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I'm playing Iron Gods with a Psychic and that has gone about as well as you'd expect with all of the constructs and undead, I wanted to get into high-level construct possession spells but I guess it wasn't meant to be. After running away from a fight with 2 party members dead another 2 of us are also looking at rolling new characters. Our GM for this game tends to roll very high and that includes lots crits so I don't mind abusing the rules a little to survive so long as it's sound. We've got 25 point buys and have been asked to have no starting stats above an 18 after racial bonuses.
I'm looking at playing a half-orc warpriest wielding a chainsaw for high damage and relying on the Deathless Zealot chain, Feral Champion's wild shape, and eventually a greater Mask of Giants to cheese defense. We're near the end of book 3 so we're 8th level and have already had 8 character deaths since the start.
Other party members: Scout Rogue 3/Ninja 5 is now the only remaining original PC, possible Grippli Cleric of Pharasma with Healing Hands and Signature Skill Heal (and maybe use the tongue to deliver the heals with reach), possible Construct Caller Unchained Summoner with an eidolon built for reach as a second line melee combatant, and then finally some flavor of caster likely arcane.
starting stats would be:
STR 16+2
DEX 12
CON 16
INT 12
WIS 14
CHA 7
with more +1s to strength every 4 levels
feat progression is looking like this:
1: Endurance (Shaman's Apprentice), Weapon Focus Chainsaw (Warpriest), Ironhide
3: Combat Reflexes (Warpriest), Power Attack
5: Diehard
6: Deathless Initiate (Warpriest), Martial Focus Axes (Warpriest FCB)
7: Cut from the Air
<--PC joining campaign at level 8
9: Smash from the Air (Warpriest), Resilient Brute
11: Improved Critical Chainsaw
12: Deathless Master (Warpriest), Deathless Zealot (Warpriest FCB)
13: Critical Focus
15: Cleave (Warpriest), Cleaving Finish
17: Heroic Defiance
I'd also take all the usual stuff like Sacred Tattoo, Fate's Favored, and Divine Favor. I have the option of being evil and going with the damnation feats if I really wanted to and get Fiendskin maxed out for immunity to fire and acid to make myself near unkillable while Wild Shaped into a troll. I'm only looking at picking up Cleave to get Cleaving Finish for when there are multiple enemies, I probably wouldn't use Cleave unless I had to move. With a large-sized chainsaw, the Impact weapon enchantment and the Vital Strike chain could be an interesting alternative but I don't know how much so given the static damage I'd be losing. Finally, I could go Shield Focus into Unhindering Shield to further boost my AC by as much as 7. I also know pinning a lot of my defense on a 90k gp item is questionable and otherwise ignoring everything my archetype brings me is too but the 2 combined would allow me to shrug off having taken near-infinite damage.
I'm also totally welcome to other damage sponge builds, I've heard Green Knight Cavalier and many Samurai builds can soak lots of damage. I'm interested in using Flagellant in a build at some point but I figure that might require going Barbarian to convert lethal to nonlethal.
For most two handed weapon builds, you are strongly encouraged to use the arsenal chaplain archetype. The scaling weapon damage from default warpriest will barely ever matter to big two hander builds
In general, unless you have something you want to specifically do that isn't fighting with a weapon, taking Arsenal Chaplain is like the strongest choice you can make (especially because you can pick up Advanced Weapon Training via feat).
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I've already played a Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain before in PFS and nothing about that archetype really improves a Warpriest's defenses. I wanted Feral Champion just to unlock Wild Shape so that a Greater Mask of Giants could get me regeneration so that I won't die while using Diehard/Deathless Initiate/Deathless Master. If I dipped into Druid or Shifter or something for that then I totally would go MAC but I feel like I'd lose more than I'd gain by multiclassing.
In Pathfinder, the best defense is a good offense. The enemy can't hurt you if they're dead.
Also, if you looking at going with an archetype with wildshape then you should be going all in on Wildshape, and so all these feats you have relating to weapons should be dropped and you should focus on trying to improve your wildshape.
Anyways, I see you want it to abuse Mask of Giants....but it's not really worth it. Just Grab Boots of the Earth. It will get you fast healing (while not moving). It's good for in between fights. And fast healing/regen 5 by the time you can afford the Mask of Giants (cost 90,000 unless you craft it) just isn't that meaningful compared to incoming damage. It's not going to significantly increase your survivability.
If you want survivability...you're a warpriest. Use fervor and use it's innate healing ability or cast a healing spell on yourself as a swift action.
