[3.5] Developing a 'Binding Paladin' variant

[tuesdayscoming]

So I'm DMing a campaign and there's a plot important paladin I'm working on right now. Her god is a homebrewed deity – though he's a pseudo-pantheon in his own right. A god of shadows and dreams who, as a result of his punishment at the hands of a god of light, has forgotten himself entirely. In a nutshell he constantly dreams of who or what he might have been, and these possible-selves manifest in the world as vestiges. His followers worship these vestiges, and acclaimed priests will occasionally take levels in binder to commune directly with an aspect of their god.

Or at least that's how I've thought about it so far. In another post, '742' (thanks for the advice) suggested that I simply rework the paladin to give binding abilities as per the binder class from ToM.

Problem is, I'm new to 3.5 and don't feel comfortable enough with it to make a change so drastic as this. Giving up spellcasting and/or turn undead might work, though I'm hesitant to give up the latter. I have some trickery devotion (CC 63) mayhem planned and could use the extra /days. That said, anyone have ideas as to what might work? I'd be open to even ideas for drastic changes/complete reworkings.

[Ferrin]

No need to rework anything, as it's still a god it can still provide divine spells so you don't need to change the paladin at all. (Though I still would, but not because of any fluff reasons)

The binders could just be part of the clergy, having multiple factions in the church can give some depth to the campaign as well.

[tuesdayscoming]

Oh, you're certainly right, the presence of binders wouldn't be at all abnormal in this god's 'temples'. But what I'm driving at is more a class variant that gives, in addition to such classically divine abilities as Divine Grace and the PoTyranny's Aura of Despair, some binding abilities. Not so much a way to include binding in a temple as a way to merge the paladin and the binder into a single class.

Or the binder and the hexblade, actually. I've always thought that that would be an interesting way to fix the class, but haven't come up with any middle-ground I'm happy with.

[Ferrin]

Just let them take the binder feats, they don't need to get all the power of the binder, right? :smallwink:

[DaTedinator]

It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to do, and giving Hexblade some binding could be a lot of fun. I'm busy most of the day, but come tonight I'll see what I can hammer out.

EDIT:

Alright, it's tonight! This isn't anything particularly amazing. I tried to keep it simple, and tried to avoid trying to fix the paladin. This is, as much as I could, just giving the Paladin binding; the only changes have been because the flavor demanded it, rather than to balance things. Thus, still underpowered, and we still have plenty of dead levels at the higher levels.

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |
Maximum Vestige Level

1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Aura of good, Detect evil, Smite evil 1/day|
1st

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Pact augmentation, Soul binding (1 vestiges)|
1st

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Soul guardian (immune to fear), Lay on hands|
1st

4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Divine health|
1st

5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Special mount, Smite evil 2/day|
2nd

6th|+6/+1|+5|+2|+2|Remove disease 1/week|
2nd

7th|+7/+2|+5|+2|+2||
2nd

8th|+8/+3|+6|+2|+2|Soul guardian (aura of courage)|
2nd

9th|+9/+4|+6|+3|+3|Remove disease 2/week|
3rd

10th|+10/+5|+7|+3|+3|Smite evil 3/day|
3rd

11th|+11/+6/+1|+7|+3|+3|Soul binding (2 vestiges)|
3rd

12th|+12/+7/+2|+8|+4|+4|Remove disease 3/week|
3rd

13th|+13/+8/+3|+8|+4|+4|Soul guardian (immune to energy drain and negative levels)|
4th

14th|+14/+9/+4|+9|+4|+4||
4th

15th|+15/+10/+5|+9|+5|+5|Remove disease 4/week, Smite evil 4/day|
4th

16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|+10|+5|+5||
4th

17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5||
5th

18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+6|Remove disease 5/week|
5th

19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+6|Soul guardian (aura of life)|
5th

20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|+12|+6|+6|Soul binding (3 vestiges), Smite evil 5/day|
5th

[/table]

Abilities that need explaining:

Pact Augmentation: Rather than the standard binder choices, the paladin may add his Charisma bonus to one of the things binders can normally gain insight bonuses to (saving throws, AC, attack rolls, damage rolls, or initiative checks), to a maximum of his class level. Alternatively, he can gain energy resistance (to either acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) or bonus hit points equal to three times his Charisma bonus, to a maximum of three times his class level. Last but not least, he can instead gain his Charisma bonus in DR/-, to a maximum of half his class level.

Soul Guardian: At 3rd and 13th levels, the Paladin gains immunity to the effects listed. At 8th level the Paladin grants allies within 10' a +4 bonus to saves against fear effects, and at 19th grants allies within 10' a +4 bonus to saves against energy drain and negative levels.


So yeah. Straightforward, *should* be balanced, and most of all, simple.