I've been having a lot of fun playing a warpriest in Extinction Curse. I went 16 Str/16 Wis/14 Cha to start, and it's now 18/18/16. I've had no problems with accuracy and overall I think the character contributes nicely.
A spirit Barbarian MC'd into champion or cleric or even witch can be a pretty decent divine striker. The flavor is all there. A champion with a big 2 handed weapon and blade ally can get pretty Aggressive as well.
The warpriest is a very competent support caster that is much tankier than any bard will ever be. They are front loaded with features, which is a little unusual in design for PF2 and that is probably why we are seeing people who play them from level 1 feel like they are great, and people who are haven't played them are probably basing a lot of decisions on later game play that represents much less of actual player experience. They were never going to be any kind of striker though, not built on a full casting chassis.
A spirit Barbarian MC'd into champion or cleric or even witch can be a pretty decent divine striker. The flavor is all there. A champion with a big 2 handed weapon and blade ally can get pretty Aggressive as well.
Yeah, that's fair, but classes like these are divine in a fairly loose sense. The flavor is nice, but the mechanical differences between the 'divine' barbarian and the 'arcane' barbarian are pretty thin, especially at lower levels.
Spellcasting dedications help a little, but they're fairly slow too, so you don't feel significantly magical until fairly high levels either.
They work, but it just takes quite a while to come online, which is why I think some sort of divine wave caster or something in that ballpark would feel good.
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I think for a divine magus analog, it might be interesting to revisit an idea from the PF1 war priest and that is action economy when self-buffing.
It'd require some word-smithing to properly capture spells like Bless, but the general idea would be a magus-like chassis but instead of striking other people with Spellstrike, you'd be combinining strikes with casting spells on yourself.
All of a sudden, it's not really that crucial to have a high wisdom, because your DC doesn't come into play that much. So a physical key stat is doable, and the "wis or cha" secondary stat choice is a free choice of what kind of character you want to play.
This would distinguish itself from the current war priest by much clearer signaling to the player what the Big Idea is: casting spells on yourself and the party, not so much the enemy. So your so-so spellcasting proficiency is only really an issue on counteracting long-term conditions. But for buffing, eh, doesn't matter that much.
There'd be some space for some focus spells to boost yourself and your party, either on accuracy, damage, or something else.
Buff spells are a bad way for to make a build that is supposed to be a caster that attacks with melee attacks. The Magus works because they have a way of delivering attack spells that are completely different from what martials do AND they can deliver them in a unique way that is more accurate than those spells can be delivered by full casters.
A divine melee striker should be a full martial and not a caster because divine magic is about more than spells delivered through a god. It is about magic empowered by the gods. The action economy on buffing yourself to make melee attacks as good as a martial is nearly impossible to work out in a way that is not simply better just casting those spells on your martial.
True strike as an example of a self buff works for wizards because they use that spell to deliver powerful spells. Wizards memorizing a bunch of true strike spells to hit with a weapon are going to feel massively underwhelming.
The war priest buffs the party, while contributing secondary attacks and tankiness to the party.
The cloistered cleric can be a competent debuffer and aggressive anti-undead/fiend caster, but will seriously lag behind other full casters on the attack.
It is much better for the buffing of the martial divine striker to come through magical feeling means that are not just casting buff spells on itself.
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I've been having a lot of fun playing a warpriest in Extinction Curse. I went 16 Str/16 Wis/14 Cha to start, and it's now 18/18/16. I've had no problems with accuracy and overall I think the character contributes nicely.
And you won't for a little while yet, it doesn't really start showing up until after level 10, once the other martial(s) start hitting Master proficiency with weapons and caster(s) hit Master casting proficiency.
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I didn't know Bard got 4-5 free max spell level heals per day. Wait, you said better so you must have meant 5-6 free max spell level heals per day.
By your argument Bard is better than Cleric, period.
