From the recent Warpriest discussion, I'm left wondering if there is enough space for a divine class that gets:
Heavy Armor proficiency advancing to Master at martial rates
Master with simple and diety favored weapons
At least d8 Hit Dice
A healing Font like ability
At least wave casting
Can this be made to fit?
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What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.
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The space between a warpriest and a champion is pretty small in terms of class design. Any sort of full divine martial would likely be too similar to a champion. Although, maybe the inquisitor? I haven't heard of it before.
I don't really agree. Champions are technically divine but they don't really operate in the same design space at all as anything caster-y.
In the same way that a dragon (arcane) barbarian doesn't feel that much like a Magus.
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My sincerest hope is that sometime soon, we see Inquisitor (likely with a new name) playing with both some Investigator-style mechanics and being a divine wave caster.
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Considering there are only two classes who even get heavy armor proficiency, and favored weapon proficiency is usually either a specific martial weapon or a simple one boosted close to martial with Deadly Simplicity -
You're basically trying to see "what can I take away from Champion to free up space to put in casting".
What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.
Mostly 3.x tradition but also because a 40k style heavily armored pious fist of the heavens is awesome.
I found some Clerics in MtG card art that somewhat fit my vision.
I picture the inquisitor as being closer to Hellsing's Alexander Anderson or Father Pierre Barre from The Devils. Much more of a force of will than a raw physical force.
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Considering there are only two classes who even get heavy armor proficiency, and favored weapon proficiency is usually either a specific martial weapon or a simple one boosted close to martial with Deadly Simplicity -
You're basically trying to see "what can I take away from Champion to free up space to put in casting".
Yeah. What's wrong with an offense focused champion that loses legendary armor proficiency, any in built synergy with shields, and their reactions for wave casting and a smite?
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A class archetype for cleric to take regular casting to wave and armor/weapon to master and keeping the font would probably be enough. Then you only need bastion or champ dedication for heavy armor and your done.
Considering there are only two classes who even get heavy armor proficiency, and favored weapon proficiency is usually either a specific martial weapon or a simple one boosted close to martial with Deadly Simplicity -
You're basically trying to see "what can I take away from Champion to free up space to put in casting".
Eh, I think the better way to approach this is more like... what would be a good replacement for Spellstrike if we made a Divine Magus. At least as a starting point.
Eh, I think the better way to approach this is more like... what would be a good replacement for Spellstrike if we made a Divine Magus. At least as a starting point.Considering there are only two classes who even get heavy armor proficiency, and favored weapon proficiency is usually either a specific martial weapon or a simple one boosted close to martial with Deadly Simplicity -
You're basically trying to see "what can I take away from Champion to free up space to put in casting".
My hope is some kind of Ranger-y "I declare this target to be my sacred foe" sort of thing.
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I'm really in the mood for another primal, occult, or arcane class before another divine one.
I'm really in the mood for another primal, occult, or arcane class before another divine one.
Psychic and Inquisitor were my two most-wanted; with one accounted for, I'm now even hungrier for the other.
I'm really in the mood for another primal, occult, or arcane class before another divine one.
Primal I could see, but... our two most recent tradition-restricted casters are arcane and occult respectively so I'm not sure how likely we are to see more of those soon.
I have no idea if Paizo cares about that at all but it's a thought... as of the DA playtest Primal is the only tradition that hasn't gotten a post-CRB class to iself yet. Who knows if that means anything though.
TBH though, I kind of want to see more tradition flexible classes I think. Back when PF2 was new I had some players who really wanted something that felt like a Wizard, but used a different tradition and more recently I've heard a lot of people wishing they had something like the Magus for divine or occult or primal traditions.
I know some people don't like multi-tradition casters but they're very... economical. Even if the very next class Paizo designed is the Inquisitor people in this thread are talking about, it's something we wouldn't see in its final form for almost a year. Which, personally, makes me value broad options quite a bit.
... The synthesist summoner might cover some of this design space (especially with heavy refluffing) but I'm kind of bracing myself to be underwhelmed with that whenever it happens.
