[3.5] Casting-focused Paladin

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

If I was to build a Paladin who's main focus was on his spells and casting (very suboptimal, I know), how would you go about it?

What feats, dips, items, ACFs, PrCs etc. would you use to maximize his casting effectiveness?

Note: no Prestige Paladin please, or "play a Cleric instead". :smallwink:

Cheers - T

[Juntao112]

How do you feel about the Ur-Priest?

[Irk]

Start with Mystic Fire knight's (ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20051104a)) improved spell casting to get CL of 0.5 x paladin levels + 2.
Get battle blessing (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-champion--57/battle-blessing--182/) and sword of the arcane order (http://dndtools.eu/feats/champions-of-valor--28/sword-of-the-arcane-order--2875/), perhaps even practiced spell caster (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/practiced-spellcaster--2231/) to get +4 CL.


This'll give you swift action wizard spells at CL (paladin level)/2 + 6.

Also, reserve feats, notably minor shapeshift, especially if you take SotAO and can't swing battle blessing.

Furthermore, if you give up MysticFK, you can do DMM.

[Thurbane]

How do you feel about the Ur-Priest?
Well, it kind of negates the point of focusing on Paladin casting, giving a whole casting progression of it's own. I probably wasn't clear on that in the OP.

[eggynack]

Start with Mystic Fire knight's (ACF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20051104a)) improved spell casting to get CL of 0.5 x paladin levels + 2.
Get battle blessing (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-champion--57/battle-blessing--182/) and sword of the arcane order (http://dndtools.eu/feats/champions-of-valor--28/sword-of-the-arcane-order--2875/), perhaps even practiced spell caster (http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-arcane--55/practiced-spellcaster--2231/) to get +4 CL.

This'll give you swift action wizard spells at CL (paladin level)/2 + 6.
I don't know if this whole combo necessarily works. It depends on whether you define paladin spells as spells from paladin slots, or as the spells being cast from the paladin list. All of the individual elements are solid though, and I would advise using a good majority of them, whether they combo or not.

[Irk]

I don't know if this whole combo necessarily works. It depends on whether you define paladin spells as spells from paladin slots, or as the spells being cast from the paladin list. All of the individual elements are solid though, and I would advise using a good majority of them, whether they combo or not.

Oh, yeah, that's true, I forgot to mention that bit. You could argue it either way, but I don't want to derail the thread. At least I recommend taking Mystic fire knight,practiced spell caster , and SotAO

[Baroknik]

Have you considered Prestige Paladin?

[WhamBamSam]

Battle Blessing is obvious.

Sword of the Arcane Order is as well unless you absolutely need to worship someone other than Mystra.

Mystic Fire Knight might be a good choice, but you lose Turn Undead and I'm not sure it really beats out Divine Metamagic.

It's not clear whether Sword of the Arcane Order spells are divine or arcane. If it's ruled they're divine, then Sword of the Arcane Order+DMM Twin+Battle Blessing could be pretty respectable. If it's ruled they're arcane, Sword of the Arcane Order+Battle Blessing is pretty good on its own.

Ruby Knight Vindicator+Battle Blessing could be snazzy, but worshiping Wee Jas means no Sword of the Arcane Order.

Bone Knight would mean some undead minions to tank for you while you sit back and cast.

Alternately, Divine Crusader is friendly to Paladin entry and has its own spell casting, but I'm guessing that's not what you want. (It's better with Prestige Paladin anyway).

Somewhat swordsaged, but ah well.

[eggynack]

Oh, yeah, that's true, I forgot to mention that bit. You could argue it either way, but I don't want to derail the thread. At least I recommend taking Mystic fire knight,practiced spell caster , and SotAO
Yeah, definitely some mixture of the set. Fancy caster paladin is best paladin, if only because the fancy caster version of everything is the best version of everything. It's definitely doable, though I can't help but feel like you end up with a not-paladin, and like you'd be better off being an actual not-paladin. You're just sacrificing everything to become a faux wizard. It's feasible though, if you absolutely must have a fancy caster paladin.

