Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Orca]

The Ecclesitheurge is probably going to be buffed before it's nerfed too. The text makes a reference to an ability it doesn't have (blessing of the faithful) and people on the Paizo boards seriously think it trades away more than it gets.

Archmage, on how to play a lone conjurer at 5th level: invisibility followed by summoning stuff and maybe buffing the summons is your best bet, but create pit followed by summon swarm to fill the pit with spiders or bats also works. If you're facing mooks color spray + coup de grace can still be effective at this level. If you're playing a gnome with the Effortless Trickery feat then illusions of summons and one real one can be an effective bluff. I.e. Don't dump the illusion school.

[GnomeWorks]

Ecclesitheurge is completely batshit. If I ever play PF I know what I'm playing. Yeesh.

Is there something to it that I'm not seeing? At most the bit about being able to cast domain spells with non-domain slots seems like the only thing you could do potentially-crazy things with, but I'm insufficiently knowledgeable regarding PF clerics to know what that would be.

[name_here]

Well, you do also get to swap one of your domain spell lists but not granted powers when you prep spells, but I'm not really seeing it either.

That said, they have made a bunch of new domains, so I imagine that some star spells off the wizard list are available. Still, not sure how that outperforms just being a wizard.

[Mask_De_H]

Subdomains give you a lot of potential spell choices to swap and you get to cast any spell you know (so any spell off the cleric list or your main domain) once a day for free.

If you pick a god with good domains (or make up a god with good domains), it's pretty money. The fact you can't wear armor and don't get mage armor/shield kinda sucks though.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay.

1.) The domain swap thing is berserkly powerful. There are cleric domains that hand out great downtime spells (Rune, Artifice) but are questionable in combat. And vice-versa. What's more, there are also domains that hand out great powers but have questionable spell lists, like Freedom and Eagle.

2.) You get to stack item creation feats onto your holy symbol as if you had them. This is boss as fuck, because while crafted magical items are the sweetest things ever in Pathfinder they will eat through your feats like candy. Yes, I would like to be able to turn my holy symbol into a Master's Staff of Necromancy and a Metamagic Rod of Quicken.

3.) Once per day, you get to cast any spell off of the cleric list or from your domain even if you don't have it prepared. Go back a couple of pages and read my analysis of level 4-6 cleric spells. I wrote a lot of those entries on the assumption that you'd get to be able to snag the wizard's arcane bond feature with a two-feat chain. Being able to break out an emergency plane shift or communal protection from evil or a recentering drone or a communal water breathing or a disrupting weapon or etc. at the appropriate caster level without burning through scrolls is absolutely fucking lifesaving.

Seriously, this archetype is like the greatest thing to happen to clerics that will be allowed in most games. Granted, not every cleric ever is going to want to use it (i.e. frontliners or people suffering under DMs who hold a nonstandard interpretation of how subdomains interact with archetypes) but if you're a blaster cleric or a cleric archer I can't know why you wouldn't want this class.

[Archmage Joda]

Not to mention Ecclesitheurge also gets a cleric version of the wizard's arcane bond item, but with the cleric's whole "knows the entire cleric list automatically" bit. So basically, 1/day spontaneous casting of any cleric spell of any level they can cast.

[Ice9]

It's a a definite improvement for certain types of Cleric build. I'm not seeing "batshit" though. Good for spell picks, but you can already do the "downtime spell swap" with Dreamed Secrets.

Admittedly, most PF campaigns I've played have had Psionics, therefore Psychic Reformation. Without that, the bonded item enchantability would be more important.

As for what it loses - losing armor is a disadvantage. Maybe not a huge one for a back-line type, but keep in mind that the Monk's Robe explicitly doesn't give Wis-to-AC in PF, so you'd be losing a level to get that.

Losing Channel Energy is more of a mixed bag. Channel Energy can actually be really fucking good if you use Variant Channeling and some feats, but if you didn't feel like investing in it, then losing it is no big deal, especially at higher level.

