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Warpriests are far more complex than Clerics in terms of mechanics. I would suggest going as a Paladin if you want to be a "fighty" Cleric with easy-to-learn mechanics.
Having two Clerics in a group is overly-redundant, and can lead to intra-group quarreling over loot, so this is generally a bad idea. I'd seriously recommend that you talk to your GM about rolling as a Paladin if you want to play as a Divine class with not-so-many-spells. They're very easy to play and have comparatively minimal bookkeeping.
In the future, if you like playing as a shifter, I'd recommend Druid. Druids are 9th level prepared-Casters, so that might be off-putting for you. But you can focus more on your Wild Shape with feats. You might find the Goliath archetype Druid interesting to play.
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Another solution.
Play a non-casting class (fighter/barbarian/swashbuckler) and find a class guide you like.
Follow their build advice each level: they’ll tell you what feats/powers to pick and explain how to use them.
Simple. You can focus on gameplay/role play and the complex rules interactions are done for you.
If a build looks too complex, choose a simpler one.
I'd make another shifter, but I want to accept that character's death
Since it went well with a shifter, I absolutely recommend another one. It can still be a different character, when it comes to race, gender, ability scores, shifter aspects, items, social behavior etc..
at level 5 ressurection is pretty much out.
With some GM support raising the dead works from level 1. If the group can't do it, the GM can always send some level 9+ cleric NPC along. If the group can't pay, the cleric can pay it since their goals match, the group agreed on later payment or they promised a favor later. Technically the cleric could also ask for a quest right now, but then the player with the dead character can't play this one.
Note that raise dead has a cheap alternative, named reincarnate. It's just 1,000 and comes earlier (druid level 7+). If a hag coven does it, it's even free (at least for the hags, they will demand something for it). Of course there is a reason for the lower price: Your character's race is very likely to change. This can turn out well or bad, both mechanically and story-wise.
Zen Archer Monk... no stupid spells, no real stats necessary other than Wisdom, no stupid god to worry about, just Flurry of Bows over and over and over... be a Strix, don't even have to worry about movement. Literally can ignore like half(?) of Pathfinder's normal BS...
Honestly, if you're looking for a class that has almost zero bookkeeping whatsoever, try a Fighter or Slayer.
Also, if you need help figuring out builds for whatever class you're playing, I'd recommend starting a new thread here in the Advice Forum entitled "Pimp my <insert class>" and give a brief introduction about what your party composition is and what kind of role you'd like to play in that group, and let the Advice Forum help break down the mechanics and build order for you.
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Slayer is great. Be a big two-handed weapon user and just power attack/furious focus your way to victory.
What about the swashbuckler? They can be sort of intricate, but most of the class abilities aren't options, you just get them. They don't have tons of bonus feats like a fighter, they don't have to pick spells or talents or rage powers. You could even throw in VMC to reduce the number of feats you have to pick even more, maybe?
You went from a heavily multiclassed character to a single class character, and enjoyed the single class character. Is it possible that it was the multiclassing itself that made the character's ability set harder for you to navigate?
People don't dislike shifter on it's own, it's better than many other classes, it just doesn't compare well to druid if you want a shifting focused character. They're still fun, and effective, they just are in the bad spot of being compared with a 9th level caster.
I agree with everyone saying slayer. They don't need to constantly look at whether or not their bonuses stack, their action types are easy enough to juggle, and you can select universally valuable bonus feats pretty easily.
Kineticist has your "base power goes up" requirement, but the class isn't very streamlined. You'd probably enjoy a kinetic knight or elemental annihilator, but burn makes it needlessly complicated. It's probably fine if your DM knows the class.
warpriest requires greater attention to action economy than many other classes, I wouldn't recommend it if you have trouble keeping track of what you can do.
All that said, try the cleric. Maybe it was just the multiclassing thing that was causing problems.