When I played a Warpriest the opening act was to use fervor to cast divine favor/power and if I ever got below half hit points I would start using fervor in this way. Healing without spell slots isn't as good as using an on level spell, and vastly inferior to using the actual Heal spell with fervor, but you were only expending a point of fervor compared to also using a spell slot.
Though to be honest, I also don't find much value in the Deathless line series of feats. You should be avoiding getting down that low in HP in the first place. Especially with only 2 player characters, if you're that low on HP chances are your ally isn't doing well either. And while you're not out of commission, it's obvious you're in over your head. The Deathless feats encourage you to get into a bad position in the first place.
I've already played a Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain before in PFS and nothing about that archetype really improves a Warpriest's defenses. I wanted Feral Champion just to unlock Wild Shape so that a Greater Mask of Giants could get me regeneration so that I won't die while using Diehard/Deathless Initiate/Deathless Master. If I dipped into Druid or Shifter or something for that then I totally would go MAC but I feel like I'd lose more than I'd gain by multiclassing.
Did you consider the goliath druid? You still won't have regen at that level, but you wont' be sinking a crazy amount of wealth into a single item.
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Normally I prefer just winning the game of rocket tag (my -1 character in PFS1e was a beast totem CAGM barbarian bringing like 600dpr to the table) but in this campaign, we're getting critted and whatnot from every angle and fast healing won't help with that, I don't even care about how much regeneration it is, just the part about not dying when I'm negative. My first character in this campaign was a fighter with a mattock and a high AC, in the encounter she died the enemy's bonus to hit was more than 20 below her AC but the GM rolled a 20 on his first hit which had grab, made the grapple check and I died to constrict on round 2 after failing to break out of the grapple. This guy rolls out in the open sometimes even with our dice so I know he's not cheating but he still seems to average like 14 or 15 on a d20. Simply doing more damage hasn't cut it up to this point because we don't survive long enough to dish it out. We've had high damage builds in the party up to this point a primalist bloodrager, 2 gunslingers, an archer warpriest (sadly not MAC but still well built), I'm just trying to make a character that can still dish out good damage but also survive any die rolling on the GM's part. He doesn't rebuild the fights much if at all, just has insane rolling and sometimes uses his own tactics. I'm not planning on picking up the mask of giants until 13+ and I'd have wait until 14 to get giant form 2 as a goliath druid anyways.
For clarity, you are pretty set on your current options then? Is there anything you are unsure of in general?
We could come up with other builds that are tanky while dealing ok damage, but that's just wasting everyone's time if you mostly just want to go with your build
Normally I prefer just winning the game of rocket tag (my -1 character in PFS1e was a beast totem CAGM barbarian bringing like 600dpr to the table) but in this campaign, we're getting critted and whatnot from every angle and fast healing won't help with that, I don't even care about how much regeneration it is, just the part about not dying when I'm negative. My first character in this campaign was a fighter with a mattock and a high AC, in the encounter she died the enemy's bonus to hit was more than 20 below her AC but the GM rolled a 20 on his first hit which had grab, made the grapple check and I died to constrict on round 2 after failing to break out of the grapple. This guy rolls out in the open sometimes even with our dice so I know he's not cheating but he still seems to average like 14 or 15 on a d20. Simply doing more damage hasn't cut it up to this point because we don't survive long enough to dish it out. We've had high damage builds in the party up to this point a primalist bloodrager, 2 gunslingers, an archer warpriest (sadly not MAC but still well built), I'm just trying to make a character that can still dish out good damage but also survive any die rolling on the GM's part. He doesn't rebuild the fights much if at all, just has insane rolling and sometimes uses his own tactics. I'm not planning on picking up the mask of giants until 13+ and I'd have wait until 14 to get giant form 2 as a goliath druid anyways.
Your description just doesn't match up with expectations.
If your GM is using pre-written adventures and not doing much adjustment I had a hard time understanding how you seem to be losing characters left and right and being completely overwhelmed by the enemy.
I mean maybe at low levels, but you're asking for a level 8 character. With what sounds like 4 characters with 25 point buy. I just can't understand what's happening at your table to give you so many problems.
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For clarity, you are pretty set on your current options then? Is there anything you are unsure of in general?
We could come up with other builds that are tanky while dealing ok damage, but that's just wasting everyone's time if you mostly just want to go with your build
I'm cool with other builds, currently toying with a guarded life barbarian build maybe with invulnerable rager and stalwart/improved stalwart.
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Your description just doesn't match up with expectations.
If your GM is using pre-written adventures and not doing much adjustment I had a hard time understanding how you seem to be losing characters left and right and being completely overwhelmed by the enemy.
