Tiering the Pathfinder Classes - Inquisitor, Magus, Occultist, Warpriest

[pabelfly]

I'm interested in starting work on a tier list for Pathfinder, in the same way that we have a tier list for 3.5 (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!). This link is a collection of discussions about the power and versatility of all the base classes of 3.5 DnD, and it’s quite a useful resource. I think Pathfinder could do with a similar resource as a point of information and discussion.

There has been an informal attempt to do a tier list for Pathfinder, which I've also used as part of the reference to this thread: (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649283-%85-And-What-Is-the-*Deal*-with-Pathfinder-Tiers). But this lacks discussion on the classes and a shared consensus on how scoring works, both of which are as important as the tier number itself.

The current, work-in-progress thread for Pathfinder Tiers version of this thread is here (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650140-Why-Each-Class-is-in-its-Tier-Pathfinder-Edition-(Work-in-Progress)). This thread has links to previous tiering threads and short summaries of thread discussions for those who missed them when they were posted. Contributions and votes for older threads are still welcome and your votes still count.

This time, we’ll tier the Inquisitor, Occultist, Magus, and Warpriest. For reference, in the informal thread:

Inquisitor is tiered between 2.88 and 3
Magus is tiered between 2.88 and 3
Occultist is tiered at 3
Warpriest is tiered at 3

So, the questions are: what should each of these be tiered at? Are any of these options notably more or less powerful than the rest? And are there any notable archetypes for these classes that deserve separate tiering? I guess a discussion thread is the way to find out.





What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of Clerics, Druids, and Wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the Sorcerer and Chained Summoner level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a Bard, Skald and Unchained Summoner. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in Fighter and Barbarian territory. Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of chained Monk, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an Aristocrat or a Commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

[Kurald Galain]

Magus is Pathfinder's original Gish class, with his signature ability to make a full attack and cast a spell in the same round, every round, straight from level one. As he can deliver touch spells through his weapon, he's perhaps most well-known for spamming high-damage Shocking Grasps with a 16-20 crit range. However, bear in mind that this tactic requires practically zero investment for the Magus, and there are tons of other tricks he can pull with his class abilities:
Action economy wins combats. Between a spell and full attack each turn and several swift-action abilities, even a low-level a Magus can do three things almost every turn. That's some of the best action economy in the game.
Versatility. The Magus gets ilusions, BFC, solid debuffs, teleportation, dispel, the full polymorph line, defense spells, mount, and more. He can poach from the wizard list, do the Paragon Surge trick, and learn Bard, Psychic, or Druid spells. This is unmatched by any 6/9 caster besides c-summoner, and gets close to the range of full casters, except at very high level.
Hexes. A popular archetype gets access to the witch list of at-will spell-likes, including high-DC save-or-lose effects Slumber and Ice Tomb.
An intelligent weapon. Another popular archetype gets a scaling weapon for free (that's a WBL boost of about 30%) and this weapon is intelligent and telepathic. Depending on campaign, there's definitely some shenanigans you can pull with that.
And finally, mobility. Magus can pounce with a spell at level 4, or with Dimension Door at level 10, and is one of the best melee classes at getting a full attack each turn. Also, in-class flight at level 7, or level 3-5 with the right archetype.

Overall, a well-played Magus has an answer to pretty much anything, both inside and outside combat, easily making him a high tier three, and he can arguably hit tier two with the right build and archetypes. Along with alchemist and witch, this is the most popular non-core class. Tier 2.5.

Warpriest is the divine equivalent of the Magus, and can cast spells as a swift action as long as he targets himself. He has numerous abilities that boost his weapon, heal himself or the whole party, and help his defense. Unlike the Magus's, these are mostly numerical; Warpriest has a lot of ways to move his numbers around, and can be fiddly to play. The main downside is that he shares the cleric list. As noted in the recent cleric thread, his good spells are basically 4th or 5th level and up, and for a 6/9 caster, that's a long time to wait.
That means that Warpriest has less tricks up his sleeve than a Hunter or Bard or Mesmerist, he lacks unique abilities (except numerical ones), and he has low skill points. But he's good at the numbers game and can certainly hold his own in combat. That adds up to a low three, or Tier 3.5.

[Kurald Galain]

Inquisitor is the other divine melee class, and unlike Warpriest he hits the ground running with versatile abilities. High skill points? Check. Detect any alignment at will? Got it. Use teamwork feats even if your team doesn't? Check, and there are some gems there. Cleric domain? Sure, I'll take one of those; you won't get the spells but there are some neat special abilities. There are a ton of ways to build an inquisitor, even before archetypes, and they're all pretty good.
Inqy gets a dedicated spell list that's markedly better than the Warpriest's. It's based on the cleric list, and adds some gems like Invisibility, Stricken Heart, Knock, and numerous swift-action spells (that are rare in Pathfinder). However, he is a spontaneous caster who needs to pick his known spells with some care.
In combat, inqy's signature ability is Bane. Not the kind you buy on a weapon, but flat-out whatever-you're-facing-now-Bane; that's some smite evil levels of DPR.
This is basically the definition of a Tier 3 class, and unsurprisingly, one of the popular non-core ones. Tier 3.

Occultist is a class with a complexity addiction. He gets a small amount of implements, each representing a particular school of magic. For each implement, he learns one spell per spell level, but only of that school. He has a list of special abilities, but can pick only those that match his schools. And each day, he divides some points among his implements, which boosts e.g. spell damage or skills or saves; you can tweak this every day, but the bonuses are pretty small. You need to track these points for each school, as they activate special abilities but only from that school.
Feeling dizzy yet? The sad thing is how unnecessary all this complexity is, as other classes can do the same things without those restrictions. A caster who wants two particular spells just learns them; occultist has to finagle his schools to match these spells, and those of every other level too. His whole spell list is actually fairly good, but you don't actually get the whole list, just a portion based on schools.
Notably, occultist cannot use wands or scrolls if they're from the wrong school, and realistically that's half of them. If you're below level 10, or want more spells from one school, you'll get about four. You know how wizards hate banning spell schools? Yeah, occultist bans a lot of schools.
Tellingly, I've never seen an effective occultist in play. A Schrodinger occultist can make a case for being tier 3, but in practice it has sooo many restrictions to use the abilities it wants, that it drops to Tier 4.

[vasilidor]

Inquisitor has always felt to be around tier 3 for me, as has the Magus and Warpriest.
The Occultist seems like it should be tier 3, but the limits of what it can do at a single time are rather harsh, so tier 4 makes sense there. It can be good at anything, but really only can get good at a few things.

[Thunder999]

Magus has possibly the best action economy in the game and spell combat fixes the issue most other attempts at a gish have: it lets you actually cast spells while fighting, rather than just being a worse wizard with a suit of armour or a fighter with a bit of utility. Spell list has combat covered and some decent utility, though you're probably not replacing a full caster unless you UMD scrolls. High tier 3, there's a couple 6/9 lists that are better, but they're generally on classes that just don't play nearly as well, 2.6

Warpriest, like the magus you cast spells while fighting, which is just so much nicer than all the other options, but instead of a custom list it's just the cleric list capped at 6. The spell list is the only real source of utility, though that's not to say the rest of the class is weak, it's very effective at letting you kill everytihng you fight.
Still, it's much more playable than most other gish classes, since it can actually just walk into a fight without buffs active and still work.
Not as good as the magus at it, but it can also move around with spells to full attack, fight flying enemies etc.
Tier 3.3, it's effective, but your utility is the cleric list.

Inquisitor. As far as combat goes Judgement and Bane are strong, Solo Tactics+Teamwork feats can get you some pretty solid benefits and the spell list is full of the classic cleric buffs and even some unque ones, but unlike the magus and warpriest you can't really use the short duration buffs unless you have pre-buff time or spend valuable time in combat on it.
Out of combat we've got some nice stuff, you actually get a solid amount of skill points, a sizeable bonus to good skills, alignment detection and there's some very nice utility spells other divine casters lack, but it's spontaneous so you're probably limited to scrolls for a lot fot that stuff.
3.0, it's the selfish divine bard we've alwaays wanted.

Occultist, so the casting setup is weird and quite awkward, but the actual spell list and various powers of the implements are pretty great.
Trappings of the Warrior Panoply lets you be a full BAB 6/9 caster, which is pretty good.
It's a lot harder to make than some other classes, but you definitely can have a good enough setup.
Oh and while your spell list is literally only your spells known, you do get some nice bonuses to UMD.
I still think it's good enough to be tier 3, maybe 3.4

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Vasilidor – 3

Average – 2.7



Warpriest
Vasilidor – 3
Thunder999 – 3.3
Kurald Galain – 3.5

Average – 3.27



Inquisitor
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999 – 3

Average – 3



Occultist
Thunder999 – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor – 4

Average – 3.8

[Thunder999]

For Occultist I think it's worth pointing out that while they pick their spells awkwardly, they actually have 9 more spells known than typical 6/9 casters.

[vasilidor]

So at later levels that may kick them up a notch, but at lower levels they are definitely lower tier. Outside contact has some potential for information gathering.

[AnonymousPepper]

Re Inquisitor, I would like to point out that their spell list is oddly gimped in some odd ways - on top of being a 2/3 caster, some of the spells it shares with the Cleric list are also gotten a spell level later. It's a bit of a curious choice when the traditional trend is to do exactly the opposite or to at least not do that. IMO, it's one of the biggest things holding it back. The other, imo, is that Judgements and Bane both eat the same swift action, so you can't get them both off at the start of combat; minor, but noticeable. If you tag on Sanctified Slayer (a big upgrade imo), it helps a bit, as you can apply Studied Target as an immediate just by hitting someone who's flat-footed (and Inquisitors usually go first because of getting Wisdom to Initiative).

Magus' action economy is a massive W, as mentioned earlier, and many of its archetypes are absolutely incredible. Bladebound, Kensai, Hexcrafter, Eldritch Scion... Eldritch Archer deserves special mention for managing to be a straight upgrade over Spellslinger Wizard despite being a 2/3 caster. Also, Magus' spell selection is choice.

I have not GM'd for or played or played with an Occultist (aside from one player who was just doing some memey stuff in a game I played in; lovable guy, Chuunk is king!, but I don't really remember much of his combat capabilities), so I will not give my opinion on them.

Warpriest is good, though IMO it's at its best with - and a little bit mediocre without - the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain archetype; Weapon Training is Fighter's best feature and adds a crap ton to the class, losing channel isn't an enormous deal, good deity and therefore weapon selection can make up for effectively losing sacred weapon (though it does shoehorn you into being a twohander instead of two weapons), and war blessing (which it locks you into) is one of the better ones; sacred armor is a bit of a loss for the same reason that Bladebound is a big plus. Regardless of archetype, still, it's a solid class. Think of it as a Magus that trades ludicrous burst for insane self-buffing and a bit of the paladin's self-heal, something that I do have to hand to the Cleric list.

I'm also compelled to mention the Guided weapon enchantment, which makes both Inquisitor and Warpriest (as well as Druid, and any other gish-capable Wisdom class) effectively SAD. It's part of Paizo's 3.5 content and is on Archives of Nethys and was printed as part of an AP. It's in "ask your GM" territory. If you can get it, it's a huge boost. I mention it here because I think those are the two classes that benefit the most from it, as unlike the other possible Wisdom gishes out there, Inquisitor and Warpriest are almost solely intended to be in the fray.

I'm inclined to go with:

Inquisitor: 2.9
Magus: 2.5
Warpriest: 2.7

Inquisitor's spell list is gimped for essentially no reason, and the extra goodies it has don't make up for it on that front, or at least not outside of combat aside from a few notable deity-specific ones'. Still, it's got a very solid set of gish abilities, including one of the old Artificer's best combat abilities on demand. For a gish, it's great, it's just its casting side is a bit bleh for everything except fighting because of a few odd limitations. Really, it's the utility that it's missing out on. Its access to domains is absolutely chef's kiss, though, which saved it from a 3.0; Desnan inquisitors in particular are spoiled for choice.

Magus has few weaknesses, and frankly is only really held back from T2+ by not being a full caster. Everything about Magus works very well with itself, it's a very synergistic little gish-in-a-can.

Warpriest is a tankier (thanks, Fervor!) Inquisitor with better Cleric casting (and therefore utility) and worse combat abilities from a damage output perspective (but better self-buffing, thanks to Fervor, so I think it evens out). It ultimately edges out Inquisitor due to the spell list having better utility.

[Barstro]

Would your Magus rank change if they could not use Shocking Grasp?

[Thunder999]

Would your Magus rank change if they could not use Shocking Grasp?

Oh you don't need shocking grasp, you can go Frostbite to add 1d6+CL to every attack for CL attacks (that is a better damage boost than Smite for a 1st level slot), oh and free Fatigued, and may well toss on Rime Spell since we don't need Intesify so they're also Entangled with no save. Only downside is that the damage is non-lethal.
For those annoying non-lethal immune undead there's Chill Touch, no damage but that's a couple of saves/round vs fleeing.
Frigid Touch is 2nd level, but no save staggered for a round will ruin anyone trying to full attack.

