pathfinder 2e warpriest vs cloistered

and our Right now Emblazon feels like a Feat Tax for subclass who should be all about that, and getting it for free would let Warpriests choose to use 2nd level feat for martial Archetype Feat while not missing out on Emblazon. So they'd start with spells like a multiclass cleric and could stack on it Sorcerer and/or witch [divine] Dedication and a healing archetype, like Blessed One. If you can acquire a Staff of Divination, imbue it with charges, and give it a shifting rune to turn it into your deities' favoured weapon, you could spam true strike all day long. I suggest such a powerful feat because I feel that the Warpriest needs strong options post 14, because currently it is one of exactly two mechanically unviable options in the late game. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Heal and heroism are bread and butter for a Warpriest, and neither cares about your Wisdom (unless youre trying to hurt the undead, but in that case you should be smiting instead). PFS doesn't progress to the levels where warpriest really falls off. Cleric Warpriest falls off? : r/Pathfinder2e - Reddit The Case for Warpriest : r/Pathfinder2e - Reddit Instead of being divine Strikers, they now have a much more support-oriented focus, what with having a full spellcasting list, but, and its a big but, they can also still wade into combat a lot easier than other spellcasters, still get better peripheral options, like Deadly Simplicity and Shield Block, without the feat cost, and can combo off with martials a lot better in the thick of battle. Tuesday, October 4, 2022 [REVIEW] PF2e NPC Index - Spellcasters / Warriors (Pathfinder 2e 3rd-party supplements) TL;DR - This post starts off with some general chitchat about my move into running Pathfinder, 2nd edition. Hello again! I left Clerics at merely Expert rank in armor to help differentiate them from Champions. Chosen Alignment: This shouldn't matter. Overall efficiency aside, haste also enables a Warpriest to move, Smite, and raise a shield/cast shield in a single turn (or true strike, smite, retreat, or even heal, strike, shield), which is very important for survivability. This is one of the things that took a lot of reading for, and was honestly something that was more difficult for me to see as a new TTRPG player, simply because I dont quite have the same breadth of experience with games as some of the older folk in the sphere do. If you want to put them on par with Alchemist, since you made the DCs on par with them and the weapon prof on par with them, then Master in Armor needs to be a level 19 feature, not level 15. On-level enemies worst saves still often succeed on an 11 or a 12, maybe a 13 if youre lucky, and their best saves will at least succeed twice for every fail. Once you start down that road any non-weapon-and-shield specialist might prefer to trade it in. Throw in some nifty weapon based focus spells and a mix of caster-martial class feats and it'd be good. and our Bump them up to master weapons? Well, it wouldn't be multiclass feats, just the Spellcasting Archetype spell progression, so they could take multiclass [fill in he blank] at the same time so as to gain 2x the slots that fighter could or get the slots a fighter could while also getting class feats. I rate bows poorly for Warpriests not because they're bad, but because Warpriests dont want to be archers. Still get Deadly Simplicity and up through medium armor. Cloistered Cleric MC Champion > Warpriest, change my mind In a boss fight, while the additional point of AC helps, the ability to efficiently shield block multiple times is lost, and the survivability advantage for between one-handing over two-handing drops back significantly to around 12% instead of the usual 28% (its still a better than using neither, though). 5e especially has this, with the joke of spell slots being SMITE slots being something of a running gag in the community. I also gave the Warpriest the Emblazon Armaments feat for free, and to balance that, I gave the Cloistered Cleric the Healing or Harming Hands feat for free. Armor specialisation, while not big, would also have tied in well with the WP focus on defensive. (Also, note that Lv 15 for Master armor is between Champions and Fighters, which seems fine to me. Having your weapon automatically aligned is much better, as it allows you to overcome DR of your likely enemies. Privacy Policy. A lot of classes dont fill the roles or have the abilities and perceived power they used to. So that's actually entirely equal. 