Chaosvii7
2014-05-27, 11:15 AM
(For reference; This applies to a Pathfinder character, but the spell is in no way unchanged from the 3.5 version, so this does apply to both editions.)
Hello! A good friend of mine is winding down her current campaign after a year and a half of consecutive play. I've been playing on her world for almost 3 years now, so I'm a bit more learned than everybody else in the current game, as they've all only been playing since this campaign started. That said, she has already announced her next campaign idea - a reboot of a trial run "Dogs of War" campaign, with a fairly complex military environment setting. I've spent a lot of time since the announcement pondering my character for this game, and I've finally decided that I'm going to play a Half-Orc Warpriest of Nethys. The idea behind the character would be that he was a promising Wizard before the war broke out, and he was taken as a slave prisoner. After a few months of slavery, he was of the firm belief that he must have done something to upset Nethys by performing a crime against the study of magics; His hands were sullied by the arcane dabblings he had partaken in, believing his true path to be in the divine. When he was to be broken out of slavery by the forces he now fights for, he would rise up against his oppressors, accepting that he must find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of Nethys; He then begins his career as a Warpriest, vowing to oppress those who misuse and defile any sort of magic either in the name of or against Nethys.
Fluff aside, I wanted him to simply carry a big weapon and use Hand of The Acoloyte, but Warpriest is very driven on mastering the weapon of their chosen deity. Since it would be really cheesy to create a ideology that's basically "Nethys but favored weapon greatsword" I thought it would be easier to consider how I could potentially make a quarterstaff-wielding warpriest good.
Shillelagh is immediately what comes to mind without fail; It's basically the only combat spell a Druid needs for non-natural weaponry, and it has an insane potential with Channel Smite; A 2d6 TWF Full attack combo with Power Attack and Channel Smite seems pretty good for a middle-of-the-line combatant like a Warpriest.
The only problem is the exclusivity of Shillelagh as a spell. It makes perfect sense; It's really powerful in the hands of anybody who normally doesn't get class weapon proficiencies besides simple weaponry, and levels 1-3 it's probably the main way druids will engage in combat is by whalloping people with heavy magic quarterstaves and clubs.
But I then immediately considered the idea of simply making a Magic Quarterstaff that had Shillelagh at CL 1 on continuously; If that would work, it would be a 6,000 gold investment but essentially be two size categories larger all the time.
There's just a few problems I forsee with this;
1) I can't imagine this to be RAI at all; At the very least 3.5 has the Sizing enchantment so it can simulate the effects easily, but Pathfinder does not. That said, it does sound reasonable that 6000 gold would increase the damage die on both staff heads by two steps, which would be the only benefit of the spell I'd get from doing this.
2) Shillelagh's wording suggests that the Druid that casts it is the only one that can benefit from it; This might not be a problem with an ability that one would activate with a command or charges, but this does raise the question of whether or not if it were continuous, would the Druid be the only one able to benefit from it?
So I just wanted your opinions. Right now the plan is to ignore the favored weapon-based class features and just use a Greatsword, which simulates the same effect without costing a lot and asking confusing philosophical questions. I just wanted to see if it would be possible to make a Warpriest of Nethys that could actually use the favored weapon at the most optimized level.
Also, mind you that if I were even remotely serious about this build it'd be the most MAD thing, even moreso than the monk because it needs a +0 intelligence modifier to guarantee that it gets skill points per level with only 2 + INT every level. Like I'd need magic item support out the wazoo for this, so this is definitely a TO build, but what is your opinions on making the most badass quarterstaff Warpriest possible?
Hello! A good friend of mine is winding down her current campaign after a year and a half of consecutive play. I've been playing on her world for almost 3 years now, so I'm a bit more learned than everybody else in the current game, as they've all only been playing since this campaign started. That said, she has already announced her next campaign idea - a reboot of a trial run "Dogs of War" campaign, with a fairly complex military environment setting. I've spent a lot of time since the announcement pondering my character for this game, and I've finally decided that I'm going to play a Half-Orc Warpriest of Nethys. The idea behind the character would be that he was a promising Wizard before the war broke out, and he was taken as a slave prisoner. After a few months of slavery, he was of the firm belief that he must have done something to upset Nethys by performing a crime against the study of magics; His hands were sullied by the arcane dabblings he had partaken in, believing his true path to be in the divine. When he was to be broken out of slavery by the forces he now fights for, he would rise up against his oppressors, accepting that he must find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of Nethys; He then begins his career as a Warpriest, vowing to oppress those who misuse and defile any sort of magic either in the name of or against Nethys.
Fluff aside, I wanted him to simply carry a big weapon and use Hand of The Acoloyte, but Warpriest is very driven on mastering the weapon of their chosen deity. Since it would be really cheesy to create a ideology that's basically "Nethys but favored weapon greatsword" I thought it would be easier to consider how I could potentially make a quarterstaff-wielding warpriest good.
Shillelagh is immediately what comes to mind without fail; It's basically the only combat spell a Druid needs for non-natural weaponry, and it has an insane potential with Channel Smite; A 2d6 TWF Full attack combo with Power Attack and Channel Smite seems pretty good for a middle-of-the-line combatant like a Warpriest.
The only problem is the exclusivity of Shillelagh as a spell. It makes perfect sense; It's really powerful in the hands of anybody who normally doesn't get class weapon proficiencies besides simple weaponry, and levels 1-3 it's probably the main way druids will engage in combat is by whalloping people with heavy magic quarterstaves and clubs.
But I then immediately considered the idea of simply making a Magic Quarterstaff that had Shillelagh at CL 1 on continuously; If that would work, it would be a 6,000 gold investment but essentially be two size categories larger all the time.
There's just a few problems I forsee with this;
1) I can't imagine this to be RAI at all; At the very least 3.5 has the Sizing enchantment so it can simulate the effects easily, but Pathfinder does not. That said, it does sound reasonable that 6000 gold would increase the damage die on both staff heads by two steps, which would be the only benefit of the spell I'd get from doing this.
2) Shillelagh's wording suggests that the Druid that casts it is the only one that can benefit from it; This might not be a problem with an ability that one would activate with a command or charges, but this does raise the question of whether or not if it were continuous, would the Druid be the only one able to benefit from it?
So I just wanted your opinions. Right now the plan is to ignore the favored weapon-based class features and just use a Greatsword, which simulates the same effect without costing a lot and asking confusing philosophical questions. I just wanted to see if it would be possible to make a Warpriest of Nethys that could actually use the favored weapon at the most optimized level.
Also, mind you that if I were even remotely serious about this build it'd be the most MAD thing, even moreso than the monk because it needs a +0 intelligence modifier to guarantee that it gets skill points per level with only 2 + INT every level. Like I'd need magic item support out the wazoo for this, so this is definitely a TO build, but what is your opinions on making the most badass quarterstaff Warpriest possible?