Update 56 Preview 2: Sacred Fist Archetype

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all! Please be sure to check out both the Producer's Letter and the Archetype Overview page before diving in here

Sacred Fist is a Paladin Archetype, joining Stormsinger and Dark Apostate as the first wave of 3 Archetypes.

Changes from Base Class
Feats:
Added:
Armor Class Bonus: (1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20) This version scales off of Charisma instead of Wisdom. If you are part-monk this will use the highest of Cha or Wis.

Flurry of Blows (1)

Unarmed Strike (1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20)

Evasion (2) (note: they do not get Improved evasion except as a t5 in the Sacred Fist tree.)

Path of Light (1) This is the Handwraps deity feat. As with all deity feats it grants proficiency with its weapon (in this case Handwraps). It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Divine Dream (6) This is the level 6 "special" deity feat. It makes you considered to be in Heavy Armor while centered for the purposes of the Sacred Defender tree. This does NOT let you be centered in heavy! It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Removed:
Sacred Fist Paladins do not gain Shield, Armor, or Martial Weapon Proficiency of any kind. Note that because they get the Path of Light this means they can use Handwraps!

Spellbook:
Level 1:
Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 2:
Added: Sacred Flame Empowerment. Upon cast, you are empowered by holy magic, granting you +3 Sacred Fist Dice and allowing your critical hits to deal 1d20 Bane damage per Sacred Fist Dice, scaling with 100% of your Melee Power. Cost: 18 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 3:
Added: Creates an incinerating wave of ki fire. Deals 1d6+3 fire and force damage per caster level to targets within the wall, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 18 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 4:
Added: Waves of fire emanate from your body, dealing 1d6 per Sacred Fist Dice in fire and Light damage to enemies in your vicinity, scaling with Melee Power. For 20 seconds after you cast this spell, you benefit from Fire Shield: Hot, which prevents 50% of your incoming Fire damage and deals a small amount of Fire damage to attackers that strike you in melee. Cost: 30 Ki
Removed: n/a

Skills:
None for this Archetype.

Misc Class Attributes:
Ki Ability: Charisma

Ki Progression: Monk

Note: If you are part-monk (which uses Wisdom for ki), the Ki system will ever so politely take the highest of those modifiers. So don't worry that you'll end up wis-based if you multiclass.

Past Life
Sacred Fist: +5 Healing Amp and +5 Pos Spellpower per stack

New Tree: Sacred Fist
Replaces Knight of the Chalice

Themes: Punch paladin! Burn enemies with your sacred fists.

Cores:

• Core 1: Sacred Flame: Toggle: Your melee attacks while centered deal an extra 1d6 Fire damage, scaling with Melee Power. Each core ability in this tree grants you +5 Healing Amplification and +5 Positive Spellpower.
• Core 3: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your weapons while using Sacred Flame now bypass Lawful + Good DR.
• Core 6: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Gain +3 Remove Disease Charges and your Remove Disease now applies Greater Restoration to your target.
• Core 12: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. You gain Immunity to Energy Drain.
• Core 18: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. When you use Turn Undead, you and nearby allies gain +1 Ki on hit and +3 Ki on crit for 20 seconds.
• Core 20: +4 Charisma, +3 Saves, +1 Sacred Flame dice. +10 Melee Power. +1 W with Weapons. You absorb 25% of all Fire damage.

Tier 1:

• Sacred Strike I: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
• Extra Smite: +2/4/6 bonus to Smite Evil.
• Disciple of the Fist: +1/2/3 Heal, Concentration, and Intimidate. Rank 3: You gain +1 Reflex saving throws.
• Deft Strikes: You gain +3/6/10% chance to make offhand attacks while centered.
• Ki Shout: Ki Activate: Intimidates nearby enemies, encouraging them to attack you. This ability uses your Concentration skill, and shares a cooldown with the Intimidate skill. (Activation Cost: 5 Ki. Cooldown: 6 seconds)

Tier 2:

• Sacred Strike II: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Favored Weapons.
• Sacred Whirlwind: Make a sweeping attack against all nearby enemies for +3[W] damage. Shares a cooldown with the Cleave feat. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Cost: 12 Ki
• Critical Mastery: +1/2/3 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage
• Fast Movement: You run 1% faster for each of your Paladin levels.
• Action Boost: Doublestrike: Activate to gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds.