It practically is. The buffs it provides does more overall healing than the free Heal spells do, and lasts all day. That doesn't include powerful debuffs and other utility they possess that a Cleric can't do. They're also 1 feat (or class choice) away from having superior weapon choice compared to a Warpriest, have just as much armor and defenses, and can better utilize skills like Intimidation and Deception in combat. I see no particular reason to play a Warpriest over a Bard other than simply for flavor purposes. Optimization-wise, Bard outperforms Warpriests every step of the way.
In essence, a Heal Font, the only real benefit of a Warpriest by comparison, being the sole justification for the Warpriest getting the shaft in proficiencies and KAS choices isn't particularly fair and should be errata'd. It's a crutch for party members to make poor tactical decisions and get away with it without character death, which just defeats the entire point of combat in this game being far more focused on making informed tactical decisions and paying them off with the other members of your party to win encounters without losing party members.
I've been having a lot of fun playing a warpriest in Extinction Curse. I went 16 Str/16 Wis/14 Cha to start, and it's now 18/18/16. I've had no problems with accuracy and overall I think the character contributes nicely.And you won't for a little while yet, it doesn't really start showing up until after level 10, once the other martial(s) start hitting Master proficiency with weapons and caster(s) hit Master casting proficiency.
I figure I'll only really notice around 13th. And even then there are options to go full-bore for a fight or two a day. 6th level Heroism comes in @ 11th after all...
I didn't play a huge amount with the War Priest (the player was pretty inconsistent) but I saw one do quite well between levels 1 and 5, and then again at 10. He used a Trident to great effect, allowing him to cast>strike at both melee and range. It helps that cleric has several damage enhancing feats they can tack onto their weapons.
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I agree that another Cleric Doctrine would be great (having a third option would be super lovely) but I don't think that just adding another Doctrine is the best way to fix the Warpriest Doctrine not being good enough at being a Warpriest (and I don't necessarily concede that Warpriest isn't good).
Paizo has shown that they are willing to make efforts to fix existing options that are underperforming (such as when they turned an Alchemist feat that felt mandatory into a base class feature for the Alchemist) which is the right approach.
I would rather choose between Cloistered Cleric and Warpriest v2, than choose between Cloistered Cleric, Warpriest, and WAAARRRpriest.
Again, this is one of those cases where people are asking for errata content to take up in space for a book they have to then pay for instead of getting it for free in an errata.... which is bizarre?
Give us another cleric doctrine, but not as something to patch warpriest not being warpriesty enough.
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I figure I'll only really notice around 13th. And even then there are options to go full-bore for a fight or two a day. 6th level Heroism comes in @ 11th after all...I've been having a lot of fun playing a warpriest in Extinction Curse. I went 16 Str/16 Wis/14 Cha to start, and it's now 18/18/16. I've had no problems with accuracy and overall I think the character contributes nicely.And you won't for a little while yet, it doesn't really start showing up until after level 10, once the other martial(s) start hitting Master proficiency with weapons and caster(s) hit Master casting proficiency.
One of the problems I saw my cleric run into was never having the actions to buff, and not being able to stack buffs with the Bard. When the Bard buffs everyone he couldn't catch up because they were just as enhanced, comparatively they were still the same. While he may have hit the numerically acceptable level, it didn't feel that way. And because of the poorer spell proficiency he couldn't contribute well that way either next to the Bard.
And the Barbarian has a habit of losing half his HP in 1 or 2 rounds, which makes the Cleric feel like he has to cast Heal most of the time.
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I agree that another Cleric Doctrine would be great (having a third option would be super lovely) but I don't think that just adding another Doctrine is the best way to fix the Warpriest Doctrine not being good enough at being a Warpriest (and I don't necessarily concede that Warpriest isn't good).
Paizo has shown that they are willing to make efforts to fix existing options that are underperforming (such as when they turned an Alchemist feat that felt mandatory into a base class feature for the Alchemist) which is the right approach.
I would rather choose between Cloistered Cleric and Warpriest v2, than choose between Cloistered Cleric, Warpriest, and WAAARRRpriest.
Again, this is one of those cases where people are asking for errata content to take up in space for a book they have to then pay for instead of getting it for free in an errata.... which is bizarre?
Give us another cleric doctrine, but not as something to patch warpriest not being warpriesty enough.