15th-18th: Warpriests gain Master in Fortitude Saves, while Cloistered get Master in spellcasting. I'll have to think on it. Both are equally viable in PFS play - the Cloistered doctrine is a perfectly serviceable white mage type right out of the box, and the warpriest works just fine in spite of its uniquely extreme stat dependencies. In previous (and some current) editions, Paladins have a much more offensive focus. All rights reserved. In summary: wielding a one-handed weapon with a sturdy shield is a little better than wielding a two-handed weapon, but two-handed weapons with the shield cantrip are better against higher leveled foes, and thus both options are viable. Good catch, I always get that one confused and have to look it up in play. How To Build The Best Warpriest In Pathfinder: WotR - TheGamer Lv 11 and Lv 19: Warpriests receive these doctrines, and thus their spellcasting upgrades, two levels earlier at Lv 9 and Lv 17 to keep up with Monk and Champion (and I guess also Alchemist?). of The Pathfinder Second Edition Warpriest doesnt quite live up to its namesake in the ways we want it to, but that doesnt mean its weak. ~w~. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Brief History of the Gish (Stay With Me, I Promise I Have A Point). As such, investment in accuracy through buffs (and flanking and other debuffs) offers increasing rather than decreasing rewards. Being in the middle of the fight allows me to leverage a lot of self-only and touch-only spells with no effort, and I don't particularly care about the DC (the only offensive spells I use are wide areas anyways), the low-level feats are actually really useful, Battle Axe is the best cantrip in my list, and the shield makes me sturdier than the Fighter anyways. Meanwhile, a sturdy shield has a hardness of about half the average hit damage for any level, and a BT four times this. Alternatively, it could allow spells used to counteract an effect to an ally to count as 1 level higher. (Since youre wondering, there is one deity, Shax, who offers both haste and invisibility, but they have other problems which prevent them from being an easy pick, and wanting to cast haste, invisibility and heroism in one fight is a LOT.). Privacy Policy. I always thought war priests should get mastery in weapons. While your AC is on par with other martial characters for most levels, your HP certainly wont be. Ignoring my clear and obvious bias (it's best class, and nothing will convince me otherwise, please ignore our struggling action economy and the fact that everyone likes Laughing Shadow the best), the Magus is a really well designed gish, as a martially-focused character that blends magic into their playstyle through Arcane Cascade, Spellstrike, and Recharge, constantly looping the Recharge and Spellstrike specifically for an incredibly engaging playstyle, with some utility magic on the side. Warpriest - PathfinderWiki That's not an equitable trade at all, and looks really bad for the Warpriest. Every level at which you gain a Cleric feat, select one of the following feats. And we probably still have a few utility spell slots left after all that. Forums: Advice: The Gentleman's Guide to Faith: The PF2E Cleric - Paizo (Of course, making yourself invisible also offers an insane boost to your defenses, but not all Warpriests will be able to manage that.). That said, Master in armor may indeed be too much. But he hates the AC of cloistered. I then review a handy pair of third-party resources, the NPC Index: Warriors and NPC Index: Spellcasters supplements for PF2e. Action economy is a resource unto itself. Diminished Spellcasting Personally, I'd like to see some feats based on 1E Warpriest. Reddit, Inc. 2023. Eh. Initially, when I first started delving and researching for this piece, I had considered that giving the Warpriest Master armour probably wouldnt impact it a whole lot. I'm not sure what to do about it but it does strike me as weird that the ostensibly more martial cleric build is only actually better at fighting for four levels and is instead more about saving you feats on armor and bumping up your fort saves than anything else. From 1-6 and 11-14, Warpriest is strictly better than cloistered. Is that doable? The other weird thing is that other classes, like Battle Oracles and Warrior Bards never progress beyond Expert, but few people seem to have a problem with their progression of function, so what gives? Expert in Deity's Weapon now THAT is a nail on the head. Prerequisite Warpriest Doctrine Also hopefully martial proficiency at level 1 instead of level 3. Granted, theyre not as easily accessed as regular spells, but theyre still extremely useful in any casters toolkit, and having this sort of utility would come in handy for people close to the frontline, like the Warpriest usually will be. In regard of the WP being worse at casting I absolutely hate that all and everything has been packed into one single spellcasting proficiency. From 1-6 and 11-14, Warpriest is strictly better than cloistered. Can he just ignore strength and wear medium armor and just be slow/ have lower checks? Well, if so I'm not seeing it, and although I love 2E a lot, I think the cleric class is a bit of a mess now (for example, Warpriests of the God of War get the short end of the sti er, sword, so to speak). Pathfinder 2e - The Cleric Handbook | RPGBOT Privacy Policy. If we dedicate our resources to keeping up, we end up being a single point behind from 1st to 6th level, and from 13th to 16th level. I'll let you know how that plays out in a few sessions :). From 15+, Id say the Warpriest is almost certainly worse. If theres a bard in the party, or if you or another caster also buffs them, youre left behind. 