New Playthrough: Warpriest or Paladin?

[Classy Striker]

Just got the game and I have held of starting it as I was finishing Underrail. Now im ready to dive in. I am not new to Pathfinder and I did beat Kingmaker on Challenging. Im looking at playing on Core difficulty or a custom variant of that.

Im probably going to go Vital Strike 2 hander Earthbreaker for either Paladin or Warpriest, using Priests of Sigmar (Warhammer) as a thematic template.

Thoughts here? Is Warpriest gimped and I really should be going Paladin? Or will either be a great time? Thanks!

[Nismu]

I did enjoy my halfling warpriest ( though it was desnas with dual wielding starknives and riding on Aivu when got it ) i found warpriest quite clicky to get all out of it so might work better on turn based.

[Frozen Dervish]

Paladin: Restricted by alignment, not much spellcasting. Gains a mount, full BAB, unique spell list, and smite.

Warpriest: Not restricted by alignment, fighter/cleric hybrid class, quite a bit of spellcasting, blessings are pretty boss, cleric spell list, good all-rounder. Medium BAB, no smite, no mount.

Overall it comes down to what you want.

Do you want a martial that will benefit the team, but little spellcasting.
Do you want a divine gish that is a bit more self centered, but more versatile.

[hilburnashua]

There is a warpriest that gives you smite. Champion of the Faith or something like that. I was running a dual wielding Angel path one with the Strength Domain (or War I forgot). Smite something nasty, move up, then on the next turn use the domain ability to add half your class level to your attacks. Did pretty good but wasn't broken.

[Hex]

If you don't mind playing LG, Paladin hands down. The problem with hybrid classes is that you can either be good at melee or suck at both, and Paladin is just better. A full Cleric is just as tanky with a few feats while being very strong caster. Warpriest is essentially a weaker Paladin with no alignment restrictions and more buff options.

[darkholyPL]

Went with Palladin myself, but since Seelah is a Palladin as well I sort of changed my build, and went with pal3/slayer17. Worked out pretty well for me in the end, but if you're not going to change Seelah to a bard or something, then Palladin isn't the best choice I think.
Sure you don't need to use her long term, in that case Palladin would be ok I guess, but overall I think Warpriest would be more interesting.

[Hex]

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

Went with Palladin myself, but since Seelah is a Palladin as well I sort of changed my build, and went with pal3/slayer17. Worked out pretty well for me in the end, but if you're not going to change Seelah to a bard or something, then Palladin isn't the best choice I think.
Sure you don't need to use her long term, in that case Palladin would be ok I guess, but overall I think Warpriest would be more interesting.

No reason to bring Seelah along at all if you go Paladin. Regill or Greybor are perfectly fine.

[Raikon]

On a scale of 1-10

Warpriest is a 5
Paladin is an 8

[Steffan]

You have Seelah. Go warpriest. It also allows you to make last minute decisions concerning your mythic path. Paladin would not work with roughly 50% of the mythic paths due to alignment restrictions.

[Classy Striker]

For Warpriest, what blessings do the best? I was eyeballing going Serenrae for Sun and Healing.

[Raikon]

Depends. Torag is probably my favorite. You can use the blessing to allow you to do acid damage, which in turn can be used with elemental barrage. I forget the other blessing it gives, but I think it grants AC.

[Frozen Dervish]

Originally posted by Classy Striker:

For Warpriest, what blessings do the best? I was eyeballing going Serenrae for Sun and Healing.

Travel: Teleport is always nice
Trickery: Mirror Image clone that is immune to truesight dispel
Strength: Bonus AB
Elementals: minute long elemental damage for easy elem barrage

Are a few

[t]

Paladin. Higher Bab is nice
I would prefer a Cleric over Warpriest. Same BAB but more spells.

[Selvokaz]

Warpriest looks way more fun.

[Classy Striker]

Originally posted by Selvokaz:

Warpriest looks way more fun.

I’ve always loved Paladins…Warpriest seems fun though.

[Yannir]

Originally posted by Raikon:

On a scale of 1-10

Warpriest is a 5
Paladin is an 8

Pfft, don't listen to this. Warpriest is definitely as good if not better than a Paladin. The self-buffing you can do outclasses anything a Paladin can offer, including its full BAB. Unless you like mounts, which is a big perk of Paladin, if you like that sort of thing. Smite/Mark of Justice is good too but not essential.

The biggest benefit of Warpriest IMO that you will continue to use even at high levels is being able to cast any Warpriest spell on yourself as a Swift Action. Which includes Heal and any of the powerful Rounds/level personal buffs. Keeping your MC alive in almost any situation is a big perk. Another big Warpriest perk is its Sacred Armor buff that gives you Fortification which prevents crits on you via a flat percentage. So even if opponents roll natural 20 crits on you, they still have a 25/50/75% chance of doing normal damage instead. The third big benefit is its Feat progression, gaining Bonus Feats every 3 levels, including Fighter feats like Weapon Specialization. Which neither Cleric nor Paladin gets.

The last point I'd like to raise is subjective but I personally like a Main Character to be an "active" class with a lot of buttons to click. Paladin, while being a bit more active than a Fighter, for example, is still a pretty simple point-and-click kinda class, and not the DPS/buffbot/off-healer a Warpriest can be.

I have a Warpriest wielding a 2-hander and he's fully Weapon Focused/Specialized and running Dreadful Carnage as he often finishes opponents with 300+ crits. Which then continues onto the next opponent with Cleaving Finish. It's definitely no min-maxed build but it's Core-viable as that's what I'm playing and have no issues with it. If you don't play Azata like me, you might have to drop something in favor of Teamwork feats, which Azata gets for free on everyone via Life-Bonding Friendship.

I would advise doing a Warpriest until level 16, then going to 20 with 4 levels of Fighter for a little Armor Training and the extra BAB is just enough to get you to 4 attacks per round instead of the 3 if you went full Warpriest. This does mean that some of your spells don't max out and you don't get the 75% Fortification for Sacred Armor but it's worth it IMO.