Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign: Holy Warrior.

[Ysgarran]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder Chronicles, pg 43

Holy Warrior: A cleric with this ability is proficient with her deity's favor weapon. In addition, her base attack bonus as a cleric equals her cleric level, and her cleric Hit Dice becomes a D10.
...
Taking the above ability requires a cleric to give up both of her domains, including her domain powers.

This is a class variant provided in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. Is this a balanced option?

The question should be be narrowly phrases as:
"Is this a balanced option against the Pathfinder RPG core classes?"
"Is this a balanced option against the 3.5 core classes?".

Ysgarran.

[sckeener]

Originally Posted by Ysgarran

This is a class variant provided in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. Is this a balanced option?

The question should be be narrowly phrases as:
"Is this a balanced option against the Pathfinder RPG core classes?"
"Is this a balanced option against the 3.5 core classes?".

Ysgarran.

The only part I like is being able to wield their deity's holy weapon. I always found it insane that clerics had to take exotic weapon feat to be able to wield their god's weapon....having said that, I would really hate the munchkins that pick their god based on their god's holy weapon.

It smacks of a throw back to 2nd ed and trying to balance all the specialty priests.

[Jeff Wilder]

It looks okay to me. A weapon proficiency, 1 HP per level, and +1 BAB every four levels in exchange for domain powers?

[Ysgarran]

My biggest concern is that the full fighter BAB progession combined with the full cleric spell progression will cause problems for the campaign in terms of
1. Making it difficult for me to make sure the encounters are balanced.
2. Outshining the other characters in the party, particularly the Paladin, maybe the fighter.

I've tried looking at it from the prospective of the fighter class. A fighter would have to give up his bonus feats and his martial weapon proficiency. In exchange for this he would gain full cleric spell progression, a better will save, the ability to turn and the ability to spontaneously change those cleric spells into healing. From that prospective it seems does not seem so balanced to me.

To provide a concrete example a 12th level fighter would lose 7 bonus fighter feats and his martial weapons proficiency. This would provide 5 first, 4 second, 4 third, 3 fourth, 3 fifth and 2 sixth level spells (not including wisdom bonus), a plus 4 to his wisdom score, the ability to turn 3 times a day (not counting wisdom bonuses) and most likely at least proficiency with one martial weapon. That does not seem like a balanced trade.

A Pathfinder fighter would be giving up more abilities, things like armor mastery, bravery and weapons mastery.

The only thing that might keep this in check is keeping the ability scores relatively restricted. I plan on using the Pathfinder ability score buy with 20pts. With the Pathfinder the cost for higher scores ramps up faster than the standard point buy in 3.5 does.

Ysgarran.

p.s.
I really like putting the story first. It makes wonder why I am spending time with this in the first place.

[Jeff Wilder]

I think what you're struggling with is the disparity in power between the vanilla fighter and the vanilla cleric. The cleric is arguably the most powerful core class in the game. The fighter is arguably among the weakest.

By swapping some abilities, you're getting a new perspective on that.

So let me put it this way: It doesn't look to me like the holy warrior is any more unbalanced, versus the fighter, than the cleric already was.