I mean maybe at low levels, but you're asking for a level 8 character. With what sounds like 4 characters with 25 point buy. I just can't understand what's happening at your table to give you so many problems.
First PC death was to this gargoyle thing and I think it hit sort of hard but we struggled from not having anything to bypass its dr/magic.
Then 4 characters were petrified by a basilisk's gaze in 1 turn but we used the blood to save 2 of them, the other 2 died on the fort save from stone to flesh, 1 of those players quit the campaign at that point bringing us down from 6 to 5 players which was helpful because we were all starved for loot and xp (I wish were doing milestone levels and had places to sell our loot).
The following session my pc got constricted to death in 2 turns and the breath of life scroll would only harm me further as a dhampir.
Later that session I wasn't paying attention bc I was building a new PC but the other 4 were getting wrecked by a nanite swarm and ran out the other side of the room to get away because I think it was large sized in a 10'x15' room, in doing so they ran through an electricity trap into a fight with some insane androids. The androids used grenades on them and to avoid a tpk the bloodrager stood in the electricity trap to close the door, died doing so. The gunslinger was trapped in the room with them and threw all of his grenades too so at least everyone in there would die. The arcanist and rogue/ninja survived.
And then yesterday 2 PCs died to a CR12 ghost with 10 wizard levels and a miasma that'd do like 2d6 negative energy damage per round no save to everyone and heal him an equal amount. The miasma obscured like obscuring mist so the archer warpriest and my psychic struggled to do much. The aeromancer was casting gust of wind but was killed after being irradiated and corrupting touched for 12d6, the war mind oracle died in the miasma after being knocked unconscious. The ghost casted almost no high level spells, just got a lot of mileage out of mage armor and shield and cover giving him an AC of 32. The 2 front liners were rolling terribly and couldn't bring him down even 30hp from full to trigger his retreat condition. My initiative sucked so the miasma was up before I got to haste or contagious zeal the party.
I was wrong about the 2 gunslingers, looking back there was only 1.
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I don't remember the basilisk but other than that, sounds about right for Iron Gods. You've had some bad luck in rolls and roles.
Iron Gods has several enemies that are quite tough if you don't happen to have the right counters for them. A couple of AoE spells from 8th-level casters will probably take out the swarm. But if your arcanist had prepped single-target spells or was unlucky and failed the distraction save. . .
The ghost is pretty tough no matter what. The one saving grace is that if you meet him in the plotted order you will only face him for a couple of rounds the first time before he leaves. (It's really difficult to skip that encounter.) Two rounds is just enough time to get really hurt and figure out what his abilities are. And then take steps to prepare for the inevitable rematch.
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Apologies for confusing the timeline.
I can't even remember if the gargoyle fight was this year or not.
The basilisk was a random encounter after finishing book 2 with a little extra time in the session. That was ~3 months ago. And then we the 3 deaths in the following session.
We get through 2-4 combats per session and play for ~5 hours every other Sunday. The other Sundays the dropped out player runs Ruins of Azlant.
I'm in a bit of a rush so I don't have time to flesh this out or add in links and things, but I'm not a huge fan of the Deathless feat line. I'd rather prevent myself from getting below zero than invest in all that. I do remember that ghost, he was a jerk to us as well.
My Iron Gods character has gone down the Stalwart feat line, which has been amazing. I'm a Bloodrager so it adds to my preexisting damage reduction. Also if you are looking at Barbarian, the Invulnerable Rager ends with 3 more DR than the regular Barb/Bloodrager, so if going Stalwart the difference is less meaningful.
If you go Stalwart you'll either want Combat Expertise (if your to-hit bonus is high enough to take the hit) or something like Crane Style.
A 1 level dip into Green Knight cavalier or Unbreakable Fighter gets you Endurance and Diehard as prerequisites for Stalwart, or alternatively a 1 level dip into Monk (probably unchained to keep your BAB up) gets you Crane Style plus a couple of pther bonuses. I wouldn't take more than a 1 level dip though, assuming the campaign finishes at level 17 you want those 6th level spells.
If you go Crane Style there's a trait that gives you +1 AC when fighting defensively, which would be -2 to hit for +5 AC (or DR:10/- with Improved Stalwart). Crane Style does have the disadvantage that it takes a swift action though, and that's something you'll likely want to use at the beginning of encounters as a Warpriest.
Just some thoughts, I get no internet at work so I thought I'd put this in before going "offline" for the day. I'm a 17th level Bloodrager (mostly) who's made an absolute unit of a tank in this AP. Also Chainsaw for the win!