Introduction

The Cleric is an iconic member of any dungeon fantasy party, providing powerful magic to both heal and empower their allies since the earliest editions of Dungeons and Dragons, but over the years clerics have taken on more ability to assail, destroy, smite, and otherwise blast their foes. That versatility is very apparent in PF2.

In Pathfinder 2nd edition, Paizo has reimagined the Cleric in two varieties: The Cloistered Cleric, a casting-focused, unarmored divine spellcaster; and the Warpriest, an armored divine warrior splitting their capabilities between divine spellcasting and wielding their deity’s favored weapon in battle.

With two doctrines, dozens of deities, and numerous domains, the Cleric has numerous major decision points, allowing players to build an impressively diverse array of characters within the same class.

Because your choices of Deities and Domains are a central feature of the Cleric, I also recommend reading my Cleric Deities Breakdown and my Domains Breakdown.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Cleric Class Features

Key Ability: Wisdom.

Hit Points: 8+ is great for cloistered clerics, giving them more hp than the sorcerer or the wizard, but for warpriests 8+ hit points is difficult since you’re likely going to be on the front lines of combat alongside champions, fighters, and other characters with both better armor and more hit points.

Initial Proficiencies: The Cleric’s proficiencies are poor, which is typical for a full spellcaster. The Warpriest trades away some spellcasting progression in exchange for better proficiencies in armor, Fortitude saves, and weapons, but they’re still not great. The Cleric is a spellcaster first, and their proficiencies reflect that.

  • Perception: Trained at level 1 and you never advance beyond Expert. Fortunately, you have good Wisdom.
  • Saving Throws: Will saves are the Cleric’s only good save. Warpriests get better Fortitude progression, but not by a lot.
  • Skills: A total for 4+ Trained skills, but you’ll likely dump Intelligence so expect something like 3 Trained skills at first level from your class.
  • Attacks: The Cloistered Cleric’s weapon proficiencies are basically worthless. You’re barely more capable than a wizard. The Warpriest’s proficiencies are better, but not quite as good as a martial class like the Champion.
  • Defenses: By default the Cleric gets no armor proficiencies. The Warpriest gets medium armor, but clerics only advance to Expert in armor proficiencies, and even then only at 13th level. Strongly consider putting feats into Armor Proficiency.
  • Spells: The Cloistered Cleric gets the standard progression for every full spellcaster, but the Warpriest Cleric’s spellcasting proficiency doesn’t advance as much or as quickly.

Deity: Your choice of deity is just as impactful as your Doctrine, determining your character’s anathemas, what domains you can choose from, whether your Divine Font feature grants Harm or Heal, a Trained skill, and a set of spells added to your spell list. For help choosing a deity, see my Cleric Deities Breakdown.

Divine Spellcasting:

  • Heightened Spells: Heightening spells is an important mechanic in Pathfinder 2e. Many spells scale with spell level, allowing them to stay relevant long after you learned them. Since clerics don’t use a Spell Repertoire, you can prepare a spell at any level that you can cast.
  • Cantrips: Fantastic every time, on any character, in any amount. Clerics can prepare 5 cantrips each day (if you have the first printing the Core Rulebook, this was corrected in errata).

Divine Font: Effectively free spell slots at your highest spell level. For clerics who get Heal, this reduces the need to commit spell slots to Heal just because you’re the person in your party who can cast Heal. For clerics who get Harm, you get a low-cost damage option and you can even heal your allies if everyone builds characters with inverted healing. However, this also adds a reliance on Charisma which is otherwise not an important ability for the Cleric.

Doctrine: See “Subclasses – Doctrines”, below.

Cleric Feats: See Cleric feats, below.

Skill Feats: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

Skill Increases: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

General Feats: Standard.

Ability Boosts: Standard.

Alertness: Your only improvement to Perception, and you get it at level 5. At least your Wisdom is good.

Ancestry Feats: Standard.

Resolve: Master at level 9, and with the Cleric’s high Wisdom you should be excellent at Will saves.

Lightning Reflexes: Your Reflex saves max out at Expert, and even then not until 11th level.

Divine Defense: More AC is great, but this brings you to Expert and you go no further.

Weapon Specialization: This is the only Weapon Specialization damage boost that you get, so warpriests will perpetually deal less damage than martial classes with weapons, and this is totally useless for cloistered clerics.

Miraculous Spell: 10th-level spells are great.

Subclasses – Doctrines

Your choice of doctrine has a huge impact on how the Cleric functions. Depending on your choice, your armor, saving throw, spell, and weapon Proficiencies all change and progress differently, you get different feats at first level, and you get access to weapon critical specialization effects at different levels.

