Greetings, new member here and also being prepared for my first Pathfinder 2e session (which incidentally is my first RPG session ever).
As the title says, I am interested in creating a cleric of Sarenrae and, specifically, a warpriest. Among the things I find confusing (being a newbie ) is the selection of spells more suitable for the "job" and the neat distribution of my skill points. As far as gear is concerned, oh boy... I just followed the recommendations of the Corebook and bought cleric's starter pack. For my weapon of choice, I found quite obvious that the best choice is a scimitar, Sarenrae's favored weapon.
In any case, here is a link to a PDF with my progress so far: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JcRkP9EcQ7rFRPGBTaYuDY-AjElVdjK8. I hope some of the most devoted of you could review my character and provide some valuable insight :-) I really want to be a helpful supporting character for my group. The only prerequisites are my race (Human), my deity (Sarenrae) and my doctrine (Warpriest).
Thank you all and I hope with time I will be a useful and contributing member of this forum. :)
Sarenrae bless you!
I like your 18 Wisdom, I would just take a point of constitution and put on strength to make it 16.
Preparing Chill Touch and Harm is a good way to avoid MAP, you attack with your scimitar and then use one of these two that targets saving throws.
If you are not Multiclassing or taking a dedication you could consider taking the Sun domain at lvl 2, it's a pretty strong focus spell.
If you get to lvl 6 I am a big fan of Cast Down, making the enemy prone with any damage from harm is pretty strong.
|
OP, I think there might be interesting guides linked in the PF2 Guide of guides.
Also a search on this forum for Warpriest gives results that could help you.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, that mostly looks quite good.
I'd drop Con to 12 and up Str to 16 as Kyrone suggested, and get yourself some better armor.
It looks like you're sticking to Light Armor, which is a mistake. Warpriests get Medium, and with your low Dex, you need Medium Armor very badly indeed. You should be able to afford chainmail, and I highly recommend you do so.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Counter question, what does the rest of your group look like? As PF2 is all about how to allocate your starting stats, for example a good thing to know would be if there is another character in the group capable of combat healing in which case your Charisma score could vary.
I am playing the human cleric warpriest in our group too and I am the one and only healing capabable character, all of the other 3 characters can't heal, neither in or out of combat. Knowing this makes a huge difference.
My starting line was STR14, DEX10, CON14, INT10, WIS16, CHA14 which is not very meta and I jokingly call it the "always +1 behind" starting line. At level 5 my stats will probably be STR16, DEX12, CON16, INT10, WIS16, CHA16 with the final goal being STR20, DEX12, CON20, INT10, WIS20, CHA20 at level 20. Always +1 behind indeed.
The thing is that due to not having STR16 my AC will only max at level 5 when STR and DEX increase, so I needed to survive the first 4 levels being 2 AC behind, which luckily I did. The other thing is if not having a maxed casting attribute this will reduce your DCs and spell attack by 1 for all of your career (so you will be a grand total of 3 behind a cloistered cleric). However knowing my group composition I put more emphasis on CON and CHA, the former for feats, saves and HP (the longer the healer is active the better), the later simply for an additional heal.
Having said so the recommend starting array probably is max. strength (16) and wisdom (18) as it will provide max AC and DC/spell attack from the very start.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
1 - Looking over your spells, your cantrip level should be 1, not 4. It's always equal to half your character level rounded up (1/2 = 0.5, rounded to 1). Note that this is one of the few instances where you round up in the game; you usually round down.
2 - Remember that except for the heals you get from your font, you can change ALL your cantrips and spells every morning. As you get more familiar with your spells, you might eventually want to create a spell sheet to make your selection faster. Unlike most other casters in the game, clerics have access to all common spells of their tradition, so you need to have a system to avoid getting overwhelmed every time you choose your spells. I like to divide my spells in 4 categories (attack, buff, defense, utility) to make sure I have a good balance of effects. (You could also get these spell cards in a few months instead of making a spell sheet).
3 - Since you have Battle Medicine, I would add that ability in your "Actions and Activities" section. In the Notes field, list the names of all the characters in your party with a checkbox beside each one. You can only use Battle Medicine on a character once per day, so that will help you keep track of who you can target at any given time.
4 - In that same section, I would add the Treat Wounds activity. Unlike Battle Medicine, it takes 10 minutes to Treat Wounds, but you can use it once per hour per character.
Wow, thanks a lot guys, your response is amazing! :) I will make sure that I take a close look at all your advices.
@The Raven Black, thank you for the guides (and the subtle reminder of properly tagging hyperlinks! :-P ), hadn't noticed them. I will certainly check them out.
@Kyrone and Deadmanwalking, I spent some points in Constitution in order to start with better Hit Points. About the armor, I chose Studded Leather because my strength wasn't enough to avoid Chainmail's penalty. In addition, I also wanted to avoid Chainmail's noisy trait. I should definitely reconsider, provided that I increase my strength to 16.
