I'll take the Paladin, without the Paladin.

[zoobob9]

I've been considering building an undead slayer.

For those who care why:

In my DM's realm, there was a great war long ago. The two sides were Powerful Necromancers and Everyone else. Including elementals, dieties, dragons, everything else that was not allied to Necromancers. Demons and Devils actually took a truce from the Blood War in order to help combat this Necromancy. And this build was a crusader of good in these dark times. He focused his strength to kill as many undead and thwart as many necromancers as he could. Hence the undead/evil slaying build. He then became an Elan and founded the Seltor clan, leaving behind the coveted Spear of Virsel Torrus, a legacy item that I shall later build and have another character use, but that's beside the point.

My first thoughts were Paladin and Cleric, but I couldn't choose. Until, of course, I found this in the spell compendium:

ELYSIUM DOMAIN
Requirement: Must be neutral good.
Granted Power (Su): You gain the ability to smite evil with a
single melee attack once per day. You add your Charisma bonus
(if any) to your attack roll and deal an extra 1 point of damage
per class level. This smite attack is treated as good-aligned for
the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At 5th level and
every five levels thereafter, you can use this smite attack one
additional time per day.

So, a Cleric, with smite evil? That seemed like the best of both worlds. The spells from this domain aren't superb, but they include gems such as:


Protection from Evil
Holy Smite
Mass Heal and Cure light wounds
Holy Aura


So, I got thinking that a Cleric could replicate all of the worthwhile Paladin abilities, while still having the perks of being a cleric (full spellcasting, turning undead, and a good will save).

Weapon/Armor Proficiency isn't an issue, only for the fact that he'll be using a spear for flavor. See the Spoiler for details.
Aura of Good is based on a Cleric.
Detect Evil? Please.
Smite Evil, one of the staples of the Paladin, is solved by that domain.
Divine Grace is a tough one, but spells could probably help it. I have yet to check.
Lay on Hands can be replicated by Cure Blank Wounds. At higher levels, its more difficult, but possible.
Aura of Courage can be caused by a spell, I assume. Courage spell or something.
Divine Health has spells to replicate it.
Turn Undead is Turn Undead.
Remove disease is a spell, usable every day instead of once a week.

The mount is what concerns me. I know of nothing that can duplicate a Special Mount.

So, in short, What can I do to duplicate a mount, has anybody done this before, and is this a good idea or does it actually suck?

[Kumori]

Summon Monster IV can get you a Unicorn... not exactly the same as a paladin's unicorn, but it's still something.

[deuxhero]

Planar Ally?

[Jack Zander]

Ah, this reminds me of the one shot adventure my group did one night. I played a cleric, but I told everyone except the DM that I was playing a paladin. I think we were 4th level. I just made sure that all my spells replicated a paladin ability, and I took the improved saving throw feats to make sure my saving throws were up to par. Whenever I would use an ability like lay on hands and the DM would shoot me a look like "How are you using that?" I'd point to what I was actually using on my character sheet. I don't remember what I used to replicate everything like smite evil and whatnot, but I can recall it being very fun. Especially after the adventure when another player called me out on cheating (paladins can't do that!) so I handed him my character sheet.

[zoobob9]

Ah, this reminds me of the one shot adventure my group did one night. I played a cleric, but I told everyone except the DM that I was playing a paladin. I think we were 4th level. I just made sure that all my spells replicated a paladin ability, and I took the improved saving throw feats to make sure my saving throws were up to par. Whenever I would use an ability like lay on hands and the DM would shoot me a look like "How are you using that?" I'd point to what I was actually using on my character sheet. I don't remember what I used to replicate everything like smite evil and whatnot, but I can recall it being very fun. Especially after the adventure when another player called me out on cheating (paladins can't do that!) so I handed him my character sheet.

After I make this build, if I ever have the chance to play him, I am most definitely doing that.

[Vizzerdrix]

I think the feat Wild cohort would suffice. You just can call/dismiss it.

[veven]

If you are still gonna be lawful good, allow me to introduce the Prestige Paladin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm)

If you are willing to lose one caster level by taking this for 3 levels (which some people cringe over but I don't think one is a huge deal). You can grab divine grace, a weak lay on hands, a weak mount, divine health, and the aura of courage.

If you want a stronger mount you can take the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) feat from the wizards website. It won't be as good as a normal special mount or animal companion but it scales with your character level instead of class level, which is nice.

[rollforeigninit]

Or hell, take Leadership........ You can get a nice celestial horse or whatever that levels with ya.

[Particle_Man]

Buy a non-special mount from the PHB, see if anyone notices? :smallbiggrin:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Claim that you have an ACF that traded in the mount for something more useful?

[Jack Zander]

Doesn't a domain somewhere give you an animal companion? Select a heavy horse but only use it for travel since "you didn't optimize mounted combat with this character."