119 4.0 You are a cleric of the cloth, focusing on divine magic and your connection to your deity's domains. Warpriest vs Cloistered help : r/Pathfinder2e - Reddit Not bad, but not very inspiring. For all of their shortcomings, Warpriests still have 10 levels of casting and Divine Font eating up class power budget thinking too heavily about their shortcomings compared to martials risks giving them too much despite their caster chassis. All rights reserved. The extra action may be used to Strike or Raise a shield.". They are not proficient with shields. Pathfinder 2nd Edition | RPGBOT But keep in mind that this will come at the cost of 2 Class feats just to get the same similar armor proficiencies the Warpriest gets for free (at a slight delay). -|- Hopefully, what we learn in the Magus playtest can help with an errata for the Warpriest as well! You are as good at healing and buffing etc as cloistered. Shield, magic weapon, bless, detection spells, anything you Channel Smite, most divination spells, restoration, silence, resistance effects, air walk, summon spells, plus granted spells like true strike, haste, wall spells, illusion spells (sort of), and a lot of niche utility spells also work perfectly fine without Wisdom. If we factor in Shield Blocking, assuming that the shield cantrip blocks as late into the fight as possible, and that shield blocks for about 10-15% of your max HP, that gets you to about 125% of your regular HP with shield. A free Focus Spell (1st lvl class feat) (Interestingly, the average AC for each of these levels is almost always 10 more than the average middle enemy save. Lv 1: Warpriests can pick Strength or Dexterity for their Key Ability. By comparison, Martial classes each get something extra which boosts their damage for free, and tend to naturally be tankier as well. He wants high charisma for the extra heal spells(which warpriest can get the same as cloistered right?). While it shall we say, took me a moment to parse through the rules, I discovered something interesting: Wave casting was nonexistent. Warpriests dont get such efficiency. You can complete the sentinel archetype through skill feats at lvl 6 and 8. Documented examples will come in the form of 5e's Paladins, Eldritch Knights, and Ranger, while more close to home, 2e contains the Summoner, Magus, Eldritch Trickster Rogue, and Warrior Bard, though these are by no means the only ones. Overall, the effect I want to achieve is that Cloistereds are the caster specialists, while Warpriests are the more martial oriented version. Reddit, Inc. 2023. Warpriests of Rovagug are similar to warpriest of Gorum: You get a two-handed weapon and the Destruction domain so you can jump into melee and deal damage. So, looking at that, Warpriest is slightly better at 1st to 2nd level, and notably worse at 15th level onward (at least, unless you believe upgrading a Save is as good as upgrading spellcasting). If you factor in true strike, channeling gets a bit better such that it is always the superior choice. Using the above conditions, the average damage Warpriests gain from using Channel Smite is either equal to or higher than the damage a Cloistered Cleric could achieve by casting a single action harm, with the only exception being at the Cloistered Clerics jump to Master proficiency at 15. For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a gish is a term derived from the Githyanki, a race in Dungeons and Dragons' Forgotten Realms setting, and has colloquially become a word used to indicate a character who specializes in martial prowess through the use of magic. ), So, understanding that lots of this is in rough draft form and others may have other ideas of what's balanced and fun, I'd overall say that Warpriests in my campaigns would have STR/DEX as key ability options, their choice of a defensive general feat or heavy armor proficiency in place of Shield Block, Fervor at Lv 3, Monk/Champion-level spellcasting proficiency, their choice of Master armor or Juggernaut, and a feat of indeterminate level to put their condition/curse counteract checks on par with a Cloistered Cleric's via restrictions, plus having non-favored weapons catch up in