Hello all, I hope I am in the right forum. I am making a warpriest who will be 13th level. I was looking into making a ranged arsenal chaplain. My questions are: do you think 1 level into sorcerer would be worth it?
My rationale is that I would get access to Ability to cast arcane spells, Tattooed sorcerer archetype, tattoo familiar, a bloodline, Arcane Strike and the spell Gravity Bow. Gravity Bow could be abused by casting it after I use Blessings of Fervor so the duration would be doubled.
I will be using a Orc Hornbow which is 2d6, after gravity bow it would go to 2d8. If interested in reviewing my full build idea I can post it.
As a ranged warpriest you need good DEX, CON and WIS, and will want a moderate STR. Dumping INT means you almost nothing for skills. So CHA is your logical dump stat. If you go sorcerer that means you not only have no dump stat, but you now need to invest something in CHA. At minimum you need at least an 11 CHA or cannot cast first level spells. Even with Blessing of Fervor you will only be able to cast gravity bow 2 times for 2 minutes.
The loss of caster level for the warpriest means you are one level behind in gaining your higher-level spells. Losing the ability to cast 5th level spells, being able to use your war blessing on an ally within 30’ and an additional +1 to hit and damage with your sacred weapon from weapon training is not worth what you gain. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be able to cast Cleanse, Hunter’s Blessing or True Seeing as a swift action then be able to cast Gravity Bow twice.
On the average gravity bow only increases your damage by 2 points, so is not really that good.
Thank you for the reply. What about 1 level of cleric to get the 2 domains and access to Plant/growth, which in turn would get me Enlarge which would let me qualify for arcane strike?
I agree with Mysterious Stranger. You're putting yourself behind for spells and for Weapon Training, and the benefit is negligable. Arcane Strike is a Swift action for +1 damage, but as Warpriest you have uses for your Swift actions and +1 damage is meeaningless. Gravity Bow is less strong than +1 from Weapon Training.
If you Really want Gravity Bow you could take a level in Ranger and just pick up a wand for 750gp, while also getting +1 BAB and potentially a useful favoured enemy. This looks better than a Sorcerer dip to me, but still significantly less good than a 13th level Warpriest.
The bloodline ability and familiar are a bit more nebulous in terms of how useful they are, but it' hard to imagine them being more impactful than 5th level spells.
Thank you for the reply. What about 1 level of cleric to get the 2 domains and access to Plant/growth, which in turn would get me Enlarge which would let me qualify for arcane strike?
Maybe I'm missing something but how does that quality you for Arcane strike?
The Plant domain has a sub-domain called Growth. Growth has the Enlarge spell and is an arcane spell. The ability to cast arcane spells is all you need to qualify for Arcane strike.
That would be incorrect, clerics are divine spell casters, all of their spells (standard and domain) are divine.
If you really want gravity bow take a look at the forester archetype for Hunter, a one level dip there would get you some neat toys.
The Plant domain has a sub-domain called Growth. Growth has the Enlarge spell and is an arcane spell.
No, it's not. That's not how Pathfinder works. Seperate from an actual caster, spells don't have a type. Whether a spell is arcane, divine, or psychic is solely dependant on how it's cast, and if cast from a Cleric, it's divine, because the class says so. In order to qualify for Arcane Strike, you need to have a class feature that outright says you can cast arcane spells.
Aside from that, I don't think any dip is worth it. Unless your campaign is extremely one-dimensional, straight up damage doesn't really make your character better at this point.
Gravity Bow especially is very overrated, it's just a +2 to damage rolls. That's nothing to write home about for a standard action.
A dip in any class is going to create many of the same problems as the dip is sorcerer. Why take arcane strike which gives you a +1 to damage as a swift action, when sticking with warpriest increases your weapon training which gives you a +1 to both hit and damage without using an action?
The type of spell is determined by the class that grants spell casting, not the spell. While enlarge person is usually an arcane spell when it is cast by a divine caster it becomes a divine spell.