But really, Magus would still be a surprisingly good class if you didn't have spellstrike, because spell combat is just that good.
Bladed Dash to pounce with an extra attack from level 4, plenty of nice action efficient buffing available, cast at the end of the full attack instead and do Vanish+5ft step some great defence and a nice bonus to hit your 1st attack next round (+2 from invisibility and flat footed AC), True Strike some combat maneuvers like trip, help allies out with Splinter Spell Resistance, throw out Dispel Magic as needed (you have full CL so are just as good as any full caster here, and instead of eating your whole turn, you do it while full attacking something), Dimension Door+Dimensional Agility feat is long range teleport pounce. I could list more, but you get the point.


Think of it as a Magus that trades ludicrous burst for insane self-buffing and a bit of the paladin's self-heal, something that I do have to hand to the Cleric list.

I'm also compelled to mention the Guided weapon enchantment,

Warpriest is good at what it does sure, but there's just not got the versatility of the magus list, you'll not be teleporting the party around, flying, making illusions etc.

As for Guided, it's a lot less effective when you realise you still need 13 strength for power attack and wisdom is much harder to buff than strength.

[Rynjin]

For Occultist I think it's worth pointing out that while they pick their spells awkwardly, they actually have 9 more spells known than typical 6/9 casters.

They are also notably the only published class that has 6/9 casting and also easy access to in-class full BaB, making them utterly unique.


Would your Magus rank change if they could not use Shocking Grasp?

Why would it? Shocking Grasp is an easy FOO option for damage, but it's arguably not even the best 1st level spell to optimize, much less when taking into account its full list.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Easy thread- Tier 3 for all of them. Some higher, some lower, but all of these seem T3 to me.

[Coeruleum]

Inquisitor: 4
Occultist: 2
Magus: 3
Warpriest: 4

Occultist is the best Paizo-published class that's not a 9th-level caster in the game by a long shot. Magus is serviceable, but I usually don't see people take straight magus, it's usually part of a multiclass build with at least three classes. I'd never consider playing the other two, but they're still considerably better than the chained rogue. Incidentally, one of the big reasons I'd never consider playing the other two is the occultist fills more or less the same niche but better, as funny as some of the inquisitor archetypes are. You can even make a divine occultist if you really want to.

But seriously, I see occultist as being way higher than the other three at solving problems. Magus can do a lot of damage, but occultist can fly, see ghosts, tell the history of places from being there, and gets way higher BAB and defense bonuses to boot. Occultist is the utility 3/4 caster, and it's a full BAB martial if you want it to be at the same time. People who want utility casters don't usually play occultist, and people who want full BAB martials don't want to play something complicated like that, but I still think if it's thrown into the wizard academy it'd actually be able to kind of hold its own and the other three would not.

[Rynjin]

Inquisitor: 4


Possibly the most buckwild take I've seen in any of these threads.

[pabelfly]

Inquisitor: 4


Possibly the most buckwild take I've seen in any of these threads.

If it helps at all, the difference this vote made on tier was 0.15, and will be even less than that as more votes are added over time.

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Coerleum – 3

Average – 2.77



Warpriest
AnonymousPepper – 2.7
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil – 3
Thunder999 – 3.3
Kurald Galain – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.25



Inquisitor
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999 – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.15



Occultist
Coerleum – 2
TotallyNotEvil – 3
Thunder999 – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor – 4

Average – 3.28

[exelsisxax]

Well some of this threat is utterly baffling. The idea that any of these classes are T4 is ludicrous, especially when noting that's where rogue, ninja, ranger, and brager were placed.

Some of you are rating warpriest as T4, and past threads put the fighter at T4. Warpriests can roll into combat stealing the whole damn fighter class and still be casting spells as a swift action every round - unless of course they instead are busy eating the paladin's lunch with smites and lay on hands, when the paladin was placed at 3.7 and has dramatically inferior casting and fewer combat buffs. Rating warpriest as T4 is entirely unjustified.

Rating inquis T4 might somehow be even more fabulously wrong. Unlike warpriest just having a fullcaster list up to 6th level, inquisitor has a boatload of its own spells including swift action spells and some nifty discounts. That alone would make it a bad T3. But also it has all the skill ranks and wisdom to initiative and multiple skills, judgements, and bane. BANE. You get to just slap on "bane: my target" a whole bunch of rounds every day, which is why inquisitors are basically the best archers. Also a bunch of teamwork feats you can change (and access to the spell to give them to all your allies) and a domain - just in case you want sneak attack or an animal companion or something like that. Not enough? why not have slayer and exploit weakness just in case you want to count as literally everything for suppressing regeneration and make judgements even MORE powerful buffs?

I would like to motion that every T4 rating for either of these classes be stricken from the record on account of being without any merit. Seriously, what are you people smoking?

Occultist is a more complicated case. Not T4, but you might think that if you never bothered to look through the janky mess. You may have missed things like the occultist being the sole class that can manage full BaB and 6/9 casting. That alone is going to put the class well into T3. Then we should consider it being an intelligence-based class, so you're getting much more skills than any bard of rogue - on top of the actual UMD bonus so you can use anything at all, schools be damned. With a more diverse and expansive spell list than the bard, I don't see why there's any question. Schools are limited, but you even get more spells than any other spontaneous caster by what, level 5? And if you're bored of having full BaB and martial flexibility, you can also steal bardic knowledge with a bunch of free auguries and prepare wizard spells, with a side of spontaneously gain metamagic feats and metamagic cost reduction.
Oh, and magic circles is an improved and permanent magic circle against [what i need right now] that scales into flawless information divinations, sendings, and item teleportation. Did you want a save or die that nothing is immune to? it's also that. Combined with aura sight and object reading occultist immediately solves virtually any intrigue or mystery - how is that not solving problems?

T3 magus and inquisitor, warpriest 3.2 for having a less-than-great spell list on your spellcasting fighter, occultist 3.4 for being so janky with implements/focus/panoplies/schools that really makes it obnoxious to get the power out of it.

[Rynjin]

Warpriest I genuinely think is weaker than Paladin in a lot of ways, but for sure isn't T4. I'd put it as a weak T3, like a 3.4 or something.

My main issues with Warpriest:

-Terrible, awful spell list and progression
-Blessings are mostly trash
-No innate accuracy/damage booster aside buffs*, when most 6 caster gishes get buffs AND ALSO innate accuracy and/or damage boosters (Bane and Judgement, Inspire Courage, Studied Target, Mutagen, etc.). The only other exception is Magus, which make sup for it with the ability to nova harder than any other class in the game and a bgunch of other advantages Warpirest lacks.

The thing it has going for it is mainly Fervor, which is weaker Lay on Hands (primarily due to lacking the Feat support LoH has) baseline, and while providing buff potential does still primarily mark a Warpriest as a "slow starter" since they mostly lack super long duration or high impact buffs until high levels. Blessing of Fervor on a Swift is pretty rad, but doesn't come on until 9th, well after eg. the Magus has been non-action casting Haste. And on the whole party, not just themselves.

(Aside, I think a lot of people forget that Magus can cast basically ANY spell with Spell Combat, it's Spellstrike that has the Touch restriction.)

*Potentially worth rating Arsenal Chaplain separately.

I'll give my more detailed thoughts on the other 3 later.

[Thunder999]

Warpriest gets sacred weapon for magus style enhancement bonus boosting, and you really can't discount the buffs, a warpriest is a cleric who actually has the action economy to use all the stackable buffs at once.
Oh and remember they get lots of bonus feats with the ability to qualify for them as though they had full BAB.
Warpriest easily brings the numbers.

Fervour isn't worse lay on hands, it's free quickened spell you can also burn on a self heal if you really need it.

[Bucky]

Remember how in the Paladin thread I called out spamming the Litany line as a particularly effective complement to their martial capability? With the sole problem that Paladins generally don't have the slots to spam anything? Well, the Inquisitors get the first but not the second. They can toss out swift action one-round CC every round, but they're four levels ahead of the Paladin on spell slots (although the Paladin levels it a bit by getting some of them at a lower spell level). Nobody else gets these spells.

[Rynjin]

Fervour isn't worse lay on hands, it's free quickened spell you can also burn on a self heal if you really need it.

Its baseline functionality is worse, that's just objective. Even ignoring the lack of support (eg. Greater Mercy, Mercies in general), it scales slower. You NEVER want to be using Fervor to heal. Especially since you could just quick-cast a Cure spell and heal for more at most levels.


Warpriest gets sacred weapon for magus style enhancement bonus boosting, and you really can't discount the buffs, a warpriest is a cleric who actually has the action economy to use all the stackable buffs at once.
Oh and remember they get lots of bonus feats with the ability to qualify for them as though they had full BAB.
Warpriest easily brings the numbers.

They get a +1 here and there, but it's nothing compared to what a lot of its peers get in terms of raw numbers.

And the action economy isn't as good as it appears. You still only get one Swift per round, so mostly what it comes down to is you get to benefit more easily from Divine Favor/Power a couple of times per day. That's nice, but a lot more resource-limited since it pulls from TWO resource pools (spell slots and Fervor uses) to do, as opposed to something that either has a more flexible usage pool (eg. Bane, which can be stretched to last for the duration of all but the most grueling combat days without running out) or a longer-lasting duration (eg. Mutagen, with its 10 minutes/level duration and technically "infinite" per day uses if there's a bit of downtime between combats).

Warpriest isn't awful or anything, but in a lot of ways its abilities are not greater than the sum of their parts.

[Kitsuneymg]

Magus is high tier 3. Call it 2.75. Inquisitor is 3.0. It’s basically the divine bard. Warpriest is worse, but still technically tier 3. 3.5, except the Arsenal chaplain is tier 3.25 or so. It’s much better at combat but the warpriest is already good at that. If the AS gets all of the fighter feature (the bump at 9/13/17) and can trade those for advanced weapon training, call it 3.0 even.

I’ve only ever played a trappings panoply occultist. It was a gish that didn’t gish as well as a magus and didn’t cast as well as a ftr/wiz/eldritch knight. I’m tempted to call it 4. So I will.

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Kitsuneymg – 2.75
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Coerleum, Exelsisxax – 3

Average – 2.79



Warpriest
AnonymousPepper – 2.7
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Kitsuneymg – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.29



Warpriest (Arsenal Chaplain)
AnonymousPepper – 2.7
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Kitsuneymg – 3.25
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.26



Inquisitor
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999, Exelsisxax, Kitsuneymg – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.11



Occultist
Coerleum – 2
TotallyNotEvil – 3
Thunder999, Exelsisxax – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Kitsuneymg – 4

Average – 3.4

[Elenian]

I'm not really any kind of expert, but occultist sure *seems* strong. Eg, a silksworn occultist 10 knows 28 spells from a pretty good list (a sorcerer 10 knows, what, 18 including bloodline?) and has around 20 mental focus. She can spend that focus on stuff like a standard action summon monster V (albeit quasireal), or flight, or telekinesis, or haste. It's fiddly, for sure, but I can't think it's worse than tier 3, and it might be better?

[pabelfly]

I'm not really any kind of expert, but occultist sure *seems* strong. Eg, a silksworn occultist 10 knows 28 spells from a pretty good list (a sorcerer 10 knows, what, 18 including bloodline?) and has around 20 mental focus. She can spend that focus on stuff like a standard action summon monster V (albeit quasireal), or flight, or telekinesis, or haste. It's fiddly, for sure, but I can't think it's worse than tier 3, and it might be better?

Kurald Galain wrote up a good essay about why they thought Occultist was T4. If you want a dissenting critique of the class, I think that would be a pretty good starting point.

[Kurald Galain]

Would your Magus rank change if they could not use Shocking Grasp?
No. In fact, a Magus not using shocking grasp is usually a sign that the player understands the class pretty well :smallamused:


Magus can do a lot of damage, but occultist can fly
Magus can also fly - at level 3, with the right archetype. Warpriest and Inquisitor can also fly with a 3rd-level spell.


Re Inquisitor, I would like to point out that their spell list is oddly gimped in some odd ways - on top of being a 2/3 caster, some of the spells it shares with the Cleric list are also gotten a spell level later.I'm curious which spells you're referring to?


You may have missed things like the occultist being the sole class that can manage full BaB and 6/9 casting.
Sure, but inquisitor (with judgment) and magus (with arcane pool) get the exact same attack bonus, and warpriest (swift-casting divine favor) is only one point behind. And the occultist's fiddlyness means that this full-bab option requires two particular schools, and weapon-and-shield fighting style (whereas THF and TWF are the stronger picks), and banning yet another school. Oh, and it locks almost all your focus points into those two schools, and their focus powers are largely identical to spells on your list.

[Rynjin]

I feel like a lot of people assume the Magus list is a lot more focused than it actually is. I'd urge people to give it an in-depth look before rating. It's not just like an "Evocation Wizard" list truncated down to 6th level, Magus actually gets to keep a lot of the default good Wizard spells, they just happen to get pretty much ALL of the spells that deal damage on top of the generic good stuff like Fly, Dimension Door, Black Tentacles, etc.