proficiency a few levels later for both doctrines. My first instinct for a fix would be giving Warpriests Expert in all martial weapons at 7th, and Master in Armor as well as their existing stuff at 15th. Myself, I think I'd like a Warpriest to have weapon proficiency go to master like martial, remove normal spells and instead gain the Spellcasting Archetype way of casting at the same rates, including Breadth: In essence a martial that gets free Multiclass cleric feats instead of martial class features. But let's examine this on a per level basis, shall we? At least in normal fights. Next up: Focus Spells. I would give you a cookie if I could, but alas, Im currently on the road, and cant bake the 3 people whove made it to the end anything. A no-brainer in my book, they don't even have Class DC for such a change to affect. I dont know that it's bad enough that it needs errata to fix it, but it certainly doesn't offer anything I'd personally want over cloistered cleric except at low levels. Cookie Notice If you don't have the weapon specialization class feature, you gain it for the duration of the spell. A -2 to spell DCs is I feel simply too big of a hit since casters cannot hero point enemy saves and they cannot get bonuses to their DCs. TOUCH GRASS TUESDAY -|- Warpriests flail in the general direction of being martial without really having anything that lets them do this better than Cloistered Clerics only earlier, which certainly isn't nothing, but also isn't satisfying over time. Giving both seems dicey to me too. Lv 1: Warpriests (and Druids) have the option of Toughness, Fleet, or Diehard in place of Shield Block. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. In my opinion, a Warpriest should commit as fully to Strength as possible, and either invest fully into Wisdom and catch up Charisma later, or invest heavily into Charisma, and develop Wisdom at the same rate a martial character normally would for the purposes of Perception and skills. [Evocation][Uncommon] to 50 I'm pretty much with Ubertron here First the weapon proficiencies seem clearly messed up despite attempts to rationalize them, solid Expert progression across everything they get should be baseline, and given the amount of mistakes in that realm (across classes) I don't think it's a stretch to say that's just Errata. 7th-10th: Warpriests go up to Expert in attacks, and Cloistered Clerics in spellcasting. The Champion is interesting here, because I am firmly in the camp that aside from the disagreements Paizo had over the lore of the class (oathbearer vs. divine crusader, effectively), the function change was very similar. At 1st level, the magic weapon spell can make you more dangerous than anyone else, and heroism offers increasing returns at 3rd, 6th, and 9th spell level. 2 HP per level compared to other frontliners is a significant difference, especially since the Warpriests Multiple Attribute Dependency means that investing heavily in Constitution isnt that feasible. Can a Warpriest keep up with other frontliners? At any rate, some final TL;DRs and things: I dont think the Warpriest is nearly as bad as some folks think it is, and Im of the opinion that its actually a really cool subpath to use, but people will either be too attached to the previous notion of the Warpriest, or tunnel vision onto the proficiencies way too much. Well also be comparing this base damage against the damage from Channel Smite. It is better on several fronts: works with highest level spells, can be used more than once per day, can reduce a spell to a free action. That makes them more defensive and with better weapon choices without overpowering them. Now that we have a comparison between your defensive options, its time to compare offenses. Even Warpriests who use a Shield would prefer this, since they can pick up Shield Block with General Feat while benefitting from Emblazon to their Shield + faciliating their casting while their hands are full. I strongly disagree on giving Master weapon proficiency on a full Caster. Increasing your attack so you go from hitting on an 11 to hitting on a 10 basically gets you an extra hit. Pathfinder 2e cloistered cleric guide Most of the Cleric builds/advice I have seen online are for Warpriests, and the few that aren't are very pro Sarenrae. If armor was the only reason you were considering Warpriest in the first place, then the MC might be a better choice. Your proficiency with all weapons increases by one step, but no higher than master. At low levels theyre MUCH better than Cloistered Cleric. Since many of you are talking about house rules to boost the Warpriest's power, here are the rules from mine: Your rank in Simple Weapons and Unarmed attacks (and Martial Weapons for Warpriests) increases when your Deity's favored weapon does. MC Champion will only help