Dipping is rarely useful unless the ability gained in incredibly good. Gravity Bow, Arcane strike and a few low-level spells are not that good. This is especially true for a caster. As a warpriest you are already gaining your spells at a much higher level than a full caster. A 13th level cleric is gaining 7th level spells. If you go with straight warpriest you are gaining 5th level spells. If you dip ANY class, you are only getting 4th level spells. You are also behind in damage, duration, and range on all your spells.
As to the familiar since you only have 1 level in sorcerer it does not gain anything so is not going to be that useful at higher level. The familiar is not going to be worth much for the warpriest. The same is also true for a class that grants an animal companion.
An oracle dipping two levels of paladin might be worth the cost. Gaining proficiency with all martial weapons, heavy armor, CHA to save (on a CHA based class), smite evil and lay on hands is a lot better than what you are considering. But gravity bow and a familiar are not worth what you are giving up.
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I will be using a Orc Hornbow which is 2d6, after gravity bow it would go to 2d8. If interested in reviewing my full build idea I can post it.
So casting Gravity Bow increases your average damage by two points, and you cannot cast it as a swift action since it's not a warpriest spell. There are warpriest spells that give a greater bonus and can be swift-cast, so gravity bow doesn't seem like such a strong spell here.
That said, if you do want to dip, go Empyreal bloodline so your sorcerer casting depends on wisdom. There is certainly utility in the ability to cast arcane scrolls, perhaps some first-level buff spells, and a familiar.
Thanks for all of the good advice and pointers. I was just trying to get as much DPS as possible. I am currently playing CoTCT and our DM has TPK'd our party on 3 separate occasions.
We only have 4 players and I am normally the glass cannon because the other 3 always create interesting characters with back stories which leaves me doing the damage :(.
This hasn't been playing out well in this campaign. 2 of our party members are dead and refuse to come back so we are trying to finish the campaign by making new characters.
We already have a fighter, rogue and either a arcanist or summoner which leaves me to be the healing type/secondary tank/dps guy again.
We are switching over to try DnD 5e for the next campaign. I picked warpriest because I have never played the class and it will be a couple of years until I come back to Pathfinder.
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Random point - gravity bow would increase the damage of the hornbow to 3d6, which is 3.5 points more on average. Having said that, though, I agree with everyone else that there are much better things you can be doing with your actions as a warpriest.
I was going to go against the grain and suggest that a one-level dip for your 13th level might not be a terrible idea, particularly into a full BAB class that gets a bonus feat (Unchained monk or fighter, in particular). But that’s only if you were doing a one-shot. Since you’re in a campaign the lost level hurts a lot more over time.
Thanks for the reply Azothath. The problem with your suggestion is the other players. I do research, ask for advice and read guides to try and come up with well rounded characters.
They don't, I had to explain the fighter class to the person playing the fighter and help with all of the feats. The other person playing the new summoner/arcanist hasn't done any research but left it for me to design.
Strategy hasn't been bad but the DM is a killer. There is a castle on an island in COTCT and we were making entrance when a wandering banshee came around and hit 2 of the characters with a scream that did over a 140 points of damage. That was after it had swiped at one of the characters for almost 70.
No way a rogue can survive over 200 pt's in one round. He also is stingy with magic. None of us are geared for our level and he regularly rolls criticals. I am all about hard content but it really seems like he is out to kill us every single encounter, frustrating.
Thanks for listening to my rant and all the good advice. I am off to design 2 other characters for the other party members.
Strategy hasn't been bad but the DM is a killer. [...] None of us are geared for our level and he regularly rolls criticals. I am all about hard content but it really seems like he is out to kill us every single encounter, frustrating.
Then talk to the other players, and have all of you talk to the GM. Explain that you players don't want a gritty hardcore game.
If the GM wants a more deadly game, no amount of optimization will help. The GM can always increase the power level. In all likelyhood, combat-optimized characters will only result in the other players having PCs they don't want to play, and the PC kills and TPKs will continue. Similarly, making your character even more into a glass cannon, or evne just focussing on damage more, will likely only result in the GM making the game more deadly.
Your group's problems have 0% to do with PC builds, and 100% to do with the GM either not knowing, or ignoring what the players want from the game.