Cloistered Cleric

The obvious choice for spellcasting-focused clerics. With no armor proficiencies, you’re roughly as durable as a wizard, so consider putting feats into things like armor proficiencies and Shield Block if you’re worried about staying alive to help your allies.

  1. First Doctrine: Domain Initiate gets you one Focus Spell and one Focus Point. Your choice of domain is hugely impactful, so see my Domains Breakdown for help picking your domain. Remember that your domain options are limited to those offered by your deity.
  2. Second Doctrine: Nice, but not very exciting.
  3. Third Doctrine: Standard for full spellcasters at this level.
  4. Fourth Doctrine: You have gone 10 levels with little or not desire to use a weapon. Now is not the time to start.
  5. Fifth Doctrine: Standard for full spellcasters at this level.
  6. Final Doctrine: Standard for full spellcasters at this level.

Warpriest

With medium armor and better weapon options, the Warpriest splits their capabilities between the Cleric’s spellcasting and some martial capabilities which allow you to fight effectively in melee. You give up the standard spellcasting proficiency progression which most full spellcasters recieve, but in exchange you get medium armor and Shield Block, both of which considerably improve your durability.

The Warpriest’s biggest problem is that their proficiencies don’t keep up with other characters. You never go past Expert in armor, and while your weapon proficiencies advance reasonably well, you never go past Weapon Specialization, so your attack bonus and damage will always lag behind martial characters. To make up the gap, you’ll need to take feats like Align Weapon and cast spells like Magic Weapon. Fortunately, you get plenty of those options.

  1. First Doctrine: Medium armor and Shield Block are a massive improvement to your durability. Unfortunately, your proficiency in armor never improves past Expert, so it may be worthwhile to upgrade to heavy armor to get the same AC at level 3 instead of level 11.

    If your deity’s weapon is Simple, such as a quarterstaff, getting the Deadly Simplicity feat for free boosts the damage die to make up the damage gap.

  2. Second Doctrine: Your proficiency never advances past Trained with any weapon except your deity’s favored weapon.
  3. Third Doctrine: More attack bonus is always welcome, and Weapon Critical Specialization Effects are nice, but you use your spell DC an your spellcasting proficiency progression is reduced. Weirdly, the Cloistered Cleric will have a better critical specialization DC, though the Warpriest is still better with weapons in every other way.
  4. Fourth Doctrine: Several levels later than every other full spellcaster, but still crucial.
  5. Fifth Doctrine: More Fortitude saves are great, and many front-line martial classes get similar benefits.
  6. Final Doctrine: Several levels later than every other full spellcaster, but still crucial. Tragically, you never get to Legendary.

Ability Scores

Cloistered Cleric

Like any full spellcaster, your ability score needs are determined by your spellcasting, and you can spend remaining boosts to support skills which you may want to use. Since the Cloistered Cleric is less MAD than the Warpriest, you can afford to invest more in Charisma to support Divine Font.

Str: Dump.

Dex: AC and Reflex saves. Your AC is going to be terrible, so unless you’re planning to invest several feats in armor proficiencies you’ll need some Dexterity to keep yourself alive.

Con: Hit points and Fortitude saves. You don’t need a lot because you’re so well-equipped to heal yourself and fix any problematic status conditions, but you don’t want to dump it.

Int: More skills are great, but the Cleric is not a skill-based class so there’s little incentive to invest in a lot of Intelligence.

Wis: Spellcasting and Will saves.

Cha: Divine Font.

Warpriest (Strength-based)

The Warpriest is inherently MAD. You need enough Strength to make using a weapon effective, you need enough Dexterity to fill out your armor’s Dex Cap (though you should strongly consider upgrading to heavy armor at level 3), you need enough Constitution to compensate for your 8+ hit points, and you still need enough Wisdom to make your spellcasting meaningful. Things get even worse if you intend to use Divine Font.

Str: You likely want 16 Strength at level 1. You won’t quite match martial classes like the Fighter, but you’re close enough that you’re still a threat.

Dex: You need either 12 if you plan to stick to medium armor, but 10 will suffice if you want to upgrade to heavy armor at level 3 when you get your first General Feat.

Con: With just 8+ hit points and medium armor, you need extra hit points.

Int: You need to have a dump stat, and this is the Warpriest’s best option. You’re already doing too many things to focus on managing numerous skills.