[Irk]

Also, this (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3407376) is a gold standard for paladin.

Lots of good options for a paladin/bard gish, including harmonious knight, divine spirit, smite to song, dragon fire inspiration, and initiate of milil

[Gnome Alone]

Yeah, definitely some mixture of the set. Fancy caster paladin is best paladin, if only because the fancy caster version of everything is the best version of everything. It's definitely doable, though I can't help but feel like you end up with a not-paladin, and like you'd be better off being an actual not-paladin. You're just sacrificing everything to become a faux wizard. It's feasible though, if you absolutely must have a fancy caster paladin.

Totally; this is why people always say "just play a cleric." It does the same thing without jumping through ten kajillion hoops just to end up as the same thing as a "faux wizard" in order to have... "paladin" written on the character sheet, I guess.

Mayhap if the paladin had the same progression of casting as a bard? Actually, can I make my advice not "play a cleric" but "play a NG bard leaning Lawful"? :smalltongue:

[Irk]

I'm not sure of this trick works, but maybe use southern magician + SotAO (which allows you to rep are from spellbooks) and spontaneous healer to qualify for ultimate magus and push your CL through the roof.

Additionally, with echoing spell and the improved spell casting ability of MysticFK, you can treat your CL as pal level + 2 instead of CL-4, as improved spell casting allows you to actively change your CL. This gives you all day spells, or buffs if they last an hour.

[GreenETC]

In all honesty though, there is actually NO mechanical benefit from using a caster Paladin, since you can literally make a better paladin by taking a Cleric and slapping on ALL the levels of Prestige Paladin.

In other news, a fun thing to do would be Wizard 1/Mystic Fire Knight Paladin 4/Mystic Theurge 10/Spellsword 5. Go all out and use a Krau Illumian, grab Improved Sigil Krau, and Practiced Spellcaster for both classes to give you a CL of 35 with Paladin spells, 4th level Paladin spells and 7th level Wizard spells. Maybe replace Spellsword with Wonderworker to get extra 4th level slots on your Paladin side.

[NotScaryBats]

Maybe the OP specifically wants some Paladin Spell(s) to cast well? A Cleric can't easily cast Paladin spells, to my knowledge.

An Archivist, however, could. But then you'd not be wearing heavy armor.

[Gwendol]

The A-game paladin, as previously mentioned, should satisfy your needs. Divine spirit is a truly great ACF.

[Coidzor]

Sovereign Speaker might be of interest for getting multiple domains added to the spell list. I'm unsure of what the best route to acquire a domain on a Paladin would be, however. Church Inquisitor immediately struck my mind, but can't be entered until 9th level between Zone of Truth and the base Will Save requirement. Divine Oracle is the only other lower-level-than Contemplative option that springs to mind, and I think Paladin 5 can enter it without any issues aside from spending the feat, so that's the quickest way to get a domain that I can think of offhand.


Mayhap if the paladin had the same progression of casting as a bard? Actually, can I make my advice not "play a cleric" but "play a NG bard leaning Lawful"? :smalltongue:

Backport an Inquisitor. Play a Divine Bard. Play a Religious Adept(or whatever the variant that gets a cleric domain) and go into Hexer/Sovereign Speaker.

[Baroknik]

Just saying, spamming Door to Great Evil sounds awesome once you get this build up and running!

[Socratov]

Just saying, spamming Door to Great Evil sounds awesome once you get this build up and running!

wow, that spell is like the core of all paladin beliefs:

attacking evil on sight *check*
easy access to evil to fight *check*
no bartering on how evil *check*
the whole mission from god part *check*
excuse for being a **** *check*

[Coidzor]

wow, that spell is like the core of all paladin beliefs:

attacking evil on sight *check*
easy access to evil to fight *check*
no bartering on how evil *check*
the whole mission from god part *check*
excuse for being a **** *check*


It's really just so great. :smallbiggrin:


Just saying, spamming Door to Great Evil sounds awesome once you get this build up and running!

I can't believe I'd never heard of that before. That's wonderful. Especially for the party Archivist after investing in quick deployment involving portable holes/bags of holding.

[eggynack]

Maybe the OP specifically wants some Paladin Spell(s) to cast well? A Cleric can't easily cast Paladin spells, to my knowledge.

It's not that hard. As the OP mentioned and dismissed, getting a level of prestige paladin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigePaladin) can solve that problem pretty easily.

[WhamBamSam]

Sovereign Speaker might be of interest for getting multiple domains added to the spell list. I'm unsure of what the best route to acquire a domain on a Paladin would be, however. Church Inquisitor immediately struck my mind, but can't be entered until 9th level between Zone of Truth and the base Will Save requirement. Divine Oracle is the only other lower-level-than Contemplative option that springs to mind, and I think Paladin 5 can enter it without any issues aside from spending the feat, so that's the quickest way to get a domain that I can think of offhand.A Dragonwrought Kobold can dip Singer of Concordance 2 for one of Io's domains, though some DMs might not allow it.

Adding domains to improve the paladin list is a good idea. Certainly the best way to go if Sword of the Arcane Order is ruled not to work with Battle Blessing.

It's a shame that so much of this stuff is deity specific. Sovereign Speaker, Ruby Knight Vindicator, and Sword of the Arcane Order are all mutually exclusive, and all of them could potentially make for a cool caster Paladin. Count on Paladins to be religiously inflexible.

[T.G. Oskar]

A 3-level dip in Knight of the Raven (Expedition to Castle Ravenloft) adds the Sun domain, and specifically mentions the spells are added to your spell list, so you get three of the first four spells (Heat Metal, Searing Light, Fire Shield), of which one cannot be prepared through SotAO.

Mostly, the Battle Blessing + SotAO + Mystic Fire Knight combination is the basis for a caster-focused Paladin, so the rest is seeing how to cram as many domains, new spells, CL and spell slots as possible. 5 ranks in Spellcraft net Practiced Spellcaster, which stacks with MFK for a CL of 1/2 your Paladin level +6, limited by your character level (a max of 16, not too shabby). Getting the Initiate feat also adds spells, so that helps.

If you get 7 levels of Knight of the Raven (unless there's a more efficient way), you can get your raven harrier to channel touch spells at a distance, but by increasing the casting time. Since you still have a swift action, you could cast two spells that way, and add some distance to your touch spells to boot.

[Thurbane]

Would Battle Blessing work with spells granted as domains? I'm guessing not.

But adding domains is a great idea, thanks. :smallsmile:

[T.G. Oskar]

I'd say "yes", though that'd also mean Sword of the Arcane Order spells would be fair game. The domain spells added to the Paladin's spell list would be considered part of that list for that particular Paladin, and they'd be using its spell slots, so it'd be fair game. SotAO is only flimsy because it adds a whole bunch of spells but requires casting them through a different casting stat (Intelligence), so there's one degree of difference (not to mention they get some decent spells this way).

Then again: I'd incline towards allowing them to do so, since they're getting only up to 4th level spells, and that'd be one of the few action economy methods allowed exclusively only to them; a fair boost, given you've gone through lots of hurdles.

[Coidzor]

A Dragonwrought Kobold can dip Singer of Concordance 2 for one of Io's domains, though some DMs might not allow it.

Adding domains to improve the paladin list is a good idea. Certainly the best way to go if Sword of the Arcane Order is ruled not to work with Battle Blessing.

It's a shame that so much of this stuff is deity specific. Sovereign Speaker, Ruby Knight Vindicator, and Sword of the Arcane Order are all mutually exclusive, and all of them could potentially make for a cool caster Paladin. Count on Paladins to be religiously inflexible.

I guess you can always count on kobolds. XD

It's about the only idea I can think of to work to expand the list at all beyond the assumption that there must be a couple of prestige classes that add spells known to one's list that a Paladin can gain access to, aside from flat-out grabbing a new spell list like Knight of the Weave/Suel Arcanamach/Divine Crusader/Apostle of Peace or the SotAO feat. The only other thing isn't the Pally's casting, but that of the mount via some kind of ubermount (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142554)shenanigans to obtain a non-standard dragon mount from Dragon Steed combined with Loredrake and Spellhoarding.

At least with Wee Jas there's some justification for something like Sword of the Arcane Order since she's also a deity of Magic, and you'd have to adapt the RKV anyway to be able to use it in Toril without a game going into Planescape territory and there's at least discussion of adaptation of the class in ToB as I recall.


Mostly, the Battle Blessing + SotAO + Mystic Fire Knight combination is the basis for a caster-focused Paladin, so the rest is seeing how to cram as many domains, new spells, CL and spell slots as possible. 5 ranks in Spellcraft net Practiced Spellcaster, which stacks with MFK for a CL of 1/2 your Paladin level +6, limited by your character level (a max of 16, not too shabby).

Getting the Initiate feat also adds spells, so that helps.

Add some beads of karma and they've reached CL 20 at ECL 20 for 10 minutes a pop.

Oh, right, Initiate feats. x.x I forgot all about those. Not sure what the best ones would be though.

[WhamBamSam]

Would Battle Blessing work with spells granted as domains? I'm guessing not.

But adding domains is a great idea, thanks. :smallsmile:Actually, I think it would. As I recall, adding domains works by adding the domain spells to your class spell list, so they would become Paladin spells. Sword of the Arcane Order is worded in such a way that the spells might still be "Wizard spells" instead of "Paladin spells," but I don't think you can make the same case for domains.

I certainly can't imagine a spell a Cleric casts through one of his domains not being a Cleric spell, even if it wasn't on the Cleric list natively.


I guess you can always count on kobolds. XDhttp://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/44571355.jpg

Pretty much, yeah. If you've got a weird concept, there's usually a bit of dragon cheese or a Sovereign Archetype that'll help to make it go. Some of it warrants a swing of the banhammer (Loredrake and standard Wyrm of War Archetypes, taking Dragonblood Sorcerer/Cleric substitution levels early, the Riddled and Spellhoarding Psychoses, Epic Toughness), but once you get past the really bad stuff, they really are a fun, flavorful race that can be tremendously helpful in realizing whatever concept you're going for.

[Nightraiderx]

1. Be dragonblooded.
2. Take rebuke dragons Alternative
3. Prestiege class into KotR
4. Dip Crusader
5. Ruby Knight Vindicator.

Paladin 4/Knight of the Raven 5/Crusader 1/ Ruby Knight Vindicator 10

Feats:
Battle Blessing
<enter wanted metamagic>
<DMM>
<Enter some other use for turning>
Retrieve Spell
Extra Turning X

With two turning pools, a night stick and a holy reliquary symbol, you should have enough to spam cast and regain your spells...

[kellbyb]

1. Be dragonblooded.
2. Take rebuke dragons Alternative
3. Prestiege class into KotR
4. Dip Crusader
5. Ruby Knight Vindicator.

Paladin 4/Knight of the Raven 5/Crusader 1/ Ruby Knight Vindicator 10

Feats:
Battle Blessing
<enter wanted metamagic>
<DMM>
<Enter some other use for turning>
Retrieve Spell
Extra Turning X

With two turning pools, a night stick and a holy reliquary symbol, you should have enough to spam cast and regain your spells...

DMM:Quicken Ruby Knight Vindicator best Ruby Knight Vindicator.

[gorfnab]

Is falling an option? Ex-Paladin 1/ Blackguard 10/ Nar Demonbinder X/ Other Stuff X - can net you 8th level spells and BAB 16+.
Some examples:
Ex-Paladin 1/ Blackguard 10/ Nar Demonbinder 7/ Crusader 2
Ex-Paladin 1/ Blackguard 10/ Nar Demonbinder 1/ Escalation Mage 6/ Crusader 2
Battle Sorcerer 1/ Ex-Paladin 1/ Blackguard 10/ Nar Demonbinder 3/ Abjurant Champion 5
Duskblade 2/ Ex-Paladin 1/ Blackguard 10/ Nar Demonbinder 2/ Abjurant Champion 5

[Red Fel]

Hey all,

If I was to build a Paladin who's main focus was on his spells and casting (very suboptimal, I know), how would you go about it?

What feats, dips, items, ACFs, PrCs etc. would you use to maximize his casting effectiveness?

Note: no Prestige Paladin please, or "play a Cleric instead". :smallwink:

Cheers - T

Obviously, Battle Blessing is a must, as others have said. I'd like to take a look more specifically at PrCs, since - I'll be honest - going straight Paladin just doesn't do it for me. For a casting-oriented Paladin, I decided to look specifically at classes which had a Paladin-friendly entry, ideally allowed multiclassing back to Paladin, and advanced existing spellcasting rather than providing new spellcasting. I dug up the following: Contemplative (CDiv): Okay, so it's a Cleric-style class. But in some ways it's the inverse of Prestige Paladin - rather than taking a Cleric and turning him into a Paladin, you can take a Paladin and make him into a pseudo-Cleric. It grants full casting progression, a bonus domain, and various resistances. Fist of Raziel (BoED): One of the definitive Paladin PrCs. Yes, it is smiting-oriented, but it also gives you a 9/10 casting progression, a constant Magic Circle Against Evil, and full BAB. Which is pretty fine for any build. Ordained Champion (CChamp): It's another class that takes Clerics in a more melee direction, but it can work quite nicely for a Paladin worshiping Heironeous. It grants you the War domain spells, extra smiting, 3/5 casting progression, and a neat ability to channel spells into your attacks. It also lets you burn spells to augment your combat abilities, and as a capstone it increases your CL for War spells. Soulguard (FC II): Only partial BAB, but 9/10 casting progression. More than that, however; Soulguard offers you some very unique abilities. You can sacrifice spells to gain True Seeing or rebuke Evil Outsiders; you gain per-day uses of Dispel Evil and Atonement; you can take a standard action to generate a radius-based burn of Evil Outsiders; and your presence generates a Dimensional Anchor effect. The abilities don't directly augment your casting (although they are fueled by your spell slots), but they're certainly different and potentially useful.
Ultimately, the point is this: The casting-focused Paladin is trying to be a Cleric. It's sad, but true; Paladin casting just isn't up to snuff. The Cleric has the better casting chassis for the job. Classes that are Paladin-styled that also advance casting aren't going to sparkle as much, but they can still offer you options.

[Jeff the Green]

For race, definitely Illumian. Aeshkrau makes your bonus spells based on Strength, so you don't need to worry about having a Wisdom higher than 14, plus it will increase your CL by 2 that stacks with Practiced Spellcaster.

[admiralWillyWil]

My understanding of the original post. You are trying to turn the paladin into a main spellcaster. As a DM I would say no. I assume he is trying to make a class. The paladin is way to strong of a class. This I think you are trying to do cast spells at first level, or what someone suggested add domain spells. There is a reason why a paladin has limited spellcasting. Look at his other abilities. I agree overpowered. Now saying that here are my attempts to fix this. Add more penalties. Then tweak the spell lists. The cleric is allowed only two domains for a reason. I would say no more than three, maybe one because you are not a cleric. Maybe replace your current spells with domain spells. Loosing an ability like Laying on hands… Turning undead at a higher level. Losing a skill choice, or a feat. Hears some things you could pick from to balance this.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Paladins are notoriously poor at Necromancy.