PDA

View Full Version : Thoughts on the Paladin: Pallys need love, too !



katans
2010-05-26, 07:11 AM
I've read over and over that the Paladin is a bad class, that it sucks at life, that it's on the same level than Fighter and Monk etc. and I must say, I strongly disagree with this idea. Certainly, a Paladin is not better than a Crusader, it's not a Tier 3 class, but in my opinion, it's far, very far from sucking as much as the vast majority of the CharOp boards seem to think he does. So here are some thoughts and ideas on how I play paladins, and what can be done to easily vamp them up.

First off, stats. Pallys need high STR and CHA, as high as it goes. Cha IS important, and should never be neglected. It fuels your Leadership score, your Lay on hands, your Smite Evil, and your Divine feats. Can't dump that. Dip into Cleric for Power Attack + Divine Might as your 1st level feats (you ARE playing a Human, aren't you?) and you're good to go.
The CON thing kinda unsettles my every time. Sure, good CON is always good, but I tend to believe that a Paladin is, among all, the one class than can allow a somewhat subpar CON and still have respectable survivability. D10 Hit Dice means you have on average 1 HP more than a D8 class, so you could allow a CON score 2 points lower. Your saves are already covered by Divine Grace. I've played quite a lot of paladins starting with Con 12 and they all did well.
Regarding WIS... as a starting stat, 12 is enough. It means you'll be able to cast spells starting at level 4. Put your next two level upgrades into it and you're good to go at level 8 as well. In a low-level campaign, starting at 11 as upping at 4th could do the trick as well.
No DEX penalty, but that's all. You can always throw in a +2 item at some point to complement your full plate.
You don't need INT.
Suggested 25 PB: STR 14 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 8 WIS 11 CHA 16
Suggested 28 PB: STR 15 DEX 10 CON 12 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 16
Suggested 32 PB: STR 16 DEX 10 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 16

The paladin's class abilities are pretty neat, but they stop progressing after level 6. This means you can be decently useful until level 10 or so, but start suffering badly afterwards. If your game goes further, the only viable alternative IMO is Underdark Knight, using Leadership if you really want a buddy to come along. I'm not a friend of the Special Mount: it's weaker than an Animal Companion and is usually too big to be brought into a dungeon anyway. Plus, you only have so much feats, better not spend them on mount-boosters (maybe with the exception of Draconic Mount?).

Skills... the only one you need to really worry about is Diplomacy. You have the two skills that give a synergy bonus as well, so go for it. Ride is mostly useless if you go without a mount.

Good feats: Power Attack and Divine Might are mandatory. Leadership is a gem given your CHA score, but DMs rarely allow it in my experience. Otherwise, Battle Blessing, Sword of the Arcane Order, Animal Devotion, Travel Devotion, Martial Study... are all solid choices.

Let's be clear on this: a Paladin will never be as good as a Crusader, let alone a Cleric. But it still can and will do the job pretty well if played to his strengths.

Suggested fix (tested and approved!):
- make spellcasting CHA-based. This way, no need to worry about WIS any longer. You'll want 10 to avoid a penalty, but nothing more.
- replace Remove Disease with spell-like abilities: each time you'd gain an additional use of Remove Disease, you can instead choose a Paladin spell you could cast and use it as a SLA 1/day, CL = HD.
- bonus fighter or divine feat at 1st, 7th, 13th and 19th.

Not that big of a change, but can definitely make the pally enjoyable.

Thoughts? Reactions? Whatever?

Ferrin
2010-05-26, 07:35 AM
Not every GM allows Leadership, as such charisma is only good for Diplomacy.

Taking the Serenity feat from Dragon Magazine Compendium bases your abilities off of Wisdom completely. Wisdom adds to your will saves, spot, listen, and sense motive checks. Which are more important then charisma.

Fixing the paladin needs more then the frail patches you're applying. The crusader gives the same fluff as the paladin but doesn't get spellcasting or the mount.

Oh, and I won't mention the Paladin code here, it's just... Yeah...

J.Gellert
2010-05-26, 07:44 AM
I'd say the paladin isn't bad at all. But it's one of those classes that suffers in the wrong type of campaign, or at the claws of the wrong DM.

