Animist vs Cleric thoughts? I need help...


Animist Class Discussion


I would like some of you lovely people to sell me upon playing a Cleric over a Animist for a future campaign. I maybe clouded because the Cleric is not a Remastered class but I see a lot of potential for power creep here.

Animist get a lot of stuff Clerics do not by default unless you choose War Priest but to exchange those benefits War Priest lose a lot of their innate spell casting capabilities.

Animist get at level 10, pretty much extra slots of spells for their Apparition equal to ever slot but the highest 2 they can cast. They start with same Hit Points of 8, Animist get expert will, trained in Fort and Reflex, Medium armor. War Priest get martial weapons and shield block, expert is fort, will and reflex.

Animist can do this with Sage Animist way. They can get martial weapons with Witness of Ancient Battle not to mention Grudge Strike to make them on PAR with a Fighter's Attack Bonus.

Not to mention despite being a prepared caster they suffer from even more power creep. They can take flexible caster with no draw-backs because of how Flexible Spellcaster is worded. Which with 1 feat they become a Sorcerer with Druid capabilities, paired with a War Priest martial abilities.

Their class identity is, what do we need friends, I got this if I just try! I got frontlining with IiHB, SiDB, WoAB. The Blaster of SoSaF...I just feel outclassed as a Cleric by them.


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Why sell you on anything play what you want.


Because I feel like there HAS to be something I am missing when looking at the Anaimist, it feels too good as a Spellcaster. What do I get from a Cleric that I don't from Animist? Other then role-play, what do I get mechancially? What makes me as a Cleric (Which is one of my favorite classes) pop, ya know what I mean? I feel like I am cheated as a Cleric verse this Animist who can just do so much, while I get stuck with Anathemas and reduce or what feels like a reduced class abilities.


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You get 3-5 max level slots to cast harms/heals and clerics effectively get martial weapons because of getting favored weapon proficiency.


But so do Animist with Witness of Ancient Battles and their focus spell. Is 4-6 Maximized Harm/Heal actually powerful enough to compete? With the versatility of Animaist?


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Yes. Spending an action every turn to be able use a martial weapon is a pretty major cost because if you are using a martial weapon its useless if you aren't casting witness's focus spell, and using witness makes you worse than a warpriest when it comes to casting at most levels.


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It's still weird to me that animist has so much feature budget outside of it slots while also having the number of spell slots of a wiz/sorc (minus 2)


First let us consider what we will get with post-remaster clerics will get:

  • Spirit damage can be a default attack option once you won't depend that your enemies having to has the opposite alignment to your deity to work.
  • You no more need Cha to get your divine font spells (no more MADness).
  • Warpriest armor proficiency goes to master in level 19.
  • Warpriest can get heavy armor proficiency with a class feat.
  • More freedom to choose what deity you will get once that alignment isn't a restriction anymore (you just take care with anathemas) and neutral deities are now more interesting to get without the alignment system.

    That said what are the main advantages of Animist over Cleric?

  • A pretty strong 1-action sustainable focus spell.
  • More spell versatility from its in class extra know spells due the high number of Apparition Spells that you get with 2 or more Apparitions.
  • Stronger offensive martial capabilities via some sustainable focus spells like Embodiment Of Battle and Darkened Forest Form.
  • Don't need to use feats to expand your focus points and available focus spells (this second one is more valid for Channeler that can switch the primary Apparition with just one-action).
  • You don't need to sacrifice your spell DC progression all-time just to get a better martial capabilities some times.
  • Sustainable focus spells works pretty well with non-sustainable polymorth spells.

    And what are the main advantages of Cleric over Animist?

  • Your spellslot are not divided by half allowing you to use it any slot to freely prepare any divine + deity provided spells that you know (many people see having half of spells slots between prepared and spontaneous as a main advantage but in fact this is disadvantageous too because you cannot use your divine spells into Apparition spell slot and vice-versa).
  • You get a lot more healing and/or harm top rank spell slots to use with Divine Font.
  • Due feats like Healing Hands, Directed Channel, Selective Energy, Channeled Succor, Fast Channel and some other feats your healing and harm capabilities are stronger and more flexible than other classes. In comparison to Animist this allows to do stronger healings, more times, in larger areas, avoiding friendly/unfriendly fire or damaging and healing in same activity.
  • Warpriests have a good AC and access to martial weapons without need to expend extra actions or getting -2 to Spell DC from start.
  • A LOT of options of Cleric Spells to get from many deities (currently 266 deities and increasing).
  • A LOT of focus spells to choose from domains.

    In the end they are different classes that works differently and only really meets in a single thing that's the both uses divine tradition. In general the playtest Animist get more real-time versatility for spell slots and get very strong sustainable powers at cost of sacrifice an action while post-remaster Clerics have less real-time versatility to its spells (I'm ignoring flexible spellcasting) but way more options to put into their builds from deities and don't need to get extra actions to use different focus spells but need to take them using feats.

    Are different choices to different playstyles.


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    ElementalofCuteness wrote:
    I would like some of you lovely people to sell me upon playing a Cleric over a Animist for a future campaign.

    My first instinct is to echo Squiggit. It isn't my job to convince you to play a particular class. There are some classes in PF2 that I have absolutely no desire to ever play. Cleric is actually one of them. The other is Bard. But neither is because of the mechanics of the class or how powerful they are in comparison to other classes.

    -----

    There are two reasons to pick a particular class for building a character with. One is theme, and the other is mechanics.

