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I’ve recently started playing a Warpriest in PFS, as I wanted to play a shield based character and I felt that a Warpriest would be a fun class to play.
However...
What I’ve found is that most of the fighting styles and feat tree either require me to jump through too many hoops to make them good or just generally are rather mediocre at best, and I’m not really sure where to go from here
- Two-handing shields and Power Attack are both good but I don’t really know what to follow it up with.
- Vital strike required the Weapon of the Chosen feat tree which limits me to worshiping one specific deity which feels not great.
- The Bodyguard line seems really cool and flavourful but considering the FAQ and the fact I probably won’t be wielding a reach weapon it feels lacklustre.
- I could take two levels in Ranger for Shield Slam but at that point I might as well play a Ranger instead.
- I’m also not keen on playing a human which doesn’t exactly help out my feat situation.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for a shield based build I’m all ears, because it feels like I’ve run out of good options
TWF with shields should work pretty well for a warpriest, considering their extra damage via sacred weapon. If you're a half-human you can pick up another feat via favored class bonus. TWF does depend on your starting with 15+ Dex, and I don't know what you have already.
IMHO best thing about a Warpriest is that you can just go !H + shield and know that your 1H will eventually do very high damage.
You can go 1H + Shield + Vital Strike and hit with your 1H, simply enjoying the presence of your shield for extra protection.
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TWF with shields should work pretty well for a warpriest, considering their extra damage via sacred weapon. If you're a half-human you can pick up another feat via favored class bonus. TWF does depend on your starting with 15+ Dex, and I don't know what you have already.
I’ve definitely considered it as an option, as I kinda want to play a Half-Orc and the Tusked alternate racial ability would also work with lots of full attacks. Having to start with a Dex of 15 would be painful to my stats though as I probably wouldn’t be taking weapon finesse, and my actual bonuses to hit seem like they’d be pretty low at early levels
You're wedded to beating people with shields? And if you take Shield Brace you can wield a polearm with a shield, which solves that problem. Human would allow the whole build to be online by level 3, but not being human delays that by two levels.
Another option instead of Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard, at least at low levels? The Saving Shield feat. You don't have to Aid Another which means you don't have to satisfy the positioning requirements with a reach weapon and so forth. That said, it still might make sense to do so? And if you really want Combat Reflexes/Bodyguard you can retrain it at level 5 when you have enough feats to make it work.
Somewhat yes. I just like the general idea of it I guess. I would have gone down the Bodyguard line in an instant if not for the PFS FAQ that says you also need to threaten whoever is attacking your ally. Saving shield is pretty neat though I don’t really like loosing out on the immediate action as it may affect my ability to use fervour next turn but I might just be being picky.
The idea of wielding a pole arm works great mechanically with what I want to be able to do though I don’t really like the in game implications of it. If I could use a shield with reach as opposed to a pole arm I would in a heartbeat. Alas...
IDK about warpriest, but the brawler shield champion archetype does more for shields than anything warpriest can do
Note that a warpriest can use a throwing shield (requires Exotic Weapon Proficiency) and take the Martial Focus and Ricochet Toss feats to partially simulate the Throw Shield and Returning Shield archetype features of the shield champion brawler.
I was recently toying around with a custom-created weapon that's meant to be used by a Warpriest or Brawler. A 1handed Exotic custom-created weapon has 10 design points, so basically take the damage of the weapon down to 1d2 damage and give it the Fragile property, which should increase your DP to 12, then maximize crit to 19-20/x4 for your 12 points. Your Sacred Weapon causes the damage to increase to 1d6 at level 1 and then increase as you level. WBL for lvl 5 is 10,500g, so for the cost of 1 Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat and a +1 Keen Enchant (8,000gp), you could be running around with a 1d8 17-20/x4 weapon as early as level 5. Levels 1-4 would be 1d6 19-20/x4, so that's still really good.
As far as making your shield good, you really only need Imp Shield Bash and TWF to be competent. You can go for feats like Shield Slam and Shield Master, but those are icing on the cake, but if you are going to do this, I'd recommend getting Greater Bull Rush for your Shield Slam. Not only do you get to be pushy-shovy with your shield bashes, but your allies provoke AoO's against that target when you start shoving them around.