Agreed. Imo, I'd most like to see a skill focued warpriest (evangelist?) that lets you play your cleric as a face, and one that lets you poach spells from other traditons, (theurge?)
I figure I'll only really notice around 13th. And even then there are options to go full-bore for a fight or two a day. 6th level Heroism comes in @ 11th after all...I've been having a lot of fun playing a warpriest in Extinction Curse. I went 16 Str/16 Wis/14 Cha to start, and it's now 18/18/16. I've had no problems with accuracy and overall I think the character contributes nicely.And you won't for a little while yet, it doesn't really start showing up until after level 10, once the other martial(s) start hitting Master proficiency with weapons and caster(s) hit Master casting proficiency.One of the problems I saw my cleric run into was never having the actions to buff, and not being able to stack buffs with the Bard. When the Bard buffs everyone he couldn't catch up because they were just as enhanced, comparatively they were still the same. While he may have hit the numerically acceptable level, it didn't feel that way. And because of the poorer spell proficiency he couldn't contribute well that way either next to the Bard.
And the Barbarian has a habit of losing half his HP in 1 or 2 rounds, which makes the Cleric feel like he has to cast Heal most of the time.
An important difference may be that my group has no Bard. Right now, when it comes to buffs, it's mostly been Bless on our end. I have Heroism now of course (Trayven just hit 5th) but I haven't actually used it yet. That won't last long... the fact that Heroism lasts ten minutes makes it so much easier to pre-buff than Bless...
Given the Doctrine largely determines proficiency, what are you all willing to give up to get something different?
That’s where I get stuck. The 3rd level benefit on the warpriest doctrine coul be removed with little fuss, but everything else on both branches is just plugging in the normal benefits for casters/support characters.
I tried to write up a more fully martial doctrine, but ran into the problem of it being pretty much a complete upgrade to the warpriest chassis, getting almost all of that doctrine AND master weapon proficiency/master armor proficiency. Which can be done, but seems a bit harsh for warpriest.
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Given the Doctrine largely determines proficiency, what are you all willing to give up to get something different?That’s where I get stuck. The 3rd level benefit on the warpriest doctrine coul be removed with little fuss, but everything else on both branches is just plugging in the normal benefits for casters/support characters.
I tried to write up a more fully martial doctrine, but ran into the problem of it being pretty much a complete upgrade to the warpriest chassis, getting almost all of that doctrine AND master weapon proficiency/master armor proficiency. Which can be done, but seems a bit harsh for warpriest.
Honestly seems like anything past proficiency stuff is the realm of a class archetype, not doctrine.
Potentially one that comes with a new doctrine, but still.
This seems to me to be a fundamental flaw with the Cleric class design: Since your Doctrine determines your key proficiencies (Armor, Weapon, Saves, and Casting) it will be difficult to create a Class Archetype that alters any of them without making it an actual Doctrine archetype.
Assuming that a Subclass (like a Doctrine) will never actually reduce or remove a baseline class feature*, there isn't really a good way to create what people seem to be looking for in a 'warpriest' from the actual cleric doctrines: There just isn't anything left to trade away...
*If they did do this, you'll see a huge increase in people digging in the wrong part of Tanis after an incomplete perusal of the rules...
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Guntermench, I was agreeing with you.
Save the rage for someone else.
My proposals for Warpriest would be:
Fourth Doctrine: you would also gain expert in all martial weapons.
Fifth Doctrine. you gain master weapon profiency with your diety's favoured weapon.
Final Doctrine: you would also gain master weapon profiency with martial weapons.
How do people feel this would land with how Warpriests are right now? Too good?
A problem is the lack of armor proficiency and, to a lesser extent, greater weapon specialization. Also never increasing your spell DCs also cuts into how effective your crits are.
My first try at giving a fully martial chassis (or as close as the doctrine system allows) was to never increase spell dc and attack rolls to make room for the armor and greater weapon. Then I changed it to still giving spell dcs but not spell attack rolls, but that’s almost a meaningless distinction with the divine spell list.
So yeah, can be done, but not without breaking stuff and having your character be oddly weak in several places.