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Like if we have a offensive class that is tied to one of the traditions, why not primal? Both the Shifter and the Kineticist could fit the bill here.
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What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.
Meh, tradition shouldn’t really impact class mechanics.
Medium armour should have been deleted from the game, it’s a weird half-spot between light and heavy which is honestly terrible. Light armour only needs dex, heavy only needs strength, medium needs… both for some reason, making sentinel (or armor proficiency) a must have on any medium class that needs all 4 stats.
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Like if we have a offensive class that is tied to one of the traditions, why not primal? Both the Shifter and the Kineticist could fit the bill here.
I've really come around to the idea that the Kinetecist can, and maybe even should be a spellcaster. Everything they are needed to do and be from 1st ed would be SO much easier to reproduce by way of a Primal only wave-caster with a compliment of element derived Kinetic Blast Cantrips plus a generous Focus Pool. Doing this would probably cost 3-4 pages worth of Focus Spells on top of the Feats and the class itself but that beats the everloving PANTS off having to write, test, balance, and then playtest the ENTIRE Class chassis from the ground up as it won't be able to lean on the inherent balance of the stock wave casting formulas and norms.
Shifter to me should be like the Champion, they get Focus stuff, they get to pick their "style" and are most certainly a FORCE related to the tradition but not as a Spellcasting Class.
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What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.Meh, tradition shouldn’t really impact class mechanics.
Medium armour should have been deleted from the game, it’s a weird half-spot between light and heavy which is honestly terrible. Light armour only needs dex, heavy only needs strength, medium needs… both for some reason, making sentinel (or armor proficiency) a must have on any medium class that needs all 4 stats.
Breastplate only needs 12 Dex, and hide/scale only need 14 Str. They also provide an avenue of accessing armour specialization without compromising speed.
Any way of fully dumping a stat (Mighty Bulwark, Thief Rogue) is bad for the game because it leads to people who can't imagine a character without those mechanics propping them up.
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What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.Meh, tradition shouldn’t really impact class mechanics.
Medium armour should have been deleted from the game, it’s a weird half-spot between light and heavy which is honestly terrible. Light armour only needs dex, heavy only needs strength, medium needs… both for some reason, making sentinel (or armor proficiency) a must have on any medium class that needs all 4 stats.
Breastplate only needs 12 Dex, and hide/scale only need 14 Str. They also provide an avenue of accessing armour specialization without compromising speed.
Any way of fully dumping a stat (Mighty Bulwark, Thief Rogue) is bad for the game because it leads to people who can't imagine a character without those mechanics propping them up.
Or maybe I'd just like some stat diversity. Currently if I'm building, say, a Barbarian without Sentinel (not even for Mighty Bulwark - just regular Bulwark), I need Str, Dex, Con and Wis. That's it. If I want Int or Cha, I'm sacrificing either my damage or defensive utility for ultimately mostly non combat effects - that's a tradeoff you shouldn't me making and why skill feats exist in the first place. Combat abilities and non combat abilities shouldn't be in the same "bucket" of cost.
With Sentinel, however, I can do Str/Con/Wis/Int or Str/Con/Wis/Cha without sacrificing my ref saves.
And for a class like the Magus, who already needs 4 stats, getting 12 dex is painful - you're compromising somewhere to get it and further compromising later if you want to keep up your ref saves. That's what actually isn't good - characters being notably behind on defensive expectations, or having very little stat diversity because of how hard the mechanics punish these things.
Stat substitution is bad when you can throw everything on a stat, however, some things need the help for the sake of build diversity - you can afford to give a stat sub for one or two things to promote that.
I don't personally want or need a Font ability on an offensive divine character. I'd rather that class "budget" go to more interesting Inquisitor toys.
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Or maybe I'd just like some stat diversity. Currently if I'm building, say, a Barbarian without Sentinel (not even for Mighty Bulwark - just regular Bulwark), I need Str, Dex, Con and Wis. That's it. If I want Int or Cha, I'm sacrificing either my damage or defensive utility for ultimately mostly non combat effects - that's a tradeoff you shouldn't me making and why skill feats exist in the first place. Combat abilities and non combat abilities shouldn't be in the same "bucket" of cost.