Cloistered Cleric with armor proficiency. My plan would be to use weapon surge, true strike, magic weapon to charge up my strikes as well as other martials in my party, On paper it seems pretty strong, at least early on but i've only GM'd so far in PF2e so I don't have a huge frame of reference for building characters. (One other prospect that needs to be mentioned but which currently doesn't have a clear ruling is the use of a Staff of Divination with a shifting rune. Champions (Paladins aside) dont really get more damage, but being nigh unkillable and keeping allies alive with reactions more than compensates. I have been reading on some threads, that the warpriest falls of in comparison to other melee classes in later levels. Clerics are the only class that doesn't get expert in all the weapons they start trained in and that is weird for cloistered too, but it feels especially off for the Warpriest. 89. The one thing I really don't like about the current WP doctrine is that they will automatically receive the Shield Block feat, no matter if you worship Erastil, Gorum or Shelyn and would rather use no shield at all. Reddit, Inc. 2023. Scan this QR code to download the app now. I remain optimistic that the Magus playtest releasing Monday will have a better presentation of what a mixed martial/caster can accomplish and how we could improve the warpriest to better scale along with the other classes. At the moment, I think I'm gonna go with this for my House Rules: 1st: Can pick Str or Dex as Key Ability, don't get Shield Block, but do get proficiency in all martial weapons. Lists Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous - How To Build A Warpriest By Kristy Ambrose Published Jan 22, 2022 Build the most powerful Warpriest in Pathfinder: WotR, with these tips and examples. All rights reserved. Kind of like Shield Block, actually. -|- If you want, you could invest fully into both Strength and Wisdom and seek the best of both worlds (with your durability and Charisma for your Font hopefully catching up later), or just build a character who acts like a Cloistered Cleric with better AC (though I dont recommend this, for reasons Ill outline below). However, increasing your attack so you go from hitting on a 10 to hitting on a 9 gets you two extra hits, because of your crit threshold expanding to 19. In summary: Warpriests can mostly keep up with other frontliners, but they wont lead the pack. [REVIEW] PF2e NPC Index - Spellcasters / Warriors (Pathfinder 2e 3rd Master casting instead of Legendary is a big hit, but it is difficult to evaluate exclusively on its own because the cloistered cleric and the warpriest have grown in such opposite directions even by the time the first spell casting proficiency kicks in. That would distinguish them that much further from Cloistered who might use Archetypes to surpass Warpriest abilities. as it stands right now they are serviceable at level 1, and steadily peter off from there until midgame where your just kinda poor at hitting things, being hit, having spells stick. Heightened (8th). But theres more to consider. Something else like Armor Spec does seem appropriate too, or possibly 10HP/lvl. The only difference in features is that the Warpriest gets Deadly Simplicity and the cloistered gets Domain initiate. In that case, the cloistered cleric (with one feat) now equals or eclipses warpriest in all areas except in fortitude saves. In each case, well be comparing the expected damage from a Cloistered Cleric casting harm, from a Warpriest with maximum Wisdom casting harm, and from a Warpriest Channel Smite against AC. Quick Links The Warpriest - Character Creation The Warpriest Subclasses Prestige Classes And Multi-Classing Options Examples Of Warpriest Builds Warpriest Problems and Solutions [Pathfinder 2e] - YouTube And that is the biggest chestnut for a lot of people when talking about the Warpriest. The Warpriest depends more heavily on spells than the Paladin, and have very few defensive class abilities. Also the warpriest gets not only master proficiency in Fortitude save, it gets the ability to treat successes as critical successes, which cannot be replicated with the canny acumen feat, or by archetype. As a warpriest, I mean. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. pathfinder 1e - Differences Between Warpriest and Paladin - Role Cookie Notice Traditions Divine Frankly, the lesson the Warpriest gives us is that you need a lot of meat to overcome proficiency deficiency. Warpriest Second Doctrine (pg 120): In addition to Training in martial weapons, you also receive the Emblazon Armament feat for free. It can be impactful, but itll probably be less impactful than increased spell prof. You can choose not to cast offensive spells, but that does mean the Warpriest has heavily limited spell options.