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Am I trying to do too many things
Yes.
or will this be the versatile build I'm aiming for?
Seems more "unfocused" than "versatile" to me.
Getting +2 Charisma instead of +4 Wisdom will hurt your spells. You are already behind on spell DC, so if you want your spells to matter at all, you should aim for +4 Wisdom. If you really can't live without the champion stuff and need that +2 desperately, at least drop your Con to +1 to get your Wis up to +3.
Getting both Champion Dedication and Armor Proficiency makes no sense since they do the same thing.
What's your plan for using battle medicine while wielding a sword and a shield?
Playing a shield-using Warpriest without getting Emblazon Armament + Raise Symbol seems like a waste to me.
And I'm not a big fan of Versatile Channel. If you need a few casts of your non-font spell, just use your regular spell slots for it. That usually gets the job done. Cast Down works perfectly fine form a 1st level slot, for example, and finding the action economy to use Channel Smite more than once per combat is hard, so you won't need too many top level Harms.
Am I trying to do too many things, or will this be the versatile build I'm aiming for?
Agree with Blave: you are trying to do too many things.
An example of that: you're taking Battle Medicine but also Sword & Shield, meaning you have no free hands to use Battle Medicine. Getting a free hand or drawing tools will require an action before using Battle Medicine, so this is extremely action intensive and will really limit your capacity.
Since you are picking up Lay on Hands and can prepare Heal, Battle Medicine is redundant anyway. You can drop it and lose no capability. It's a feat that fits a Clostered Cleric a lot more easily than a Warpriest, as they are more likely to have the free hand and with Medic/Doctors Visitation can have the action to move+heal and cast in a turn, whereas you are losing a lot by trying to use it.
I want to be effective in Melee while providing buffs, debuffs, possibly an intdimidation feat chain for flavor, and provide in-battle healing when needed. I am thinking of taking battle medicine and eventually ward medic to take care of most of the healing while preserving font for harm to channel smite and cast down.
Aside from Battle Medicine, in general you have a LOT of things to try to do with the actions you have available. You need an action to raise your shield. You need an action to Demoralize with how much you've put into Intimidate. You need 2 actions to Channel Smite and so if you have to move, you already can't do that and raise your shield, let alone doing anything else.
As Blave mentioned, you probably want Emblazon Armament and Raise Symbol: if they're on your shield you can use Raise Symbol instead of Raise a Shield to get the benefits of both for the same action cost. Since your real limiting factor is actions, this kind of stacking action benefit is extremely good for you. (I also agree with them on Versatile Font: you don't need it since you can just prepare a Heal or two in your spell slots, and you already have Lay on Hands.)
Channel Smite and Cast Down don't really play nice together: if you're planning to use your castings of Heal/Harm for Cast Down, you won't have them for Channel Smite, and vice-versa. Having both gives you the option of which one to use at the time, but it's a fair bit of investment spent on that.
I'd look at Harming Hands (or Healing Hands if you're mostly fighting Undead), which is going to make Cast Down and Channel Smite stronger when you use them and costs no actions to use.
Assuming you're set on coming at it from the Warpriest direction (vs being a Champion primarily), I don't think you're that far away from where you want to be. I'd suggest looking at how you want to spend your actions in a turn and prioritizing being good at that first, and dropping some of the redundant options (like Battle Medicine and Versatile Font) to help with that.
(I'm a fan of Intimidate as a skill personally so I'd be keeping that over Medicine stuff, though Continual Recovery + Ward Medic is very powerful downtime recovery if you're the only one who can do it and as it's downtime, its not impacting your action economy. I've had that combo save our lives in PFS scenarios where we were time pressed.)
Yeah, pretty much is trying to do too much, but the build is functional, just the armor proficiency that is redundant and that you don't have a free hand for battle medicine.
I will agree that the versatile font is not necessary, but I will disagree with Emblazon + Raise Symbol, while nice to have, depending of your playstyle, you will might not even have the actions to raise it often. But if you go into that direction, might be good to pick bastion at lvl 8, for the extra block reaction at lvl 10.
And Channel Smite and Cast Down do well together, they do indeed both use harm/heals, but the first is used for a damage burst and the second for a really good chance trip, so you can easily separe lower ranks harms for cast down, and higher ranks harm for a burst with channel smite.
While it competes with your reaction, Zealous Rush is good for the first turn specially, as you are of Ragathiel, can easily (2a)Haster + (R) Zealous Rush to move in position and still strike, intimidate, raise shield with the last action.
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Depends on your planned action economy. Channel Smite is 2 Actions, a third could be raise shield/symbol.
Cast down would be similar, 1 action followed by a 1 action harm, leaving another to raise shield/symbol.
On the other hand a second strike would also be feasible, and a bastard sword without a shield would allow you to change to 1h as a free action and use battle medicine with the empty hand.
Being a WP of Ragathiel and using the Bastard Sword, should I not take a shield and just wield the sword two handed, and find other ways to boost defense? Or is the sword and shield WP a good choice if I'm trying to stand on the front lines adjacent to a fighter?