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Having two Clerics in a group is overly-redundant
This is fairly inaccurate... you could have a 4 man group of clerics, call them the A-men, and all of them could be vastly different from another.
example-
negative energy channeling tank
"warrior" cleric that buffs themselves for martial combat
healer cleric focused on supporting and keeping the others up
summoner cleric focused on clotting the field with celestial creatures.
Having two Clerics in a group is overly-redundantThis is fairly inaccurate... you could have a 4 man group of clerics, call them the A-men, and all of them could be vastly different from another.
example-
negative energy channeling tank
"warrior" cleric that buffs themselves for martial combat
healer cleric focused on supporting and keeping the others up
summoner cleric focused on clotting the field with celestial creatures.
Sounds like a blast bud. Have fun with your 100% chance to have 4-6 hour combats on CR equivalent fights.
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The thing about melee combat is, you have to put up with all the BS of melee combat. Why worry about closing distance to the enemy (what if there is difficult terrain? MORE rules?!), or flanking (ugh, rules, rules, rules)...
You can just hover at your chosen height and full attack from where you want to be... pretty much every round. What rules are there to worry about? ZAM gets access to all the feats to ignore cover, yay, less rules. You get early access to Point Blank Master, another thing you no longer have to concern yourself with... not that anyone can get up in your face anyways, since you are flying, but it's nice to have.
If you worship the right god, you can even switch the Fly skill to Wisdom with a trait. Lol.
A different trait will let you treat wind effects as one catagory lower... helps you flying AND shooting arrows. More stuff you don't have to concern yourself with.
Armor? Any rules dealing with armor? Nope.
Antimagic Field? Don't care.
Strix Zen Archer Monk is the honey badger of PF1...
I think if you're playing the NPC Cleric then asking to change him/her to a Paladin is a tood idea. Paladins have a great learning curve - they get new abilities most levels, but it's spaced out so you can learn what you have before new things get introduced. Starting at level 5 means you have to jump in deeper a little quicker, but I think it'll still be a lot easier than a lot of other options.
Besodes that any non-casting class is probably a good idea (besides Brawler).
If you want a few more options or want to try a caster I recommend a spontaneous caster over a prepared caster. The mechanics and book-keeping of spontaneous casting is MUCH easier. You can make poor choices and end up with sub-optimal spells, but with a little input from your GM or the pther players (or us) you should manage a viable - if not optimal - spell list that frees up you time at the table to just play. If going with the NPC Cleric you could talk about changing it to an Oracle, which has some great flavour to help you find a route for roleplay and will be a huge asset to the party.
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Sounds like a blast bud. Have fun with your 100% chance to have 4-6 hour combats on CR equivalent fights.Having two Clerics in a group is overly-redundantThis is fairly inaccurate... you could have a 4 man group of clerics, call them the A-men, and all of them could be vastly different from another.
example-
negative energy channeling tank
"warrior" cleric that buffs themselves for martial combat
healer cleric focused on supporting and keeping the others up
summoner cleric focused on clotting the field with celestial creatures.
it seems to me, you haven't played much cleric. but out of curiosity, why do you think that the fights would last so long.
So you have a 7 person party?
You should be able to play pretty much whatever you like then, every base is already covered.
As far as the Analysis Paralysis, I agree that's a huge problem with Fighters (feats) and Clerics (spells). They might be the 2 worst offenders if this is a problem for you.
Seriously take a look at the Oracle. A cleric finds divine power by choosing to worship a god, an Oracle gets the same divine power but the god chooses them (although the Oracle could happily accept this choice if they wanted to). You could very easily re-flavour a Cleric to be an Oracle instead, but then you wouldn't have the mind-numbing spell list to choose from every day, you'd just have your shortlist of spells known.
If you're unsure which spells (or feats or whatever) to choose when leveling just ask one of the other players or the GM to help you. We have someone in our group who doesn't know the rules, so when we level I go through his spell list and pick a few strong and/or flavourful options and present them to him. This means he doesn't have to know every spell on the Bard list to know what to pick, he just chooses from the 5-10 that I show him (I do this with feats too). I also print off his character sheet for him with attacks already calculated.
This is a group game, so if you need a little help when leveling up just ask the group.
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I'm a player in a Strange Aeons game, so I'm familiar with where you are.
Regarding character background, you could easily be another one of the asylum patients (perhaps you suddenly became lucid), or an employee of the Sleepless Agency. And not everyone in Thrushmoor hates you. Keldrin Mon is a former friend of someone in the party; Elgrior Nasmeth (the doomsayer) could be turned into a PC, and so could Lelwyn Hasok (the artistic elf). I agree that Winter Klaczka (the cleric) isn't really a great choice.
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Barbarian - Go HULK on them. Power attack - done!
Or more complicated:
Breaker Barbarian (more damage) or Wildborn Barbarian (more free feats)
Take Shikigami Style and perhaps the Grapple feat-chain . Put in superstitious rage power along the way.
Appropiate feats: Dirty Fighting or Combat expertise (dip brawler to keep your int low) Improved grapple, rapid grappler, greater grapple,
At level 10, take Body Bludgeon rage power and beat up enemies with each other.
The rest of the Shikigami Style feat chain is feat taxing. Consider Wildborn Barbarian for this.
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At a guess? Your cleric team is going to have a lot of actions due to the summoned critters but won't put out a lot of damage per round. The healer will keep the team going, but you're looking at fights of maybe 6-10 rounds instead of 3-5. And the rounds will take a while to resolve.
At level 7-
The warrior cleric with a greatsword that worships Gorum can easily be dealing 2d6+13 per attack at ~15-16 to hit, without power attack, power attack increases the damage by 6. with only a +1 weapon and two spells. Bulls strength and divine favor. He can up that by 3 more damage with greater bulls strength for a +8 to his strength.
The negative energy cleric can channel, with a phlycatery of negative energy, for ~6d6+7-10 to everyone within a 30ft radius of her.
The summoner can summon, at best, a celestial tiger with pounce, and maybe even a spiritual weapon before smacking things themselves. After all they got a d8, good armor, and decent weapons.
The healer cleric keeps them all healthy and alive.
Totally seems like a really long fight.
I'm not exactly new to Pathfinder. I've been playing for at least 3 years. I really dislike the system. But I love the adventure paths and the other players (real life friends) all enjoy the system. I'm there for the plot and having fun with friends.
My previous Adventure Path (Iron Gods) i had a gunslinger-mysterious stranger/swashbuckler-picaroon/skald. And she made it through the entire path. I was often misreading rules, not understanding things. It seemed i was 2-3 levels late in realizing i could do something.But I don't want to bash a system many people Love. It just doesn't fit me well. I just need help/advice.
We began Strange Aeons and the GM assigned us starting characters. I was a shifter. I know the majority think it's a bad class, but for me the limits made it easier to play. After i finally figured out how Wild Shape works, i was enjoying things. Then last night my character died. I'm taking the NPC cleric as my next character, but again my brain hurts with all the spells, channelings and other minutae... I really don't know what it is, I played Ars Magica with no problems, I love casters in most games, but even fighters seem like if you choose a wrong feat, you'll pay for it later. Is there another class like Shifter, limited in scope that has enough "automatic" level advancements (like those claws) that might fit my play style?
I was thinking about asking to be a warpriest instead of cleric. But I'm not sure if I'll keep this npc turned PC. I'd make another shifter, but I want to accept that character's death and at level 5 ressurection is pretty much out.
What exactly do you dislike? We might be able to help you choose a class that avoids those pitfalls.
More generally though, my advice is: If you don't like the system, don't play it. Seriously.
I quit playing PF2 for precisely that reason. Of that group that was playing PF2, only 1 person was really enjoying it. We stopped the campaign and started a Starfinder campaign.
It's true you don't need every rule memorized, but understanding that generally cleric channels effect everyone in a burst to heal all living or damage all undead (for positive energy channels) is a pretty basic concept to know. And knowing that you need a feat for it not to effect everyone in the burst is too.