Wis: Your spellcasting proficiency will advance slower than most full casters, so using spells offensively is less appealing, and if you’re not using spells offensively as your go-to option, your spell attack modifier and spell DC are less crucial, so you don’t need to max out Wisdom.

Cha: If you plan to use Divine Font, you want a little bit of Charisma for the free spells, but you likely can’t afford much due your other ability score needs.

Warpriest (Dexterity-based)

Dexterity-based warpriests are just as MAD as Strength-based Warpriests. An emphasis on Dexterity may allow you to explore Stealth and other Dexterity-based skills similar to a rogue, but remember that you’re still a cleric and your role as your party’s divine spellcaster comes first.

Str: Unless you’re using a crossbow, you want some Strength for the bonus damage.

Dex: The best you can do at level 1 is 16, but that’s enough to max out Studded Leather, and it’s enough that you’ll be effective with your weapon even if you’re not quite as effective as the Fighter.

Con: With just 8+ hit points and medium armor, you need extra hit points.

Int: You need to have a dump stat, and this is the Warpriest’s best option. You’re already doing too many things to focus on managing numerous skills.

Wis: Your spellcasting proficiency will advance slower than most full casters, so using spells offensively is less appealing, and if you’re not using spells offensively as your go-to option, your spell attack modifier and spell DC are less crucial, so you don’t need to max out Wisdom.

Cha: If you plan to use Divine Font, you want a little bit of Charisma for the free spells, but you likely can’t afford much due your other ability score needs.

Ancestries

Like any full spellcaster, a boost to your spellcasting ability (Wisdom) is crucial. The Cleric gains no benefit from weapon familiarity feats due to their strange weapon proficiency advancement (yes, this includes the Warpriest), and innate spells can be a difficult choice if they require an attack or allow a save.

For the Cloisted Cleric, look for options which complement your spellcasting and your skills. If you have enough Charisma to make Divine Font meaningful, you may also find that innate spells and similar features are effective.

For the Warpriest, additional durability is very helpful. High hit points from your Ancestry, damage resistance, and other defensive traits are all excellent additions.

CatfolkAPG: The Wisdom Flaw is a hard starting point, and few of the Catfolk’s feat options appeal to the Cleric. The Cat’s Luck feat chain could work alongside Premonition of Avoidance and Premonition of Clarity to make you (and eventually your allies) very good at passing saving throws, but that’s likely not enough on its own. If you want a lucky character, consider a halfling.

DwarfCRB: Excellent ability boosts and flaws for a low-Charisma warpriest, high hit points, and Darkvision, but few enticing feat options at low levels.

ElfCRB: Difficult ability boosts and flaws, and the Elf’s feats do little to complement the Cleric’s capabilities.

GnomeCRB: Excellent for the Cloistered Cleric. A Wellspring Gnome with the Energized Font feat is a great choice if you want to builf around domain spells. Other feats offer options like a familiar, a cantrip from the Primal spell list, and the ability to deter attacks with Empathetic Plea.

GoblinCRB: The Goblin’s Wisdom Flaw is a hard place to start. Options like Burn It! and Goblin Song are tempting, but there’s little else here that’s appealng, so if you want those feats you should consider Adopted Ancestry.

HalflingCRB: Excellent ability boosts for a Cloistered Cleric, and the Halfling Luck feat chain and Cultural Adaptability are excellent choices on any build.

HumanCRB: Perfect for any build. Versatile Heritage and General Training can both get you Armor Proficiency at first level, allowing warpriests to start in heavy armor and safely start with 10 Dexterity without the risk of low AC at levels 1 and 2, and allowing cloistered clerics to start in medium armor. Adapted Cantrip and Natural Ambition can both diversify your capabilities.

KoboldAPG: Good boosts for a cloistered cleric, but too frail for a warpriest. The Kobold Breath feat chain offers an easy go-to damage option, and the Dracomancer feat chain offers access to some additional spellcasting.

OrcAPG: The only build I can see where the Orc is a go-to choice is a warpriest of Irori. The Iron Fists and Bloody Blows feats may make Unarmed Strikes a decently useful option, though you likely still want to get some stance feats from the Monk.

RatfolkAPG: The ability boosts aren’t great, and none of the Ratfok’s feats are especially useful for the Cleric.

TenguAPG: The ability boosts aren’t great, and none of the Tengu’s feats are especially useful for the Cleric.

