify up the ladder.
Since OP's player is an elf, that means level 12 is the earliest level they can take Armiger using general feats for prereqs.
Champion is faster, but now you need to fit Charisma into your build and still need to take two champion feats to exit the archetype, but it does at least drop it to 8.
You can actually speed it up with Rogue archetype as well. It grants light armor prof, so it can save a general feat. You do still need two more rogue dedication feats to exit rogue, but You're Next is great for a Hellknight, IMO. Mobility can also be great for a caster.
This edition of Pathfinder (however good it is otherwise) is basically pretending Wizards don't exist.
If you take a look at what you get, turns out regular Hellknight is better for Wizards, because its proficiency upgrade feat upgrades both weapons and armour proficiency.
Should have posted the 1e version. Can do either divine or arcane casting.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/hellknigh t-signifer/
And this seems sufficiently poorly thought out that I'm just going to let my wizard qualify with Medium armor, on account of not having known the pre-reqs from the word go. It be a one-time houserule, before anyone flips on me ^_^