Tier 3:

• Sacred Strike III: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
• Sacred Smite: An improved smite that adds +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier and +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical threat range. In addition, this applies 1d2 stacks of Armor Destruction and 1d2 Stacks of Vulnerability unless the enemy makes a Fort Save (DC 10+Cha Mod+Sunder bonuses). Cost: 15 Ki (note: this is a Light ki melee attack)
• Light of Hope: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame toggle now allows you to strike Incorporeal enemies as if you had Ghost Touch.
• Instinctive Defense: You take 5/10/15% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
• +1 Str / Cha

Tier 4:

• Sacred Strike IV: +2 to hit and +1 damage with Favored Weapons.
• Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. (Antireq Tempest + Swash Deflect Arrows)
• Light of Glory: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame damage is now Light instead of Fire.
• Iron Skin: While centered, you gain an additional 5/10/15 PRR.
• +1 Str / Cha

Tier 5:

• Sacred Strike V: +3 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons, +10 Melee power.
• Evasive Dance: Improves your Evasion ability so on a failed Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, you only take 85/70/50% damage.
• Avenging Whirlwind: Make a sweeping martial arts attack against all nearby enemies for +5(W) damage. Damaged enemies gain one stack of Vulnerability. Shares its cooldown with the Great Cleave feat. Cost: 18 Ki
• Violence Begets Violence: While Centered, when an opponent misses you in melee, you gain +1 critical threat range for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 5 times and is reset if you critically hit.
• (this space intentionally left blank)

Added Tree: Radiant Servant
Replaces Vanguard

Changes from base Radiant Servant: All things that say "Cleric Level" now work off Paladin Level.[/QUOTE]

Bugfixes from Previous Lamannia:

• Path of Light is now granted automatically instead of being dragged and dropped to prevent UX problems
• sacred fist cores no longer cost 2 AP
• both Whirlwind Attacks in this tree now use the Whirlwind Attack animation

Known Issues:

• Base Paladin can erroneously access the new Ki Spells.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Please consider replacing Radiant servant for Warpriest/Warsoul tree.

The healing tree has no place being lodged into handwrap melee types. Thank you.

[Pandjed]

Could we get Fists of Light here (and be it at 20th level/capstone in tree to avoid monk multiclass shennanigans to take dark as well)? It doesn't even need the finisher feat, I would just really like to use the GMoF epic moment with this tree, but half of its effect is gated by having Fist of Light.

[Deivonte]

Never mind, I saw that they use the Whirlwind Attack animation, which is massive. Thx

[QuantumFX]

Sacred Defender still needs more options to support unarmored builds.

[Lotoc]

What is the duration of sacred flame empowerment going to be?
Also question, the deity feats which grant +atk/dmg to favored weapons and go upto +3/3 for simples, would it be possible for them to treat handwraps as simple rather than exotic? They're one of the few sources of stats that grant distinct bonuses based on simple/martial/exotic category and wraps and other monk weapons are kind of undeserving of the lower bonus seeing as they are all statted like simples.

[Havocthedemon]

This is kind of everything I ever wanted. God I hope can we get more AP to spend eventually. 80 just isn’t enough there’s so many goodies here with the other trees

[Lynnabel]

Could we get Fists of Light here (and be it at 20th level/capstone in tree to avoid monk multiclass shennanigans to take dark as well)? It doesn't even need the finisher feat, I would just really like to use the GMoF epic moment with this tree, but half of its effect is gated by having Fist of Light.

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different!

[Pandjed]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different!

Well, I'm more concerned with how GMoF has little synergy with anything as a main-tree outside monk (and I'm not asking for the combo-system, but for the singular feat and there is a light ki attack in the sacred fist tree, for that matter, so it's supposed to work with monk multiclass after all to enrichen the combo system!?).