The shield helps your defenses significantly so it's nice on that front. If you want more offense, wielding the sword 2h will get you that and free up actions for things like Demoralize (which is good). These are both good ways to build, so take the one that sounds good to you. :) If you go the 2h route, you can drop some of the shield related feats and get other things.
If you are going shield, the Bastion archetype is worth looking at if you can find the feats. Just the dedication gets you Reactive Shield, which lets you raise your shield when you get attacked if you didn't have the actions to do it yet. Quick Shield Block is an extra reaction for Shield Block, which is amazing.
Disarming Block would want you to adjust skill boosts to Athletics, but is quite good if you have the Athletics to be good at it. Disarm got buffed in the remaster so this can hinder enemies significantly now and it's working off an action you're already doing: Shield Block.
None of that is necessary for your character to be effective, but if you want to lean into the shield aspect, it gets you a lot of value for its cost.
Interesting. Are you suggesting Bastion in place of Champion, or in addition to?
In addition to. Champion is getting you heavy armor/Lay on Hands/Champion's Reaction, and those are all excellent things, at least two of which seem very central to the concept you're going for.
After that, I think its worth considering vs more Champion feats. You may decide you like what the Champion ones are giving you and that's a perfectly good way to go. I'm just pointing out that you have another option for a shield focused build. :)
I'm still trying to make sense of the differences between 1E and 2E. Is there a downside to taking more than once archetype?
Not really. It's pretty common with Free Archetype variant as you may not want feats from one archetype constantly for 20 levels. Some archetypes (like Medic) don't have enough feats available to do that at all. (As an example: my Oracle playing Kingmaker has both Sorcerer and Investigator archetypes. My son's Ranger by level 20 will have Dual-Weapon Warrior, Inventor, and Druid archetypes.)
The only restriction is that you can't take a second archetype dedication until you have 2 additional feats in your first dedication. So if you take Champion Dedication at 2/Lay on Hands at 4/Reaction at 6, then you could take Bastion Dedication starting at level 8.
You can get it faster if you use your Cleric class feats for archetype feats, which you can do (and is the only way to get an archetype without Free Archetype), but you may not want to as you have a lot of good Cleric stuff for your concept that you want.
But for example: you could take Bastion Dedication at 8 as your Cleric Class feat, and also take Disarming Block at 8 as your Free Archetype feat. I don't suggest that, in this case I'm just explaining the option as you're using a variant rule.
ps - I just want to add that none of this is required. The build you came to us with initially is capable of doing your concept and if you ran it as-is, you'd do fine. Everyone's suggestions are generally ideas to help improve or refine an aspect of it, but you should feel free to reject any of it and feel confident that your character will work.
So if you just decide you don't want to deal with a second archetype and stick with Champion, you'll be fine. Don't stress it. :)
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Champion archetype gives a lot of juicy things, but it takes a long time to actually get them.
In a real game a champion might feel better as a defender. I played a redeemer in Malevolence, and debuffing the attacker(s) with enfeebled 2/stupefied 2 while also reducing the incoming damage was really nice.
Lay on Hands is also good, with only one action, a decent amount of healing and the +2 ac rider.
Divine domains give some versatility, and a shield augmentation allows you to utilize trip while playing sword+board.
My main grievance was the low utility outside of combat.
As a war priest you are still a caster - a very sturdy one with melee options, but a caster. I feel it is a bit action-starved to go with a shield, as casting a spell like bless or heal with 2 actions does not leave you with a strike AND raising your shield/symbol. Reactive shield and quick block fix that to an amount, but it still takes a long time to actually come together when you start at lvl 1.
The upcoming Divine Mysteries has the battle harbinger class archetype for the cleric which focuses on aura spells like Bless and bane as well as two new ones that are basically the same except they affect AC instead of attack.
You can find some information on that here. Just search the initial post for battle harbinger.
Might be a good fit for your concept.
Tridus,
You mention in a previous reply that I could be coming at this from a Champion outright, which I had not considered.
Could you expand on that?
As a front liner, who's primary focus is to defend and buff allies, debuff enemies, be able to heal often out of combat, occasionally heal in combat, while being able to do their share of damage...
Thanks again!
Champion is a very good defender class. It's got more HP/better armor proficiency/better saves than Cleric, starts with heavy armor/lay on hands/champions reaction at level 1, can get things like Reactive Strike within its own class, and such. If your goal is to build a character that is really tough and good at defending the party, starting with this class will get you there faster and your own defenses will be stronger.
Champion is not a terribly strong damage dealing class, and its "buff" options are limited (its support abilities are more geared towards preventing damage off allies and such). You could pick up a few spells with Cleric archetype (or some other spellcasting archetype) but it's not going to ever have a lot of buff spell options.
Warpriest can deal more damage and as a Cleric, has a strong list of buff & support spells available and a lot of spell slots to use them. Like, a Channel Smite is going to hit hard and you can do it quite a few times a day, which Champion has no real equivalent to.
