well, how "set in stone" are your preferences?
it's hard to make a viable dex based melee cleric with a non finesse favored weapon, that also needs high wis and cha(for the cleric part)
You could try to get a dex based polearm (maybe ask your gm to homebrew something together)
besides that the whole discription is still a bit sparse
give us numbers, equipment, picked feats - I am sure you will get to hear a number of ways how you could improve
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Note that I did just release my Cleric guide which might offer some options.
Warpriests demand a lot to be functional compared to other classes. For a Fighter, 18 STR is pretty much all you need to be functional, regardless of feats, but Warpriests have to make every pick count.
Switching over to Strength to make proper use of the glaive is the base minimum standard. After that, you're working with a selection of spells and domains that aren't great for Warpriests...
All up, I don't think Shelyn brings enough to make a Warpriest function like a Warpriest. You can still be a very effective support healer, but not much of a frontliner.
Taking Champion Dedication could help a bit, so there is that option.
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If you want decent advice, you really need to provide your actual build details.
From what you have described, it sounds like you have a 'I need 5 good/decent stats' build:
- Strength for Athletics/Melee
- Dexterity for 'balancing'
- Constitution for staying alive
- Wisdom for spells/Medicine, and
- Charisma for Divine Font heals.
As for being bested in skill checks, you'll kinda need to get used to that: The math is much tighter in this edition and you typically can't push your bonuses to the point that you won't get beat by a teammate who just rolled better than you did if they are at least trained (or you are at low level, where the 'level +2' bonus isn't as significant).
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I heard you had to be trying to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one. Did I hear wrong?
Could it just have been a series of bad rolls?
I heard you had to be trying to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one. Did I hear wrong?
Warpriests and Alchemists are the exception to the rule. Due to how MAD they are early on, and their primary ability not being their Key Ability, they need a degree of system mastery to get right.
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An oversimplification: Choose three (3) Ability Scores and build around those.
It looks like you want Charisma, Strength, and Dexterity. Since the Divine List has fewer attack / saving throw spells than other lists, you can simply avoid those altogether, and focus on healing, buffing, and utility, as altering your spell selection by doing this will allow you to functionally operate at a low Wisdom. As a Warpriest, I can recommend:
ST 16*
DX 14
WIS 12
CHA 16*
Your low Constitution is compensated for by increased access to Healing spells. If you want to expand your skills list, you can rely on Ancestry feats to do so, thus compensating for your low Intelligence.
Good luck!
I heard you had to be trying to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one. Did I hear wrong?
Could it just have been a series of bad rolls?
Sarcasm does not become you, nor is it endearing.
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I heard you had to be trying to make a bad character in this edition to end up with one. Did I hear wrong?
Could it just have been a series of bad rolls?
That depends on the definition of "trying."
If going against the meta of a given class counts as "trying" (such as making a Cleric into a Dex-based martial character), then it's actually much easier than you think, especially if players value flavor over raw potential.
Not to mention, monsters winning ties, having overall better/unique abilities, and being all-around harder compared to PF1, combined with the tight math, means even running around with a 14 in your primary attribute makes combat or non-combat situations significantly harder.
To be fair, a lot of the non-class Archetype feats are pretty niche or behind a rarity wall, leaving it basically a non-option to make them even worth considering. In short, the fact you decided to select an archetype/dedication feat at 2nd level with a class who gets less feats than any other class in the game isn't going to work out.
Generally, if there is anything you want in that vein, class dedication feats are really the only things to consider, as those are the most common and also probably the most powerful dedication feats there are. And I'd really only consider doing that at 2nd level if you are a class that gets access to a 1st level class feat (AKA not a spellcaster), otherwise I'd wait until 4th level to do that, since most classes usually have at least one good low level feat they want.
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Earlier today I went back to try and soften the phrasing of my last post, but I had just missed the editing deadline, sadly. Neither sarcasm nor general negativity were my intent. Sorry to anyone who took offense.
As I initially mentioned
I THOUGHT we were going to be Circus performers... silly me, in a Circus themed AP, HA!
For what its worth, myself and my party found the AP to be significantly more forgiving than book one of Age of Ashes and did quite well with our gang of circus performers.
We have my eccentric artist/dancer/performer Cleric (who still took 18 Wis), a pair of Lizardfolk Acrobat Twins, a half-crazy retired pirate puppeteer/juggler (fighter + rogue), and an ancient crone of a fortune teller (diviner wizard).
The key was to be both adventurers and circus performers. I assume the characters who are primarily the second are just the NPCs :(
That said, I've found that the Skill side of things is far more forgiving than combat (other than Medicine, for which my Cleric only rolls numbers that giv her a total of "14"), meaning that I've done fine Performing on skills not associated with my main stat, and expect to do even better going into the second book with access to an attribute boost, expert skills, skill feat support, and skill items.
