Cleric Warpriest Prestige Enhancement Idea

[guardianx2009]

If Warpriest ever gets implemented, this is what I imagine it could look like. It needs to be combat focused as compared to Radiant Servant, which is healing focused. At the same time it needs to be strong enough to be a viable alternative and provide solid group contribution.

In summary, Warpriest Prestige should focus on the Cleric and everyone around him/her stronger offensively and more sturdy.

WARPRIEST I
Usage: Passive
Cost: 4 action points
Progression: 16 action points
Requires One of: Follower of the Lord of Blades, Follower of the Vulkoor, Follower of the Silver Flame, Follower of the Undying Cout, Follower of the Sovereign Host
Requires All of: Empower Spell, Cleric Smiting I, Divine Cleansing I, Divine Might I

You faith grants you divine fortitude, you gain an addition 20 stacking bonus to HP and +2 sacred bonus to saves, and your turns regenerate over time (1 every 2 minutes).

This enhancement automatically grants access to the following:

Aura of Valiance
Expend a use of turn undead to produce an Aura of Valiance effect on yourself. Allies within your aura gain 10% Sacred Bonus to Fortification, and +2 sacred bonus to Hit and Damage.



WARPRIEST II
Usage: Passive
Cost: 2 action points
Progression: 42 action points
Requires One of:Bladesworn Transformation, Silver Flame Exorcism, Undying Call, Unyielding Sovereignty, Vulkoor’s Avatar, Cleric Charisma II
Requires All of: Cleric Prayer of Increidble Smiting I, Cleric Prayer of Smiting I, Cleric Warpriest I

Empower metamagic now grants you 75% bonus instead of 50%. Your divine fortitude now grants you an addition 20 bonus to HP (for a total of 40). Your Aura of Valiance now grants 25% Sacred Bonus to Fortification and +4 Sacred bonus to Hit and Damage.

Spiritual Weapon
Expend a use of turn undead to create a group of spiritual blades that spins about, causing 1d3+1 caster level untyped damage to enemies it encounters. The spiritual blades will only attack enemies that have been damaged, and will not attack fascinated or mesmerized foes, and always attacks the enemy with the fewest hit points in range. All threat generated by the blades are applied to you. (Duration 300 seconds)

[Habreno]

What is the casting prestiege. I thought warpriesr was melee.

[butcheredspirit]

I like some of what you have, although it's structure definalty more fitd the current (old?) enhancement system.
Your idea of improved hitpoints and attack bonus/aura seems to fit the them nicely.
Tier 1 seems alright...tier 2 makes me wonder a bit though.

However...

As soon as a cleric becomes a warpriest in pnp, they gain proficiency with all martial weapons and tower shields.

This was quite an alluring and fundamental part of the prestige, it needs to be included.

Warpriests get a few charges on buffs, and healing that don't use up spells per day.
Things like heroes feast, haste, mass heal, fear.

They get a bonus domain (lets never drop this subject).

Those sorts of things definatly need to be considered for the PrE

[Zachski]

Some things I would like to add to this:

War Priest I

"Furthermore, you act as if you have taken a level in Fighter, gaining full martial weapon proficiency and the use of tower shields. You do not gain a bonus feat."

War Priest II

"Furthermore, you gain the effects of Shield Mastery as if you had taken the feat. If you have already taken this feat, then there is no effect."

[AylinIsAwesome]

If Warpriest ever gets implemented, this is what I imagine it could look like. It needs to be combat focused as compared to Radiant Servant, which is healing focused. At the same time it needs to be strong enough to be a viable alternative and provide solid group contribution.

In summary, Warpriest Prestige should focus on the Cleric and everyone around him/her stronger offensively and more sturdy.

It looks like you stitched together Angel of Vengeance with Radiant Servant. You've put too much emphasis on casting (the smiting line, empower?), and this for some reason requires no melee feats, but instead boosts your casting? Yeah...no.

[ShadowFlash]

There's only one thing that would make me choose anything over Radiant Servant...

Intuitive Strike:
you may use your Wisdom modifier instead your Strength modifier on attack rolls.
Use: Automatic.

This, coupled with Divine Might, makes a happy melee cleric.

ShadowFlash

[axel15810]

The way I see it, warpriests should still be healers first but with added melee ability. So there should be some healing improvements in the war priest enhancements. Quickly off the top of my head I see something like:

Warpriest 1, lvl 6 - Similar to radiant servant 1, warpriests get radiant bursts. Bursts do not regenerate (DM does). They also gain +2 to attack rolls and +2 to damage, proficiency in martial weapons and tower shields. 2 base DR.

Warpriest 2, lvl 12 - +4 to attack rolls, +4 damage, 5 base DR. Against undead you gain an additional +2 damage. You may now cast the spell undead to death for free, 1 minute cool down.

And yeah divine might should definitely be a rereq for these.

[Mubjon]

The way I see it, warpriests should still be healers first but with added melee ability. So there should be some healing improvements in the war priest enhancements. Quickly off the top of my head I see something like:

Warpriest 1, lvl 6 - Similar to radiant servant 1, warpriests get radiant bursts. Bursts do not regenerate (DM does). They also gain +2 to attack rolls and +2 to damage, proficiency in martial weapons and tower shields. 2 base DR.