I think it's worth considering starting with Champion if the things you want most are things like the Champion's reaction and to be extremely resilient yourself. As a GM, high level Champions can be VERY frustrating because they're hard to take down and also make everyone around them significantly tougher (with Quick Shield Block, Shield of Reckoning, and Divine Reflexes, your ability to prevent damage on allies gets ridiculous).
Low level doesn't have all of that yet, of course, but its a very good class at the thing it's designed to do. :)
If you want to prioritize more offensive potential and the flexibility of spells, Warpriest (Cleric) is a better class. Things like Channel Smite hit significantly harder than anything Champion can do and you can do it quite a few times a day. Full spellcasting is incredibly flexible and lets you solve a lot of problems that Champion simply has no answer for. You've also got some good support/buff spell options.
With your archetype picks, you're also getting some of what Champion has to offer, so its not an either/or situation. Picking the class here is just picking "which thing do I want to be best at?"
The build looks fine now, you could delay raise symbol to lvl 8 and pick channel smite at lvl 4 if you are starting at lower level, so you have a cool strike earlier.
Abandoning the shield like you mentioned would also work, the character have heavy armor and access to Lay on Hands and Heal and later you can prepare stuff like Vital Beacon as well.
Liberation Step interesting part is the free step, against some enemies it might make the ally that did the step be outside of Reach, though if you are in range they might just change the attacks to you.
Will the continual recovery and ward medic likely take care of most post combat healing, and are they worth it, or am I spreading feats thin again?
If you have both of those you're a pretty effective downtime healer, yeah.
If you have neither of them, casting Lay On Hands and immediately refocusing is slower (1 LoH every 10 minutes), but does work reliably, and doesn't cost any feats since you already have it.
I like the option of channel smite AND cast down, but I'm concerned about how many feats this build consumes and I'm wondering if I should be doing something to improve my initiative or speed (such as the zealous rush recommendation)? I'm planning to take some spells to buff the front line, but I might be the last one to get there based on my speed/initiative. Cast down seems so good, but my RP concept wants to channel smite too.
If you can find a general feat, Fleet improves your speed. If you drop Continual Recovery and Ward Medic, you free up a general feat and a skill feat. Might be worth considering.
If I give up having a shield I might be able to do more of what I want RP wise, having more actions and more feats to spend. Are there viable ways to do that and still survive in melee?Orc Ferocity seems good, if you eventually get Defy Death, but maybe it's a risky feat vs the constant +1 reaction from Orc Superstition. Has anyone taken Orc Ferocity and regretted it?
Orc Ferocity is great when it comes up because it can keep you in a fight. That means you get a chance to heal yourself, not drop your weapon, and such. It's also pretty flavorful with the "being too angry to go down" type thing. :)
Superstition is also good.
Finally, I like the reaction from the Justice cause, but I do wonder from an RP standpoint if having a character with those edicts/anathema will be an occasional hurdle for the team vs Liberation cause. Is Liberating step a better reaction than it appears? It seems very circumstantial, but I might just have 1E WP tunnel vision. :D
How problematic that is for your team depends on the other players/characters. In a typical adventure path and a typical "heroic" type of party, it's not that much of an issue. In a party where people are questionable morality and the campaign is darker, it can be much more problematic. It's outright unplayable in an evil campaign like Blood Lords. So that's not really a question we can answer for you. :)
IMO it's a better reaction than Liberating Step, as doing damage is almost always useful if you're in a combat (that is the easiest way to end it). That said, its not like Liberating Step is bad. Sometimes that step is really, really useful.
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Orc Ferocity is great, but also a reaction - something to consider if you play a reaction-heavy character like with a champion archetype.
It has a nice small synergy with intimidation in the One Hundred Victories item.
I would suggest to drop continual recovery/ward medic, lay on hands should cover this. This frees your general feat for toughness or fleet - 20ft speed can be rough, especially without an action compression like sudden charge.
If you decide to go without a shield you could keep battle medicine, i feel like intimidating glare is a bit useless when taking Intimidating Prowess later on. Also allows you to move channel smite to 4, as already suggested.
Yes, as others have said, many things. I am currently the healer of my group and I play with a human warpriest of Ragathiel, we use Free Archetype, so that helps, currently level 3. Anyway, as FA for 0 surprise I took Medic, since I use a Bastard sword, I can free one hand to use Battle Medicine, currently with feat to use heavy armor and Fleet so as not to hinder my movement, soon I will have Doctor's Visit, so I have to be able to move to my companions. As Divine Source I took Harm, Ragathiel's divine power must be used to punish transgressors, that is my cleric's mantra, I will go for the Cast Down line, my healing is 99% via Medicine and for pure precaution, I have a single Heal prepared. So, I think you should find a single point, focus on it and follow it! If you want to be the healer you can try cloistered and Medic, now if you want to bring some pain to the enemies, you can try this example I gave or something similar. Although I am on the front line, I leave the pure damage to our rogue, I am the one who puts Band aid on that elven ass occasionally, but I also manage to leave some scars on the unfortunates hehehehe!