@Ubertron_X, there is a druid in our party who has the Healer's Tools (as I do). Other than that, there is also a fighter and a sorceress, with no means of healing. Perhaps I should have invested more points in Charisma in order to gain more Heal spell slots?
@coriolis, sorry it was a mistake, I accidentally filled the Cantrip Level entry with the number of the available spell slots per day. However, I got the number of cantrip spells (5 for my level) and the extra slots for Heal spells (2) right, is that correct? Your advices are much appreciated and those are additions I will definitely include in the final version of my character sheet.
Again, thank you all for your kind willingness to answer my novice questions, you have been of a great help so far. :)
Sarenrae bless you!
@Ubertron_X, there is a druid in our party who has the Healer's Tools (as I do). Other than that, there is also a fighter and a sorceress, with no means of healing. Perhaps I should have invested more points in Charisma in order to gain more Heal spell slots?
If you have another caster with access to the Heal spell and a medi-kit (and potentially / eventually Battle Medicine skill feat) then in my opinion you should talk to him about sharing at least some of the healing instead of trying to maximize it yourself.
CHA12 gives you +1 extra heal, which increases your extra heal total by a full 100% (from 1 to 2). CHA14 gives you +2 extra heals, which in comparison to CHA12 increases your extra heal total by 50% (from 2 to 3).
So probably start with STR16, DEX10, CON12, INT10, WIS18, CHA12, probably going to STR16, DEX12, CON14, INT10, WIS19, CHA14 by level 5.
I for once do not rate the Cooperative Nature ancestry feat as very useful so depending on how "medic" you still want to go you should really consider spending your Human Ancestry feat on the "Natural Ambition" feat and use it to select the level 1 cleric class feat "Healing Hands" (roll d10 instead of d8 for each heal you cast). On the average this will increase your healing by one point for each heal you EVER cast, even from scrolls or wands, and by multiple poins in case of higher spell levels (e.g. 3rd level heal will do 3d10 instead of 3d8 points of healing). As a sidenote this also deals more damage to all creatures that are subject to positive energy, e.g. undead.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My Optimized heart would probably start like this to be honest.
16 STR / 12 Dex / 10 Con / 10 int / 18 Wis / 12 Cha
And then probably forget that dex exist for the rest of the character life, lol. You can get Toughness to improve your HP if you want. With 10 starting CON you still ends with 18 CON at lvl 20.
At low lvls the main use for CON is against poison, so buy an antidote or two.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
@Kyrone and Deadmanwalking, I spent some points in Constitution in order to start with better Hit Points. About the armor, I chose Studded Leather because my strength wasn't enough to avoid Chainmail's penalty. In addition, I also wanted to avoid Chainmail's noisy trait. I should definitely reconsider, provided that I increase my strength to 16.
Even without Str 16, while Chainmail's penalties are painful, having only AC 15 at 1st level is a lot more so, especially as a melee character. Every point of AC matters a lot in PF2. By going from AC 15 to AC 17 you reduce your average damage received by something like a good 20%. The shield helps with this, but not really enough on its own.
sorry it was a mistake, I accidentally filled the Cantrip Level entry with the number of the available spell slots per day.
That what I figured happened. :-)
However, I got the number of cantrip spells (5 for my level) and the extra slots for Heal spells (2) right, is that correct?
Yeah, you're good to go for spells.
Perhaps I should have invested more points in Charisma in order to gain more Heal spell slots?
I think you're fine as is -- You have 2 characters with access to [i]heal/i[] and Treat Wounds, plus Battle Medicine for additional combat healing. Out of combat, you can both Treat Wounds simultaneously, which should reduce the length of your breaks by half. Also, having someone who can heal you in case you go down is very prudent.
Re: Studded leather armor and Cooperative Nature. I assumed these choices were part of your character concept, so I didn't comment on them. However, if you can still change these, I would. Having access to medium armors is the big payoff for choosing warpriest at 1st level, so it would seem silly no to take advantage of that.
As for Cooperative Nature, Aid is a very weak action (you need to: A-spend an action; B-stand near the ally you're helping; C-succeed at a DC 20 check; just to give a +1 to someone's d20 roll). I would strongly consider replacing that feat with somehting a bit more impactful.
|
|
Yeah, you could grab Natural Ambition and get Domain Initiate. That's neat, and Sarenrae has the Fire Domain, which provides a very solid single-target ranged attack once per combat. So that's neat.
Once again, thank you for your valuable insight! :) Indeed, Cooperative Nature was part of a concept I thought while I was developing my character's backstory, while Studded leather armor was a wrong choice which I made for the reasons I mentioned.
We had decided on an attitude of not worrying too much about conceiving the optimal characters, however most of your suggestions seem as no-brainer when one examines them with a better a posteriori knowledge of the rules and game mechanics :-P , so I changed the most obvious things such as Studded leather armor to Medium armor.
Unfortunately, I didn't see your latest suggestions in time and I'm stuck with Cooperative Nature, but I hope I can correct my mistakes while leveling up.