Warpriest 2, lvl 12 - +4 to attack rolls, +4 damage, 5 base DR. Against undead you gain an additional +2 damage. You may now cast the spell undead to death for free, 1 minute cool down.

And yeah divine might should definitely be a rereq for these.

It is not the bursts that regenerate once you take the Radiant Servant it is the turns that power the bursts. If you were to give all clerics the radiant servant burst and expected them to not be usable it would require a huge change in the game mechanics that could break it for all Clerics.

The best would be that the Warpriest did not get Radiant servant bursts because then what would be the point of being an Radiant Servant?

[axel15810]

It is not the bursts that regenerate once you take the Radiant Servant it is the turns that power the bursts. If you were to give all clerics the radiant servant burst and expected them to not be usable it would require a huge change in the game mechanics that could break it for all Clerics.

The best would be that the Warpriest did not get Radiant servant bursts because then what would be the point of being an Radiant Servant?

Yeah you're right that wouldn't make sense. Just posted that quickly off the top of my head. I was just trying to think of something to keep them from being overpowered, warpriests shouldn't heal like radiant servants. Maybe instead of calling it "radiant bursts" put "warpriest bursts" into their own system and make them nonregenning. Instead of being based on their CHA maybe give them a flat number of "warpriest bursts" similar to the way kensei's get surges. Something like that. They would still have regular regennign turns for DM, turn undead, divine healing, ect. Maybe give an enhancements to boost the number of warpriest bursts.

And the point of radiant servant would be that you get regening bursts at level 6 (as oppossed to nonregenning bursts for warpriests) and of course your amazing healing aura at lvl 12 which warpriests would not get. Just my personal opinion, I still think warpriest should still be healing based and melee second. You are a cleric after all not a pally. I just see clerics as healing 1st, melee 2nd and Pallys as melee 1st, healing 2nd. I think we need to be careful about enhancing warpriests melee too much so pally and warpriest don't get too similar. Warpriests should not be able to melee as good as a Paladin. If they could, paladin's would become obsolete because warpriests are obviously going to be better at party healing and offensive casting. But we also have to make sure that warpriest melee is good enough so that the enhancements are worth taking and people don't ignore them completely and just go 19 cleric/ 1 fighter radiant servant instead. It's going to be a really tough thing to balance correctly.

[PNellesen]

But we also have to make sure that warpriest melee is good enough so that the enhancements are worth taking and people don't ignore them completely and just go 19 cleric/ 1 fighter radiant servant instead. It's going to be a really tough thing to balance correctly.

Yeah, I can't imagine having a Cleric who DOESN'T have Radiant Servant - there would have to be some HUGE bonus to either offensive casting, buffing, or melee before I would consider rolling any kind of cleric without it. Heck, if you want a pure Cleric who can use martial weapons, you have Half-Elf as well. Getting 20-30pts/tick from the aura (and seeing guys with great healing amp getting ~150HP heals from it on crits) is just too amazingly useful to give up. Who DOESN'T like healing a Hard ToD and using nothing but aura and 2 or 3 Heal spells on the tank? (I exaggerate, but not by much)

[Mubjon]

Yeah you're right that wouldn't make sense. Just posted that quickly off the top of my head. I was just trying to think of something to keep them from being overpowered, warpriests shouldn't heal like radiant servants. Maybe instead of calling it "radiant bursts" put "warpriest bursts" into their own system and make them nonregenning. Instead of being based on their CHA maybe give them a flat number of "warpriest bursts" similar to the way kensei's get surges. Something like that. They would still have regular regennign turns for DM, turn undead, divine healing, ect. Maybe give an enhancements to boost the number of warpriest bursts.

The best would be to give the Warpriest something entirely different that works on turns and leave the healing bursts to radiant servants

Maybe level 6 the warpriest gets a burst that gives everyone in the whole party something similar to divine favor for a time similar to the spell.

Level 12 they would get an aura that when running would give them and the party a bonus to fortification and saves against fear spells.

Level 18 the aura would give a bigger bonus to fortification and saves against fear plus the warpriest would get the BAB of a fighter without casting the divine power spell. They would not get the strength bonus however.

ETA: Level 20 capstone would be a +2 bonus to strength that stacks with everything else, BAB of a fighter, Tower shield proficiency the aura gives a final boost to fortification and saves verse fear.

Something along that line and then we could still have the turns regenerate, but the warpriest actually is something a lot different than the radiant servant. And none of it seems overpower to me.

And the point of radiant servant would be that you get regening bursts at level 6 (as oppossed to nonregenning bursts for warpriests) and of course your amazing healing aura at lvl 12 which warpriests would not get. Just my personal opinion, I still think warpriest should still be healing based and melee second. You are a cleric after all not a pally. I just see clerics as healing 1st, melee 2nd and Pallys as melee 1st, healing 2nd. I think we need to be careful about enhancing warpriests melee too much so pally and warpriest don't get too similar. Warpriests should not be able to melee as good as a Paladin. If they could, paladin's would become obsolete because warpriests are obviously going to be better at party healing and offensive casting. But we also have to make sure that warpriest melee is good enough so that the enhancements are worth taking and people don't ignore them completely and just go 19 cleric/ 1 fighter radiant servant instead. It's going to be a really tough thing to balance correctly.