Sure, but inquisitor (with judgment) and magus (with arcane pool) get the exact same attack bonus, and warpriest (swift-casting divine favor) is only one point behind. And the occultist's fiddlyness means that this full-bab option requires two particular schools, and weapon-and-shield fighting style (whereas THF and TWF are the stronger picks), and banning yet another school.

Sword and board is, IMO, the optimal TWFing variant at high levels. Once Shield Master comes online, the extra attacks are basically free. That said, Occultist doesn't really have the bonus Feats to properly do S/B or TWFing at all.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Janky Occultist may be, calling any of these Tier 4 seems wildly out of sorts. Just 6/9 casting and generally "ok" features should put you somewhere in T3, and each and ever one of these has more than "ok" features to put on the table.

[exelsisxax]

I feel like a lot of people assume the Magus list is a lot more focused than it actually is. I'd urge people to give it an in-depth look before rating. It's not just like an "Evocation Wizard" list truncated down to 6th level, Magus actually gets to keep a lot of the default good Wizard spells, they just happen to get pretty much ALL of the spells that deal damage on top of the generic good stuff like Fly, Dimension Door, Black Tentacles, etc.

Sword and board is, IMO, the optimal TWFing variant at high levels. Once Shield Master comes online, the extra attacks are basically free. That said, Occultist doesn't really have the bonus Feats to properly do S/B or TWFing at all.

Trappings panoply gives you better than martial flexibility. If you have the mental focus you can stack multiple bonus feats along a tree to get whatever you can qualify for, as it doesn't end the previous use.

[Rynjin]

Trappings panoply gives you better than martial flexibility. If you have the mental focus you can stack multiple bonus feats along a tree to get whatever you can qualify for, as it doesn't end the previous use.

That works for a lot of flex scenarios, but TWFing requires a LOT of Feats, and you don't wanna be in the position of having to flex any of them.

Feats needed for TWFing with shields:

Two-Weapon Fighting (Improved, Greater)
Improved Shield Bash
Shield Slam
Shield Master
Double Slice

That's 7 Feats (out of the 10 you get from leveling) tied up in just your primary combat style, not ignoring the other Feats you'd likely want to be always on. It's doable, but a tight fit. Now onceyou hit that level 11 threshold, you're good to go, but while leveling it's gonna be rough since you're not getting the same up front power boost as something like a Fighter or Ranger that's gonna get the whole Feat chain online at level 6 or 7 and still have Feats to spare.

[Kurald Galain]

Trappings panoply gives you better than martial flexibility. If you have the mental focus you can stack multiple bonus feats along a tree to get whatever you can qualify for, as it doesn't end the previous use.

...at a cost of a move action each, and it lasts one minute. Activating this twice in one combat is a stretch already, three or more just isn't realistic. At least martial flex gives you multiple feats for a single action.

[Thunder999]

If TWF takes too many feats you just grab the Shield Brace feat and use a 2-handed polearm with your shield.

[Rynjin]

If TWF takes too many feats you just grab the Shield Brace feat and use a 2-handed polearm with your shield.

Shield Brace is an awful, awful Feat. Just use Unhindering Shield (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/shield-mastery-feats/unhindering-shield-shield-mastery/) and a buckler instead.

[Thunder999]

Shield Brace is an awful, awful Feat. Just use Unhindering Shield (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/shield-mastery-feats/unhindering-shield-shield-mastery/) and a buckler instead.

Really don't see how that's better, Shield Brace has lower prereqs, the ACP bit is irrelevant since it's trivial to drop that to 0 on any shield.

Either works of course, and they're not bad feats for any martial with them to spare (particularly since animated shields suck in pathfinder)

[Rynjin]

Really don't see how that's better, Shield Brace has lower prereqs, the ACP bit is irrelevant since it's trivial to drop that to 0 on any shield.

Either works of course, and they're not bad feats for any martial with them to spare (particularly since animated shields suck in pathfinder)

Lower level prereq, but more restrictions on what weapons you can use and notably does not include the clause about being able to cast spells with the shield in your offhand.

[Drelua]

Shield Brace might be better for some characters, if you're using polearms anyway then you get 1 more AC, or 2 if you feel like being bad at all Str and Dex based skills. The polearm group is pretty good, obviously reach is great but you can also go for crits with a nodachi. Shield Brace should let you cast spells if the GM lets you hold the weapon in your buckler hand. Just take the free action to remove your non-buckler hand, cast the spell, free action to put both hands back on the weapon.

Unhindering Shield is generally the better option, but getting Shield Brace 3 levels earlier might be worthwhile if you're playing through those levels and not just starting at Fighter 4 or something else 6, and using polearms. It's better for some, but worse for most, which is kinda how more niche options should work I think.

[spectralphoenix]

Unhindering Shield also doesn't help the -1 penalty to attacking with a buckler, while Shield Brace and a Darkwood/Mithral shield with 0 ACP gives no penalty. You can also hold your polearm with your light-shield-equipped hand and cast with your weapon hand, if you're a caster (though spell combat is off the table.) So if you want to use a spear/polearm, Shield Brace is the superior option.

TBH, the inquisitor confuses me a bit. I don't have a lot of direct experience with one, but it seems like one of those classes that has a bunch of neat abilities that don't quite have a clear synergy. A big pile of teamwork feats, but unlike the teamwork archetypes, you can't share. A bunch of combat self-buffs, but 3/4 BAB. Spellcasting, but you don't really have the action efficiency other gish types do, and most of the spell list is utility anyway. It's billed as the "divine bard", but nearly everything you do is selfish. I'm certainly not suggesting it's T4, but reading it just doesn't give me a clear idea of the direction I'm supposed to take it in.

[Rynjin]

Unhindering Shield also doesn't help the -1 penalty to attacking with a buckler, while Shield Brace and a Darkwood/Mithral shield with 0 ACP gives no penalty. You can also hold your polearm with your light-shield-equipped hand and cast with your weapon hand, if you're a caster (though spell combat is off the table.) So if you want to use a spear/polearm, Shield Brace is the superior option.


You cannot hold your weapon in the same hand as the shield, no. It takes up the hand. That's the whole reaosn you need a Feat to hold your polearm in the first place.

Anyway, thoughts on the other 3 classes.

Magus: Powerful T3 option, something akin to a...2.8 or so based on spell list and action economy alone. Being one of the most popular among both the fanbase and seemingly devs, in conjunction with being one of the older classes, Magus also has an impressive array of archetypes that can drastically change how the class plays, and many of which are as powerful as the base class, such as Puppeteer and Hexcrafter.

Just exceptionally powerful in every way, and even stronger when you choose to build it outside the box. Though even the "box cake mix" Magus (Dervish Dance Shocking Grasp go brrr man) is extremely strong.

Inquisitor: Personally, my favorite class in the game besides maybe Monk. Power-wise a solid T3, maybe edging a bit higher in the right hands. It has probably the strongest 6-caster chassis, with 6+Int skills and the two best saves to have on a character, plus using arguably the strongest casting stat to boot.

Their version of divine casting is a bit more focused than other divine classes. Namely that it's focused on finding whatever the party is looking for and killing it dead as a doornail with the minimum effort and maximum efficiency possible. Inquisitor has one of the best suites of all-day buffs in the game, with access to unusual senses like Scent and Blindsight, the powerful Litany suite of spells, and a lot of information gathering utility at its fingertips.

Of course, its spellcasting is more of a supplement to the real meat and potatoes of Inquisitor: its class features. Bane is probably the most brutally effective damage dealing feature available to any class in the game, essentially granting all of the upsides and zero of the drawbacks of a Ranger's Favored Enemy. Judgment is...nice too, I guess. It's good but not sexy. Inquisitors in general go fast, eat ass, and are essentially impossible to kill via saving throws after Stalwart comes online.

Notable archetypes include Sanctified Slayer which trades out Judgment for...basically the entire Slayer class, Sacred Huntmaster which trades Judgment and Solo Tactics for a full progression Animal Companion and Teamwork Feats to use with it, and Preacher which trades Solo Tactics for a bunch of non-action (even off your turn!) re-roll effects. That last one is an absolute STEAL and is basically a straight upgrade to the class.

The only real downsides to Inquisitor is it has a lot of action bottlenecking, namely on its Swift action. Arguably, having so many great things to do essentially for free once per turn is a good problem to have, but it's worth noting that Bane, Judgment, Litanies, and several other abilities all vie for that action slot.



Occultist: Definitely T3 in power, but T5 in readability. The biggest problem with Occultist is not the class mechanics, but the absolutely atrocious formatting of the entire book it was released in, and Occultist is the biggest offender of them all, with class features presenting walls of text that border into unintentional parody at times.

But dig under that ugly surface and you'll find a powerful class with a lot of really interesting build options on offer.

As already mentioned, Trappings of the Warrior gives the class effective full BaB (for attack rolls and number of attacks, sadly not for Feat prereqs) at the cost of needing to specialize in one very strong spell school (Transmutation) and one middling one (Abjuration).

And it arguably has one of the more broken (in theoretical potential) abilities in the game baseline, the various "Circle" abilities, which offer the potential for essentially at-will permanent binding circles for not just Outsiders, but anyone of the appropriate alignment.

Several of the Implement schools have pretty interesting abilities, and the class also has a surprising array of intriguing archetypes for how little time in the grand scheme it had to exist before Pathfinder's sunsetting.

The epitome of the class I love to think about making a character with and never do.

[spectralphoenix]

You cannot hold your weapon in the same hand as the shield, no. It takes up the hand. That's the whole reaosn you need a Feat to hold your polearm in the first place.


A light shield's weight lets you carry other items in that hand, although you cannot use weapons with it.

So you can't fight with a two-handed weapon without the feat, no, but a spellcaster using the feat could still cast spells. You can still use the shield hand to hold the weapon, cast your spell with your main hand, then change grip to wield with both hands to go back to hitting people.

[Rynjin]

So you can't fight with a two-handed weapon without the feat, no, but a spellcaster using the feat could still cast spells. You can still use the shield hand to hold the weapon, cast your spell with your main hand, then change grip to wield with both hands to go back to hitting people.

I think you might have a hard time selling that at about half of tables, but I'm not really gonna argue the RAW on it.

At the end of the day, Unhindering Shield has all the capability you need out of the box, without having to jump through any extra hoops (special materials) or running up against a common GM sticking point (the exact logistics behind weapon hand-swapping). Since the ability to use Shield Brace with a heavy shield is COMPLETELY moot for a caster the functionality is at worst identical between the two.

[Drelua]

At worst identical functionality doesn't sound too bad to me for a feat you can take 3 levels earlier. If I wanted to play a character that uses a polearm and shield, I'd take Shield Brace just so I can do it from level 1. Then I might retrain it when I can, or I might not bother if it's working just as well for me, and gets me 1 more AC if I don't need to be able to hold things with my shield hand. The description of light shields should make that pretty clear I think, and historically pikes would sometimes be held in both hands while a shield is strapped to one arm so there's real world precedent for holding a spear with a shield arm.

[spectralphoenix]

I think you might have a hard time selling that at about half of tables, but I'm not really gonna argue the RAW on it.

At the end of the day, Unhindering Shield has all the capability you need out of the box, without having to jump through any extra hoops (special materials) or running up against a common GM sticking point (the exact logistics behind weapon hand-swapping). Since the ability to use Shield Brace with a heavy shield is COMPLETELY moot for a caster the functionality is at worst identical between the two.

I mean, that's the same sequence of actions you take to cast spells with a two handed weapon without a shield, too. Unless you're suggesting that the ability to hold objects with your shield arm excludes weapons, or that you can't cast with a two handed weapon at all, I don't see where you're coming from here.

And it's not moot, because a Shield Brace user with a darkwood light shield has +1 to attack over an Unhindering Shield user with a buckler. Not a gamechanger, but if you want to use polearms, Shield Brace is the better option.

[Aquillion]

Are we judging these using optional class features, archetypes, supplemental materials and so on? This matters a lot for the Occultist - it's very noticeable that the people rating it low are just scoring the base Occultist, while the people arguing for higher ratings constantly mention stuff like eg. Trappings of the Warrior (Mage's Paraphernalia certainly isn't terrible, either.)

In terms of archetypes, Haunt Collector is quite good and extremely versatile - being able to replace the resonant powers of your implements (which often suck) with whatever you please from the medium’s list of spirits (many of which are quite good) allows you to make a more focused and cohesive build. They can use panoplies, so Trappings of the Warrior + champion spirit makes them very good at fighting while also having a bunch of spells. And the option to use your haunts to deliver contingent spells is useful for a martial-leaning occultist who probably won't use them much in combat, while opening up a lot of unique tricks unavailable to other casters.

Either Mage's Paraphernalia or Silksworn makes them one of the best non-full-casters in the game in terms of pure spellcasting ability, although unfortunately you have to choose one or the other because Silksworn can't use panoplies.

I'd say that Occultist is T3 overall, but it depends more than many others on archetypes and on using panoplies in order to get a meaningful focus. If you use neither panoplies nor archetypes then it lacks focus and tends to suck.

[Rynjin]

Are we judging these using optional class features, archetypes, supplemental materials and so on? This matters a lot for the Occultist - it's very noticeable that the people rating it low are just scoring the base Occultist, while the people arguing for higher ratings constantly mention stuff like eg. Trappings of the Warrior (Mage's Paraphernalia certainly isn't terrible, either.)