[Archmage Joda]

Ecclesitheurge does make me want to make a cleric that is mechanically a cleric but flavorwise is a wizard (I just don't like supplicating myself before deities or such, it's a personal preference thing), I just always get hung up on specific domains to take. Per Lago's previous posts, I lean towards Void domain or Travel domain, but I never know what good complementary combinations of domains to take for my pet idea of a "wizard" cleric.

[name_here]

I don't actually think you can do #2. It lets you pretend you have magic item creation feats but doesn't say you can enchant it as whatever type of item you feel like. The physical descriptions of the categories don't overlap.

[rampaging-poet]

Either way it works like a free item creation feat for whatever your holy symbol happens to be, and if you've got a little time and money to burn you can swap out your bonded holy symbol for a different one that falls under another item type without having to take another feat.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The physical descriptions of the categories don't overlap.

Your holy symbol is now a large phallic rod attached to a chain on your neck with whatever symbolic adornments you please attached to it. You know, like an oversized rood, minus the creepy naked guy on it. That nicely covers staves, rods, and amulets.

[Shiritai]

Speaking of bonded holy symbols and the like, what's your take on this line: "If a bonded holy symbol's owner dies or the item is replaced, the object reverts to being an ordinary holy symbol."? It seems to imply that the holy symbol loses its enchantments if the character dies.

[rasmuswagner]

Speaking of bonded holy symbols and the like, what's your take on this line: "If a bonded holy symbol's owner dies or the item is replaced, the object reverts to being an ordinary holy symbol."? It seems to imply that the holy symbol loses its enchantments if the character dies.

permadeath only, I'd say.

[name_here]

The physical descriptions of the categories don't overlap.

Your holy symbol is now a large phallic rod attached to a chain on your neck with whatever symbolic adornments you please attached to it. You know, like an oversized rood, minus the creepy naked guy on it. That nicely covers staves, rods, and amulets.

No, it is too long to be a rod, and since it is a stave it is not a wonderous item.

Seriously, the physical descriptions are disjoint sets.

[Axebird]

You seem to be assuming you have access to any domains you like. Deities in Pathfinder get 4 or 5 domains, and usually half are bad.

Being able to get any of the downtime spells your deity has in a domain is pretty sweet, but I wouldn't call it berserkly powerful. And losing armor is a fairly big deal for clerics, since they don't have as many defensive spells that can be layered to become an unkillable god-king and the ability completely halts any attempt to buy proficiencies (or 0 ACP armor) and wear armor anyway.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Rods weigh approximately 5 pounds. They range from 2 feet to 3 feet long and are usually made of iron or some other metal.

Physical Description: A typical staff measures anywhere from 4 feet to 7 feet long and is 2 inches to 3 inches thick, weighing about 5 pounds.

If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character's body, the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection 2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5.

You seem to be assuming you have access to any domains you like. Deities in Pathfinder get 4 or 5 domains, and usually half are bad.

Pathfinder deities have more than that. Subdomains and nature domains and all. Hell, there are deities that have subdomains but don't have the 'main' domain. However, I will concede that a particularly Gygaxian DM will look at the mix-and-match archetype chart and conclude that ecclesitheurge clerics can't pick up subdomains even though that flies in the face of RAW and RAI. I've never had or even heard of that happening, though; none of the cleric or druid or inquisitor class guides even bring it up.

And losing armor is a fairly big deal for clerics, since they don't have as many defensive spells that can be layered to become an unkillable god-king and the ability completely halts any attempt to buy proficiencies (or 0 ACP armor) and wear armor anyway.

You have potions of mage armor and Defending Bone to tide you over until it becomes cost-effective to have bracers of armor remade into a Shirt of Armor that you cast Magic Vestment over. I still wouldn't want to be a frontline cleric with that but between Defending Bone and potions of Mage Armor you're decently durable. Except for a small gap of time before you can afford a Shirt of Armor + Prayer Beads of Karma + Magic Vestment and those game effects aren't really cutting it anymore, which will happen to you somewhere between level 8 and 11.

[Archmage Joda]

So, here's my question now: what, if anything, can wizards and arcanists do better than the cleric?

