9HD Paladin Mount at level 5...any errata on this?

[Urpriest]

According to Sandstorm, a paladin can select a Diprotodon as a mount, a 9HD prehistoric wombat. There is no listed minimum level for this, so presumably this can be selected right at 5th level. This is rather thoroughly better than any other mount available by a substantial margin. Is there errata on this? Or FAQ even? Was it intended? I kind of suspect they meant to say Protoceratops (since it also has the syllable proto), but even that is really really good for a Medium mount.

As a sidenote, what is the formula for Powerful Charge damage? The Protoceratops has an attack that deals 1d8+1.5xStr, and its Powerful Charge deals 2d8+11, where its Str is 16. What happens when it advances?

[Kefkafreak]

Druids can select things like Elasmosaurus (10 HD) at level 7, so I don't see why not.

[Urpriest]

Druids can select things like Elasmosaurus (10 HD) at level 7, so I don't see why not.

But the other level 7 options are around 5-8 HD, so it's not hugely better (presumably it has a few more hit dice to counterbalance the fact that you can't use it on land). The other level 5 Paladin options are all less than half the hit dice of the Diprotodon.

[Lans]

Paladins are kind of weak, let em have it.:smallbiggrin:

[EarFall]

According to Sandstorm, a paladin can select a Diprotodon as a mount, a 9HD prehistoric wombat. There is no listed minimum level for this, so presumably this can be selected right at 5th level. This is rather thoroughly better than any other mount available by a substantial margin. Is there errata on this? Or FAQ even? Was it intended? I kind of suspect they meant to say Protoceratops (since it also has the syllable proto), but even that is really really good for a Medium mount.

As a sidenote, what is the formula for Powerful Charge damage? The Protoceratops has an attack that deals 1d8+1.5xStr, and its Powerful Charge deals 2d8+11, where its Str is 16. What happens when it advances?

O_O Did they just give melee nice things?!

Haha, seriously though, I'd let them keep it.

[Grendus]

Honestly, the Paladin class is fairly well designed, it just needs more. More mount scaling, more smites per day, more spells per day, more uses for lay on hands... just more. It's a well built class, it's features synergize well, it just needs more. I don't see why you wouldn't let a paladin have that, unless your party is made up of a healer, fighter, rogue, and paladin.

[Urpriest]

Ok, to all those saying that melee should have nice things, suppose this is my motivation:

I played a halfling supermount build awhile back, where I wasn't allowed to get a gold dragon for setting reasons. The place was set in a desert, so I went looking through Sandstorm for a fun Medium mount. I looked at the Protoceratops, thought it was perfect for what I had in mind...then found that they weren't allowed, and instead Paladins could use a Large wombat. So I settled for a riding dog.

Now if the rules were supposed to say Protoceratops rather than Diprotodon, then I got gypped out of an adorable miniature triceratops. So that's a large part of my motivation here.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Is....

Is that a a lot?

;)

[ffone]

*sigh* it's such a shame that the level of advice at the Playground is often at such a basic level as 'well it's a melee class, so whatever the question is, we should answer it in the 'yes'/upward direction.'

This doesn't answer the question of whether that dino being on the paly mount list with no level min was a mistake. And if allowing it led to every paladin char for the rest of time using the same mount, that would be a bit boring. In other words, it might be worth allowing for a player who was interested in one, but it's not like part of any global 'fix' for the paladin class should be "okay, make sure to take this particular weird dinosaur as your mount."

[Big Fau]

Honestly, the Paladin class is fairly well designed, it just needs more. More mount scaling, more smites per day, more spells per day, more uses for lay on hands... just more. It's a well built class, it's features synergize well, it just needs more.

What are you smoking, and where can I buy some?

[Lans]

Honestly, the Paladin class is fairly well designed, it just needs more. More mount scaling, more smites per day, more spells per day, more uses for lay on hands... just more. It's a well built class, it's features synergize well, it just needs more. I don't see why you wouldn't let a paladin have that, unless your party is made up of a healer, fighter, rogue, and paladin.

Are you saying clerics needs a mount?

[Coidzor]

*sigh* it's such a shame that the level of advice at the Playground is often at such a basic level as 'well it's a melee class, so whatever the question is, we should answer it in the 'yes'/upward direction.'

This doesn't answer the question of whether that dino being on the paly mount list with no level min was a mistake. And if allowing it led to every paladin char for the rest of time using the same mount, that would be a bit boring. In other words, it might be worth allowing for a player who was interested in one, but it's not like part of any global 'fix' for the paladin class should be "okay, make sure to take this particular weird dinosaur as your mount."

Well, if there's errata on this, between the WOTC site and peole's knowledge, whether or not errata exists should've been determined before now... :/ So I think everyone is like... eh, whatever, doing it in X way doesn't seem unreasonable in context o Y general case.

[Lateral]

What are you smoking, and where can I buy some?

Aside from the severe MAD, what he said is true at low levels, when they have plenty of decent class features that suffer from being too limited. At higher levels, they have the same problem, but also just a lack of class features in general. They're pretty horribly lopsided.

[ffone]

Well, if there's errata on this, between the WOTC site and peole's knowledge, whether or not errata exists should've been determined before now... :/ So I think everyone is like... eh, whatever, doing it in X way doesn't seem unreasonable in context o Y general case.

It's not that it's unreasonable, I just find it unfortunate when one option is so obviously stronger than the others that everyone ends up taking it (like Pouncebarian for any meleer, or Craven for rogues - since you can't imagine a sneak attacker who didn't want the Craven feat, they might as well have just built it into the class and reduced the class's power level by 1 feat equivalent.) Not for game balance or mechanics but for trope/cliche reasons - it would get annoying if every paladin you ever met (who had a mount at all) were riding the same obscure dinosaur (unless you wanted a DinoRiders type campaign setting region were those *were* the typical everyday mounts, like the Chocobo birds in Final Fantasy settings). Sort of like how we're all sick of seeing Water Orc Barbarians.

Of course, so few people take 5 paladin levels in a high-op setting that this particular case is not much of an issue (and I personally as a DM would probably allow it). I'm not so much saying that this particular thing should'n't be allowed, as pining for better written and balanced manuals.

[Big Fau]

Aside from the severe MAD, what he said is true at low levels, when they have plenty of decent class features that suffer from being too limited. At higher levels, they have the same problem, but also just a lack of class features in general. They're pretty horribly lopsided.

I really don't count Remove Disease and Remove Curse as class features, so all I see when I look at the Paladin class is a lot of dead levels, some spells/day, and a few more uses of Smite.


That really doesn't strike me as well-designed compared to a class like the Rogue or Bard (both of which I consider Core's best-designed base classes).

[Lateral]

I really don't count Remove Disease and Remove Curse as class features, so all I see when I look at the Paladin class is a lot of dead levels, some spells/day, and a few more uses of Smite.


That really doesn't strike me as well-designed compared to a class like the Rogue or Bard (both of which I consider Core's best-designed base classes).

It's not, but like I said, at low levels they have plenty of class features. They just suffer from extremely limited usage. For instance, Barbarians' rage scales at the same rate as a Paladin's smiting, but Rage lasts a whole encounter most of the time, while Smite is on a single attack, so it's not nearly often enough. Lay on Hands is a nice ability, but its healing pool is too small to really make a difference very often. The other class features are all at levels 1-5; at those levels, its design is OK aside from lack of decent uses per day and severe MAD. Higher up than that, they thought the half-casting made up for having virtually no class features. They were wrong, and I would never recommend taking more than 5 levels.