Welcome to Iconic Design, Private Sanctuary’s source for innovative and evocative character builds for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a build for a samsaran warpriest.

My Dynastic Races Kickstarter is still going on (AND WE’VE FUNDED!), so I’m still doing Iconic builds for each of the races. Thanks to those of you from the Know Direction readership who pledged last week; I couldn’t have done it without you.

This week, I’m moving down the list to our next topic of interest: samsarans. Today, I’m going to be grabbing the most powerful racial trait in the game and going to town with it.

You’ve been warned, so let’s do it!

Build Concept

Any information important to understanding the build or its roots goes here.

• Samsaran: DID YOU NOTICE MY THEME YET?!
• Mystic Past Life: This is sort of a no-brainer trait if you’re taking levels in a spellcasting class.
• Shizuru: I like worshing Shizuru because he’s fitting for samsarans (the god of samsarans, Tsukiyo, was raised from the dead by Shizuru) and because its an incredibly easy way to get proficiency with a katana. I approve of easy katana proficiency.
• Ability Scores: We’re going to try to maximize Mystic Past Life, so I’m going to recommend buying at least a 16 Wisdom, but go to 18 if you can afford it.
• WARPRIEST: Oh, the shenanigans we’ll make together….

And with that out of the way, let’s get started!

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: warpriest 7
• Alternate Racial Traits: mystic past life (true strike [inquisitor], lead blades [ranger], entangle [druid])
• Feats: Weapon Focus: katana (Bonus), Weapon of the Chosen (1st), Power Attack (Bonus), Improved Weapon of the Chosen (3rd), Greater Weapon of the Chosen (5th), Vital Strike (Bonus), Nature Magic (7th)
• Abilities: aura, blessings (minor; good, sun), channel energy, fervor 2d6, focus weapon (katana), sacred armor +1, sacred weapon (1d8; +1)
• I REALLY like this build. I like it enough that I would probably play it in PFS if I had a samsaran race boon.

Basically, the first thing you do is grab your katana and become a bad-ass with it. Aside from Power Attack at Level 3, you’re investing fully in the Weapon of the Chosen feat line, with an emphasis on having all three feats before you qualify for Vital Strike at Level 6, thanks to the warpriest’s ability to use its level as its base attack bonus for feats. Then at Level 7, we take Nature Magic. Not because its good, but because it’s a prerequisite for a BUNCH of hilarious feats that we want in the mid levels.

So what’s the nastiest trick that this build can do? Quickening true strike with the fervor class feature. YES, YOU CAN QUICKEN TRUE STRIKE AS A SWIFT ACTION USING THIS BUILD. Now your Vital Strike attacks will never miss. Ever.

Aside from this one trick, this build is pretty much a standard warpriest build. Pick spells that buff you and remove negative conditions, mostly; that’s what the warpriest excels at. But I don’t want to dwell on what truly is a very by-the-books warpriest spellcasting strategy—let’s move on to the mid levels.

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: warpriest 14
• Alternate Racial Traits: mystic past life (true strike [inquisitor], lead blades [ranger], entangle [druid])
• Feats: Weapon Focus: katana (Bonus), Weapon of the Chosen (1st), Power Attack (Bonus), Improved Weapon of the Chosen (3rd), Greater Weapon of the Chosen (5th), Vital Strike (Bonus), Nature Magic (7th), Devastating Strike (Bonus), Grasping Strike (9th), Staggering Blow (11th), Improved Vital Strike (Bonus), Winter’s Strike (13th)
• Abilities: aura, blessings (major, minor; good, sun), channel energy, fervor 5d6, focus weapon (katana), sacred armor +3, sacred weapon (1d10; +3)

By 14th level, we’re finally at the point where our sacred weapon has begun to improve our katana’s base damage. That’s pretty cool. What’s cooler is the fact that our sacred weapon ability now has the ability to add keen to our katana by Level 8, which means SUPER KATANA 15–20 CRIT RANGE! That’s SUPER fun.

What’s also super fun is the crazy add-ons that we start to get from our feats at this point in the game. We can pick up Grasping Strike (adds entangled Wis/day), Staggering Blow (dazes target 1/day), and Winter’s Strike (fatigues Wis/day). All of these feats either require no action or a free action to use, and all of them save Staggering Blow can be used after you successfully hit your target, which you’ll do because you have true strike as a swift action and the ability to roll twice on all your attack action rolls thanks to Greater Weapon of the Chosen. You also have Devestating Strike, which adds +4 to damage by 11th level. Overall this is an awesome, “I buff myself then debuff you into the dirt,” build.

Let’s take it to the end game and see where this build leads.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: warpriest 20
• Alternate Racial Traits: mystic past life (true strike [inquisitor], lead blades [ranger], entangle [druid])
• Feats: Weapon Focus: katana (Bonus), Weapon of the Chosen (1st), Power Attack (Bonus), Improved Weapon of the Chosen (3rd), Greater Weapon of the Chosen (5th), Vital Strike (Bonus), Nature Magic (7th), Devastating Strike (Bonus), Grasping Strike (9th), Staggering Blow (11th), Improved Vital Strike (Bonus), Winter’s
• Strike (13th), Improved Devastating Strike (Bonus), Improved Critical: katana (15th), Critical Focus (17th), Greater Vital Strike (Bonus), Bleeding Critical (19th)
  Abilities: aura, avatar of war, blessings (major, minor; good, sun), channel energy, fervor 7d6, focus weapon (katana), sacred armor +5, sacred weapon (2d8; +5)

And endgame! We pick up some extremely powerful feats that will either free up sacred weapon for other things or add general quality of life to our routine (Greater Vital Strike, Improved Devastating Strike). Overall, this build is NASTY. It has extremely high accuracy, competitive damage, and inflicts truly terrifying debuffs on enemies.

So, what did you think of this build? What would you change if you were to play it? How would you counter it? Leave your comments below, consider backing my Kickstarter, and I’ll see you back here on Monday for another installment of Guidance. Take care!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.