With Sentinel, however, I can do Str/Con/Wis/Int or Str/Con/Wis/Cha without sacrificing my ref saves.
And for a class like the Magus, who already needs 4 stats, getting 12 dex is painful - you're compromising somewhere to get it and further compromising later if you want to keep up your ref saves. That's what actually isn't good - characters being notably behind on defensive expectations, or having very little stat diversity because of how hard the mechanics punish these things.
In my opinion, there are a few things lacking in the game:
- A Bullwark medium armor with no dex requirement. Easy to create and would save a lot of builds from taking Sentinel.- A way to get to +6 with medium armor. Not an easy one like for Full Plate. I'd easily see something like a rune increasing the Str requirements of your armor by 4 and if you meet the Str requirements the max Dex bonus is improved by one. So nothing "better" than Full Plate, but still a way to get to +6 at some point at high level (where the Speed malus of Full Plate and the requirement of dedicating to Sentinel begins to be negligeable).
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Let's try looking at it another way. Instead of a more melee warpreast, a Devine magus or a holy barbarian.
They rage I mean enter a spiritual trance give them alignment or positive/negative bonus damage Instead of a dragon barbarian element damage. Instead of turning into a dragon they gain attributes and eventually shape of an appropriate being.
Please pardon the pun. The get possessed by a holy spirit.
Is this not battle-mystery oracle?
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If nothing else these discussions are great because they help let Paizo know there is still interest in such a class role, whatever may come of it.
I'm hoping that when the inquisitor drops it absorbs some of the old warpriest. Maybe a divine wave caster who's special gimmick is variable activities for marking enemies to put the "fear of god" in them or similarly debuff as well as economical self buffs that can buff in auras for focus points. Medium armor keeps heavy a small investment away and the class will have mechanics to satisfy all the divine martials left on the table.
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So what exactly do you want to do with your divine magic?
- Attack enemies? Because then you can't really downgrade casting proficiency
- Heal? Then you don't want to give up Divine Font
- Heal conditions? Then again you want to keep casting proficiency high for those counteract checks.
- Buff? That could work, you can afford to take a lot less casting proficiency if you know most spells are going to be inward-focused.
When asking about how much design space there is, you need to look at what you can afford to give up to make room. And that depends on what exactly you want to do.
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What's the reason for them to be in Heavy Armor? The obvious slot of an offensive divine wave caster is an Inquisitor, who was always Medium outside of specialty archetypes.Meh, tradition shouldn’t really impact class mechanics.
Medium armour should have been deleted from the game, it’s a weird half-spot between light and heavy which is honestly terrible. Light armour only needs dex, heavy only needs strength, medium needs… both for some reason, making sentinel (or armor proficiency) a must have on any medium class that needs all 4 stats.
Breastplate only needs 12 Dex, and hide/scale only need 14 Str. They also provide an avenue of accessing armour specialization without compromising speed.
Any way of fully dumping a stat (Mighty Bulwark, Thief Rogue) is bad for the game because it leads to people who can't imagine a character without those mechanics propping them up.
Or maybe I'd just like some stat diversity. Currently if I'm building, say, a Barbarian without Sentinel (not even for Mighty Bulwark - just regular Bulwark), I need Str, Dex, Con and Wis. That's it. If I want Int or Cha, I'm sacrificing either my damage or defensive utility for ultimately mostly non combat effects - that's a tradeoff you shouldn't me making and why skill feats exist in the first place. Combat abilities and non combat abilities shouldn't be in the same "bucket" of cost.
With Sentinel, however, I can do Str/Con/Wis/Int or Str/Con/Wis/Cha without sacrificing my ref saves.
And for a class like the Magus, who already needs 4 stats, getting 12 dex is painful - you're compromising somewhere to get it and further compromising later if you want to keep up your ref saves. That's what actually isn't good - characters being notably behind on defensive expectations, or having very little stat diversity because of how hard the mechanics punish these things.
Stat substitution is bad when you can throw everything on a stat, however,...
You only need dex 12 to max armor with medium though. Unless you're a druid, but that's more a problem with the druid's metal restrictions and heavy armor does nothing for that. Your barbarian example gives up one boost in dex at level 1 and then can invest in charisma or intelligence for the rest of the game. Reflex saves primarily deal HP damage and the barbarian has plenty of HP. Worse range accuracy limits your tactics a bit, but the barbarian is generally better suited to using mobility and skirmishing to overcome range rather than a bow, and medium armor is better than heavy for mobility.
You only need dex 12 to max armor with medium though. Unless you're a druid, but that's more a problem with the druid's metal restrictions and heavy armor does nothing for that. Your barbarian example gives up one boost in dex at level 1 and then can invest in charisma or intelligence for the rest of the game. Reflex saves primarily deal HP damage and the barbarian has plenty of HP. Worse range accuracy limits your tactics a bit, but the barbarian is generally better suited to using mobility and skirmishing to overcome range rather than a bow, and medium armor is better than heavy for mobility.
This would be true if critical failure doubling damage didn't exist. When apl+x threats already have a solid chance to land crits or have you crit fail saves even on characters with maxed stats, having +1 relative to your level instead of +3 or 4 from bulwark or dex is asking to get punished.
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Or maybe I'd just like some stat diversity. Currently if I'm building, say, a Barbarian without Sentinel (not even for Mighty Bulwark - just regular Bulwark), I need Str, Dex, Con and Wis. That's it. If I want Int or Cha, I'm sacrificing either my damage or defensive utility for ultimately mostly non combat effects - that's a tradeoff you shouldn't me making and why skill feats exist in the first place. Combat abilities and non combat abilities shouldn't be in the same "bucket" of cost.
A lot of people on the forums have this strange sentiment where they "need" to play a fully optimized character, and I really don't understand it; the game is not that difficult and strategy makes a much bigger difference than optimization.
Case in point, I ran the entirety of Age of Ages and one of my players was a warpriest who a)never got Mighty Bulwark and b)never raised their Dex above 10, and you know what happened? They were fine.
The entire, seemingly widely-accepted forum logic of "three of your stat boosts must be Dex, Con, Wis because saving throws" has never occurred to my players, they frequently ignore one or more of those stats on one character or another, and they still end up with plenty competent characters that don't struggle overmuch.
And the player with the most tightly optimized character (thief rogue) did struggle a bit until he figured out he needed to strategize and coordinate with the other players instead of trying to do everything himself.
Strategy makes a much bigger difference than optimization and builds don't need to be optimal to be completely viable.
Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
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So what exactly do you want to do with your divine magic?
- Attack enemies? Because then you can't really downgrade casting proficiency
- Heal? Then you don't want to give up Divine Font
- Heal conditions? Then again you want to keep casting proficiency high for those counteract checks.
- Buff? That could work, you can afford to take a lot less casting proficiency if you know most spells are going to be inward-focused.
When asking about how much design space there is, you need to look at what you can afford to give up to make room. And that depends on what exactly you want to do.
This is pretty much how I feel. Like if the goal is a martial with divine casting (i.e. Master weapon proficiency/armor proficiency), I think you'd be hard-pressed to compare the divine spell list to the arcane spell list in terms of requiring spellcasting proficiency. We've already got warpriests dropping Wisdom and Oracles dropping Charisma because the DCs matter so little for some of the best divine spells for martials.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be a divine martial, but I think that the divine spell list is trickier than it looks.
You only need dex 12 to max armor with medium though. Unless you're a druid, but that's more a problem with the druid's metal restrictions and heavy armor does nothing for that. Your barbarian example gives up one boost in dex at level 1 and then can invest in charisma or intelligence for the rest of the game. Reflex saves primarily deal HP damage and the barbarian has plenty of HP. Worse range accuracy limits your tactics a bit, but the barbarian is generally better suited to using mobility and skirmishing to overcome range rather than a bow, and medium armor is better than heavy for mobility.This would be true if critical failure doubling damage didn't exist. When apl+x threats already have a solid chance to land crits or have you crit fail saves even on characters with maxed stats, having +1 relative to your level instead of +3 or 4 from bulwark or dex is asking to get punished.
