[Pathfinder] Paladin, Longspear or Spear?

[Arthurian]

Hey there everyone! My question for help with the Wizard got some great responses, so I was hoping you could help me again. I'm recently applying for a PbP that will be taking place underwater, a game that has us starting at level 5. I'd like to apply with a Paladin. I have most of what I need figured out, but I'm wondering what, as a Paladin, could I choose for a mount?

Edit: Original Dicussion is ended. For multiple reasons, a Shark has been chosen for the mount. The next question is now...

What would be recommended for fighting on the front lines? A Spear or a Longspear? What are the benefits of Reach, exactly and is it useful for my paladin? Would it be better to have a weapon with reach or a weapon without it?

Here are the basics for my Paladin.

Mechanically, my Paladin will be focusing heavily on damage. He can do loads with a single shot between Power Attack and Furious Focus without losing any accuracy. He has a 20 str and a 10 dex so something like combat reflexes wouldn't help.

[Feralventas]

Dolphin.
Shark.
Whale.
Octopus.
Squid.
Seal.
Sea lion.
Narwhal.
Jet-ski.
Yacht.
Magical Surf-Board that functions as a Flying Carpet in only aquatic environments.

I'm getting silly here. Btw, 3.5 content allowed? Knight of the Pearl out of Stormwrack might be up your alley; aquatic pally PrC.

Hope you have fun.

[grarrrg]

underwater Paladin

MERFOLK!!!! (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-merfolk)

Seriously.
50ft. Swim Speed.
FIFTY foot Swim Speed!

+2 DEX, +2 CON, +2 CHA
(near) Perfect Paladin stats!

+2 Natural Armor
Most races with Natural Armor only get +1, you get +TWO!


Granted, the other Racial Traits are fairly "meh". But the rest is VERY solid.

[Arthurian]

I was very tempted to go Merfolk, the stats and natural armor are awesome, but while I could make a more powerful Paladin, I really disliked the flavor of the race. They're so... meh.

I went Undine instead. And yes, pain in the arse to get the stats I needed. But much more variety for the race itself and some nifty things like fast healing 2 for five rounds that I can pick up.

[Tactfultack]

LoH (lay on Hands) already let's you heal yourself as a swift action and you can add your charisma modifier to it, to boot.

Mechanically, I have to agree that Merfolks definitely have the edge in this. Background flavor for the merfolk may be relatively meh, but I think a merfolk paladin still has a lot of potential. The race may not have the best flavor, but that doesn't mean you can't give your character flavor in retaliation, depending on how much creative license is allowed.

[Arthurian]

Turns out I should have asked about the Merfolk. Apparently they are the 'orcs' of his campaign, at least in the area where things will be happening. The gillmen being the humans. But in other parts of the ocean, apparently Merfolk have been becoming more civilized, and my guy can now come from one of those settlements.

The lack of a temporary fast heal will be missed, but everything else is so much better it's not even funny. Also, pushing for a Shark Mount, since that would be awesome. XD Thank you again for your help playground.

(As a side not, I can't find where it says a paladin can add his Cha mod to the healing done by lay on hands.)

[grarrrg]

(As a side not, I can't find where it says a paladin can add his Cha mod to the healing done by lay on hands.)

I think they are referring to this feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/reward-of-life)

Reward of Life
Each time you use your lay on hands ability to heal a creature other than yourself, you heal a number of hit points equal to your Charisma bonus.

If you heal someone ELSE, then YOU gain HP equal to CHA.
So it does not 'add to', it's 'oh, and you also get'.

[Acanous]

For a Mount, take a Squid. They can squeeze into any dungeon, the ink is an un-dispellable fog cloud, and the Jet ability is (Ex) and doesn't say it only works in water.

You can fly with your Squid.

[Arthurian]

Original Dicussion is ended. For multiple reasons, a Shark has been chosen for the mount. (Thematically is pretty awesome, mechanically it's okay, high speed and useful out of combat, etc.) The next question is now...

What would be recommended for fighting on the front lines? A Spear or a Longspear? What are the benefits of Reach, exactly and is it useful for my paladin? Would it be better to have a weapon with reach or a weapon without it?

Here are the basics for my Paladin.

Mechanically, my Paladin will be focusing heavily on damage. He can do loads with a single shot between Power Attack and Furious Focus without losing any accuracy. He has a 20 str and a 10 dex so something like combat reflexes wouldn't help.

[toapat]

Lance.

Paladin + Not Lance = Sad

[Arthurian]

I considered the Lance, but I'm going with a Spear of some kind for story and thematic purposes. The only difference between a Longspear and a Lance is the charge bonus, something my guy won't be doing that often. Plus, I don't want to break the game. If I make my guy into a charger he'll do ridiculous damage. Emphasis on ridiculous.

So it's a question of Longspear vs Regular Spear and the pro's and con of having reach vs not having it.

[toapat]

You are talking about a PF paladin. You dont have flexibility. Charger is the only thing you can be competent at in melee range as a PF paladin.

People say PF paladin is better. Sure, at smiting, and getting anything out of LoH at base. Everything else is MIA that actually granted alot of power to 3.5 paladins.

[Arthurian]

That's your opinion. I don't want to go Charger. I'd like to use a Spear or a Longspear. I'd like to find out what's good and what's bad about having reach and what would be best for a frontliner, okay?

Right now I have a character doing great damage as a regular melee combatant, without even taking into account Smiting.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Neither the spear nor the long-spear has a clear-cut advantage, in and of itself.

If, however, you can get the short-haft feat from PHB2, or something similar from a PF book, then long-spear all the way.