Nonetheless, let's look into "angle ED synergies towards paladin".

Well, we got the three divine trees, that's were paladins should feel home! I love Divine Crusaders, so--- hm... no sunder DC on sacred fist, one ability that uses sunder and the actual attack is more of a reason to use it... well, can't equip shields either, so I have to build around those enhancements as well... Well, mantle may save it, max BAB--- ah, got it already! Erm, lawful and good bypass! Oh, is in core 3. Well, I could swap my favorite weapon, use GMoF to make it a ki weapon as well, and more or less ignore the handwraps! ...well, Consecrate is nice, but there is a lot of double-downs or avoids here, so maybe not that fit to be a main-tree.

Unyielding Sentinel! That makes people buff, so... ah yeah, the MRR cap and the obvious lack of 50 PRR compared to heavy armor... and sacred fist tree doesn't have much defensive support, so I could slap the other two trees instead, and ignore the SF-tree altogether. Let's not do it right away though, we need to keep looking! So do I want hate on a more DPS build? Usually no. Knight's Challenge and other shield buffs aren't accessible either. Not much attack power here though... I mean, if I want to solo on r1, this seems to be fine, but going to threateny in raids will make the tank hate you, and in highish reaper you want neither be too threateny, nor too low on DPS, which is usually the thing people expect you to bring. Overall, this tree is halfway decent, but spread the character too much.

Exalted Angel though! It doesn't have any melee support, and the only spellpower sacred fist has here is positive...

Hm... I don't think that "angle ED synergies towards paladin" is doing good. I guess, I have to look at the rogues, the fighters, the rangers, the barbarians, the bards, and such to get something out of it. Nah, let's be insightful, I'll try to guess what this build is supposed to do in epic!


It could be a cloth armor PRR tank (so -50 PRR) that tries to stack dodge (though monk multiclass to get earth stance would be recommended here), that ignores the sacred fist tree to get the usual combo of heal and tank out of the two other trees, ignoring handwraps to get two dinocrafted weapons into its hands, so the EDs would be US and maybe some shadowdancer for the avoidance.
Or I use 1 fighter level, get my heavy armor proficiency and ignore my empty ki bar, but can also equip a shield then and be a tank with an extra bar.

Or it could be a healer, using radiant servant as main tree, and then with the whole positive spellpower, EA makes a lot of sense, it's not like you need something else than healing aura and PEB in heroics, and you still got your LoH! Some US for staying power and LoH as well, and you could only use sacred fist during leveling!

...I guess I go GMoF anyway, if I want to play a fisty paladin, I want to play it fisty. Being reminded each time I use Split the Soul that I use the inferior version is still better than to play EDs that offers little to no support for handwraps (and what they offer is also covered by GMoF) and cloth armor.



But seriously, why is Sacred Smite a light ki melee attack, if there is no intention to make it also buff Split the Soul. Even a passive that just grants the benefit of having it (like Divine Dream makes Sacred Defender think you got heavy armor) would be enough in my books.

[Kielbasa]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different!

I said it before and I'll say it again Sacred Fist needs more Cower!!! This way they synergize more with divine crusader.

[Nandos]

Do Sacred Fists get the Divine Health feat at level 3? If so, please change the level 4 enhancement Divine Health in Radiant Servant (Sacred Fist version) to something else. It does the same thing as the feat.
Thanks

[Havocthedemon]

I said it before and I'll say it again Sacred Fist needs more Cower!!! This way they synergize more with divine crusader.

Can we also get back divine might since we are losing it with kotc? The double strike action boost seems pretty out of place and I think this would be a good place for it. Thanks

[Caarb]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different!

GMoF needs to be monk inspired not monk exclusive. There is definite synergies here with Sacred fist but non-monks should not be locked out of the tree. How about instead of granting fists of light into sacred fist you add it to GMoF - core 3 or 4 so that other centered builds can fully utilise the ED.