Backgrounds

You want a boost to Wisdom, but your second boost will depend on your build. Cloistered clerics may want Constitution or Charisma, while warpriests likely want Strength or Dexterity. Also look for skill feats which suit your role within the party. Feats for the Medicine skill are a great choice, but not your only choice.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

  • Acolyte
  • Farmhand
  • Warrior

Skills and Skill Feats

You get Skill Increases at 3rd and 5th level to raise skills to Expert, increases at 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th level to raise skills to Master, and increases at 15th, 17th, and 19th level to raise skills to Legendary. That means that you can maximize at most three skills, and the rest of your skills might not advance beyond Trained.

You get Skill Feats at even-numbered levels, giving you a total of 10 Skill Feats (and maybe another from your Background) by 20th level. Generally, you want to invest these feats in the same skills which you are choosing to maximize, though in some cases you may want to grab feats from skills which don’t require that you be more than Trained.

  • Acrobatics (Dex): Even for high-Dexterity clerics, this is only situationally useful.
  • Arcana (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for many clerics.
  • Athletics (Str): For a Strength-based Warpriest, Athletics can be a very useful tactical option. Your skills advance just as well as everyone else’s (except her Investigator and the Rogue), so you can Grapple and Shove just as well as martial classes.
  • Crafting Intelligence is a dump stat for many clerics.
  • Deception (Cha): Tempting for clerics with high enough Charisma to support Divine Font, but not absolutely crucial for a Face so you could skip it if you’re short on skills.
  • Diplomacy (Cha): Tempting for clerics with high enough Charisma to support Divine Font. Diplomacy is the most important Face skill.
  • Intimidation (Cha): Tempting for clerics with high enough Charisma to support Divine Font. You can use Demoralize to make a creature Frightened before hitting them with a save-or-suck spell.
  • Lore (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for many clerics.
  • Medicine (Wis): No character is a more obvious choice to master the Medicine skill. While your options for magical healing are abundant (especially if Divine Font gives you the Heal skill), Medicine remains a crucial source of inexpensive healing between encounters. Your spell slots will quickly run short, but Medicine is considerably less limited, so using Medicine can do a lot to stretch your limited resources throughout an adventuring day.
    • Battle MedicineCRB: With ample access to magical healing, there’s basically no reason for a cleric to take Battle Medicine.
  • Nature (Wis): An important knowledge skill, and it’s Wisdom-based so it’s easy for you to support.
  • Occultism (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for many clerics.
  • Performance (Cha): Almost never useful.
  • Religion (Wis): Important, and you’re Trained for free.
    • Student of the CanonCRB: Not especially important or impactful, but it saves you from the embarassment of rolling a Critical Failure to know stuff about your own religion.
  • Society (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for many clerics.
  • Stealth (Dex): You could build a cleric to have enough Dexterity to make Stealth viable, but it won’t work for every cleric. In most parties it’s often easier to leave sneaking to a rogue or a similar character.
  • Survival (Wis): Only situationally useful, but you have enough Wisdom to make it work, so being Trained may be helpful.
  • Thievery (Dex): Very few clerics can justify this. Leave it to a rogue or a similar party member if you can.

General Skill Feats

  • Recognize SpellCRB: Clerics have good enough Wisdom to make them effective at both Nature and Religion, Recognize Spell is a great way to handle both Divine and Religious spells.

Feats

Cleric Feats

1st Level

  • Deadly SimplicityCRB: The increased damage die is a welcome bonus for warpriests whose deities have a simple weapon as their favored weapon, and those clerics get this feat for free. For other clerics, ignore this feat.
  • Domain InitiateCRB: Many cleric domains are very good. Your deity will give you four options to choose from related to your deity’s “divine portfolio”. This feat also gives you your starting Focus Pool of 1 point. Cloistered Clerics get this for free at first level, but you can take more than once. Note that if you take this feat more than once, you don’t expand the size of your Focus Pool.
  • Harming HandsCRB: If you’re planning to use Divine Font (Harm) frequently, this may be worthwhile. Not every cleric will benefit from this enough to justify the feat.
  • Healing HandsCRB: If you’re planning to use Divine Font (Heal) frequently, this may be worthwhile, but remember that spell slots should only be used for healing when you have little other choice, so you may not benefit from this feat more than a handful of times per day.
  • Holy CastigationCRB: Situational by design. Fiends are common enemies for good-aligned clerics, but they’re still only one creature type. Unless you’re in a campaign where fiends are the primary antagonist, don’t expect this to be consistently helpful.
  • Premonition of AvoidanceAPG: This is good, but note that it only works against “hazards”, which the rules define as “non-creature dangers that adventurers encounter on their journeys”. This means things like traps and haunts, but not stuff like spells cast by other creatures.
  • Reach Spell: Great for spells with Touch range like Heal and some buff spells.
  • Vile DiscretionAPG: Situational by design. This only affects on creature type, and in most campaigns celestials aren’t common enemies so this likely only makes sense in a campaign where the party is intentionally evil.