Typically what we've been doing is rating the class based on universally available material (which Panoplies are; any Occultist can use them, Panoply Savants just have an easier time accessing them), and sometimes rating archetypes and classes separately (eg. Eldritch Socundrel is fundamentally WAY more powerful than base Rogue or UnRogue, so we rated them separately).

[Kurald Galain]

In terms of archetypes, Haunt Collector is quite good and extremely versatile - being able to replace the resonant powers of your implements (which often suck) with whatever you please from the mediumÂ’s list of spirits (many of which are quite good) allows you to make a more focused and cohesive build.
If an option makes a big impact, then we can rate it separately (and we've done so for several classes). For example, since you write that resonant powers often suck, it can be a reasonable conclusion that baseline occultist is Tier X, but occ with a particular archetype is Tier Y.

I think the underlying issue here is that out of focus powers (not just the resonant ones), pretty much all of them either duplicate a spell that's on your list, OR they're pretty bad. So if you're building an occultist by looking at its focus powers and working from there, it looks pretty disappointing. However, if instead you start by wanting a good spellcaster, you immediately run into the question WHY you're using this class instead of (e.g.) a sorcerer, that is both more effective and easier to build. Overall, if the best occ build is the one that tries the hardest not to be an occ (e.g. by trading class features for those of another class) then that's a strong indication how weak baseline occ is.

[Aquillion]

Well, that's true for trying to build towards their spellcasting (in the sense that obviously if you want to optimize for spellcasting a full-caster is going to be better), but that's true for anyone who isn't a full caster. I think that if you compare them to other T3 options rather than to T2+ options, the Silksworn or Mage's Paraphernalia builds are plenty strong.

If you build one for combat it becomes even harder to argue that they're below T3, because there really isn't anyone strictly better at what they do. The Haunt Collector + Trappings of the Warrior build has full BAB and significant combat buffs and has a wide variety of magical support and utility options. They're in no way worse than any other full-BAB partial caster, and significantly better than many; they fit the T3 description of being pretty good at one thing (fighting) while having a variety of other options when that thing isn't relevant.


I think the underlying issue here is that out of focus powers (not just the resonant ones), pretty much all of them either duplicate a spell that's on your list, OR they're pretty bad.Some of the panoply ones are really strong. Metamagic Master, say, is a big part of why they can actually be decent casters (for T3, of course; nobody is suggesting they're T2 or capable of competing with full-casters.) And none of the other Mage's Paraphernalia ones are weak.

There are other decent archetypes that don't replicate other classes, like Psychodermist, Panoply Savant, or Geomancer. The really important thing is Panoplies (or Silksworn), which actually make you good enough at a main shtick to serve as T3.

[pabelfly]

So my question would be - if Occultist has some really good archetypes (by this I mean that a single archetype boosts the tier of Occultist by more than 1/2 a tier) what are those archetypes and what are their separate ratings?

[Kurald Galain]

Trappings of the Warrior build has full BAB
It's more accurate to look at a class's actual to-hit bonus instead of only its BAB. For example, inquisitor has medium BAB but has swift-action to-hit boosts (judgment and bane) so in practice it has the same to-hit bonus as (or better than) a full BAB class, before buff spells.

Occultist gets its iteratives a few levels earlier, but inquisitor has a better weapon selection (because TOTW requires sword-and-board or some heavy feat investment). I'd call that a draw at best, and a point in favor of inquisitor at most levels.


The really important thing is Panoplies (or Silksworn), which actually make you good enough at a main shtick to serve as T3.
So it seems we're in agreement that without panoplies or silksworn (and perhaps one or two other archetypes), the occultist is not in fact good enough at a main shtick to serve as T3. So perhaps these should be rated separately.

[Second Arrow]

Is the Monster Tactician Inquisitor being purposefully left out for later discussion, or are we collectively closing our eyes to what is arguably the most powerful Inquisitor archetype?

I mean, I can see that the consensus has placed the UnSummoner firmly in tier 3, due to getting a severely restricted spell list and nerfing the eidolon.

Well, the Monster Tactician gets to be the UnSummoner on steroids, and when it comes to purely summoning, it's arguably a match for the Chained Summoner.
It trades out Judgement, and in return gets the same summon monster feature until level 19, but keyed to WIS, gets free additions to the summon monster list, WIS to Initiative, and shares its teamwork feats with its summons. (I'll just say this: Blood for the Empire is nuts when summons have it).

As previously noted, the Inquisitor has the litany spells on its list, and has the slots for it, unlike the Paladin. However, the base Inquisitor has few ways of utilizing some of them fully, notably such as Litany of Righteousness, that requires the attackers to have a good aura in order to benefit.
The Monster Tactician will just summon something with the good subtype, and watch it do double damage when it's time for something to die. As it is encouraged to be more Wisdom-heavy than the base Inquisitor, it might well have more spell slots to burn too.

It keeps Bane.
It keeps Stalwart.
It retains the domain feature, or can trade it out for two revelations with the Ravener Hunter. This also means that if you want to, you can get an animal companion that can be on the field simultaneously as your summons (unlike the summoner).

If the base Inquisitor is T3, then the Monster Tactician warrants its own rating.

Inquisitor: 3
Monster Tactician Inquisitor: 2.7

[Gnaeus]

If an option makes a big impact, then we can rate it separately (and we've done so for several classes). For example, since you write that resonant powers often suck, it can be a reasonable conclusion that baseline occultist is Tier X, but occ with a particular archetype is Tier Y.

I think the underlying issue here is that out of focus powers (not just the resonant ones), pretty much all of them either duplicate a spell that's on your list, OR they're pretty bad. So if you're building an occultist by looking at its focus powers and working from there, it looks pretty disappointing. However, if instead you start by wanting a good spellcaster, you immediately run into the question WHY you're using this class instead of (e.g.) a sorcerer, that is both more effective and easier to build. Overall, if the best occ build is the one that tries the hardest not to be an occ (e.g. by trading class features for those of another class) then that's a strong indication how weak baseline occ is.

Except that a silksworn occultist pretty much kicks a sorcerer's teeth in until level 10 or so. More spells. Way more powers per day. All on a better chassis. Oh, and occultists use scrolls/wands just fine. Better than almost any classes in game, in fact. On account of being an int based class with UMD in class and a class feature that provides a big boost to UMD. (Silksworn even better, on account of their higher cha focus.)

Voting based on discussion.

Occultist T2.5.

Magus 4. On account of its obvious weakness compared with occultist.

Warpriest 3 Inquisitor 3

[vasilidor]

Being able to smash things and smash them hard does not really get one out of tier 4, let alone tier 3. But maybe Occultist should be tier 3. It can smash things and do other things with skills and spells. Having read their class a bit more They do get a decent group of problem solving tools, but these tools don't bring it out of tier 3 in my opinion.

[Buddy76]

Is the Monster Tactician Inquisitor being purposefully left out for later discussion, or are we collectively closing our eyes to what is arguably the most powerful Inquisitor archetype?

*Snip*

Inquisitor: 3
Monster Tactician Inquisitor: 2.7

I agree with everythinh Second Arrow said. I'm surprised that Monster Tatctician didn't come up earlier.

Magus: 2.5, Warpriest 3.5 for what's been said here already.

Now, I think Occultist is a more complicated case. It's one of my favorite classes but the design isn't great. They've kinda thrown a bunch of features at the player and then it's up to you to cobble together a class from all that (reminds me a bit of the 3.5e Incarnate, but stronger).

Here are my thoughts on the class:

1- It GOBBLES UP mental focus points like nobody's business. As Kurald pointed out upthread, Schrödinger's Occultist is quite strong but in practice you'll always be starved for mental focus.


2- Because of 1, you can either be a good Gish or a good Caster but not both. In theory you can have both Mage's Paraphernalia and Trappings of the Warrior by level 18 however, aside from the fact that level 18 almost never sees play you'll need a very high Int to have enough mental focus for both. So you'll have full Bab but low Str/Dex, no bonus combat feats, no heavy armor almost no mental focus left for Mage's Paraphernalia and you'll lack three schools of magic (including conjuration).

3- 2 being said, you do have some nice things. If you decide to go Caster you can also be a skill money at basically no extra cost. +4 for skill points on an int class, bonuses to UMD, and, if you take Mage's Paraphernalia, you'll pciked up the Divination Implement is a fantastic implement school to sink mental focus into, granting you bardic knowledge (again, on an int class), bonuses to Perception (plus a bunch of continuous special senses as you level up) and Sudden Insight when you absolutely need to make a check. And, as people pointed out Aura Sight, Object Reading, Magic Circles and Outside Contact have a ton of flexibility.

4- You can make a very good Gish. Trappings of Warrior gives you full Bab, Counterstrike is a fantastic focus power, and the two implements that you pick can give you on demand weapon special abilities (any of them as long as you can afford it), on demand haste, flight, globe of invulnerability, armor special abilities, energy resistances and more. If you pick Conjuration as your 4th implement you can also have on demand healing. And you still retain your +4 skill points, UMD bonuses, Aura Sight, Object Reading, Magic Circles and Outside Contact.

Psychodermists also make fantastic Gishes, but have no access to Panoplies. Instead they rely on monstrous physique goodness, poaching spell like abilites from monsters and on demand Favored Enemy. Finally, I find it kinda crazy that Panoplies were published after the Battle Host archetype and didn't include a way for Trappings of the Warrior to be accessed by Battle Host by raw but o well.

5- Finally, I'd like to point out that while UMD bonuses are great, IMO, the Occultist more or less needs Pragmatic Activator to reliably make UMD checks. It costs you nothing if your DM allows traits, but traits are still optional rules so it's worth pointing out.

Given all of that my vote for the Occultist is tier 3.5. I'd say they can be raised to tier 3 or fall to the bottom half of tier 3 but they are still casters with a decent chassis and you wouldn't fall o tier 4 or lower unless you're deliberately saboting yourself or picking one of the very worst archetypes.

[Thunder999]

I wouldn't call traits optional, they're the default for literally all the official content and I've never seen a game without them.

[Eldonauran]

I wouldn't call traits optional, they're the default for literally all the official content and I've never seen a game without them.They are technically entirely optional and the Advanced Player's Guide (where they are introduced) specifically instructs the player to ask the GM for the number of traits that are allowed. That can be zero or as many as the GM wants to allow. Likewise, Drawbacks are under the GM's purview as well. Page 326, under "Gaining Traits".

[Buddy76]

I wouldn't call traits optional, they're the default for literally all the official content and I've never seen a game without them. Fair enough. And if you're playing one of the most obscure and mechanically convoluted base classes in 1e your DM is probably chill with traits. I've never played a game without traits either.

However, I think Int to UMD should just be native to the class. This single trait takes the class from "not lagging too far behind other casters when it comes to UMD" to "crushes almost all UMD checks" and I think that has a huge impact on how flexible the class is.It's too much to hinge on a single trait, is what I'm saying. Specially when, as Eldonauran pointed out, traits are technically optional.

[pabelfly]

Added the Monster Tactician archetype from Inquisitor as a separate vote. If you think it's worth voting on, feel free to add your vote.

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper, Buddy76 – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Kitsuneymg – 2.75
Rynjin – 2.8
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Coerleum, Exelsisxax – 3
Gnaeus – 4

Average – 2.87



Warpriest
AnonymousPepper – 2.7
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Gnaeus – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Kitsuneymg, Buddy76 – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.30



Warpriest (Arsenal Chaplain)
AnonymousPepper – 2.7
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Gnaeus – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Kitsuneymg – 3.25
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Buddy76 – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.26



Inquisitor
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999, Exelsisxax, Kitsuneymg, Rynjin, Inquisitor, Gnaeus, Second Arrow – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.08



Inquisitor (Monster Tactician)
SecondArrow - 2.5
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999, Exelsisxax, Kitsuneymg, Rynjin, Inquisitor, Gnaeus – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.03



Occultist
Coerleum – 2
Gnaeus – 2.5
TotallyNotEvil, Rynjin – 3
Thunder999, Exelsisxax – 3.4
Buddy76 – 3.5
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Kitsuneymg – 4

Average – 3.28

[Second Arrow]

There's an expectation that good choice of archetypes can move a class up to half a tier. If you want to vote an archetype as being half a tier better or more, I'll start adding up votes for it separately but I won't if it only goes up 0.3 of a tier.

I was mostly trying to be conservative with my rating of the Monster Tactician, but I would back it being rated at 2.5 without hesitation (My conservativeness being primarily caused by bewilderment at how it was not called out before). The archetype trades out very little for what it gets in return, and compared to some T2 classes, it takes a LONG time before there's a notable gap in casting power, in my honest opinion, and it would stay relevant as a powerhouse until the end. Sure, summoning things might be a one-trick pony, but it provides so many problem solvers over the course of play, that it deserves recognition.
Given that the Monster Tactician is summoning better than anyone*, while having a far superior chassis to most other summoning classes**, at virtually no cost to whatever Inquisitor build you have in mind***, I for sure stand by that it warrants a separate mention and tier placement.