[Mask_De_H]

They can be faster summoners, have a better movement power (Teleportation subschool), they can blast better but who gives a fuck, better divinations/mindfuck powers and generally more utility spells/spells that fvcking kill people.

With a Cleric you have to choose which set of good Wizard spells you pilfer. Wizards can just take all of them.

[TiaC]

And Arcanists just take all of them and change them up on the fly.

[name_here]

Hence why I question why it's such a good idea to lose getting to wear armor and potentially a free martial weapon proficiency to add a couple of wizard spells to your list at each level.

[OgreBattle]

If you were to grab 11 Pathfinder/D&D3.5 classes for a "New Corebook", what would they be?

And is there a tier list out of where these hybrid classes stand? Like which ones are stronger/weaker/equal to an alchemist or ninja.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Mask_De_H, name_here, the cleric spell list isn't in 3.5E D&D and certainly not in Pathfinder just 'reduced functionality wizard'. If you view cleric casting like that you will never be able to unlock the full potential of the class.

[Koumei]

It would have:
3 Arcanists: Dread Necromancer, Beguiller, Sorcerer (PF for fake class features, whatever),
2 Divinetime: Cleric (I guess PF for fake class features?), Druid (zero fucks given which version)
3 Expert Difficulty Classes: Ninja (PF), Rogue (3.5), Bard (either)
3 Stabbers: Psychic Warrior, Inquisitor, Duskblade-or-Magus (whichever is better)

There. Maybe swap one of them out for a Witch, but I kind of like the idea of all Arcane casters being Spontaneous and all Divine casters being Prepared. We can pretend it's an important thematic thing!

[Lago PARANOIA]

And is there a tier list out of where these hybrid classes stand? Like which ones are stronger/weaker/equal to an alchemist or ninja.

Here is my opinion of the various hybrid classes, assuming above-average min-maxing. So no Sacred Geometry or shenanigans like that.

• Arcanist: About equal in power to the wizard. Wizards have a couple of aces up their sleeves to make them slightly better than Arcanists but for most groups Arcanists will be better.
• Bloodrager: Fluctuates in power from weaker than a fighter to about on the level of a paladin depending on the tactical setup and the workday. There's a ring that lets them cast spells as opportunity attacks so if you have the right setup you can be like a magus.
• Brawler: Crap-lousy class about the equal of a fighter.
• Hunter: One of the top-tier non-full casters depending on how much you utilize your animal companion. Which only goes to show how big the gap is between non-full casters and full casters is in Pathfinder.
• Investigator: Lousy class that has a small window (level 4-8) where it can reach the ass-kicking of a 3.5E bard if it min-maxes enough.
• Shaman: Great class with a couple of really good archetypes and some great hexes. The spell list also has some crazy face rockers like stinking cloud and dominate person. Unfortunately, the class starts to level off in usefulness at around level 13 or so (especially if they don't have the human racial bonus) because their 7th to 9th level spells are very below par. For 99% of games however they'll be as useful or even better than a cleric.
• Skald: Crap-lousy class that's like a bard but without the massive shovelware that has made that class half-decent. If we're just comparing the core Bard and core Skald this class would be better but there's no reason to do that.
• Slayer: It's like being a Swashbuckler but slightly less tanky and damaging.
• Swashbuckler: Is one of the more damaging and defensive full-BAB classes assuming that you can keep your panache points filled. You'll often be the MVP of your party for the first five or so levels of the game but like all non-full spellcasters your usefulness starts to tank at around level 7.
• Warpriest: Probably the most useful of the 2/3rds classes. The archetypes have some really good class features and they probably deal the most melee damage out of any class that doesn't have a pet or summons -- though they can get those, too. If you studiously min-max, get a secret DM pity item, and are okay with not really doing anything but mega-damage you can limp towards the level 20 finish line. This is done by picking up a blessing that hands out Summon Monster X and finding a way to quicken that shit while praying for 15-minute workdays.

[Prak]

domains that hand out great powers but have questionable spell lists, like Freedom and Eagle

Now I just want to join a game of PF so I can play an Ecceisitheurge of 'Murrica.