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a SOLID no frills Cleric was needed cause there wasn't much Circus going on compared to all the freaking combat encounters!
Honestly, it's not your staff acrobat archetype which is killing you, from what I read.
Gishes (and as such Warpriests) are hard to build. You are far from the only person here who complained about Warpriest.If you add a few non-optimized choice to a very hard to build choice, you end up with a tough character to play.
Now, if you just switch to Cloistered Cleric, go for 18 Wisdom, and then take all the Staff Acrobat thingies you want, you'll have a pretty efficient character and, at the same time, a thematic one.
Your only bad choice has been Warpriest.
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Earlier today I went back to try and soften the phrasing of my last post, but I had just missed the editing deadline, sadly. Neither sarcasm nor general negativity were my intent. Sorry to anyone who took offense.
No harm done.
I just think that people say that, because the game doesn't allow as much min-maxing, that it becomes much more okay to make sub-par or even obtuse characters, and players shouldn't be too worried about it.
To which I counter with the increased power and difficulty of monsters, combined with the tight math, makes even running a 14 in a primary attribute not so good. A 16 can get by, as players in both of my groups have demonstrated, however, 18 is the most optimal, and I feel it is also the baseline of expectations that a character should be able to accomplish.
There has to be very good reason for a character to not have an 18 in their primary attribute; unfortunately, for combat purposes, "Because I want to roleplay an acrobat/circus performer" doesn't really apply. "Because I want an additional heal at my maximum level," or "Because I want a higher Strength to carry more and attack/hit for harder," are much more in-line with examples to reduce your primary attribute, and even in those examples, reducing it below a 16 is still very, very against the spirit of the game's expectations.
Earlier today I went back to try and soften the phrasing of my last post, but I had just missed the editing deadline, sadly. Neither sarcasm nor general negativity were my intent. Sorry to anyone who took offense.No harm done.
I just think that people say that, because the game doesn't allow as much min-maxing, that it becomes much more okay to make sub-par or even obtuse characters, and players shouldn't be too worried about it.
To which I counter with the increased power and difficulty of monsters, combined with the tight math, makes even running a 14 in a primary attribute not so good. A 16 can get by, as players in both of my groups have demonstrated, however, 18 is the most optimal, and I feel it is also the baseline of expectations that a character should be able to accomplish.
There has to be very good reason for a character to not have an 18 in their primary attribute; unfortunately, for combat purposes, "Because I want to roleplay an acrobat/circus performer" doesn't really apply. "Because I want an additional heal at my maximum level," or "Because I want a higher Strength to carry more and attack/hit for harder," are much more in-line with examples to reduce your primary attribute, and even in those examples, reducing it below a 16 is still very, very against the spirit of the game's expectations.
Yeah, I'd definitely say that PF2 is extremely forgiving build wise so long as you max your main attribute. If you do that, its hard to make a weak character unless you try to...
...except for Alchemists, but thats it own whole thing.
I do wish this was more explicit, or called out for new players, in the character creation section of the rules.
Once you've maxed your main stat, you've got a lot of freedom and room to do stuff with the rest of your choices and abilities, and aggressive stat growth means eventually your other attributes will "catch up".
But accuracy, after all, is paramount to fun IMO.
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Cloistered cleric, spam forbidding ward at the start of fights, and stand behind a front-liner while using the glaive to attack at reach works OK. Don't expect to be a strong combatant, but Shelyn has some nice options for debuffing such as the Creation domain spell splash of art and access to color spray as a 1st level spell.
A Dex-focused warpriest using a non-finesse weapon is really tough to pull off, especially at low level. Unfortunately, because of action economy, you pretty much have to take Emblazon Armament ASAP or have serious issues with switching between casting (requires a divine focus) and wielding a glaive (requires two hands). Unless your group is using the free archetype variant, you probably won't see the concept come together until 6th-8th level.
Cloistered cleric, spam forbidding ward at the start of fights, and stand behind a front-liner while using the glaive to attack at reach works OK. Don't expect to be a strong combatant, but Shelyn has some nice options for debuffing such as the Creation domain spell splash of art and access to color spray as a 1st level spell.
A Dex-focused warpriest using a non-finesse weapon is really tough to pull off, especially at low level. Unfortunately, because of action economy, you pretty much have to take Emblazon Armament ASAP or have serious issues with switching between casting (requires a divine focus) and wielding a glaive (requires two hands). Unless your group is using the free archetype variant, you probably won't see the concept come together until 6th-8th level.
There aren't actually many spells that require your divine focus. The 3 action heal is the obvious one, but you can definitely get away with 2 action heals instead - they're often the better choice anyway. Delaying Emblazon Armament isn't a killer.
I overall agree though.