* Master Summoner not included.
** Compare what the Summoner gets to the Inquisitor, or other T2s - it's quite clear that the Monster Tactician has resources and features to spare.
*** Mostly just meaning that summons, even with no investment, offer problem solutions a plenty, and the biggest tradeoff is honestly that you can't take other archetypes that trade out judgment.

[ciopo]

There's an expectation that good choice of archetypes can move a class up to half a tier. If you want to vote an archetype as being half a tier better or more, I'll start adding up votes for it separately but I won't if it only goes up 0.3 of a tier.


In fairness, you did for the warpriest. At least at a glance only one person voted it separately and it was less than 0.5 of difference

[pabelfly]

Okay, it's been added to the vote count.

[Thunder999]

So, if noone has anything to add here, what classes should be next?

[pabelfly]

So, if noone has anything to add here, what classes should be next?

We'll do some full casters this week - Arcanist, Oracle, Shaman and Witch.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?652013-Tiering-the-Pathfinder-Classes-Arcanist-Oracle-Shaman-and-Witch

I'll work on writing up some class summaries for last week's stuff to add to the tiering thread.

[pabelfly]

Summaries for Inquisitor, Occultist, Magus and Warpriest are up for critique.

Magus (2.87)
The Magus has a ridiculously long spell list, and has the ability to cast illusions, do battlefield control, debuff, teleport, dispel, use polymorph, defensive spells, and more. They have possibly the best action economy in the game, since you can attack, use spells, and have some swift-action abilities to boot, and can use all of them in the same turn. And you’ve got easy access to various movement-based spells that help you do full attacks each turn. All in all, Magus is a high-end Tier 3 class.

Warpriest (3.30)
The Warpriest gets the Cleric spell list and the ability to cast spells on themselves while being able to attack that turn. It’s some great action economy, you have access to great buffing spells, including the ability to use short duration spells other classes would struggle with. However, the Cleric spell list isn’t the strongest at lower levels, and being a sixth-level spellcaster exacerbates the issue. It earns a spot as a lower-end T3 class.

Inquisitor (3.08)
The inquisitor is yet another Pathfinder class to combine sixth-level spellcasting with melee combat, and this attempt lands solidly in the middle of Tier 3. Firstly, your spell list is based off the Cleric spell list, and while some of those spells are a level behind regular cleric, it also has a bunch of additional spells Cleric normally doesn’t get. However, you are a spontaneous spellcaster and need to be much more careful in selecting your spells than a prepared 6th-level spellcaster. On the melee side, your martial ability is boosted by teamwork feats that you don’t need other team members to have to use, and you have access to Bane and Judgement to boost your combat ability further. Outside of combat, your skill bonuses are pretty solid to help ensure you have plenty to do out-of-combat. Overall, Inquisitor is a definitive T3 class.

Occultist (3.28)
The Occultist is an extremely complex class, even by the standards of other sixth-level classes, but for all the effort required to play the class, you (only) end up with a class at the lower end of T3. Your spell list is decent, and you’ll get more spell slots than other 6th level classes, but your access to those spells is tightly limited by the amount of implements you have. You start with access to two schools at level 1, and while you’ll have access to seven schools by level 18, that’s a lot of spell schools you won’t have access to for most of your career. You can change which schools you have access to daily, but this just adds to the complex bookwork you’re required to do for the class. Lastly, as an intelligence-based caster, you’ll at least have plenty of skill points to be able to contribute outside of spellcasting. Still, you’re at the lower end of T3 in this class.

[Kurald Galain]

Looks good overall, but noting that a class has (e.g.) good fort and will saves is something you should mention for all the classes (including those of earlier threads), or for none of them. Having two good saves doesn't make any class stand out for a particular tier, since almost every class has two good saves. The same applies to hit points: almost every class has d8 or d10 hit points, so either of those is not a big deal.

[pabelfly]

Looks good overall, but noting that a class has (e.g.) good fort and will saves is something you should mention for all the classes (including those of earlier threads), or for none of them. Having two good saves doesn't make any class stand out for a particular tier, since almost every class has two good saves. The same applies to hit points: almost every class has d8 or d10 hit points, so either of those is not a big deal.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've fixed it up and I'll add it to the main thread.

[Coeruleum]

Possibly the most buckwild take I've seen in any of these threads.

What does inquisitor really do well, though? I can think of way more ways to optimize fighters and barbarians to be obnoxious and munchkin-y than inquisitors if I wanted to. You can make barbarians who never die except to one weird thing and fighters who have so many magic feats they can basically play the role of a controller or a buffer, or alternatively make them the skill monkey while still having full martial damage. Inquisitors seem fairly well-rounded for a 6th-level caster, they're very simple to build, and they have a certain style, but I wouldn't say they're that strong when they're really optimized since there's just not that much synergy to work with.

They probably blow paladins out of the water, but single-class paladins don't seem like that good of a yardstick. Damage, AC, and those kinds of numbers are important, but not what makes a character. The best way to deal with problems is usually to just shut them down with something non-numeric, such as charming the orcs to join your side instead of killing them, or killing them with a trap and then raising them as undead if you're an evil necromancer aspiring for lichdom. Then the next time you try that and it doesn't work, your friends can help you fight. I only even rated Magus as 3 instead of 4 because they get some of the utility spells like illusions from the sorcerer/wizard list. Inquisitor mostly gets spells it doesn't seem like they have enough spell slots or good enough action economy to use.

Inquisitor would really do well with more long-duration spells like most partial casters get, such as Deathwatch, Shadow Trap, Unbreakable Heart, or Touch of Blindness, but instead of those, they get things like Command and Ear-Piercing Scream that have a short duration, take at least a standard action (which they don't really have the higher-level slots to quicken,) they don't have the slots to use very often, and don't have the DCs to make hit all that often compared to full casters or even occultists who can at least buff the DCs with their implements. Inquisitors would've been the perfect chassis for all those "touch of X" spells that even clerics and oracles often forego for the ranged versions at higher levels, but they don't get them, and thematically it could've been like passing a judgement.

Likewise, they get the "interrogator" theme, but despite most divinations having long durations and being useful, they still get rather few compared to many other classes and almost entirely have to rely on their Wisdom-to-skill bonuses. Sure, inquisitors get Detect Thoughts which is amazing on most classes... but this is terrible if you're not psychic or if you can't readily do Silent/Still spell, which inquisitor can't easily do. Inquisitor just kind of feels like a lot of things thrown together that barely stands up to, say, a fighter or barbarian with really optimized feats and archetypes, but is probably harder to mess up at least. I don't even see how an inquisitor is a "divine bard," since the main role of most bards is to buff their allies or to control enemies with their enchantments and inquisitors mostly seem focused on self-buffing that's not as good as other divine classes like clerics, oracles, or paladins or as good as other 6th-level casters like occultists, magi, or bards, and really limited debuffs that they seem unlikely to be able to get the DCs for. If you really want to be a divine half-caster, reliquarian occultist seems better than inquisitor, especially if you want to be a diviner. Get Mage's Paraphernalia and you can actually use metamagic in addition to improving your skill checks higher. Actually being able to use metamagic also more or less makes Warpriest kind of pointless, especially since your spell selection is much better. Magus is very good at what it does, I just don't think what it does is that useful. I'm not sure occultist is that useful either when you can just play a wizard, cleric, druid, or psychic, but occultist gets some really stupid things. For example, binding circles are basically a magic trap and I don't think even wizards get anything like that, though I don't tend to think it's worth the tradeoff of things like Create Demiplane/Lesser/Greater, Wish, Limited Wish, Miracle, Shapechange, Shadow Conjuration, Shades, and the like. Psychometry at-will, though not overly combat-y, can save you a lot of heartache, kind of beyond what Detect Magic can since magic auras are often hidden but virtually no one takes the effort to also hide the fact they cast a spell or what was going through their heads when they cast it. Aura Sight at-will is probably even more stupid since that's a higher-level spell. Some of the powers are stupid too... like getting a better version of a paladin steed while also being a 6th-level caster with probably full BAB and an actual ability to use metamagic. The powers are basically Paizo's version of 3.5e psionics anyway (which are literally called powers and manifested with power points,) kind of like the phrenic pool of psychics being manifested with points.

Building occultists right tends to feel like more effort than it's worth, but I think they will probably just outperform sorcerers at least at low levels. Having a very limited selection 7th-9th spell-like abilities, things spells don't replicate, and rather high-level spells at-will plus functioning better than the vast majority of martials at being a martial is kind of silly, even though what 9th-level casters can do with those big spells like Wish, Miracle, Shapechange, and Demiplane is even sillier. Inquisitor is firmly behind magus in my book, and I'm not even sure inquisitor is ahead of a properly-built fighter, barbarian, or unchained rogue. In fact, I've considered unchained rogues pretty good, those skill unlocks are crazy good (though I tend to prefer just taking Signature Skill on other characters, like Sense Motive on a spellcaster or Intimidate on martials usually) and I'm not even sure inquisitor can compete with them with its oddly-selected, not-easily-metamagicable 6th-level spells, but it's at least close enough I have to think about it.

[Rynjin]

They do a lot well, you can look over my previous posts on the subject in this thread.

The fact that you think a single-classed Paladin is nothing special (while single-classed Fighter apparently is?) is further indicator that we are not operating in anywhere near the same headspace; I'd suggest reading over the thread tiering Paladin as well.

[Kurald Galain]

What does inquisitor really do well, though? I can think of way more ways to optimize fighters and barbarians to be obnoxious and munchkin-y than inquisitors if I wanted to. You can make barbarians who never die except to one weird thing and fighters who have so many magic feats they can basically play the role of a controller or a buffer, or alternatively make them the skill monkey while still having full martial damage.
I'd appreciate it if you would post these fighter and barbarian builds you're thinking of in their respective threads. I worry they rely on abilities only available at level 15 and up, meaning well above where the average campaign ends; please do show me counterexamples.

And to answer your question of what does inquisitor really do well: an obvious answer is damage, via swift-action bane. Another one is being SAD, via wisdom mod to numerous skills as well as initiative. Another one is detecting alignments. This is not an exclusive list, but these are all things that an inquisitor does really well.

[Coeruleum]

And to answer your question of what does inquisitor really do well: an obvious answer is damage, via swift-action bane. Another one is being SAD, via wisdom mod to numerous skills as well as initiative. Another one is detecting alignments. This is not an exclusive list, but these are all things that an inquisitor does really well.

I don't think the damage inquisitors do is that useful, since magi do that a lot better when they load their spells into their weapons and even barbarians and other full martials tend to do that better just with their rages, sneak attacks, and feats. Being SAD is also not that important if your attribute isn't giving you anything that useful. I'm sure commoners are SAD constitution builds and aristocrats are SAD charisma builds, but that's not a point in favor of commoners or aristocrats since they just don't have much to do with their single attribute even if it's ridiculously high. Occultists are also much better at detecting alignments if that matters as well as detecting everything else like class levels, personal histories, locations, and private thoughts. I'm not just trying to insult inquisitors or anything, but unless someone can seriously reshape the battlefield I can't even see them in tier 3. Bards can do stupid things with piling buffs on people and taking control of enemies. Inquisitors seem to be using all those buffs on themselves to keep up with an unchained rogue who isn't limited by resources unless they take really specific archetypes.

The problem with skill monkeys is you don't take skills to make checks to perceive things or lie to people, you generally take skills to power feats, class features, and spells you might want to use, because once you're to the point where the bard is charming people with songs so you don't have to roll as high on diplomacy, the lore oracle is doing knowledge checks with charisma and retrying them with ancestral communion, and the barbarian is using Signature Skill: Intimidate with a feat that lets them do it as a move action to an AoE, your straight numbers just won't matter. That's the whole problem with skill monkeys, that your sense motive check has never mattered when the telepath is reading minds and your trapfinding doesn't matter when the wizard is detecting all the concealed runes and pits and then mage handing them away. I see bards as actually bringing a lot to the table that isn't just dependent on skills with their performances and the fact they can actually use certain spells really well despite only being a 6th-level caster, but inquisitors seem to really lack anything like that. Inquisitors are probably much easier to use out of the box than most classes, but the ceiling seems lower than most classes that aren't considered awful by everyone such as the shifter and chained rogue. I'm definitely just judging classes by the minmaxxed ceiling versions though.

[Rynjin]

Wisdom is just about the best attribute to be SAD on. And I think you're underestimating the level of consistent damage Inquisitor puts out.

They also have A LOT of information gathering utility. As well as quite a few good save or lose effects, albeit some of the best only at high levels (eg. Overwhelming Presence).

Take a close look at their spell list; it's a lot better than just being a truncated Cleric list.

I'll also say that just because Magus is a better damage dealer (...which is arguable in any case), does not mean Inquisitor gets bumped down to T4. That ain't how that works.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think the damage inquisitors do is that useful, since magi do that a lot better

You don't have to be the best to be useful. :smallamused:

[pabelfly]

I should add in being Wisdom SAD and high Will saves for the Inquisitor class to its summary. Thanks for the discussion.

