Dwarven Warpriest (Forgepriest): "That'll cost me an arm and a leg"

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

for an upcoming - soonish - campaign I am trying to build an Dwarven Warpriest Forgepriest. He serves the god of dwarven artifice and the campaign is heavily inspired by Eberron (so Magetech is not a problem). I want him to be LG and have an Adamantium Arm.

Tabellar Requirement of the Build:

Blessing of Artifice - other possibilies are Rune, Knowledge, Earth and Law but not desired
Capable of Melee with a strong hint of Tankyness aka good AC
Wis based Build, possibly even middle aged
using an adamantium armgraft as both holy symbol and weapon of choice
Not heavily optimized but capable of pulling a few weaker part y members, especially defending them
No dumped Charisma (8 is okay for a Dwarf, 10 is preferred)
Combat doesn't play a huge role, but I don't want to outshine them with a Cleric- it's also very possible that one or two oracles (Flame Blaster and Time Buffer) get carried over from a previous campaign


Any ideas? We will have time to craft, but we will have also times where crafting is absolutely not an option. My primary concerns are with the combat damage and AC. I've never used a heavy armored character and my DM often requires quite a few mobility skill rolls (after all we have been working with pirates or monkey/vanara burglars) and we can't be subtle with someone wearing a Full Plate. Then again, a dwarven forgemaster who ism't a cripple because his clan crafted him an adamantine arm will probably trust heavily in heavy armory.

I know the Forgemaster Cleric does the same thing but better but I fear to outshine my comrades while offering a third user of the cleric spell list...

[Arutema]

Wis-based? How much so? Warpriests can get by just fine with 16 or so Wis.

Have you decided what rules to use for the artificial arm? If not, refluffing the Cybernetic Arm from the Technology Guide may be your best choice. +5 to disarm CMD for no penalty is not bad, though of little use if you go Sacred Fist (see below).

If traits are in play, Armor Expert can help with the penalty from heavy armors as can mithral once you have the funds for it. Combining the Fate's Favored trait with Divine Favor is also especially nice for a warpriest because of limited swift action casting.

I'd almost recommend Sacred Fist over Forgepriest for your archetype if you want to have high Wis, good acrobatics, use your synthetic arm as your weapon. It's designed around no armor and unarmed strikes, using Wis to AC as a monk would.

[Spore]

I'd almost recommend Sacred Fist over Forgepriest for your archetype if you want to have high Wis, good acrobatics, use your synthetic arm as your weapon. It's designed around no armor and unarmed strikes, using Wis to AC as a monk would.

While I agree crunchwise fluffwise it doesn't make sense for a Master of Blacksmithing to not trust in Steel. This seems very superficial but it kind of ruins the whole "Wis instead of AC" for me.

[BRKNdevil]

See if you can't get some of the homunculi from the magic of eberron i think it was for the crafting one? you'd have to run it by your dm since its 3.5 and some don't like mixing the two that often, but others do so yeah

[NightbringerGGZ]

What level are you starting at? That'll affect quite a bit. Also, are you using Golarion gods or custom ones for your campaign setting. If the later, what is your favored weapon?

Assuming you're starting at level 1, I would go with the following build:

Str: 14, Dex: 12, Con: 15, Int: 10, Wis: 18, Cha: 8

You can shuffle some of those points around, but make sure you stick with Str: 14 to get through the early levels. Your goal is going to be to get Wisdom to Attack as quickly as possible, there are two ways you can go about this:

1) At level 4 retrain two of your feats so you can pick up Channel Smite (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/channel-smite-combat) and Guided Hand (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/-guided-hand). You don't get Channel Energy until level 4, so retraining is required to get your Wisdom to attack as early as possible. This will cost 400 gold and 10 days of time. You'll be stuck with your god's favored weapon, so hopefully it is a good one.

2) Craft a Guided (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapons-non-core/weapon-property---guided) weapon. Since you'll be crafting your own weapon this is probably the better option. You can pick up the required crafting feat at level 5, and by then will easily be able to afford the cost. You'll need one of your allies to provide the spell, but it sounds like that shouldn't be a major issue.

To make sure you're a bit more of a tank, go with a decent weapon, heavy armor and a shield. That should be all the AC you need, and you can drop the shield if you need to 2-hand the weapon for extra damage.

Remember that you're a War Priest and your schtic is swift-action self-buffing. With the right spells you'll do just fine in combat. You're picking one of the weakest Blessings available, so unfortunately you won't be getting much out of that class feature.

As for the metal arm, that is a bit tougher to stat into the game. If you want it to be anything more than fluff, I would suggest the prosthetic (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/variant-rules-3rd-party/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/The-Loss-of-a-Body-Part/Prosthetics#TOC-Clockwork-Arm) rules from 4 Winds Games. I've read over them and they seem like a good place to start.

[Spore]

You can't retrain feats that you didn't qualify for when you got the feat slot. Retraining is a tool to correct mistakes not to pick better talents after a time. But we will most likely start on 9-10th.

We use custom gods. I have an array of dwarven gods tending towards good and lawful behavior. They're typical dwarven but the world is WIP meaning I can easily introduce a minor god (or a major one as long as it doesn't interfere with the others' portfolios). The god offering Artifice has Law, Runes, Knowledge and Earth as well. Warhammer is his favored weapon. However the fluff aspects shouldn't be optimized for.

If using the Artifice Domain is what I have to take in order to get the Archetype then I'd make the best of it. I could see myself focussing on a Sunder build here. Destroying misused tools of war in order to deescalate the situation.

1. Improved Unarmed Strike (Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike)
3. Power Attack
3w. Craft Magic Arms and Armor
5. Improved Sunder
7. Believer's Boon (Law)
9. Breadth of Experience
9w. Craft Wondrous Items

[NightbringerGGZ]

You actually can retrain as I outlined as per a Paizo FAQ (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1gn#v5748eaic9r9h). If your group rules differently though, that's fine, you're starting at a high enough level for it not to matter.

Will you be going for a Guided AoMF? You'll have ok damage with that build thanks to dice scaling. I'd consider tossing in a Style Feat. Snake Style would be a good defensive option.