The lonspear's primary advantage (reach) is also its primary disadvantage. Sure, you threaten a wider area, but if someone gets inside that area you have to back away to continue using your weapon. There are a number of ways around this, but you'd have to pick one, and most of them have a benefits/drawback of their own to think about. I suggested short-haft because it's the simplest solution.

The regular spear has a range-increment, but that's only particularly useful if you choose to build on it, something I'd advise against in an aquatic envrionment, it has the advantage of being able to hold your ground if you choose, without having to jump through any hoops whatsoever, though.

[Killer Angel]

The lonspear's primary advantage (reach) is also its primary disadvantage. Sure, you threaten a wider area, but if someone gets inside that area you have to back away to continue using your weapon.

Pretty much. Reach is good, so I would go for the longspear, but you have to be ready with a solid backup weapon.

[Feralventas]

If you're going to have a reach weapon, you'll have a difficult time fighting things that get past your reach and into direct melee because neither Wizards of the coast nor Paizo like the idea of just adjusting to use your spear as a staff or grab the weapon nearer to the pointy bits unless you take the fighter archetype to do so.

That said, you will probably wear armor as a Paladin. This means in many cases that you get a free set of Gauntlets, or otherwise that you can simply purchase a pair, and wear the Gauntlets. If your enemy gets past your AOO, you simply let go of the weapon with one hand, hold it behind you, and punch them in the Face for Justice.

Smiting enemies will make this particularly viable, since it will boost your attack and damage despite it not being your primary weapon. You can also take the Combat Patrol feat to increase your threatened area to improve your control capacity.

If you're feeling particularly silly, you could chose to enchant your weapon with the Throwing effect to make it a distance weapon to stack the Snap Shot and Improved Snap Shot feats to add an additional 15 feet to your threatened area, while also threatening your immediate proximity because your spear is now a ranged weapon.

This is a very silly idea though, and should only be attempted at mid levels or higher to really take advantage of the amount of feats invested in an absurd gimmick. Then again, with a proper lock-down build, you could probably have base 10ft reach, expanded to 25 via Improved Snap Shot, then expanded to 35 via Combat Patrol, though this idea looks to work better as a Fighter than as a Paladin. Also, I might have missed a crucial detail with which all of this will fall apart, but I digress.

[Arthurian]

It sounds like Reach has a few useful parts to it. For mounted combat, it means I can things at a distance with my mount. It gives a larger threatened area and it even lets me fight over my allies shoulders.

Unfortunately the downsides are pretty heavy. It's an underwater campaign, so fighting over an allies shoulder isn't so useful when you can just swim around or under. Reach also has the downside of not being able to attack things adjacent to you.

I think, for certain fights, I'll have a longspear handy, but I will for the most part focus on a regular spear. Thank you again playground for all of your help!

[Knaight]

It sounds like Reach has a few useful parts to it. For mounted combat, it means I can things at a distance with my mount. It gives a larger threatened area and it even lets me fight over my allies shoulders.

Unfortunately the downsides are pretty heavy. It's an underwater campaign, so fighting over an allies shoulder isn't so useful when you can just swim around or under. Reach also has the downside of not being able to attack things adjacent to you.
However, because it's an underwater campaign, the threatened area increase is larger than normal. Also, the inside of spear reach is shark-bite reach, so there's that.

[JKTrickster]

But there are many feats that get around the "people adjacent to you" business. So why not take up a long spear then?

[Andreaz]

And as said before your hands are perfectly valid melee weapons. You just need either Improved Unarmed Strike or a gauntlet (which all heavy armors grant, and is dirt-cheap as well)

[sdream]

One thing slightly missing from the discussion is AC.

In heaviest armor, addition of a tower shield can push you into nigh unhittable range (especially once you smite a foe). This can make a huge difference.

(I have a plate and tower shield pally in a game I am running).

This suggestion is only valid if you have a DM who will not arbitrarily up the hit bonus of your foes for you specifically.

[Andreaz]

This suggestion is only valid if you have a DM who will not arbitrarily up the hit bonus of your foes for you specifically.No plan should make contingencies for "the dm is being an ass"

[Marcelinari]

I think I may be missing something here. You're a merfolk, riding a shark? How are you... how does that logically work? How do you straddle it? Is this some sort of King Neptune shark-chariot deal? Does that alter the mount-rider dynamic?

Anyway, leaving that aside, I say go for longspear. It's been a point of contention for me on a fair few of my characters (spears are just so thematically satisfying) but in this case, with plate to be worn (and no ridiculous negatives to swim checks, since you have a swim speed), longspear works very well with those steel gauntlet.

And yes, I am aware that with RAW you're able to ride a horse without having legs, but seriously? If I were DMing you'd need a pretty good explanation of how you're pulling that off.

[grarrrg]

I think I may be missing something here. You're a merfolk, riding a shark? How are you... how does that logically work? How do you straddle it? Is this some sort of King Neptune shark-chariot deal? Does that alter the mount-rider dynamic?

And yes, I am aware that with RAW you're able to ride a horse without having legs, but seriously? If I were DMing you'd need a pretty good explanation of how you're pulling that off.

It's called Side-Saddle.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/SideSaddle_class_horse_show_2.jpg/200px-SideSaddle_class_horse_show_2.jpg
Mainly used by "proper" ladies riding a horse while wearing a dress/skirt.
but the same logic easily applies to Merfolk and the like.

[Andezzar]

You may want to look at a side saddle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horsemanship_for_Women_111.png). Riding someting like that won't work for merfolk.