[Kurald Galain]

I should add in being Wisdom SAD and high Will saves for the Inquisitor class to its summary. Thanks for the discussion.
It isn't automatically wisdom SAD though; to do that, it basically needs some way to get wis-to-AC and wis-to-hit. It can be built in that way but it's not the default.

Fair point about having high will saves. Likewise, the rogue/urogue should mention having high reflex saves; nothing really comes to mind that has high fort saves (as in, a special reason to invest in con plus fast-growing fort).

[pabelfly]

It isn't automatically wisdom SAD though; to do that, it basically needs some way to get wis-to-AC and wis-to-hit. It can be built in that way but it's not the default.

Fair point about having high will saves. Likewise, the rogue/urogue should mention having high reflex saves; nothing really comes to mind that has high fort saves (as in, a special reason to invest in con plus fast-growing fort).

Added notes for the Inquisitor's will saves and the Rogue's reflex saves (also noted that both Rogues had evasion as well).

[Rynjin]

You don't have to be the best to be useful. :smallamused:

And I'll reiterate that it's very arguable that a Magus is a better damage dealer in any case. Oh certainly Magus has a much higher PER HIT damage, but over the course of a full combat the Inquisitor is probably packing more DPR, and can do it in more encounters per day.

[Thunder999]

I wouldn't give inquisitor a per day advantage actually, Bane is very limited use, certainly more limited than Shocking Grasp or Frostbite, which are 1st level spells you'll have in abundance and can cheaply replenish with Pearls of Power or Arcane Pool points.

And Bane is definitely the biggest damage boost of inquisitor, Judgement is good, but relatively low numbers, spells take too many actions to really stack up (particularly since the best ones are 1 round/level or fixed 1 minute duration, fine for a warpriest, but you'd need an expensive quicken metamagic rod on an Inquisitor).

And honestly, Bane isn't even better than Frostbite, Frostbite is 1d6+level damage, so better than bane at level 6+ in terms of damage, though the attack bonus is obviously important and not in Frostbite, and Frostbite is 1 attack/CL per casting, rather than 1 round/level total.

Even Shocking Grasp stacks up relatively well, though not as well as Frostbite (10d6 shocking grasp is 35 average damage, 3 hits from Frostbite at the same CL is 3d6+30=40.5, 5.5 more damage in the first round), but it still beats bane for single round DPS until you have 5 attacks per round.

But Inquisitor doesn't need to beat magus to be an excellent tier 3 class.


Inquisitors have more than adequate damage, good skill points, class features that actually boost skill bonuses and a very solid spell list, which importantly is different to the magus, due to having all those useful divine spells.

[Rynjin]

I wouldn't give inquisitor a per day advantage actually, Bane is very limited use, certainly more limited than Shocking Grasp or Frostbite, which are 1st level spells you'll have in abundance and can cheaply replenish with Pearls of Power or Arcane Pool points.



Rounds/level is not a bad resource pool at all, especially with the investment of a single Feat (either Extended Bane or Extra Bane depending on how high you plan to pump your Wis).

Considering you'll probably be ending most combats in 2 rounds or less with a high op party, even by level 8 you're good for the whole day.

You're also missing that Bane jumps to being 4d6+2 damage at 12, so 12d6+6 across 3 hits (average 48 damage) beats out Frostbite on average.

Edit: Though TBF, Inquisitor has a harder time getting to 3 hits per round sometimes.

[Coeruleum]

You don't have to be the best to be useful. :smallamused:

True, but I never placed inquisitor in tier 5 with chained monks, chained rogues, and shifters. I just think it somehow seems notably less good than magus. Yes, people do keep hyping the Inquisitor spell list, but I think both their number of slots and their DCs are too low for their spell list to be notably more useful in practice than unrogue's skill unlocks, even with some spells like Wrath clearly being quite good. I am just having a hard time seeing inquisitor as being all that much better than unrogue or a really optimized barbarian or fighter. It just seems like it looks better on paper, mostly. I'm not saying it's useless at all. For what it's worth, magus seems like a worse eldritch knight and I would recommend anyone wanting to melee and deal damage as a divine caster to just one of the tier 1/"1.5" classes (I don't like the rounding system) in melee like you already pretty much easily can with all of them while using quickened metamagic and other features to improve your action economy beyond warpriest while also getting full casting and other cool features such as domain, revelations, hexes, or wildshape. I consider the damage from things like judgments and smites to not be very good even if it's big numbers because a magus can do more with their spells and a magus just seems like a worse eldritch knight to me. A lot of these classes seem like worse versions of other classes just to try to get a novelty factor to keep old players playing the game plus to try to make the game seem easier for newbies. Occult adventures classes, witch, shaman, alchemist, and some other classes and archetypes are genuinely new for Pathfinder when they come out, but they're also just attempts to port over popular 3.5e content while making it copyrightable by Paizo. A lot of archetypes also end up filling the role of prestige classes and even less-common but highly-demanded niche subclasses in Pathfinder, but also railroading people into certain builds and even races more than PrCs in 3.5e did, which seems like another problem with the design of Pathfinder vs. 3.5e.

[Rynjin]

I'm wondering what it is that makes you think the Magus has higher save DCs than the Inquisitor? Or more spell slots, for that matter.

[Thunder999]

I genuinely don't get how anyone can compare Skill Unlocks to avtual casting.

Skill unlocks for most skills are pretty bad, Intimidate is nice, but real spells can do so much more than just frighten people with a failed will save and it's mostly carried by how easy it is to get free action demoralise. Heal is also decent, but that's just healing hp, something that a wand is generally adequate to cover out of combat and which is almost never actually optimal mid-fight.

[Drelua]

A Magus is not just a worse Eldritch Knight, yes at high levels an EK may be better, but it's not just the same but better. There's things a Magus does that an EK can't, like cast freely in Medium armor at 7, the lowest level you're likely to be able to even start taking EK levels. Lets compare the 2 classes at different levels and see how they measure up. I'll assume an entry into EK of Wizard 5/Fighter 1. Let's start at level 7. A Magus 7 has 7d8 HD (average 31.5), 5 BAB, saves of 5/2/5, and 5/4/3/1 spells per day. A Wizard 5/Fighter 1/EK 1 has 5d6+2d10 HD (average 28.5), 4 BAB, saves of 4/1/4, and 4/3/2/1 spells per day. So, even before counting all of the Magus' class features, which give them way better action economy and medium armor with no ASF, EK is a bit worse all around. It'll catch up on HP and spells, but that's a clear advantage for Magus at level 7, after 6 levels of EK just not being a thing. I guess you can just be a regular wizard up to level 5, then dip Fighter and suddenly try to frontline without armor, but that doesn't sound like a great plan.

By level 12, a Magus has 12d8, (average 54) 9 BAB, saves of 8/4/8, and 5/5/5/4/3 spells per day. A Wizard 5/Fighter 1/EK 6 has 5d6+7d10 HD, 9 BAB, (average 56) saves 6/3/6, and 4/4/4/3/3/2 spells per day. Wizard is now one spell level ahead, but has one less spell per day (16 not counting cantrips vs Magus' 17) even before spell recall. And a Magus is one level away from trading up to heavy armor, so 2 less HP, better saves, and better AC. BAB is now equal, with the EK pulling ahead by 1 at 13 and staying there until 16. So, I'm still giving this one to the Magus, though the EK does cast 5th level spells 2 levels sooner, and 6th level spells 3 levels sooner. Then EK gets 7s at the same time as Magus gets 6s.

EK might pull ahead around level 14 or 15, then you run out of levels to take and have to find another prestige class, or just go back to Wizard and fall behind on BAB. And I don't think there's a full casting, full BAB prestige class you could take, so at the very least you're losing one or the other. So no, a Magus is objectively not a worse Eldritch Knight. Except maybe at like 2 or 3 levels out of 20.

[Rynjin]

It's literally like this.

Eldritch Knight pros:

-Gets 9s

Magus pros:
-Better action economy
-Superior combat ability
-Superior defenses

Now "gets 9s" is a HUGE pro, but EK is objectively worse at being a gish than Magus, and objectively worse at being a Wizard than...Wizard. Like it's strong in the same way Spellslinger is strong. It sucks compared to a regular Wizard but it's still technically a Wizard so cool?

[Drelua]

It's literally like this.

Eldritch Knight pros:

-Gets 9s

Magus pros:
-Better action economy
-Superior combat ability
-Superior defenses

Now "gets 9s" is a HUGE pro, but EK is objectively worse at being a gish than Magus, and objectively worse at being a Wizard than...Wizard. Like it's strong in the same way Spellslinger is strong. It sucks compared to a regular Wizard but it's still technically a Wizard so cool?

Exactly, EK pulls ahead at very high levels but at most levels Magus is one spell level behind, if that, but EK barely has any class features other than a few bonus feats and probably arcane bond while Magus has tonnes. Spell combat, spell strike, spell recall, all great abilities below level 10 while EK is waiting until level 16 to maybe get swift action casting, if they can land a crit.

[Thunder999]

Eldritch Knight doesn't actually pull ahead at high levels, those 9ths don't really make you a better Gish.
In fact at really high level, a pure wizard beats and Eldritch Knight since you just cast Emblem of Greed and have better BAB for far lower cost.
Even then every round you spend casting spells is a round you spend not actually hitting things and vice versa.

The only way an eldrtich knight is ahead of a magus is if you don't even bother with the martial stuff and just play like a wizard, but that's barely an eldritch knight, it's a wizard with a few dead levels.

[Drelua]

Eldritch Knight doesn't actually pull ahead at high levels, those 9ths don't really make you a better Gish.
In fact at really high level, a pure wizard beats and Eldritch Knight since you just cast Emblem of Greed and have better BAB for far lower cost.
Even then every round you spend casting spells is a round you spend not actually hitting things and vice versa.

The only way an eldrtich knight is ahead of a magus is if you don't even bother with the martial stuff and just play like a wizard, but that's barely an eldritch knight, it's a wizard with a few dead levels.

True, I meant that it pulls ahead in power, but that's only if you're not doing the thing you're built to do. Magus kinda makes Eldritch Knight pointless, which I'm fine with considering it's a full BAB 9/10 casting PrC that gives a few bonus feats and one actual class feature. Oh, and you can count it as fighter levels on the off chance there's a feat you want. You can take Disruptive and Spellbreaker I guess, so that's one thing Magus can't do. They can get Disruptive, but they only have the Fighter level for Spellbreaker as of level 20.

[Aquillion]

I'm not just trying to insult inquisitors or anything, but unless someone can seriously reshape the battlefield I can't even see them in tier 3.

Wait, hold on. Maybe we should go back to the tier definitions again:


Tier 3: Capable of doing one thing quite well, while still being useful when that one thing is inappropriate, or capable of doing all things, but not as well as classes that specialize in that area. Occasionally has a mechanical ability that can solve an encounter, but this is relatively rare and easy to deal with. Challenging such a character takes some thought from the DM, but isn't too difficult. Will outshine any Tier 5s in the party much of the time.

"Seriously reshaping the battlefield" more than occasionally is usually something above Tier 3. And Inquisitors do get a few spells to let resolve encounters occasionally (eg. Silence, Inflict Pain, Terrible Remorse, Darkness.)

They're decent combatants and are still useful when fighting is inappropriate, and they're decent jack-of-all-trades.

Yes, Bards are a bit better, but that's not really a fair comparison (Bards are probably 2.5 due to the significant number of powerful spells that they get at a lower-than-normal level, like Hideous Laughter and Confusion; they can resolve encounters with a spell like that more than "occasionally", which puts them above 3.) But Inquisitors are almost textbook T3. Yes, they're not the absolute best option, but the absolute best options are going to be T2.5 or even higher.


It's literally like this.

Eldritch Knight pros:

-Gets 9s

Magus pros:
-Better action economy
-Superior combat ability
-Superior defenses

Now "gets 9s" is a HUGE pro, but EK is objectively worse at being a gish than Magus, and objectively worse at being a Wizard than...Wizard. Like it's strong in the same way Spellslinger is strong. It sucks compared to a regular Wizard but it's still technically a Wizard so cool?
I mean, getting 9s covers a ton of other stuff, too. Like, an EK who rolls into combat with a ton of buffs up is going to have better combat ability and defenses, aren't they?

That said, I don't think the classes are comparable. At the end of the day the EK is still T1 (on the lower end due to sacrificing a caster level plus some features and getting little of value in return, but that's not enough to bump them from T1), while a Magus definitely isn't anywhere close to that. The fact that the EK is more of a wizard who moonlights as a fighter occasionally doesn't change that - we're rating classes based on their overall effectiveness, not how good they are at filling any one specific role or goal.

I also think that we should generally avoid thinking in terms of "X is generally better" (which I noticed for both the EK / Magus discussion and the Bard / Inquisitor discussion.) I mean, if a class isn't T1, there's generally going to be another class who is roughly better than them, or at least could be if they focused on it - that's what the tiers mean. Classes should be evaluated based on how they fit the tier descriptions themselves and not based on whether there are better options.