2nd Level

  • Cantrip ExpansionCRB: You only get to prepare a few cantrips, and at low levels that’s not a lot of options when you only have a few spell slots to throw around. At higher levels you might retrain this when you’ve got more leveled spells to rely on, and you might also consider multiclass archetype feats form the Sorcerer or another class which offers access to the Divine Spell List.
  • Communal HealingCRB: This isn’t enough healing to justify the feat unless you’re building yourself to be a healbot and nothing else. You simply shouldn’t be spending enough time casting Heal for this to make sense. Spend this actions eliminating enemies rather than turning each encounter into costly war of attrition.
  • Emblazon ArmamentCRB: The bonus is too small to justify the feat, even at very low levels. But the big appeal here is actually the ability to use the weapon or shield as a divine focus, which is helpful for warpriests when you need to cast spells during combat. The ability to provide inexpensive material components with a weapon and a shield in your hands reduces the need to spend Actions to draw and stow items, significantly improving your action economy.
  • Rapid ResponseAPG: Situational by design, and you can frequently solve the same problem by using Reach Spell and/or by casting Heal with 2 Actions. This could be useful in a large party which includes summoned creatures, pets, or other minions because you have more allies to potentially fall to 0 hit points.
  • Sap LifeCRB: Useful if you’re building around Divine Font (Harm), but it’s not a lot of healing so it’s only going to pay off if casting Harm is your go-to combat tactic.
  • Turn UndeadCRB: Situational by design. Undead are a common enemy in many campaigns, but they’re still only one creature type and they still need to both meet the level restrictions and critically fail their savint throws for this to have any effect.
  • Versatile FontCRB: Not essential by any means, but if you have good Charisma the option to have both options is nice. I wouldn’t consider this unless you have 16 or more Charisma. If you have any less, just spend a spell slot to prepare the spell. And don’t make the mistake of combining this with both Communal Healing and Sap Life; that’s too much of a feat cost for not enough benefit.

4th Level

  • Channel SmiteCRB: This is intended for warpriests to turn their relatively poor spellcasting into an easy damage option, but the feat has several major problems. First, using the feat is a huge gamble: if you miss, you lose the spell. You can mitigate this with options like True Strike, but that adds even more cost for what is essentially a neat trick. Second, the feat uses the base damage (1d8 per spell level), so you’re getting much less damage out of the spell slot than you could for the same two Actions if you just cast the spell normally. The advantage is that you don’t need to rely on a relatively poor spell DC, which may be advantageous for the Warpriest. But even then, you can get much more for the same spell slot by casting something like Magic Weapon.

    If you’re not a warpriest, if you have Divine Font (Heal), or if you don’t have enough Charisma to get several uses out of Divine Font, don’t bother with this feat.

  • Command UndeadCRB: The effect is too situational, the Action cost is too high, and the duration is too short.
  • Directed ChannelCRB: Cloistered clerics have more room to invest in Charisma to support Divine Font, which means that they’re more likely to use those spells frequently. They’re also more likely to be fighting from behind their more durable allies, so a 60-foot cone may be a much safer area of effect than a 30-foot emanation which would encourage you to move dangerously close to melee. All of that makes Directed Channel a good option for cloistered clerics who plan to rely on Divine Font heavily. However, remember that you don’t get the option to include yourself in a cone, so you can’t heal yourself when you use the 3-Action version of Heal or Harm.
  • Improved Communal HealingCRB: Communal Healing still isn’t enough hit points to justify the feat. The ability to givew that healing to someone else is nice, but it’s still only a tiny handful of hit points. I’m not sure how the range works if you cast Heal targeting only yourself. I assume that it uses the same range as the spell (so either touch or 30 feet depending on how many Actions you spend), but the text doesn’t specify.
  • Necrotic InfusionCRB: The duration of the bonus is very short. Unless you’re built to be a healbot for a single undead minion, this isn’t worth the feat.
  • Radiant InfusionAPG: If you’re built to make Divine Font (Heal) effective, this can turn a single-target heal into a very powerful damage buff. If you have an ally planning to make a bunch of Strikes on their next turn, the damage will add up quickly.