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Agreed. Imo, I'd most like to see a skill focued warpriest (evangelist?) that lets you play your cleric as a face, and one that lets you poach spells from other traditons, (theurge?)
Evangelist and Theurge are both really fantastic ideas. Theurge could be really good for deities like Gozreh or Nethys where the deities theme is strongly in line with a tradition of magic, and evangelist helps to play up the preacher aspect of clerics (I feel that a lot of people play clerics as someone who just quietly heals and prays in silence, when a lot of them could really have a lot of fun being more bombastic).
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My proposals for Warpriest would be:
Fourth Doctrine: you would also gain expert in all martial weapons.
Fifth Doctrine. you gain master weapon profiency with your diety's favoured weapon.
Final Doctrine: you would also gain master weapon profiency with martial weapons.
How do people feel this would land with how Warpriests are right now? Too good?
Question: what does Magus then have to offer if Warpriest brings their proficiencies, but also 3 spells/level and divine font?
I don't think spellstrike and hybrid study would even come close in that comparison.
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In my experience the Warpriest is well balanced in the sense that in exchange for giving up offensive magical presence, it gains better AC without taking up feats, and does well spending its third action striking after relying on its healing and buffs to pull most of its weight. Its a subtle benefit, but it checks out in practice if you like the idea of being the group's better protected healer who smacks things sometimes as gravy, it has another hidden benefit of requiring less dexterity, and therefore being able to put points elsewhere, which can benefit Charisma, Constitution, and even Strength.
Warpriests are objectively better at that buffing/ healing role than Cloistered Clerics because they don't have to invest to get that higher AC, and can take other archetypes-- if you go the dedication route on a cloistered cleric, you're stuck not taking any other archetype until Level 8, and that's if you trade both your level 4 and 6 class feats away (you might be able to optimize that with some fancy skill feat, through sentinel, IIRC) so while you can do it, its going to come at a premium in terms of your character's versatility for other stuff. If a Warpriest does the same, they get to move on up to heavy for their trouble without having to move it up in steps.
I think that we could use an 'Inquisitor' that is a Master-Weapon Prof Wave Caster, and a different mechanic in place of the Magus Spellstrike, to fill the role some people expected this cleric doctrine to fill, more casting than a champion, but more martial than a cleric.
Agreed. Imo, I'd most like to see a skill focued warpriest (evangelist?) that lets you play your cleric as a face, and one that lets you poach spells from other traditons, (theurge?)Evangelist and Theurge are both really fantastic ideas. Theurge could be really good for deities like Gozreh or Nethys where the deities theme is strongly in line with a tradition of magic, and evangelist helps to play up the preacher aspect of clerics (I feel that a lot of people play clerics as someone who just quietly heals and prays in silence, when a lot of them could really have a lot of fun being more bombastic).
I remember playing a 1e desnan cleric as a bombastic type, she didn't really preach her faith per se, but she took the "spread hope" part of the faith very seriously. She invested a lot in cha skills (mostly perform and diplomacy) and was practically a walking billboard with how many butterflies she put on her clothes.
Whenever there was an evil the threatened the people, she's use her charisma (and leadership feat) to rally the townsfolk to fight beside her or aid her, not because she needed the help, but to show the commoners that if they rally together, they don't need to hope for a hero to spare them, and instead, they can pray to the song of spheres to fill them with hope, and defeat their tormentors with their own strength.
It was a lot of fun, but it's a type of cleric that's not super catered to, and an example of what I think my hypothetical evangelist might look like for a player that might not want to play a preacher (but also it's fun to play a preacher sometimes )
Gozreh and Nethys are great examples of a theurge, but I'd also like to give a shout out to dieties like Sivanah, who, despite being a goddess of illusions, doesn't have illusory object and such due to the limitations on deity granted spells, not to mention just any cleric that wishes to focus on a specific teaching; like, a desnan that wants to be a dreamweaver could add on illusion and enchantment spells to represent using dreams and suggestions to lead foes astray or convince them to not fight and flavor them as dream manipulation and manifestation.