I've had tons of excitement with Paladins in the past. My oldest favorite class. So much fun to be had in an outsider-/undead-heavy game.

katans
2010-05-26, 07:46 AM
Serenity removes the "Knight in shiny armor" fluff that's IMO typical of the Paladin. And I'm generally careful with Dragon Magazine. But yeah, otherwise, sure.

As for fixing the paladin... depends on what you want to achieve.

And the Paladin's code in not that of a nuisance. It's not the Knight's code, after all.

AstralFire
2010-05-26, 07:52 AM
Con's importance as an HP booster is less critical past low levels than as a Fortitude Save booster. While the Paladin has Divine Grace, Con really isn't something you can just leave as 'average' comfortably for a frontliner.

Smite needs to go from x/day to x/encounter.

Gnaeus
2010-05-26, 07:54 AM
I've read over and over that the Paladin is a bad class, that it sucks at life, that it's on the same level than Fighter and Monk etc. and I must say, I strongly disagree with this idea. Certainly, a Paladin is not better than a Crusader, it's not a Tier 3 class, but in my opinion, it's far, very far from sucking as much as the vast majority of the CharOp boards seem to think he does. So here are some thoughts and ideas on how I play paladins, and what can be done to easily vamp them up.

Let's be clear on this: a Paladin will never be as good as a Crusader, let alone a Cleric. But it still can and will do the job pretty well if played to his strengths.

Thoughts? Reactions? Whatever?

You state that paladins are never tier 3. Agreed.

You feel that a well played paladin is tier 4. Agreed.

Here is the thing. Optimization and good play can raise a class by a tier. If you like paladins and know how to make them run well, YOUR paladin is tier 4. There are certainly tier 4 Fighter builds (Chain trippers, chargers). Monk is probably hardest, but there are tier 4 monks. Paladin is pretty close to Fighter, Monk and Knight. I personally would agree that Paladin is the best of the 4, but I like paladins also, so there is bias. They are all close enough that it is unclear/situational.


Suggested fix (tested and approved!):
- make spellcasting CHA-based. This way, no need to worry about WIS any longer. You'll want 10 to avoid a penalty, but nothing more.
- replace Remove Disease with spell-like abilities: each time you'd gain an additional use of Remove Disease, you can instead choose a Paladin spell you could cast and use it as a SLA 1/day, CL = HD.
- bonus fighter or divine feat at 1st, 7th, 13th and 19th.

Not that big of a change, but can definitely make the pally enjoyable.

Check the Pathfinder SRD for their paladin fix. It includes most of what you have there, and includes a couple of other good ideas (changes to smite, options involving mount). Many people agree that their paladin changes were one of the most balanced changes in Pathfinder (it is speculated that one of the designers plays a Paladin.)


Smite needs to go from x/day to x/encounter.

Or one use of smite could last until the enemy is dead. (See PF above).

Ferrin
2010-05-26, 07:56 AM
No, it's worse. The Knight code only slightly penalizes you with three distinct actions, the paladin code completely grinds your character to dust if you do any of the things vaguely mentioned in the code which can be easily be interpreted differently by different people.

The knight, as is the paladin, is a tier 5 class, and lacks either versatility or power, or both as is the case.

But allright, I'll help you with what you want:
If you want to fix the paladin how you want to play him I'd base all of his class features off of charisma, replace his Lay on Hands class feature with that of the dragon shaman(including the level 11 upgrade of it). Gives smite additional uses per day equal to your charisma. Give paladins 4 + Int modifer skill points per level. Caster level equals class level -3. Remove Cure Disease entirely, it's replaced by Touch of Vitality at level 11 anyway(or at 6, doesn't make you to powerfull anyway).

Kaiyanwang
2010-05-26, 07:57 AM
Check the Pathfinder SRD for their paladin fix. It includes most of what you have there, and includes a couple of other good ideas (changes to smite, options involving mount).

This. Definitively this.

EDIT: link (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/paladin.html#paladin).

IdleMuse
2010-05-26, 08:01 AM
Legends of the Twins has the feat Dynamic Priest, which changes your primary spellcasting stat for divine casters to Charisma (for everything except DCs). It's a unfortuantely a Dragonlance sourcebook, but very well-written compared to other licensed third-party stuff. If you GM disallows it simply because it isn't WotC-published, I suggest showing it it them; it's miles away from the poorly-edited overpowered stuff seen in a lot of 3rdparty supplements.