6th Level

  • Cast DownCRB: One Action to knock a foe prone is a good trade, provided that you and your allies outnumber your enemies or that your allies can capitalize on the target being Prone (and therefore Flat-Footed) before the target can stand again. Harm and Heal both allow a Basic Fortitude Save, so the target will take no damage if they roll a Critical Success, which means that you don’t knock them prone. This notably doesn’t care about spell level, so Cast Down works fine with a 1st-level Harm, allowing you to turn an inexpensive spell slot into an easy way to knock foes prone and knock low-flying enemies to the ground. However, you’ll need to use the 1-Action or 2-Action versions of the spell, so you likely won’t do anything else in the same turn. This is great on a high-Charisma build with Divine Font (Harm), but won’t be impactful enough on other builds.
  • Divine WeaponCRB: A decent option for warpriests, but unless you’re facing enemies with vulnerability to aligned damage (for example, fiends often have vulnerability to Good Damage), the damage will become obsolete quickly so you may want to retrain the feat in a few levels.
  • Magic HandsAPG: This looks like a nice convenience, and it might be tempting if you’re using Medicine to handle hit point restoration, but it doesn’t scale and when you’re using Medicine outside of combat you typically have ample time to Trat Wounds again, especially if you take Sill Feats to make Medicine more effective.
  • Selective EnergyCRB: The most likely use case for this is clerics with Divine Font (Harm) with party members who don’t have Inverted Healing. You can avoid the need for this by building a party with inverted healing (dhampirs, etc.), but you may not be able to guarantee the composition of your party. The number of creatures who you can omit is limited to your Charisma bonus, but the clerics who should take this will need high Charisma anyway so that shouldn’t be a problem.
  • Steady Spellcasting: The Flat Check is too difficult to make this feat an easy choice. You have a success rate of just 30%. If you’re in a situation where you might lose a spell, cast a cantrip so that losing it won’t cost you anything.

8th Level

  • Advanced DomainCRB: While the benefits of this feat vary by domain, many domain spells are very good and expanding your Focus Pool by 1 is also very useful. You can notably take this feat a second time, and it appears that you against expand your Focus Pool, so you could take this at 8th and 10th level to max out your Focus Pool at 3 points.
  • Align ArmamentCRB: Unless you’re exclusively facing enemies with vulnerability to aligned damage of an appropriate type, this isn’t worth the feat. The damage doesn’t scale, and the 1-round duration is too short to justify the Action cost. Cast Magic Weapon instead.
  • Channeled SuccorCRB: All four of the listed spells are only situationally useful, but access to them presents a constant tax on the Cleric since you’re likely your party’s only source of magical healing. This removes that tax. You can solve the same problem by buying some scrolls for emergencies, but heightening the spells for free may be worth the feat.
  • Create UndeadCRB: I would much rather have this than Turn Undead, but it’s still only situationally useful in most campaigns. The persistent damage doesn’t care about the target’s level, and they take the damage unless they score a Critical Success on their save (remember that it’s a Basice Save). This also isn’t limited to single targets, so you can use the 3-Action version of Heal to affect every undead in an encounter and rack up a ton of damage in a hurry.
  • Emblazon EnergyCRB: Tempting for warpriests, but maybe not as effective as you would like. The Shield option is excellent if you have the right damage type selected, but it takes 10 minutes to emblazon something and you may not have time to emblazon the right element. The damage bonus is fine, but weapon property runes like Flaming will deal more damage and should become available around the same level.
  • MartyrAPG: Risky, expensive, and it only works a few times per day so the feat cost is high for what you get. This looks tempting for a cloistered cleric who is doing a good job avoiding damage, but it’s definitely not a go-to option.
  • Surging FocusAPG: Focus Points are great, but one extra Focus Point per day isn’t much for the feat cost.

10th Level

  • Castigating WeaponCRB: Even in a campaign where you’re facing fiends frequently, this is a tiny amount of damage.
  • Heroic RecoveryCRB: This will rarely be more impactful than spending the same Action to do almost anything else, such as Aid the target or make a Strike.
  • Improved Command UndeadCRB: This finally provides a way to make undead that you encounter into minions long-term. However, the 24-hour duration only works if they critically fail the save, so you may need to repeatedly hit the target with Harm until they roll poorly enough to fail the save. This is great if you can find suitable undead to command, but it presents a constant tax on your spell slots which may prove frustrating.
  • Replenishment of WarCRB: Excellent for warpriests. Easily-replenished temporary hit points provide a significant improvement to your durability, easily making up the gap between the Cleric and martial classes like the Fighter. This also allows the “bag of rats” abuse case, but since the temporary hit points until lay until the start of your next turn there’s rarely a benefit to stabbing your bag of rats for extremely short-lived temporary hp.
  • Shared AvoidanceAPG: Traps, falling rocks, and other such hazards frequently affect your whole party, and sharing a +2 bonus can do a lot to mitigate the effects.
  • Shield of FaithAPG: Not a huge bonus, but still useful for warpriests who use Focus Spells.
  • Through SpellAPG: Only situationally useful, and you can typically just switch to spells which call for a saving throw instead.