(Belatedly, I also think this affected the Occultist discussions - eg. Silksworn Occultists are very strong casters for a non-fullcaster, perhaps the strongest non-fullcasters in the game. If you ask the question "can a Silksworn Occultist regularly cast spells that resolve an encounter", the answer is yes - they get a ton of spell slots and spells known, they get bonuses to their save DCs, and they have a spell list that has a bunch of spells that can take advantage of that. But it's hard for people to rate them with that caveat because the immediate instinct is to compare them to full casters; at the end of the day the Silksworn uses a ton of abilities to be not quite as good as a Sorcerer.)

To get back on track - basically, it doesn't matter how good the Bard or the EK are; that doesn't affect the rating for Inquisitor or Magus at all. We're rating classes based on how good that class is at resolving problems, not about whether some other class could theoretically do it better. Otherwise we'd just rate the full-casters as 1 and everyone else as 5.

[Gnaeus]

(Belatedly, I also think this affected the Occultist discussions - eg. Silksworn Occultists are very strong casters for a non-fullcaster, perhaps the strongest non-fullcasters in the game. If you ask the question "can a Silksworn Occultist regularly cast spells that resolve an encounter", the answer is yes - they get a ton of spell slots and spells known, they get bonuses to their save DCs, and they have a spell list that has a bunch of spells that can take advantage of that. But it's hard for people to rate them with that caveat because the immediate instinct is to compare them to full casters; at the end of the day the Silksworn uses a ton of abilities to be not quite as good as a Sorcerer.)


I think even that is an understatement of the Occultist. I'd rather have a Silksworn for the first half of the game, a Sorcerer in the back half. The Silksworn can use level appropriate spells and powers a lot longer than the sorcerer can, with more long duration buffs and a better chassis to boot. Whether the sorcerer really takes the lead at 10 or closer to 12 for me depends on table assumptions (like how is Planar Binding used). But in a game I didn't expect to see level 14+ I'd absolutely rather have a Silksworn on my team. He will be better for more of the expected play time.

[Rynjin]

I mean, getting 9s covers a ton of other stuff, too. Like, an EK who rolls into combat with a ton of buffs up is going to have better combat ability and defenses, aren't they?

Not really, no. The Sor/Wiz list isn't exactly jam packed with combat buffs, and most of the great one sthey do have are level 6 or below anyway. Magus gets all of those and more.

[Drelua]

That said, I don't think the classes are comparable. At the end of the day the EK is still T1 (on the lower end due to sacrificing a caster level plus some features and getting little of value in return, but that's not enough to bump them from T1), while a Magus definitely isn't anywhere close to that. The fact that the EK is more of a wizard who moonlights as a fighter occasionally doesn't change that - we're rating classes based on their overall effectiveness, not how good they are at filling any one specific role or goal.

I also think that we should generally avoid thinking in terms of "X is generally better" (which I noticed for both the EK / Magus discussion and the Bard / Inquisitor discussion.) I mean, if a class isn't T1, there's generally going to be another class who is roughly better than them, or at least could be if they focused on it - that's what the tiers mean. Classes should be evaluated based on how they fit the tier descriptions themselves and not based on whether there are better options.

Oh, I definitely agree that EK is more powerful, because it's just a somewhat self-nerfed Wizard, at certain levels at least. But the claim was made that Magus is just a worse EK, which isn't true. It may be stronger, but it is not the same but stronger. I don't think an EK can pump out as much damage, at least not without a high amount of optimization. They have more options, but one of those options is not to be a more effective gish than Magus. I'm not sure the EK is more powerful though, at least at certain, low to mid levels. Delaying Wizard casting by 2 levels puts them fairly close to a Magus' progression at some points, with a lower CL. At level 7, a Magus has the same level spells. At 12, they have 1 level lower spells but more per day. Is a Magus really weaker than an EK that has higher level spells by 1, when you consider their action economy?

But yes, it's important to judge a class when tiering, not whether or not another class does their main shtick better. Even if there are better gishes, a Magus is still extremely effective in combat with enough spells and skill points to give them ways to contribute out of combat.

[TotallyNotEvil]

And I wouldn't even consider them better gishes.

Better casters, yeah, but not having to choose between attacking and casting, and being pretty good at both, makes them kind of unbeatable at that.

As I see it, that's the biggest point gishes have to deal with- you are never both caster and fighter at once, generally you just have flexibility.

[ciopo]

I don't understand this comparison to the EK at all. What self nerfed wizard? Why the assumption of a wizard entry at all? It's an apples to oranges comparison, who's to say the hypothetical EK isn't doing a.. a... a silly bloodrager entry because of ??? Reasons

The existence of this or that PrC shouldn't weight on tier discussions, or everybody without good BAB and/or amazing favored class bonuses is going to be an evangelist

[Kurald Galain]

You can take Disruptive and Spellbreaker I guess, so that's one thing Magus can't do. They can get Disruptive, but they only have the Fighter level for Spellbreaker as of level 20.

Not that spellbreaker is particularly great, but Magus can take it at level 9 (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/paizo-magus-arcana/spellbreaker-ex/).

[Drelua]

I don't understand this comparison to the EK at all. What self nerfed wizard? Why the assumption of a wizard entry at all? It's an apples to oranges comparison, who's to say the hypothetical EK isn't doing a.. a... a silly bloodrager entry because of ??? Reasons

The existence of this or that PrC shouldn't weight on tier discussions, or everybody without good BAB and/or amazing favored class bonuses is going to be an evangelist

Completely agree that EK shouldn't impact the tiering of Magus, but sometimes comparing a class to something kind of similar can help you understand what it can do. I called an EK a self nerfed Wizard because they're delaying their casting by probably 2 levels for basically just some BAB, and I didn't compare to a Bloodrager entry because they would gain nothing by taking EK, and wouldn't qualify until level 10. Someone said Magus is just a worse EK, you can't disprove that by comparing it to an EK build that gains nothing from the PrC. I could have also compared to a Sorcadin build, but that would delay the level they gain new spell levels by an extra 1, or 2 if they grabbed Divine Grace, so it would be a more favourable comparison. I went with Fighter 1/Wizard 5 because it's probably they entry designers thought most likely, it's simple, and it's probably the best option. To disprove the claim that Magus is a worse EK, I had to compare it to the best EK build I could without doing anything too complicated or using any tricks most players wouldn't think of.


Not that spellbreaker is particularly great, but Magus can take it at level 9 (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/paizo-magus-arcana/spellbreaker-ex/).

Interesting that they can get it before Fighter, and without Disruptive. I guess it makes sense in a way. They would have a better understanding of casting than Fighters, so I guess that could make it easier for them to learn how to find an opening. But yeah I kinda forgot enemies had to fail their cast defensively check for the feat to do anything, that really isn't great.

[ciopo]

Yes, and base wizard is worse than an evangelist wizard with ecletic training. Hell, just about any non-fullBAB class is worse than that same class+evangelist + optional ecletic training if it has spellcasting, but we aren't giving a worse rating to wizard because it's worse than an evangelist wizard, are we?

[Drelua]

Yes, and base wizard is worse than an evangelist wizard with ecletic training. Hell, just about any non-fullBAB class is worse than that same class+evangelist + optional ecletic training if it has spellcasting, but we aren't giving a worse rating to wizard because it's worse than an evangelist wizard, are we?

No, we're not, and I've said more than once in this thread and others that we shouldn't. So I don't really get where you're coming from here.

[ciopo]

Chalk it up as a misunderstanding on my part then

[Kurald Galain]

for the Occultist - it's very noticeable that the people rating it low are just scoring the base Occultist, while the people arguing for higher ratings constantly mention stuff like eg. Trappings of the Warrior

Question for @Pabelfly: what would happen to the ratings if you split the occultist into categories for Trappings of Warrior, Silksworn, and baseline?

[pabelfly]

Question for @Pabelfly: what would happen to the ratings if you split the occultist into categories for Trappings of Warrior, Silksworn, and baseline?

I'm happy to do it in the next thread and see if there's much meaningful difference. I was planning to do something similar for Kineticist since there are several distinct subclasses with very different play styles.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm happy to do it in the next thread and see if there's much meaningful difference. I was planning to do something similar for Kineticist since there are several distinct subclasses with very different play styles.

That's a good point. There's also the Vigilante, which by default is not a caster but has several spellcasting archetypes that I expect to rate higher; and Shaman seems split between Lore Spirit, uncommon/advanced races, and baseline.

PF has a point-based system for creating races, and describes quite a lot of races as either uncommon ("Some races are so uncommon that their very existence may be the subject of debate") or advanced ("GMs are cautioned to consider the power levels of PCs built using these races very carefully before allowing them to be played"). Predictably, these races are commonly disallowed in campaigns. The point here is poaching spells from other lists: baseline shaman can take from the cleric list (which largely overlaps with shaman list in the first place), uncommon/advanced races allow him to take from the druid/wizard/psychic list, which is a big deal. I think this is the only class where it actually matters (for tiering) whether your GM allows rare or high-power races.

And of course the Rogue is split between regular and Eldritch Scoundrel, but we've already tackled that.

[pabelfly]

New procedure update: Archetypes are tiered separately from classes. Three votes are required for an archetype for it to make it to the master list, and the archetype needs to be more than half a tier stronger or weaker than the base class to be added to the list.

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper, Buddy76 – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Kitsuneymg – 2.75
Rynjin – 2.8
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Coerleum, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Gnaeus – 4

Average – 2.89



Warpriest
AnonymousPepper – 2.8
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Gnaeus, Thompur – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Kitsuneymg, Buddy76 – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.27



Warpriest (Arsenal Chaplain)
AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Kitsuneymg – 3.25

Average – 2.88



Inquisitor
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999, Exelsisxax, Kitsuneymg, Rynjin, Inquisitor, Gnaeus, Second Arrow, Thompur – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.07



Inquisitor (Monster Tactician)
SecondArrow - 2.5

Average – 2.5



Occultist
Coerleum – 2
Gnaeus – 2.5
TotallyNotEvil, Rynjin – 3
Thunder999, Exelsisxax – 3.4
Buddy76 – 3.5
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Kitsuneymg – 4

Average – 3.28

[thompur]

Inquisitor-3
Magus - 3
Warpriest - 3
Occultist - n/a I have no experience with them. I've never played one, nor been in a game with one.

[pabelfly]

Inquisitor-3
Magus - 3
Warpriest - 3
Occultist - n/a I have no experience with them. I've never played one, nor been in a game with one.

Okay, added.

[Kurald Galain]

Since we're looking at archetypes more, I want to mention that Hexcrafter Magus gets witch hexes, and therefore has access to Greater Planar Ally. Do people feel this qualifies as a tier increase?

[exelsisxax]

Since we're looking at archetypes more, I want to mention that Hexcrafter Magus gets witch hexes, and therefore has access to Greater Planar Ally. Do people feel this qualifies as a tier increase?

I am of the opinion that nothing you get at 18th level should matter because it may as well not be a class feature, in addition to the hex not being actual planar ally. A humanoid ghost just isn't that useful and changes nothing.

[Gnaeus]

I am of the opinion that nothing you get at 18th level should matter because it may as well not be a class feature, in addition to the hex not being actual planar ally. A humanoid ghost just isn't that useful and changes nothing.

I would agree that 18th level features aren't particularly relevant. As to an 18hd humanoid ghost, that's as good/bad as the DM makes it. An 18th level ghost caster is amazing. It doesn't even look like you can necessarily say "I want an 18th level ghost". If it's like planar ally, it might be more "I want a ghost" and you get one of up to 18th level. That's so open-ended as to be unrateable. It would be pretty rude of DM not to make it good. But not impossible or un-RAW

[AnonymousPepper]

Tell you what, split my Warpriest rating into, say, 2.8 Warpriest and 2.5 Arsenal Chaplain, I think. Arsenal Chaplain, as I mentioned, makes the class significantly better than it already is in most situations, and I think it carries a lot of weight for a class that's otherwise pretty solid but not amazing. If it's going to be rated separately, then Warpriest itself deserves to have its rating divested a little from its best archetype to account for that.

Really says a lot about just how dang good Weapon Training is as a class feature. God, Paizo really did nail making the Fighter not suck after its mediocre showing in 3.5e; it, Paladin, and Monk (specifically chained qingong and unchained) got some massive glow-ups.

[ciopo]

Arsenal chaplain is definetively a upgrade of an archetype, I don't know however if it's the kind of upgrade that matters for the tiers, when the baseline is 3+.

Like, at the end of the day the effect of the archetype is "more reliable and higher damage" and potentially access to advanced weapon training if you're not playing in PFS and your GM accept you would be getting a 2nd/3rd/4th groups at 9th/13th/17th.

And those are all very nice! but do they increase the tier? specifically in a t3-to-t2 situation? I dont' feel "more damage" is an hallmark that moves a t3 toward t2. The reason Warpriest is t3 is because it's 6/9 casting with solid martialing about. An increase in the martial power is not something that brings the class closer to t2. It's somethign that would move a t5 strongly toward t4, or a t4 a bit toward t3, but to increase a t3 takes something more, I feel

T3 for warpriest and Inquisitor for me as votes, by the way, no comment on magus and occultist as I haven't munchkined about them enough to know what I'm talking about

[AnonymousPepper]

Arsenal chaplain is definetively a upgrade of an archetype, I don't know however if it's the kind of upgrade that matters for the tiers, when the baseline is 3+.