Depending on the focus of the campaign, ACFs/SubLevels can replace remove disease with varous things, the interesting ones being Cursebreaker (remove curse/enchant), Greater Turning (as the Sun domain), Inspire Competence (as Bard), Zone of Truth, Haste...

I agree that none of these really end up 'fixing' a poor class, but I second what's said above; if you want to play a long-progression Paladin, Crusader is probably a much better option. One of the big problems with Paladin is that a lot of its features don't scale well with level; sure you get a few more smites, but slowly compared to the melee progression of Initiators or other competitive melee classes.

Prodan
2010-05-26, 08:06 AM
Monk is probably hardest, but there are tier 4 monks.

I'm given to understand that those do not have more than two levels in the actual monk class.

AstralFire
2010-05-26, 08:07 AM
I'm given to understand that those do not have more than two levels in the actual monk class.

Yeah, they're not really monks anymore.

Oh my god it's me.

Escheton
2010-05-26, 08:07 AM
Champions of valor is very paladin friendly.
Too bad it's a 2, maybe 3 lvl class.
Love mixing it with sorc or bard however. A valorious warchanter rules.

Greenish
2010-05-26, 08:08 AM
Yeah, they're not really monks anymore.Tashalatora has essentially the same flavour as monks, they just have more options.

Oh my god it's me.Squee?

AstralFire
2010-05-26, 08:09 AM
So does the Unarmed Swordsage. Same flavor is not the same class, though. :smalltongue:

Ferrin
2010-05-26, 08:28 AM
When talking about flavor you can scrap a LOT of classes. Some classes are just more specialized(often a bad thing) in a specific thing. For example; the sorcerer and dread necromancer. Both spontaneous arcane casters who use charisma as there casting stat, but a necromancy focused sorcerer is worse off then the dread necromancer. The sorcerer when played to it's strengths is better then the dread necromancer however. Same with the Knight/fighter, swordsage/monk/ninja and factotum/rogue. They can do the same things, one is just more specialized then the other, and overall the specialist loses out except when both classes are played to the specialists' strength. Ofcourse it doesn't quite work that way in reality, just look at monks.

Machiavellian
2010-05-26, 08:35 AM
I love, love, love paly, especially when comboed with Sword of the Arcane Order, Serenity or Dynamic Priest, and Mystic Fire Knight. This easilly improves Paladin dramatically, especially when comboed with Wizard levels

Ferrin
2010-05-26, 08:39 AM
I love, love, love paly, especially when comboed with Sword of the Arcane Order, Serenity or Dynamic Priest, and Mystic Fire Knight. This easilly improves Paladin dramatically, especially when comboed with Wizard levels

I bolded the important part. :smallcool:

Telonius
2010-05-26, 08:55 AM
My thoughts on the Paladin...

The Paladin's biggest problem is filling a party role. He's supposed to be a primary melee combatant, with secondary party face and healing duties. But he has a hard time doing that given his class features.

For the combat side of it, he lacks the feats of a Fighter, the favored enemies of the Ranger, and the rage of a Barbarian. Smite Evil is only operative against Evil foes, and is wasted if the attack happens to miss. He can make up for this somewhat with mounted combat; but a mounted charge is not always an option, and tends to eat up more feats. If he doesn't go Mounted, he's essentially a Rage-less Barbarian with less hp and higher ac.

The spells are nice, and certainly helpful to supplement a Cleric - every Death Ward or Restoration he casts is another Divine Power for the Cleric. But on their own they aren't particularly great.

For being a Party Face, Paladin only has 2+Int skill points. If he's maxing out Ride (for the aforementioned Mounted Combat), that means he only has one leftover skill point to use unless his Int score is 12 or better, or is a human. If either of those is the case, you'll have a Paladin who's great at Ride, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive, but knows nothing about religion.

That brings me to the Paladin's second big problem - MAD. Paladin is far-and-away the worst MAD class in core D&D, possibly in the whole game. It's even worse than Monk, who can safely dump Charisma without spending a feat to do so. But a Paladin needs...