12th Level

  • Defensive RecoveryCRB: +2 AC is a decent bonus. For a cloistered cleric relying on their martial allies staying alive, this could be helpful. But you want to avoid healing allies in combat as much as you possibly can, so you’ll likely only use this when you’re healing allies who are dying or who are about to hit 0 hit points.
  • Domain FocusCRB: Crucial if you’re built around using Focus Spells.
  • Emblazon AntimagicCRB: Technically only situationally useful, but enemies which rely upon magic are common. The shield benefit will be more consistently useful since not all magic enemies rely on casting spells on themselves, but the weapon version may be more impactful when it does come into play.
  • Shared ReplenishmentCRB: If you’re a front-line melee warpriest, you almost certainly want these temporary hit points for yourself. If you’re hitting with more than one Strike per round, you might be able to make this worthwhile, but you should probably spend Actions on your turn to Raise a Shield, Sustain a Spell, Cast a Spell, and do other things beside making a Strike, which may make it difficult to even have a chance to trigger Replenishment of War more than once per turn.

14th Level

  • Deity’s ProtectionCRB: Good for warpriests who are built to use domain spells. Resistance to all damage is excellent, and there’s no Action cost beyond casting your domain spell.
  • Ebb and FlowAPG: Weirdly powerful, but difficult to use. The 2-Action versions of Harm and Heal are very efficient, dealing or healing roughly 3 times as much as the 1-Action version or the per-target effect for the 3-Action version, so numerically this is roughly as effective as hitting 6 creatures with the 3-Action version of Harm or Heal. The difficulty is that one target needs to be harmed by the spell and the other needs to be harmed by the same spell. The easiest way to do this is with Harm and with allies in the party with inverted healing (undead minions, dhampirs, etc.).
  • Extend Armament AlignmentCRB: Align Armament’s biggest problem is the 1-round duration. If you’re consistently facing enemies which you can harm with Align Armament (for example: you’re a good cleric and your enemies are consistently evil), this might be worthwhile on a warpriest. If you go into dangerous areas and repeatedly spend n Action to align your weapon, you can go into encounters with the effect already running and the 1-minute duration will get you through most fights. If your DM complains about this tactic, discuss doing this as an Exploration Mode Activity or something.
  • Fast ChannelCRB: If you’re built around Divine Font, this is excellent. The additional Action could be used to Stride into position to get the greatest effect, to Raise a Shield, to Sustain a Spell, or any manner of other excellent and impactful things.
  • Premonition of ClarityAPG: Most mental effects target your Will save, and clerics have excellent Will saves. Still, sometimes you’ll fail a save, and mental effects can take you out of a fight entirely. The reroll alone is excellent, and the +2 bonus makes it even better. This is technically only situationally useful since it only affects one of the three types of saving throws (and even then, technically not all of them), but it’s still very good.
  • Swift BanishmentCRB: The action economy is great, and extraplanar enemies are common in many campagins, but it’s risky. A cloisterd cleric should just cast Banishment directly, so the most likely user here is the Warpriest. Your spell DC is going to be lower than most full spellcasters, and it’s unclear if you can spend the additional Action to present a material component, so you don’t get to impose the extra -2 penalty to the save. Those factors make it more likely that the target will pass their save, and if they Critically Succeed you’re Stunned 1. Unless you can find a way to mitigate those risks, this is likley to dangerous to use.

16th Level

  • Eternal BaneCRB: Bane is only a 1st-level spell, over time it will repeatedly affect the outcome of rolls, but since the penalty never gets worse than -1 it’s not going to constantly important. Creatures also get a Will save to resist the effects, which may make this unreliable. The best candidate for this feat is a warpriest planning to fight in melee where the 15-foot radius will consistently affect creatures.
  • Eternal BlessingCRB: Bless’s +1 bonus to attacks is a great buff for your whole party, and even with a 15-foot radius you can stil position yourself so that most or all of your allies can consistently benefit without actually walking into melee.
  • RemediateAPG: Only situationally useful. If you need to counteract an effect, cast Dispel Magic.
  • ResurrectionCRB: The fast healing can do a lot to keep your allies conscious, rather than repeatedly falling to 0 hit points and compelling you to hit them with Heal again. Fast healing is slow, but 50 hit points over the course of a minute is still a bunch of healing if your target can avoid falling unconscious again during that time. You can trigger this with any sort of hit points restoration, so casting Heal at 1st level, using a potion, using Medicine, or any other healing option will suffice. In some cases you might even knock an ally to 0 hit points just to get the extra hit points.

18th Level

  • Domain WellspringCRB: Crucial if you’re built to use Focus Spells.
  • Echoing ChannelCRB: You’re already spending three Actions to do this, and at that point a 3-Action version of the spell will typically be more effective.
  • Improved Swift BanishmentCRB: A significant improvement to Swift Banishment, but not worth the feat unless you’re facing a huge number of extraplanar enemies.
  • Miraculous PossibilityAPG: Clerics “know” every Common spell on the Divine Spell list, which means that you can use this to cast a dizzyingly large array of spells without the need to prepare weird, situational spells and haul them around all day in hopes that you’ll need them. You may be able to solve the same problem with scrolls, but this doesn’t cost gold to use and doesn’t require you to build a growing library of scrolls which might never see use.
  • Shared ClarityAPG: Your allies almost certianly don’t have Will saves as good as yours, so allowing them to reroll their saves with a bonus will provide a powerful defense against many problematic effects.

20th Level

  • Avatar’s AudienceCRB: Very cool, but not especially impactful. Aside from everyone knowing that you speak for your deity, you could already do all of the things that this allows you to do to. It’s also frustrating that you could spend 20 levels serving your deity only for your deity to not make you a “lesser herald”.
  • Maker of MiraclesCRB: Casting 10th-level spells is the coolest thing most characters will ever do.
  • Metamagic ChannelCRB: The Cleric doesn’t have many good metamagic options, and it’s frustrating that this is limited to Harm and heal. The best candidate for this is evil clerics with undead minions who want to use options like Command Undead and Cast Down, but options like Radiant Infusion and Defensive Recovery may be enough to make this useful for clerics with Divine Font (Good).

General Feats

  • Armor ProficiencyCRB: The Cleric’s armor proficiencies are poor. A warpriest can take Armor Proficiency at level 3 and get heavy armor, reducing their reliance on Dexterity and getting AC of up to +2 more than medium armor 8 levels before the Cleric’s only advancement in armor proficiency. Even when you do advance to Expert, full plate will still remove the need to have 12 or 14 Dexterity, allowing to spend those Ability Boosts elsewhere. Cloistered clerics will find armor proficiencies more costly because they start with none, but if you need the AC, armor may still be worth the feats to get it. If you want to go this route, strongly consider the Champion Dedication feat instead because it takes you straight to heavy armor.
  • Shield BlockCRB: Warpriests get this for free. Cloistered celrics may find it helpful, but if you’re drawing enough fire that you’re using it consistently you may need to reconsider your tactics.
  • ToughnessCRB: 8+ hit points isn’t a lot for a front-line character like the Warpriest.

Weapons

You’re functionally locked into your deity’s favored weapon since you don’t advance beyond Trained in anything else.

Armor

  • Explorer’s ClothingCRB: Unless you take Armor Proficiency, cloistered clerics are stuck in this for their whole career.
  • Studded LeatherCRB: Likely your permanent armor for Dexterity-based warpriests
  • HideCRB: The cheap option for medium armor. If you can afford Chain Mail it’s a better choice, but you may need that gold for other things like a weapon.
  • Chain MailCRB: For warpriests in medium armor, this is likely your permanent armor.
  • Full PlateCRB: You get your first General Feat right when you can reasonably afford to buy full plate, and upgrading to heavy armor solves a lot of build challenges for the Warpriest. If you’re a cloistered cleric and want heavy armor you could also take Champion Dedication to go straight to heavy armor proficiency.

Archetypes

  • Champion: The Champion Dedication feat gets you heavy armor proficiency and two Trained skills. Compared to the cost of three General Feats for the Cloistered Cleric to get to heavy armor, a single class feat is very inexpensive. For warpriests, the Champion’s Reaction feat is very tempting. The only challenge is the ability score requirements, which may be difficult for warpriests who already need to split their ability scores between so many things.
  • Monk: Helpful for monks whose deity’s favored weapon is an unarmed strike of some sort, such as Irori. A monk stance could be very effective if you’re planning a warpriest.
  • Sorcerer: Easy access to additional divine spellcasting if you just want more spells.
  • Witch: Easy access to additional divine spellcasting if you just want more spells.