Like, at the end of the day the effect of the archetype is "more reliable and higher damage" and potentially access to advanced weapon training if you're not playing in PFS and your GM accept you would be getting a 2nd/3rd/4th groups at 9th/13th/17th.

And those are all very nice! but do they increase the tier? specifically in a t3-to-t2 situation? I dont' feel "more damage" is an hallmark that moves a t3 toward t2. The reason Warpriest is t3 is because it's 6/9 casting with solid martialing about. An increase in the martial power is not something that brings the class closer to t2. It's somethign that would move a t5 strongly toward t4, or a t4 a bit toward t3, but to increase a t3 takes something more, I feel

T3 for warpriest and Inquisitor for me as votes, by the way, no comment on magus and occultist as I haven't munchkined about them enough to know what I'm talking about

It's not more damage, it's the Advanced Weapon Trainings, which I definitely do read as the class gaining access to as a GM myself; it says you gain the weapon training class feature, specifically, and that wording is at minimum good enough to let you take the Advanced Weapon Training feat itself, even if you torture yourself and the wording to denying gaining natural advanced weapon training (which I can't emphasize enough is absurd in my book).

With that out of the way, Warrior Spirit giving you access to things like Ghost Touch or (later on) Brilliant Energy on demand, specifically, is a huge versatility boost that I think is worth being rated separately alone, and the other stuff from it is just gravy but also solid. Getting stacks-with-everything +4 bonus to your weak save (Fighter's Reflexes) or even getting to sub your BAB for your Reflex Save (Weapon Mastery -> Spellcut), getting an initiative bonus that stacks with Improved Initiative (Trained Initiative), getting to finesse and dual-wield and get bonus damage for funny things for SAD builds (Fighter's Finesse and Trained Grace), getting extra skills (Versatile Training)... yum.

There's also the somewhat cheesy and I would certainly say not legal but funny possibility of gaining your full Sacred Weapon feature back that you traded off in your archetype via Focused Weapon. Again, I wouldn't allow it, it has no bearing on my rating of Arsenal Chaplain, but I'm mentioning it because it's hilarious. Ask your GM and give them some puppy eyes and free pizza.

[Rynjin]

It's not more damage, it's the Advanced Weapon Trainings, which I definitely do read as the class gaining access to as a GM myself; it says you gain the weapon training class feature, specifically, and that wording is at minimum good enough to let you take the Advanced Weapon Training feat itself, even if you torture yourself and the wording to denying gaining natural advanced weapon training (which I can't emphasize enough is absurd in my book).

It's not tortured reading once you understand that Advanced Weapon Training is a separate class feature.

Arsenal Chaplains definitely qualify for the Feat though.

[AnonymousPepper]

It's not tortured reading once you understand that Advanced Weapon Training is a separate class feature.

Arsenal Chaplains definitely qualify for the Feat though.

Nothing in the text says it's a separate feature. It definitely reads to me like an extension of the existing feature and not a new one.

Even then, though, the advanced weapon training that's a straight-up tier booster would require a single feat, and Warpriests get bonus feats.

[ciopo]

For the record I myself accept getting AWT at 9th/13/17th.

And weapon spirit is my first pick at 9th.

But the thing is, we have had ghost touch on demand since level 4th due to sacred weapon, brilliant energy too one level early than when you'd get it from weapon spirit, barring dueling gloves. (16th instead of 17th)

Still very powerful, since weapon spirit is not from a curated list of properties, and so can do quite the shenanigans, my favourite being Training for on demand feat access

Still not solving any "new" problem that the vanilla warpriest couldnt solve just the same, that's my feel on it, hence why while on a rating of "power" arsenal chaplain is definetively plusses, it's not the kind of power that bridges the gap between t2 and t3.

Especially with the little lost versatility with being locked in to the (good!) War blessings. War blessings are good, but ironically it's giving up some toolset abilities that are otherwise not usually available to divine gishes, such as flight or tactical teleportation.

I like arsenal chaplain, I'm just not convicnced it moves a solid t3 further up toward t2, if it did, I'd rather baseline warpriest as t2, too


Even then, though, the advanced weapon training that's a straight-up tier booster would require a single feat, and Warpriests get bonus feats.

If AWT is enough for you to bring a class to t2, then you should vote fighter as t2, too.

I see it as a "being already further ahead" problem. Giving full BAB to a wizard doesn't increase it's tier in spite of definetively being objectively stronger than a vanilla wizard, arsenal chaplain is kind of in that same boat to this, to me

[AnonymousPepper]

Enough to get to T2 on its own? Nah. In any case, I didn't specify T2 - 2.5 is the highest T3.

It's enough in conjunction with all the other goodies that Warpriest has to push it upward by .3-.5 points while remaining in tier.

[ciopo]

Peace, all in good faith, I like warpriest and I like arsenal chaplain, wasn't trying to put words in your mouth!

[AnonymousPepper]

Peace, all in good faith, I like warpriest and I like arsenal chaplain, wasn't trying to put words in your mouth!

Apologies, you didn't deserve that. Mildly tilted from some genuine bad faith in another thread on the boards.

I do stand by that I think it's a major, major boost for the class, though. The sheer versatility of Warrior Spirit is unparalleled outside of some particularly cheesy things in Pathfinder (Paragon Surge shenanigans for example). And, unlike its spell choices, you don't have to prepare to have Ghost Touch on demand for example.

[ciopo]

Yeah, I just find it funny you mention ghost touch, because any Good warpriest has had that on demand since 4th level when sacred weapon got it's first +1! No matter that it's for rounds/day, how often dos it happen that you fight bith incorporeals and stuff vulnerable to fie/ice/electricity in the same day? (Now I jinxed it and I just know it's gonna happen to me)

I wish sacred weapon didn't lock in for the day on first use.

Extra funny : using warrior spirit to put Training(advanced weapon training)!

[AnonymousPepper]

Yeah, I just find it funny you mention ghost touch, because any Good warpriest has had that on demand since 4th level when sacred weapon got it's first +1! No matter that it's for rounds/day, how often dos it happen that you fight bith incorporeals and stuff vulnerable to fie/ice/electricity in the same day? (Now I jinxed it and I just know it's gonna happen to me)

I wish sacred weapon didn't lock in for the day on first use.

Extra funny : using warrior spirit to put Training(advanced weapon training)!

I mention it because from experience lacking Ghost Touch when you get the need for it sprung on you is one of the biggest causes of party wipes that isn't just horribly underestimating the difficulty of an encounter. You can't run from an aggro'd incorporeal enemy, after all, and you can only half damage it at best while it thwacks you with whatever kind of exotic touch attack riders it's packing.

[Kurald Galain]

Nothing in the text says it's a separate feature. It definitely reads to me like an extension of the existing feature and not a new one.
That's because d20pfsrd mixes material from multiple books together. If you check the books (or aonprd) then it's clearly a distinct feaure, that the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain doesn't get.

So put me down for the same rating for Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain as I posted for regular warpriest, as I don't think it gets enough of a boost to change tiers.

[thompur]

I'm playing a Monster Tactician Inquisitor in a 9th level module, and, yeah...2.5.
While most of the options are effectively "Wall of Meat" , there are enough that
have other useful spells and abilities, that they up your versatility.

[Thunder999]

I can't see Monster Tactician being better than the unchained summoner, which can also spam summon monster, but gets an Eidolon on top.

Arsenal Chaplain is a monster at pure DPR, but that's not really relevant to tiers, being able to effectively kill stuff is a requirement for tier 4 and expected for any tier 3+ class that actually wants to.

[Rynjin]

I can't see Monster Tactician being better than the unchained summoner, which can also spam summon monster, but gets an Eidolon on top.

Inquisitor has a better spell list and class features than UnSummoner...and the UnSummoner Eidolon is very weak and limited (and can't exist at the same time as summoned monsters anyway).

[Thunder999]

Inquisitor list is better for self buffing, but not in general, it doesn't even have flight or teleportation on it, let alone BFC.

Unchained Eidolon is certainly worse than chained, but that just makes it the 2nd best minion class feature, because it's still better than a familiar, phantom or animcal companion

[Kurald Galain]

Inquisitor list is better for self buffing, but not in general, it doesn't even have flight or teleportation on it, let alone BFC.

Unchained Eidolon is certainly worse than chained, but that just makes it the 2nd best minion class feature, because it's still better than a familiar, phantom or animcal companion

Yeah, I agree. Monster tactician gets higher DPR than baseline inquisitor but that doesn't change its tier. So put me down for the same rating as the baseline.

[Rynjin]

Summoned monsters don't only add to DPR though, that's a lot of added utility. Summoning a Lillend Azata, for example, at level 11 is like giving the Inquisitor ~10 more spell slots, most of which are quite good.

[exelsisxax]

Monster tactician is not necessarily strong because of what you get (though it definitely is a really good feature) but how little you trade for it. You give up only judgement features and discern lies for better than summoner summon monster and automatic teamwork feats for all of them. It's an upgrade even if you exclusively do meatshields and beatsticks, and as Rynjin notes higher-level options include relevant spellcasting and unusual features that you can get onto the field as desired. better DPR doesn't warrant a bump, but better DPR while having several sorcerers in your back pocket probably does.

[Aquillion]

Yeah, I agree. Monster tactician gets higher DPR than baseline inquisitor but that doesn't change its tier. So put me down for the same rating as the baseline.
You're definitely underselling it. They don't just get Summon Monster, they get Summon Monster as a full-caster. They get new tiers of Summon Monster as fast as anyone in the game, and in fact get more casts of the highest-available level of Summon Monster than almost anyone else in the game.

And they get other bonuses on top of this; the summons last longer and get substantial buffs from your Teamwork feats, plus you get to add choices from the Expanded Summon Monster (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/expanded-summon-monster) feat. That's a lot of choices with a lot of bonuses.

For example:


Shadow Demon: deeper darkness, fear, telekinesis, all unlimited usage for as long as it's summoned. Shadow Evocation / Shadow Conjuration, three times per summoning; Magic Jar, once per summoning. Also serves as an incorporeal, telepathic scout or assassin. Can also spam Fear in combat once it has done its other stuff.
Babau: Can spam Dispel Magic. Every round, for 1 minute / level.
Bone Devil: At-will Wall of Ice.
Lillend Azata: Full 7th level Bard casting.


From the Expanded Summon Monster List:


Several third level options grant Commune in addition to other spells.
Cerberi: Dimensional Anchor on a bite.
Contract Devil: You probably don't want to sign its contract yourself (although doing so is really powerful), but you can have it offer contracts to allies and dupes to amazing effect. Find someone - anyone - who wants something you want well enough to sell their soul for it (eg. to bring down a shared enemy) and bam.
Ostiarius Kyton: Shadow Walk at 100 miles per hour, bringing up to five people along. Note that since this is not a Teleportation effect, it bypasses the usual limitation on summons (but some DMs will forbid it anyway.)


In addition to having a huge range of SLAs and monsters with special features on call, you can use all sorts of tricks with teamwork feats, eg Stealth Synergy combined with summoning a large number of monsters with this makes you and anyone else you share your teamwork feats an absolute master of Stealth.

Now, of course, that's just one spell, but Summon Monster is still one of the most versatile spells in the game; casting it eight times a day as if you were a full-caster, with increased duration and other buffs, is a big deal.

It doesn't make them T2, but I think it clearly brings them closer to T2 due to the increased versatility and power. There are absolutely a variety of "resolve this entire situation with one casting" and a few "drastically change the direction of the plot" options on the Summon Monster + Expanded Summon Monster list.

[Gnaeus]

I agree they may not be T2, but you absolutely sold me on playing a monster tactician.

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Magus
Kurald Galain, AnonymousPepper, Buddy76 – 2.5
Thunder999 – 2.6
Kitsuneymg – 2.75
Rynjin – 2.8
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Coerleum, Exelsisxax, Thompur – 3
Gnaeus – 4

Average – 2.89



Warpriest
AnonymousPepper – 2.8
Vasilidor, TotallyNotEvil, Gnaeus, Thompur, Ciopo – 3
Exelsisxax – 3.2
Thunder999 – 3.3
Rynjin – 3.4
Kurald Galain, Kitsuneymg, Buddy76 – 3.5
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.25



Warpriest (Arsenal Chaplain)
AnonymousPepper – 2.5
Kitsuneymg – 3.25

Average – 2.88



Inquisitor
AnonymousPepper – 2.9
TotallyNotEvil, Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Thunder999, Exelsisxax, Kitsuneymg, Rynjin, Inquisitor, Gnaeus, Second Arrow, Thompur, Ciopo – 3
Coerleum – 4

Average – 3.06



Inquisitor (Monster Tactician)
SecondArrow, Thompur - 2.5
Kurald Galain – 3

Average – 2.67



Occultist
Coerleum – 2
Gnaeus – 2.5
TotallyNotEvil, Rynjin – 3
Thunder999, Exelsisxax – 3.4
Buddy76 – 3.5
Kurald Galain, Vasilidor, Kitsuneymg – 4

Average – 3.28