Critical failures are scary and all, but so is a barbarian with a good intimidation score. There's a lot of synergy there if you build for it. Intelligence is harder to justify, but that's always the case. And barbarians can't utilize it's primary use (Recall Knowledge) while raging anyway.
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Please, for the love of god (haha) don't make it melee only. We've already somewhat got past that with starlit expanse not having the same weird janky limits ranged magi had in 1e, and there literally no reason to limit it to a melee class wheee there are a lot of dieties with thrown and ranged weapons.
This was one of the big issues with the playtest pfnthe 1e warpriest, they eventually made the warpriest thrown and ranged friendly, and it was a mich more fun class as a result.
Champion as melee makes sense, since you have to be close to your allies the shield them (although I'd have liked to see a ranged versions with extended ranged on the reactions via feats, as well as ranged shielding somehow, but that's a different thread), but no reason to lock the offense themed class to melee
Please, for the love of god (haha) don't make it melee only. We've already somewhat got past that with starlit expanse not having the same weird janky limits ranged magi had in 1e, and there literally no reason to limit it to a melee class wheee there are a lot of dieties with thrown and ranged weapons.
This was one of the big issues with the playtest pfnthe 1e warpriest, they eventually made the warpriest thrown and ranged friendly, and it was a mich more fun class as a result.
Champion as melee makes sense, since you have to be close to your allies the shield them (although I'd have liked to see a ranged versions with extended ranged on the reactions via feats, as well as ranged shielding somehow, but that's a different thread), but no reason to lock the offense themed class to melee
My idea is very much the PF1 smite Paladin translated to PF2, and that was often melee locked but I have no objection to thrown and ranged weapon support being added either as subclasses or via class feats.
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I think you could do this with magus actually. One of my favorite PF1 Inquisitor archetypes was the iron-bound tome. That person had the inquisitor spell list but essentially had a spellbook that they smacked people with, and they cast with Int. You could make a magus hybrid study called ‘Iron-bound tome.’ Which changes your spellcasting to the divine list (still uses Int to cast), and gives you some other divine abilities. You’d get everything else a magus has, just a unique hybrid study that gives you divine casting instead of arcane. Gives you what you want, right?
I think you could do this with magus actually. One of my favorite PF1 Inquisitor archetypes was the iron-bound tome. That person had the inquisitor spell list but essentially had a spellbook that they smacked people with, and they cast with Int. You could make a magus hybrid study called ‘Iron-bound tome.’ Which changes your spellcasting to the divine list (still uses Int to cast), and gives you some other divine abilities. You’d get everything else a magus has, just a unique hybrid study that gives you divine casting instead of arcane. Gives you what you want, right?
Not really because the Magus kind of blows chunks unless you go Starlit Span and do your damage at range. The main ability provoking AoOs, other damage booster being, by RAW, unusable kills, and damage still being worse than most melee-focused CRB material kills the class. It also lacks heavy armor and couldn't spellstrike and heal from the same tiny spell pool without being worthless at both options.
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My idea is very much the PF1 smite Paladin translated to PF2, and that was often melee locked but I have no objection to thrown and ranged weapon support being added either as subclasses or via class feats.Please, for the love of god (haha) don't make it melee only. We've already somewhat got past that with starlit expanse not having the same weird janky limits ranged magi had in 1e, and there literally no reason to limit it to a melee class wheee there are a lot of dieties with thrown and ranged weapons.
This was one of the big issues with the playtest pfnthe 1e warpriest, they eventually made the warpriest thrown and ranged friendly, and it was a mich more fun class as a result.