[Duhboy]

Please consider replacing Radiant servant for Warpriest/Warsoul tree.

The healing tree has no place being lodged into handwrap melee types. Thank you.

Totally agree. Radiant Servant has zero reason to be included. Paladins are already self sufficient. If I wanted to play a character that heals I would play a cleric, FvS, Bard, etc. Warpriest makes more sense to go along with Sacred Fist. As for the Tier 5 abilities, they need work. Violence begets Violence is trash. Change it for something that's on tier of Holy Retribution or something.

[Ordinary]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

[Lynnabel]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

Excellent, thank you for taking the time to post this. Will begin investigating asap!

[terrenceknight1]

Hi Lynnabel if the ED's were supposed to look at as a sacred fist are to be paladin focused ones than can we please have some means to interact with enhancements that require shields? I mean we're already getting something that'll treat us as if we're in heavy armor for the sake of enhancements so some means to gain eligibility for shield focused boosts might help with PRR/AC or potentially other bonuses might be welcome to let us take further advantage of more paladin focused ED trees.

[Propane]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

I tried something similar..

I took my LV 20 Clunk (17 cleric / 3 monk) - copied over - and tried using a +20 heart to go 20 Sacred Fist.
Ran into the same issue - could only take the 1 Sacred Fist level - ended up making a 16 cleric / 3 monk / 1 Pal (Sacred Fist).

Interesting that 1 LV of Sacred Fist makes hand wraps a Favored weapon and also unlocks the Warpriest Righteous Weapon line.

I might end up trying a Sacred Clunk!

[misterski]

I tried something similar..

I took my LV 20 Clunk (17 cleric / 3 monk) - copied over - and tried using a +20 heart to go 20 Sacred Fist.
Ran into the same issue - could only take the 1 Sacred Fist level - ended up making a 16 cleric / 3 monk / 1 Pal (Sacred Fist).

Interesting that 1 LV of Sacred Fist makes hand wraps a Favored weapon and also unlocks the Warpriest Righteous Weapon line.

I might end up trying a Sacred Clunk!

That's because you get Path of Light as an autogranted deity feat at level 1. It's odd that a character can have multiple deities but that's been the case forever.

[Tepi]

Totally agree. Radiant Servant has zero reason to be included. Paladins are already self sufficient. If I wanted to play a character that heals I would play a cleric, FvS, Bard, etc. Warpriest makes more sense to go along with Sacred Fist. As for the Tier 5 abilities, they need work. Violence begets Violence is trash. Change it for something that's on tier of Holy Retribution or something.

I agree on Holy retribution. As it is, I don't see how Sacred Fist really changes mechanically from KOTC, other than losing the strongest stuff. Sure you might be using handwraps now instead of some variation of sword but mechanically, its identical aside from needing KI to cast cleaves that were free before.

Sacred Fist is meant to be a more spellcaster orientated paladin, I think RS is fine. Warpriest wouldn't make much sense since a lot of the stuff is either kinda rubbish or mirrored already. Personally I'd rather they just kept KOTC and changed the stuff in Sacred Fist so there isn't overlap but i'm not hopeful. Bard and cleric get to have 2 similar trees with synergy (DD and the new one + Spellsinger and the new one). Paladin has only had one and a half unique trees since the changed enhancement system came out and even when it gets a variation, most of it is copied from KOTC. I think the combination of the new tree + tank tree + healer tree will be fun, but I can't say that i'm not a little disappointed that the new variation isn't a little more original.

Edit: Any chance we could get a Ki Spell for an aoe heal? Having radiant burst is nice but having the equivilent of like cure moderate mass might be nice to enforce a kind of "cheap but smaller" healing playstyle you can weave between attacks. I actually enjoy that kind of playstyle on my paladin. Can Ki spells have metamagic? Also adding ki cost to the aoes kinda feels like you added it just for the sake of it. If you do this, maybe lower the cooldown?

Edit 2: Any chance this paladin could get magic training? Kind fits with the theme if you envision it as a more spellcaster focused paladin with like stronger healing power.