See for me the warpriest should be melee first and healer second. And no Paladins would not be obsolete, Paladins have their own PrE's that they are able to use that are completely different from what a Warpriest should be about.

[SirValentine]

In summary, Warpriest Prestige should focus on the Cleric and everyone around him/her stronger offensively and more sturdy.

I agree, Warpriest should both buff the melee of the Cleric himself, and also provide melee buffing to the rest of the party.

Your aura that grants bonus +fort, +hit and +damage is a good way to do that. Not sure I agree with all the other details you post, but that basic concept is great.

[Matuse]

And the point of radiant servant would be that you get regening bursts at level 6 (as oppossed to nonregenning bursts for warpriests) and of course your amazing healing aura at lvl 12 which warpriests would not get. Just my personal opinion, I still think warpriest should still be healing based and melee second.

Then those players should either:

A) Make radiant servants
or
B) Use their spells

Warpriest should not have any features that overlap with Radiant Servant.

Clerics are already strong enough without adding in ubermunchkin features like overlapping PrE features to one another.

Or are you also going to suggest that Radiant Servant gets melee boosts?

[axel15810]

Then those players should either:

A) Make radiant servants
or
B) Use their spells

Clerics are already strong enough without adding in ubermunchkin features like overlapping PrE features to one another.
Warpriest should not have any features that overlap with Radiant Servant.


Or are you also going to suggest that Radiant Servant gets melee boosts?

Chill, I'm just throwing out raw ideas. I'm not saying they're perfect. Everything would of course need to be implemented in a way that balances in the game. My belief for the concept is that warpriests should fit in that gap between cleric and paladin, where they would be better fighters and lesser healers than radiant servants but worse fighters and better healers when compared to palys. Just brainstorming here.

[guardianx2009]

The reasoning behind more focusing on casting/buffing than individual melee such as intuitive strike, martial weapon prof. is because it would make it a pretty self focused PRE and offer little to no benefit to the party.

Warpriest enhancement should not boost the cleric's melee to a point where it's better than traditional melee. At the same time it should not boost healing to where it's better than RS. So what you end up with is a Warpriest that's subpar healing and subpar melee.

When you are forming a party/raid, do you want a RS cleric or a Warpriest? A warpriest needs to bring something to the table that benefits the group as a whole to be is an attractive/complementary option to a RS cleric. A warpriest who's benefits are solely self focused isn't likely to be very welcome in groups, as evidenced by all the "battle cleric" stigma.

[axel15810]

The reasoning behind more focusing on casting/buffing than individual melee such as intuitive strike, martial weapon prof. is because it would make it a pretty self focused PRE and offer little to no benefit to the party.

Warpriest enhancement should not boost the cleric's melee to a point where it's better than traditional melee. At the same time it should not boost healing to where it's better than RS. So what you end up with is a Warpriest that's subpar healing and subpar melee.

When you are forming a party/raid, do you want a RS cleric or a Warpriest? A warpriest needs to bring something to the table that benefits the group as a whole to be is an attractive/complementary option to a RS cleric. A warpriest who's benefits are solely self focused isn't likely to be very welcome in groups, as evidenced by all the "battle cleric" stigma.

Yeah that's the tough thing. The concept really isn't group friendly. Like others have said maybe some kind of buffs would be the answer. But then we have another challenge because we couldn't make the buffs too good because then bards would become useless. We'd have to make them lesser buffers than bards. I think this is the problem...groups expect you to be really good at either casting, healing, buffs or melee. And the whole concept of a warpriest as I see it is that you are a jack of all trades more than a specialist. It's going to be tough to make them group friendly, not sure if it can be done.

[SirValentine]

Yeah that's the tough thing. The concept really isn't group friendly. Like others have said maybe some kind of buffs would be the answer. But then we have another challenge because we couldn't make the buffs too good because then bards would become useless. We'd have to make them lesser buffers than bards.

I don't think they would be any problem with bards as long as they were different (i.e., stacking) buffs. So that a party would be happy to have both a Warpriest and a Bard for double buffs.

But yes, if it did not stack, it would either be worthless (if lesser than Bard) or make Bard useless (if greater than Bard).

[Matuse]

My belief for the concept is that warpriests should fit in that gap between cleric and paladin, where they would be better fighters and lesser healers than radiant servants but worse fighters and better healers when compared to palys. Just brainstorming here.

That's called a base cleric with no Radiant Servant.

No paladin could heal 1/50th as well as a non-PrE Cleric.

Here's the NWN2 warpriest implementation:

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Warpriest

Bear in mind, they have inflated healing abilities (like the 1/day mass heal) because Warpriest levels replace cleric levels, they aren't in addition to them as we have here. A 10/10 Cleric/Warpriest is only casting as a 15th level cleric, and has no access to 9th level spells at all. Consequently, a DDO Cleric with the Warpriest PrE is going to be -massively- more powerful than the NWN implementation.