[Kuulvheysoon]

Since he's likely Epic anyways, grab Dragon Cohort (Dra) and get a dragon as a mount.

[Coidzor]

Protection from Evil
Holy Smite
Mass Heal and Cure light wounds
Holy Aura


You already have all of those as regular cleric spells though. :smallconfused:


So, I got thinking that a Cleric could replicate all of the worthwhile Paladin abilities, while still having the perks of being a cleric (full spellcasting, turning undead, and a good will save).

The mount is what concerns me. I know of nothing that can duplicate a Special Mount.

So, in short, What can I do to duplicate a mount, has anybody done this before, and is this a good idea or does it actually suck?

Hmm? If you're not replicating the Mount then what worthwhile Paladin Abilities are you actually replicating?


Or hell, take Leadership........ You can get a nice celestial horse or whatever that levels with ya.

Or Dragon Cohort.

Or Dragon Mag for Ranger Knight of Furyondy and the feat Holy Mount.


Summon Monster IV can get you a Unicorn... not exactly the same as a paladin's unicorn, but it's still something.

There's actually a spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds, between 4th and 6th level that gets a Unicorn for something like a year and a day.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Doesn't a domain somewhere give you an animal companion? Select a heavy horse but only use it for travel since "you didn't optimize mounted combat with this character."

Not applicable, since the Elysium domain is a Planar domain, so it takes up BOTH of his domain choices.

[Myth]

No undead slayer is such without the Sun domain.

[zoobob9]

Since he's likely Epic anyways, grab Dragon Cohort (Dra) and get a dragon as a mount.

I think this will work.


Hmm? If you're not replicating the Mount then what worthwhile Paladin Abilities are you actually replicating?

Pretty much everything except the mount. Smite from the domain, and everything else from the spells.

[Gwendol]

Why smite when you can use exalted turning, be a morninglord of Lathander (or a champion yadayada of Pelor) and generally just kick undead ass as a cleric?

[Barlen]

Some one already mentioned the Prestige Paladin which gets all the best paladin abilities in 3 levels (real paladins get them in 5) but looses 1 caster level over those 3 levels.

Ordained Champion (Complete Champion) grants you a Smite ability that works on anyone regardless of alignment and is powered by turn undead attempts so you get many more smites/day. The strength of it also is based on turn undead level. The + to hit is from Chr bonus (like paladin) but the + to damage is based on your effective turn undead level.

Since your OC level and cleric level (and Prestige paladin level for that matter) all stack for effective turn undead this continues to grow as you take more cleric levels. The paladin and prestige paladin smites are dependent on your paladin level only and you loose out if you multiclass to cleric.

Ordained Champion looses 2 caster levels (at 1 and 4 out of a 5 level class), but a 3 level dip into it only looses 1 caster level. The requirements are pretty easy: Lawful alignment, deity with war domain (assumes this is the weapon you will use) and 7 ranks of Kn(religion).

You could go cleric 4/OC5/10X or cleric 4/OC 3/PP 3/10X where you dont loose more than 1 caster level over the last 10 levels. Prestige paladin and ordained champion are both full BaB.

There was also a PrC out of a Ravenloft module called Knight of the Raven that might be worth looking into. It was anti-undead themed. I don't recall all of the details and no longer have that module. Might be worth looking into if you can find it.

[imneuromancer]

The paladin was obviated in 3rd edition. Paladins only made sense in 1st edition because they got really awesome abilities but were hard to qualify for the class.

Second edition started the trend of making "non-iconic" clerics (which really aren't all that iconic, anyway), thus going toward the trend of making a cleric into a paladin. Then add to this all the "anti-paladin" type stuff, and you have basically broken down the reason-d'etre of the paladin.

In 3rd edition, to be a paladin means being a cleric who specializes in fighting and possibly having a mount.

[Coidzor]

Pretty much everything except the mount. Smite from the domain, and everything else from the spells.

Let me put it this way then. Smite? Not worthwhile. It's too limited in uses per day and here it takes up both of your domain choices, and doesn't give enough in return. Lay on hands? Not worthwhile, that's what wands of cure light wounds or lesser vigor are for. Aura of Courage? Not worth writing home about, but can be situationally useful. Also, as you said, cleric casting covers this in spades. Divine Health? It's OK, but most diseases are only a threat at low levels which are irrelevant to this character or are weak enough that you can just go ahead and cure yourself with your awesome cleric casting so immunity doesn't matter.

What you're not getting are Divine Grace or Mount. And Divine Grace is only good if you can pump charisma, which you can do to a certain extent as a cleric, but that all that much due to the other concerns and not wanting to go full MAD.

Mount and Divine Grace are the two best abilities that Paladins get. And you'd get both of them within 2 levels with PrC paladin (and all the relevant abilities in 3 levels at the cost of a single caster level) and you wouldn't even need to take such a weaksauce domain. :smallwink: