Holy Avenger Experience

[Cardea]

Asking for opinions and experiences from people.

As a Paladin, how many of you have used a Holy Avenger? Did you replace it at some point? Improve it later on? Did you get one and not use it because of something better?

[bot]

I'm playing in a group where one of the other players has a Holy Avenger, with a twist. It's a ring that, as a standard action, can transform into any weapon the wearer desires - very nifty having a Holy Avenger Lance when riding, and then switch when in melee.

I think the Greater Dispel feature, as a standard action, is amazing - actually don't know any blade better for a Paladin.

[Pickford]

Asking for opinions and experiences from people.

As a Paladin, how many of you have used a Holy Avenger? Did you replace it at some point? Improve it later on? Did you get one and not use it because of something better?

Given that you can add features to magic weapons, there's no reason not to get the holy avenger and then improve it from there.

[Alefiend]

Given that you can add features to magic weapons, there's no reason not to get the holy avenger and then improve it from there.

It's already at least a +7 equivalent (+5 and holy), possibly more depending on how you apply the other properties; there isn't a whole lot of room to improve it pre-epic.

[TrollCapAmerica]

I used one in old editions but not in 3rd/PF

It was pretty hardcore awesome back then though and just having one made a Paladin unbelievably strong vs CE foes.Even better if the DM forgot it was only against CE and not all Evil alignments

[Techwarrior]

Asking for opinions and experiences from people.

As a Paladin, how many of you have used a Holy Avenger? Did you replace it at some point? Improve it later on? Did you get one and not use it because of something better?

Nope, never. :smallcool:

However, an old rogue of mine called Whisper had to use one in the final fight against the BBEG.

My opinion? The SR is useless against anything relevant if you're using it as a Paladin. 5+ character level doesn't cut it against anything but scrolls and similar items. My experience is that the only spells a BBEG has on a scroll is something that doesn't care about SR. The only reason that the SR it granted was relevant to me was because I rolled a 19 on my UMD check, which gave me an SR of 45. Similarly, the area dispel is only vaguely useful. I used it twice because I had the maxed out caster level as well and was trying to dispose of buffed summons while on the run.

I saw the paladin use that sword for about half the campaign, and when he used it he couldn't get it to do anything good. :smallfrown:

tl;dr
If your using it as a Paladin, don't bother. If you can pump the UMD to emulate a class feature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useMagicDevice.htm) it becomes really nice.

[navar100]

Never used one, but my cleric did create one for his paladin cohort. That was cool.

[ArcturusV]

Except I don't think that UMD can be used with Holy Avengers. It's "emulate a class FEATURE" not "Emulate being a class". Considering that the only items I can think of that actually require "Be a class" is the Holy Avenger, and the Sparring Dummy thing, and they're both for low power character classes? I'm okay with that interpretation as a DM. I recognize though that isn't a universal point of view. But I had never run into anyone thinking differently until I came onto this board.

But that said? Yeah. I used it. No reason not to. Even if you're a THF type, you can still two hand a Longsword, so go to town with it. Of course the use of the sword itself depends on how optimized your campaign is. Then again if "Paladin" was a valid, acceptable choice and you weren't going into it expecting to be the lame duck of the team, it's probably not a High OP world and the sword's abilities will be quite useful.

[Auramis]

I've never used one on any of my paladins. We never find one/get to the point we can afford one if we find one. I normally just roll with a standard holy longsword or greatsword.