The tricky thing is that, given that doctrines only get 5 steps, I'm not sure what they would cut. I think the evangelist would be fine with master proficiency as long as the social skill increases were good enough, but I'm not sure how people would feel about a theurge capping at master (in my head, it's okay; trading depth of knowledge for breadth, and the intend of the class being that you poach more tools that a divine caster wouldn't have), but I could see people feeling a bit off that a subclass that boosts casting doesn't hit legendary casting
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My proposals for Warpriest would be:
Fourth Doctrine: you would also gain expert in all martial weapons.
Fifth Doctrine. you gain master weapon profiency with your diety's favoured weapon.
Final Doctrine: you would also gain master weapon profiency with martial weapons.
How do people feel this would land with how Warpriests are right now? Too good?
Question: what does Magus then have to offer if Warpriest brings their proficiencies, but also 3 spells/level and divine font?
I don't think spellstrike and hybrid study would even come close in that comparison.
Well, Magus isn't actually a great class so that's not really the question to ask.
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Well, Magus isn't actually a great class so that's not really the question to ask.My proposals for Warpriest would be:
Fourth Doctrine: you would also gain expert in all martial weapons.
Fifth Doctrine. you gain master weapon profiency with your diety's favoured weapon.
Final Doctrine: you would also gain master weapon profiency with martial weapons.
How do people feel this would land with how Warpriests are right now? Too good?
Question: what does Magus then have to offer if Warpriest brings their proficiencies, but also 3 spells/level and divine font?
I don't think spellstrike and hybrid study would even come close in that comparison.
In your opinion
I'd like a more font focused doctrine. The "Zealot" perhaps. Same spell progression as cloistered, but gives healing/harming hands as a first level feat automatically and gives some kind of buff to your font at 7th level. Hard to gauge what it would be though, since cloistered is so vanilla to compare it too.
I think one of the challenges with any doctrine concept that starts with Cloistered spell progression is that Cloistered really doesn't have anything to trade out except for the Domain Initiate feat, unless you're willing to press outside of the normal boundaries of the system by making a class that stays at trained Fortitude or never gets Expert proficiency with any attacks. (And that last benefit is a small enough tradeoff that you can't really give much for it, because casting-oriented clerics don't really care about that weapon proficiency bump.)
I guess you could push the Fort bump later, like to level seven (and just give two benefits there), but that's such a small cost that it's again not something you could offer much for.
Realistically, if you're trying to build another full-casting Cleric doctrine, you're sort of stuck either just replacing domain initiate with something else, or trying to bundle in some other sort of drawback, but most drawbacks I can think of fall more in the realm of what I'd expect a class archetype to do than a Doctrine.
There may be some creative ways to shunt things around a little, but I sort of feel like there's not a ton of space for full-caster doctrines that aren't just a feat swap because Cloistered is spending its entire budget on the full caster progression.
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Wow, guys, can we please get back on track?
Listen. When I first made this post I just wanted to put something out there: The Warpriest doesn't seem that great. Really the only thing it gets over the cloistered cleric is expert in medium armor and master in fortitude, which isn't going to let you frontline and (IMO) doesn't make up for lack of legendary casting. Really, if you want a warpriest, just go cloistered cleric and get Paladin dedication for that heavy armor proficiency (you can even get expert in it for, like, a level 14 class feat or something)? And the general feat can put your fortitude up to master at like, level 17 (though admittedly, no fort success =crit success)
The issue here, again in my opinion, is that a couple of feats just make a cloistered cleric straight up better than a warpriest in the long run. So I was suggesting something that gave them master in exactly one offensive ability (unarmed strikes) and one defensive ability (unarmored defense). This puts them way behind monks (who get legendary in unarmored defense, and can get up to legendary in two saves IIRC) and it still gives them something they can do in battle. They still wouldn't be the equal of a magus as they don't have spellstrike and only have one offense option, but to make up for this they have full spellcasting instead of magus/summoner casting.
And I don't care about your opinion on the magus, the point is that my theoretical sacred fist discipline would give them something the cloistered cleric doesn't get, and would also not step on another class's toes. I really think it is a win-win, but that's just my opinion.