Champion as melee makes sense, since you have to be close to your allies the shield them (although I'd have liked to see a ranged versions with extended ranged on the reactions via feats, as well as ranged shielding somehow, but that's a different thread), but no reason to lock the offense themed class to melee
Probably subclasses I think. If you can pick a god with a ranged or thrown weapon, you should have a built in path for support without a feat tax
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I think you could do this with magus actually. One of my favorite PF1 Inquisitor archetypes was the iron-bound tome. That person had the inquisitor spell list but essentially had a spellbook that they smacked people with, and they cast with Int. You could make a magus hybrid study called ‘Iron-bound tome.’ Which changes your spellcasting to the divine list (still uses Int to cast), and gives you some other divine abilities. You’d get everything else a magus has, just a unique hybrid study that gives you divine casting instead of arcane. Gives you what you want, right?Not really because the Magus kind of blows chunks unless you go Starlit Span and do your damage at range. The main ability provoking AoOs, other damage booster being, by RAW, unusable kills, and damage still being worse than most melee-focused CRB material kills the class. It also lacks heavy armor and couldn't spellstrike and heal from the same tiny spell pool without being worthless at both options.
In your opinion. A necessary clarification in most of your posts.
In your opinion. A necessary clarification in most of your posts.
For everyone's posts really.
Also, I'm far from the only one who feels this way. Do I need to link to our most recent Magus thread?
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So, first, I have to raise the flag and continue to be really severely against the idea of making either kineticist or shifter into a slot-caster. PF2 needs a way to have magic-wielding characters who aren't bound to daily slots. It's not that hard to balance. Martials are already dealing predictable amounts of damage all day every day and can serve as an easy starting point. It'll need to wait until the final version of the Psychic and Thaumaturge get out there in the real world so they can get feedback from those, but it should be quite doable. If anything, I suspect that at this point it might be easier to balance as a non-slot caster than as a wave caster.
That said, let's look at what a wave-casting "battle priest" might look like. I'm not trying to build an inquisitor here (sorry, @keftiu) but rather a completely different class that should give people some of that battle cleric feel without really stealing the inquisitor's lunch.
The basic idea here is a character who goes charging into battle, hitting the enemy with their deity's weapon of choice, with a heavy focus on both self-buffing and buffing aura effects that assist both themselves and allies.
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Looking at the general magus chassis... it looks about right, actually. A few tweaks suggest themselves. We can let the spell attack proficiency cap out at expert, and we'd like to have heavy armor plus shield block. Weapons would be limited to deity weapon plus simple weapons. If deity weapon is a simple weapon it comes with free deadly simplicity, Deity weaon would get its crit effect, and proficiency for other simple weapons lags behind and caps out at expert. Oh, and they get that whole "anathema" thing, just like champions and clerics.
The core class-defining ability is a self-targeted focus spell stance with a sustained duration, that progressively powers up if you self-buff (ie, cast a spell with a duration where you are one of the targets) while under the effects. It's one action, but you can also cast it as a free action immediately after self-buffing, and if you do, that initial buff spell counts for the power-up. Further, in any turn where you self-buff, it autosustains. All other focus spells available to the class are single-action self-targeted buff spells, and focus recovery upgrades are automatic gains, rather than being feats. Finally, at level 1 you get "attack and sustain" as a single-action flourish.
Many of the available class feats center around augmenting your stance effects, and "share some of the benefits of my self-buffs with my friends" is absolutely on the menu. There is almost certainly a feat in there somewhere that gives youa two-action flourish that lets you cast a spell, and then if that spell was a buff spell lets you make an attack.
So, basically, a big part of the dynamic of the class is in ramping yourself up with buffs, how much of your daily juice you want to spend on any given fight, which buffs to use, and (to a lesser extend) how much time to spend castign buffs as compared to bashing heads. There are reasonably strong incentives to use your slots castign self-buffs rather than heals or smites or buffing anyone else, but the right selection of class feats can make you pretty good at providing bonuses to your fellow party members anyway. "I get all hopped up on divine magic, and then go smash the enemies of my faith" pretty much in a nutshell.