    Theme:

    Cleric is a class that is very much themed around the deities. You want this class if you are playing a character that is a devout follower. One who goes around spray painting their deity's name and creeds around on any flat surface that they can find. One who gets power from their deity as a result.

    You wouldn't really want to play Animist or Oracle or Divine Sorcerer or Summoner for this type of character. Maybe Divine Witch - that one wouldn't be too hard to adapt the theme for. But all of the others would be an uphill battle to try and get that style and theme of character out of when you pick one of these classes.

    Mechanics:

    If you are wanting a Wisdom-based Prepared Divine tradition spellcaster, Cleric is a good choice. Animist would also work, but they aren't nearly as powerful on the Divine spell list. I haven't ever played a Psychic, but I did play along side one in a level 1-4 campaign. The 2 slots per level was very noticeable of a difference compared to the 3 slots per level that I was used to with my Witch character from a different game. My Witch can keep a party of 6 on their feet. The Psychic was struggling to keep 4 of us upright. Soothe isn't that much less powerful than Heal. A Cleric however, would have more castings of Heal than my Witch does ... without even touching their 3 slots per level of standard spellcasting. That is just from Divine Font. They could fill those standard spell slots with the same spells that my Witch was, have more of them since they don't have to prepare Heal if they don't want to, and have more spells available to put in them since they don't have to pay to learn spells.

    So mechanically, Cleric is the class to play if you want to be able to take care of the Heal spell casting needs of the entire party for free and still be a full 3 slot per level Divine tradition spellcaster with access to every common spell automatically.

    ElementalofCuteness wrote:
    They can take flexible caster with no draw-backs because of how Flexible Spellcaster is worded.

    I'm pretty sure that Flexible Spellcaster is not available for Animist. The requirement is 'You must have a class, such as clerics, druids, witches, and wizards, that prepares spells in spell slots using the same number of prepared spells per day.' I read that as that you need to have 3 spell slots per day in your prepared casting from your class, same as all of those listed classes. That is why the Flexible Spellcasting archetype is able to list out a new table of spell slot progression rather than having to define some algorithmic math function to let you calculate your new class's number of spell slots per level.

    Animist doesn't get that 3 slots per level progression in their prepared spell slots. So they don't qualify.


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    I think in actual play apparation spellcasting will not be as flexible as you hope. Lots of dead or useless spells on your list will make your actual choices of what to cast with those slots pretty limited. Even though the final product will have more apparations and more choices, you're still going to have limits and conflicts between focus spells you want access to and spells known on the wrong apparition.


    Thanks for all the comments on this post. This has open my eyes quite a bit and yeah devout though can be added to any class and character despite being a Cleric. However the Flexible caster is a fair point to bring up actually it can be read as either and or.

    The thing that really should be considered is the Apparition spells themselves. If they got good spells then great but a bit issue is falling into the trap of level 5 and beyond being bound to Steward of Stone and Fire and only Apparition casting Fireball, which has much less Utility then what the class is trying for unless you pick up the ability to also cast Harm and Heal.

    Perhaps I am not judging the Apparitions as they are presented to us. I will look over each one and see if indeed they are worth being attuned to.


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    ElementalofCuteness wrote:
    However the Flexible caster is a fair point to bring up actually it can be read as either and or.

    Well, I would agree that the wording definitely needs cleaning up. It is theoretically possible to interpret "prepares spells in spell slots using the same number of prepared spells per day" as meaning any class that has the same number of spells per level per day - for example, the same number of level 3 spells per day as they have level 4 spells per day.

    But if that is the case, then Magus qualifies. And it would become an absolute Must-Pick for Magus to use Flexible Spellcasting and its spell slot progression than Magus's own.

    And any interpretation of the requirements for Flexible Spellcasting that prevents Magus from using it will also prevent Animist from using it.


    What clerics have over anamists better save progression.

    4-6 highest level healing spells

    Domains and access to more spells due to your god.

    What do anamists have over clerics, the best focus spells in the game.

    access to spontaneously cast some less than impressive spells

    Better feats.

    So whilst I think an anamist would be more fun to play for me I am not sure it's more powerful than a cleric.


    ElementalofCuteness wrote:
    devout though can be added to any class and character despite being a Cleric.

    Yes, any character can go around painting their deity's name on stuff like it is graffiti.

    Only Cleric, Champion, and maybe Witch seem to get any class mechanical benefit from it.


    This is true but no everyone needs to have a mechanical benefit to worshipping a deity however so far my GM said Animist does not quality for Flexible Caster.

    Horizon Hunters

    If you are using current playtest Animist vs current Cleric and don't mind the complicated aspects Animist wins easily for me.

    I feel playtest Animist really overshadows many characters though. Their feats and focus spells are both amazing while being fun. Sounds like things might potentially change with the remaster and we are mostly in the dark.

    Clerics get extra heal slots and most domain spells that are mostly weak. When I was helping our Cleric in our most recent campaign, in was painful to even find feats that were interesting without going into archetypes. This is a problem with a lot of casters.

    Right now, though Animist from a mechanical perspective easily trumps Cleric for me unless you REALLY like extra heal/harm slots.

    Just look at any focus spell from Animist, they are all powerful and change your playstyle dramatically, except for RIVER CARVING MOUNTAINS, I don't know what to do with this except run away...

    I feel like dancing around healing with 1-3x GARDEN OF HEALING would be way more fun than casting the heal spell. Of course, it requires teamwork/coordination.

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