Str, to hit things.
Dex, for AC, Ride checks, and Reflex saves.
Con, for HP.
Int, for skills.
Wis, to be able to cast spells and for Will saves.
Cha, for Smite Evil, Divine Grace, Lay On Hands, and Turn Undead.

The only thing semi-dumpable there is Int.

Paladin's third big problem is class features. After 6th level, there really isn't much. Of the next 14 levels, 6 contain no new class features except for spells. 2 contain no new class features at all. You get two things other than (kinda lackluster) spells. Remove disease 5/week? Congratulations, at level 18 you'll be almost as good at removing disease as a 5th-level Cleric, who can do it once a day if he prepares it. The additional uses of Smite Evil are nice, but once every five levels? Just not enough.

paddyfool
2010-05-26, 08:55 AM
I rather love the Paladin too. Agreed on the fix comments, and the various useful tactics on the whole (although I'd also recommend Battle Blessing). That said... if I had to play in a high op, high tier game, I'd just play a LG Cleric, roleplay as if playing a paladin, and have the firm intent to take a dip into Prestige Paladin as my first prestige class level, whether or not the DM allows Battle Blessing cheese with this (EDIT: if not totally high-op, I'd be very tempted to take it at least as far as 3rd for the major signature abilities). In some ways, the fluff of the Paladin base class fits the Prestige Paladin even better; it's something to aspire to, not for any starting-out adventurer.

EDIT: Incidentally, while we're talking about Pally fixes, my favourite remains Fax Celestis' (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33551) one, with its modular customisable ideology. Still doesn't get enough smites, but otherwise it's pretty fabuloso.

Gnaeus
2010-05-26, 09:57 AM
I'm given to understand that those do not have more than two levels in the actual monk class.

C'mon. To hit tier 4, you only really have to have one good trick. With good gear, feat choices, dips and proper op fu you can make a monk into a passable grappler or trip controller, maybe even DPR. Not as good as a fighter, and almost anything they can do a SS can do much better, but you can still hit tier 4 with more than 2 monk levels. It just takes more cheese to stand on.

Machiavellian
2010-05-26, 11:54 AM
For the wizard dip (blasphemous as it is to say) You only need 5 levels, if you use High One Warrior-Wizard. or Flip-Flop and go more wiz than paly. Either or, you are a guy in fullplate with every paladin and wizard spell in the book, a Mount who can kill with a glance, and an AC so high that nothing short of Bob the Mastermage can hit you. Congrats. You own everybody

The Cat Goddess
2010-05-26, 01:48 PM
For the wizard dip (blasphemous as it is to say) You only need 5 levels, if you use High One Warrior-Wizard. or Flip-Flop and go more wiz than paly. Either or, you are a guy in fullplate with every paladin and wizard spell in the book, a Mount who can kill with a glance, and an AC so high that nothing short of Bob the Mastermage can hit you. Congrats. You own everybody

Where does that PrC come from?

Machiavellian
2010-05-26, 01:56 PM
Where does that PrC come from?

ACF from Champs of Valor web enhancement. It lets you interchange Paly and Wiz spells, stacks familiar with mount, and reduces ASF

Pluto
2010-05-26, 07:22 PM
For the wizard dip (blasphemous as it is to say) You only need 5 levels, if you use High One Warrior-Wizard. or Flip-Flop and go more wiz than paly. Either or, you are a guy in fullplate with every paladin and wizard spell in the book, a Mount who can kill with a glance, and an AC so high that nothing short of Bob the Mastermage can hit you. Congrats. You own everybody
...up to 4th level. That's kind of an important qualifier when flaunting a build's power.

Runestar
2010-05-26, 08:41 PM
I once tried to make the paladin less MAD. Use the warforged paladin ACF (which replaces divine grace with con mod to will saves only). The feat paladin variant in complete champion and steadfast determination removes the need for wis, letting you dump both cha and wis (which incidentally, the warforged has penalties to). Now, you only need to focus on str and con (which applies twice to your will saves!).

Dragonborn just because it is so sexy. Throw in the charging smite variant for seasoning.

However, the final product left quite a bit to be desired, since I was effectively left with a warrior with some misc immunitues and SLAs. :smalltongue: