Why are paladins bad? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

shadow_archmagi

2014-07-17, 12:43 PM

I see frequent assertion that paladins "suck", and they are in tier 5. (Top of tier 5, but still.)

Why is this? Full BAB, good hit points, lay on hands, special mount, limited spell casting, turn undead...seems pretty solid and versatile. What am I missing?

Problems:

1. Paladin stops getting new class features after level 5. Even Fighters at least get bonus feats, so they can say, "Because I'm a Fighter, this level allowed me to learn DANCE FIGHTING!" Paladins can only ever do what they did before, but a little more.

2. Spell list is extremely limited. It's all minor buffs; none of the really *good* stuff, like Fly, or Fabricate. A Paladin never gets to say "I'll save the day with one creatively-used spell!"

3. Paladin is, by design, essentially a Fighter with a few bells and one whistle. All the reasons why Fighters and Barbarians are weak apply here too.

As the tier system is a mixture of power and versatility, just imagine an adventure, and then ask, at each step of the way, how much a Paladin helps.

Party fights some ogres. Paladin can fight OK, not as well as the fighter, but OK. "Contributes"

Party must cross spooky evil chasm. Paladin has nothing here, unless he has skill ranks in bridge building or something. "Contributes none."

Party attacked by kobolds riding bats while crossing. Paladin might have a bow, but unless he's bow-specced, fliers are tricky for him. "Contributes little."

Party rests after crossing, only to discover that the bats they killed before have risen as undead because the chasm is spooky evil! Against these zombie bats, the Paladin can Turn them, right! Well, a Dire Bat has 4 HD, and is CR 2. A ZOMBIE bat, then, has 8 HD, and is CR 3. Now, a 4th level paladin will turn as a 1st level cleric, So he needs to roll high enough on his turning attempt to turn Cleric Level+7. Oop, that's literally impossible! This will hold true for most undead situations, because undead tend to have HD=CR or higher; for a level 4 paladin with 18 CHA to turn a single Shadow, he'll need to roll a 12 or better, which means his turn attempt will fail more than half the time even under ideal circumstances.

Paladin can still smite evil here, but now he's just dealing HP damage, which puts him in the fighter's boat again. "Contributes little"

And so on. It's really easy to throw out standard adventuring situations where a paladin isn't super useful. There are plenty where he would be super useful (Diplomacy!) but largely the pally won't shine.

AMFV

2014-07-17, 12:43 PM

I see frequent assertion that paladins "suck", and they are in tier 5. (Top of tier 5, but still.)

Why is this? Full BAB, good hit points, lay on hands, special mount, limited spell casting, turn undead...seems pretty solid and versatile. What am I missing?

Well they aren't as versatile or capable out of the box as most Tier 4 and Tier 3 classes. They can certainly be optimized to where they are, but that takes work. A lot of people don't like their code of conduct. That's most of it.

lytokk

2014-07-17, 12:49 PM

Three words. Code of conduct. The potential for losing all class abilities hurts them. Also they're incredibly mad. Str for damage. Wisdom for spells. Cha for turn undead lay on hands and smite attacks. The inability to multiclass also hurts them.

That being said one of the most fun characters I ever had was a paladin. I loved playing that guy but more than likely wouldn't do again. Not because it's a bad class but because no new character will ever live up to Roberc Swordswing, halfling paladin of Dol Arrah from the talents plains.

Aegis013

2014-07-17, 12:52 PM

That the base Paladin isn't versatile.

It can be pretty amazing if you take a ton of alternate class features, go book diving for somewhat obscure spells, and Prestige out by 6th level when their class features turn into "sometimes 1 more daily use of an ability that just isn't very good"

But here's what it is with base Paladin (just straight Paladin, no ACFs)
You need a billion attribute points to support all of the abilities the Paladin will have; High Strength to pummel things, You'll want high Constitution so you don't keel over and die during fights, at least a 14 Wisdom so you can at least cast your spells, and a high Cha to fuel various class features.

Turn Undead is significantly weaker than Cleric's.
But c'mon, it's Cleric! What does that matter? Hardly anybody measures up to that guy anyway!
Well, it matters because with the reduction in ability to Turn Undead, it's going to fail a lot more. The Undead will have too many HD more often, and you'll have effectively wasted your action.

Smite Evil is problematic, because you have to spend time making sure the enemy is evil, or if you're sure they are, and you whiff the swing, you lost the use. That sucks. It's already super limited, and you're probably going to have more than one fight per day.

Divine Grace? That's actually a really great ability! No problem with it, other than requiring tons of attribute points.

Lay on Hands is outclassed in core by a 750gp Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Which you can use without a check because that spell is on your list. Even if you don't have one and it's an emergency, Lay on Hands will run out of power long before you run out of fights. Especially at high levels.

Spammable detect evil is cool, but not really super useful in most situations.

Divine Courage, and Divine Health are nice, but aren't going to be super useful that often. Plus, eventually, Divine Courage will be pretty well made redundant by things like Banner of Storm's Eye, if MiC is in play.

The spells are really cool, the only problem is they come online so very very late, and without proper feats and optimization, you often won't have time to throw down a bunch of buffs on yourself for a fight, and that's what the best stuff in their spell list tends to be. Buffing spells.

The special poke-mount is awesome! In concept, in reality, you have pay a lot of attention on how to utilize it, when to utilize, etc. Sometimes, a large warhorse just isn't gonna fit in that dungeon. If you are careful with it, pick a good mount, and whatnot, it can be quite useful having a 1/day disposable minion.

TL,DR:
But all in all, the truth is: Paladins are cool. People like them. They like the concept. There's enough support that you can make a really strong, powerful character using the Paladin class, but it takes a whole lot of books and feats and know-how. If you don't work at it, your Paladin just won't be all that useful.

Eaglejarl

2014-07-17, 12:55 PM

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I've always liked paladins and would like to see them not suck. If you were going to boost them up to tier 4, what changes would you make? What about to tier 3?

Malphite

2014-07-17, 01:00 PM

Base Paladin, is kinda meh, I've played a lot in my dad but I never go past level 5 once I hit then I just Prestige of course if I was forced to go 20 paladin I'd shoot myself.

Aegis013

2014-07-17, 01:02 PM

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I've always liked paladins and would like to see them not suck. If you were going to boost them up to tier 4, what changes would you make? What about to tier 3?

There's a lot of things you can do to boost Paladin's effectiveness. You can make a T4 or T3 Paladin without even using Homebrew! You just have to go out of your way to get particular things. Paladin Handbook (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1118281) is a great reference guide for resources to make your Paladin better.

Take feats like Battle Blessing, or Sword of the Arcane Order.

Take Alternate Class Features like Charging Smite or Underdark Knight to grab up some more interesting abilities.

You can take Substitution levels you qualify for whenever those come up, so things like Warforged Paladin levels or Mystic Fire Knight or other.

There's also a build around called the A-Game Paladin, which effectively mimics the Inspire Courage class feature from Bards, allowing for a lot of interesting buffing potential.

shadow_archmagi

2014-07-17, 01:06 PM

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I've always liked paladins and would like to see them not suck. If you were going to boost them up to tier 4, what changes would you make? What about to tier 3?

Well, in terms of fluff, a Crusader is almost identical to a Paladin (the book even says that most people can't tell the difference until somebody Lays On Hands), so if I had a player who wanted to be a holy warrior, I'd point him towards crusader or cleric.

If I was really inured to the idea of making something with Paladin in the class name, I guess there'd be a couple hurdles.

1. Make them less MAD. CHA to attack/dmg, WIS to AC maybe.

2. Make them more versatile: Give away some decent class features. Maybe kick up their casting, give them a version of the duskblades ability to channel spells through their swords, so they can deal out debuffs or extra damage with melee attacks.

3. Better spell list. Write some custom paladin-spells for the above mechanic.

4. Rewrite the code of conduct

Necroticplague

2014-07-17, 01:09 PM

1:make their class features less stats. Make their casting other class features use the same stat.
2:Improved action economy. Make them able to do their primary job (hit with sword) and secondary (buff/heal) at the same time, instead of having to pick one or the other (and doing it worse than other classes).
3:Redo the code. Its unnecessarily vindicative, vague, arbitrary, and leaves it open to screwing. Abstract it to the rather vague codes of clerics and druids.
4:Loosen up alignment restrictions, that way it has more options available to it, instead of having stick to options that fit in with one alignment.
5:improved spell access. They get the basics of buffing and healing, but nothing really noticeable. Maybe give them some things that are normally higher level squeezed down to fit. Possibly access to some relevant domains.
6:non-situational abilities. Broaden smite, make cure disease do something more than just that (possibly broaden to "rejuvenate" that removes more conditions as you level), replace turn undead with something that more generically can make any creature scared (maybe: holy prescence:You can focus your divine energies into an almost palpable aura that sends fear through your foe's ranks).

LudicSavant

2014-07-17, 01:28 PM

If you do want to bring out the Paladin's A-Game, you take Smite to Song, Knight of the Arcane Order, Battle Blessing and optimize inspire courage. Then you run around with a bandoleer of wands and sing and use wands as swift actions from wand chambers and charging smite things. You also can cast wizard spells from scrolls of up to ninth level. That's pretty much as good as the core Paladin gets.

However, I feel I should note that I find that it's actually easier to make a Cleric that does everything a Paladin should be able to do than to make a Paladin that does everything a Paladin should be able to do.

Playing a melee cleric built to look like a paladin would mean you could detect evil at will, lay on hands better than the Paladin, get an overwhelming aura of Good just like a Paladin does, smite evil better than the paladin, summon celestial mounts better than the paladin, fight heroically in melee with your deity's favored weapon better than the paladin, shield your allies better than the paladin, tank better than the paladin, or (completely unlike the Paladin, but probably consistent with your fantasy of what you want a paladin to be) go nova with an all-or-nothing epic Surge of Fortune smite that puts all your daily resources (and, if you like, even most of your hp) into one BBEG-killing attack that looks roughly like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHy6-NnIvdg . Feel free to shout something like "The future doesn't belong to you!" I always thought that was more like what a smite should be than doing a little attack boost x/day, but maybe that's just me. If it is, that's still okay, because clerics can build to do that instead too. Oh, and if you just want to be thorough, you can take a 1 level dip into Prestige Paladin to gain full access to the Paladin's spell list.

You also get tons of options for expanding on the flavor of the paladin, or customizing it to your chosen god or philosophy. And, since you aren't necessarily shackled with the default paladin code, you can write your own without any fuss about houseruling, and it's not hard to write a more interesting one. But even if you don't want to do this, you don't have to... Clerics get enough spells on their list from spell levels 1-9 that you seriously never have to cast anything that is out of line with the default paladin flavor (many are basically higher level versions of spells the paladin would cast, or emulate paladin class features but better).

There are also several prestige classes suitable for playing Clerics that are basically Better Paladins, including Ordained Champion, Ruby Knight Vindicator, Church Inquisitor, Knight of Raziel, and more.

Really, in my mind the only reason you wouldn't want to play a melee cleric paladin instead of an actual paladin would be

A) You don't know how to build one, and thus can't take advantage of the fact that a wide variety of cleric builds are both flavorfully and mechanically superior paladins to paladins with the actual paladin class.

or

B) The Miko Isn't a Samurai "Problem" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) where some people can't get it through their heads that you can be a Paladin unless your class is actually named paladin. This problem is easily solved by the glorious magic of "not metagaming."

I see frequent assertion that paladins "suck", and they are in tier 5. (Top of tier 5, but still.)

Why is this? Full BAB, good hit points, lay on hands, special mount, limited spell casting, turn undead...seems pretty solid and versatile. What am I missing?

The thing you have to understand is that list of features you just named is essentially a Cleric with 5 less spell levels.

Cleric turn undead is better than Paladin turn undead. The difference between d8 HD and d10 HD is negligible. Difference between 3/4 BAB and full BAB is negligible (and bonuses from spells will outpace the BAB advantage by a significant margin, even if you're not getting rounds to buff ahead of time or people are constantly using Dispel Magic), Special Mount isn't very special and Cleric can get their own, Lay on Hands is inferior to simply having access to better touch healing spells (and flavorfully about the same), and the limited spellcasting is, obviously, limited.

Imagine it like this. You know how Wizards have so many different specializations and ways they can build, like Evoker, Illusionist, and so forth? One could basically be a Dread Necromancer, another could basically be a Beguiler? Well, Paladin is basically like if you took a single possible specialization build for Cleric, then gutted half of its caster levels. It's not a Cleric gish or anything, it's just a worse cleric. Compare a Cleric / Church Inquisitor / Crusader / Ruby Knight Vindicator / Prestige Paladin / I don't know Contemplative or something getting 9th level spells and high level maneuvers, leadership and inspiration auras, detect evil at will, awesome smites, the entire Paladin spell list, brutal melee capabilities, exceptional abilities to make sacrifice plays or protect allies, and so on and so forth.

Honestly, forget homebrewing a "rebalanced paladin," just take one of the many "Paladin 2.0 Cleric Builds" flying around, file off the serial numbers, and name it rebalanced paladin. It's that easy. Really.

Amphetryon

2014-07-17, 01:34 PM

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I've always liked paladins and would like to see them not suck. If you were going to boost them up to tier 4, what changes would you make? What about to tier 3?

The quick-and-dirty house rule I use is taking a page from Pathfinder, and making a paladin's casting work off of CHA. I also allow a paladin to specify at creation if s/he is using smite as a melee or ranged option (with a feat needed to add the other option). This makes them a little less MAD, and a little less cookie-cutter.

I'm sure some folks would find the above insufficient to move them fully into T4, and I make no claim that this moves them to T3.

Dunsparce

2014-07-17, 01:34 PM

I play a Paladin in one campaign, and so far he's managed to work pretty well due to the DM giving me a lot of custom items and letting me take feats like Dynamic Priest and Battle Blessing.

I have a helm that can increase the potency OR radius of my aura of Courage(I can switch it with a free action) that I combined with a Helm of Glorious Recovery. A have a Pendant of the Unicorn(MIC) and I used a wish to give me a Mass version of Lay on Hands. I have bracers that at to my hit and damage of smite attacks and I can once a day use two smites to make a maximized attack. I have a saddle that allow my mount and myself to fuse together (as explained here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17774271&postcount=16) and a glove that can store 5 different weapons that can be swapped or conjured as a swift action(I have numerous weapons for different situations)

And I also have a custom version of the Planar Paladin 6 substitution levels. instead of just merely slowing remove disease progression by two levels, my special mount gains new abilities at each level:

Level 9: See Invisibility 3/day
Level 12: Air Walk 3/day
Level 15: Telepathy 60 feet
Level 18: Ethereal Jaunt 1/day

The spell-likes' CL is equal to its HD

Vortenger

2014-07-17, 01:44 PM

ArqArturo

2014-07-17, 01:48 PM

Two things.

1.- This topic again? It's arisen so many times I'm seriously considering using the 'Rising from the dead' alternative rule on Heroes on Horror in this topic, just to see what happens.

2.- Yes, the class is lackluster compared to clerics and wizards, but the class itself is not bad, sometimes it's the players that play the sanctimonious prick that are the problem. It also applies to Lawful Neutral anything (save for Inevitables, those are pricks from RAW).

huttj509

2014-07-17, 02:41 PM

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

I've always liked paladins and would like to see them not suck. If you were going to boost them up to tier 4, what changes would you make? What about to tier 3?

With many of the classes people complain about, we don't dislike the idea, or the character archetype. It's mostly the execution. "X should be awesome, but it's not, even in what it's supposed to excel in."

Eaglejarl

2014-07-17, 03:00 PM

Two things.

1.- This topic again? It's arisen so many times I'm seriously considering using the 'Rising from the dead' alternative rule on Heroes on Horror in this topic, just to see what happens.

I don't know what you mean about the alternative rule.

[...] a wide variety of cleric builds are both flavorfully and mechanically superior paladins to paladins with the actual paladin class.

That's really depressing, actually. Why would WotC do that? They've got very talented designers and play testers; you'd think they would notice that they had a class that was strictly worse than another, and would simply provide an example build of the better class.

And yes, I know the answer is probably, "they weren't paying attention and the game is too complex to check every option." It's still depressing.

KorbeltheReader

2014-07-17, 03:08 PM

ArqArturo

2014-07-17, 03:10 PM

I don't know what you mean about the alternative rule.

The one rule that states that, when you rise a person from the grave, you have to roll a Knowledge (Religion) check. If it fails, you roll a misshap from the table for effects that ranges from the person always smelling of freshly dug earth, to have permanent necrosis, to have a different soul inhabit your body, or get an alignment check, as well as a few others.

No save on any of those effects, btw.

Necroticplague

2014-07-17, 03:13 PM

AuraTwilight

2014-07-17, 03:18 PM

If you're interested in a homebrew remake of everything Paladin related, TG Oskar did a fantastic job with Project Heretica. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?193554-Project-Heretica-not-just-a-Paladin-retooling)

Kantolin

2014-07-17, 03:21 PM

AMFV

2014-07-17, 03:40 PM

People roll their eyes a lot at answering "play a crusader" to these threads. It can be an overly glib response, admittedly, but the people who give it have a point. WotC issued a fix to paladins, monks, and fighters in the Tome of Battle, and they are by all accounts very fun, well-balanced classes. Hell, thanks to the Devoted Spirit discipline, a Crusader can even pull off using a sword and shield without being laughed off the battlefield!

I don't know, I'd buy that argument for the Fighter since they're flavorless, but not so much for Paladin, Barbarian, or Ranger. Who all have ways to pull themselves out of their relative mediocrity and their own interesting flavor.

atemu1234

2014-07-17, 04:15 PM

I personally like the class. It's got a few uses (though, granted it is dependent upon a lot of abilities). I don't particularly like it thematically though.

(I'm not saying all paladins are like this, and kudos to those who avoid this) Players who play paladins tend to make them one-dimensional. They simply are, there's no backstory or reason for what they do, and the way they roleplay reflects that, and I see this happen more with paladins than any other class. The code of conduct makes it difficult for them to interact with other things (and the potential to lose class features is annoying) and even do things that make the game easier. Too often have I seen the age-old "radar paladin" who uses detect evil and then kills anything it pings. It's annoying and often results in campaigns failing. They can't do anything but kill evil things, so god forbid one of them's important to the plot.

In other words, I don't like straight paladins from a roleplaying perspective. That being said, one of my favorite characters was a paladin (albeit a grey guard). If done correctly, a paladin is awesome. But it's too easy to do it wrong. (Why D&D can't have nice things)

ArqArturo

2014-07-17, 04:57 PM

I once wanted to play a sort of mysterious stranger-y type Holy Gun paladin for a Pathfinder game, without using the Holy gun archetype because it sucks, so I used this build instead (http://kcmorris.hubpages.com/hub/Pathfinder-RPG-Archetype-a-Day-The-Holy-Gun).

It was, surprisingly, pretty fun to play. The character felt more like a righteous version of John Wayne, and it was awesome :).

Eaglejarl

2014-07-17, 05:49 PM

In other words, I don't like straight paladins from a roleplaying perspective. That being said, one of my favorite characters was a paladin (albeit a grey guard). If done correctly, a paladin is awesome. But it's too easy to do it wrong. (Why D&D can't have nice things)

In "The Two Year Emperor (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9669819/1/The-Two-Year-Emperor)", I have an order of paladins as some of the major characters. Their duty is to: the Land, the Writ, the ruler...in that order. The Land is the commoners of the nation, the Writ is the documents that define it (think Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federal Letters, etc). They are expected to do whatever it takes in that service meaning that (e.g.) assassination of enemy military leaders during wartime is A-OK...in fact, it's strongly encouraged, being as it's a very efficient route to protecting the Land. Sometimes that "whatever it takes" is more personal as well -- every single one of them had to make a major personal sacrifice in payment for divine assistance for their ruler and that did it without flinching.

In my mind, this is how paladins should be: decent people who enter into the service with open eyes, and are loyal unto death to that service, whatever that may be and whatever it may require of them. Lawful Stupid and Too-Noble-For-Usefulness can stay home.

Vogonjeltz

2014-07-17, 06:12 PM

Rubik

2014-07-17, 06:27 PM

Well nobody ever said the tier system was right.In this case, however...

shadow_archmagi

2014-07-17, 06:33 PM

Play the pathfinder version? Relax the CoC a bit? Seriously though, PF's core pally fixes nearly every problem mentioned.

Wait, what? It's true that pathfinder gives the paladin a little more oomph- Replacing Turn Undead with Channel Positive Energy, and letting them use that as a cleric instead of as a cleric minus three.

It also gives them a "free" magic weapon if they don't want a paladin horse.

It does not give them significantly more options in combat, or significantly reduce their MAD (It does eliminate the need for wisdom, but that still leaves strength, dexterity, charisma, constitution, and intelligence if they want skills)

I don't know, I'd buy that argument for the Fighter since they're flavorless, but not so much for Paladin, Barbarian, or Ranger. Who all have ways to pull themselves out of their relative mediocrity and their own interesting flavor.

Crusaders have a flavor that's identical to Paladins, though. They're holy warriors out fighting for a cause. Done and done. Same thing for monks/swordsages- they're eastern-type guys who know strange martial arts.

Admittedly, rangers and barbarians are a little different- I'd argue that Barbarian could just about be covered by a Warblade, if you went Tiger Claw and Iron Heart you could make a character who was tough, skilled, and also a little bestial, much like Conan.

Flashy

2014-07-17, 06:34 PM

The thing you have to understand is that list of features you just named is essentially a Cleric with 5 less spell levels.

I think my favorite example of this is remove disease. At 6th level a paladin gets the ability to use remove disease once per week. Sort of useful so long as you're fighting enemies who can inflict disease, but not too many enemies who can inflict disease. Meanwhile, a 5th level cleric unlocks 3rd level spell slots. This not only gives him the ability to use remove disease once per day he can instead choose to prepare cure critical wounds, water breathing, searing light, summon monster III, meld with stone or any of an additional twenty or so potentially useful spells on the off chance that today's adventure doesn't include one of the handful of CR6 appropriate monster who can inflict disease. Hell, if he does prepare remove disease and doesn't have a chance to use it he can just cure critical wounds instead.

Grod_The_Giant

2014-07-17, 06:43 PM

In a nutshell, out-of-the-box Paladins need too many abilities to make their class features work, and even when they work, they don't work well. They're not strong (I ran the numbers once; a raging barbarian dumping the attack bonus into power attack does much better than a paladin's smite over 2-3 rounds), and they can't be used often enough (remove disease per week?). If you go book diving, yeah, you can improve the Paladin. Later books gave nice spells and Battle Blessing, you can reduce MAD with Serenity, and Divine and Devotion feats give you nice stuff to do with your crappy turning. But you can make anything better with sufficient book diving, and you're still stuck against annoying uses/day limits.

I've got a homebrew Paladin fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?221312-A-hero-is-a-man-too-stubborn-to-die-a-3-5-Paladin-fix-%28PEACH%29&p=12150015#post12150015), since you mentioned being interested in that sort of thing.

AMFV

2014-07-17, 06:57 PM

Crusaders have a flavor that's identical to Paladins, though. They're holy warriors out fighting for a cause. Done and done. Same thing for monks/swordsages- they're eastern-type guys who know strange martial arts.

That's similar, in the same way that Barbarians are similar to fighters in that they're burly dudes fighting for whatever reason they fight. Paladin's codes and explicitly divine powers make for a different play experience, and thematic differences, they are not equivalent. Now one could build a Paladin like Crusader (Probably using some variant of RKV) but that's neither here nor there, the flavor content is different, and different enough that they shouldn't be treated the same.

Now I'm not saying if somebody says: "I want to play a holy warrior" that Crusader shouldn't be suggested. But flat out if somebody says "I want to play a Paladin," one should give suggestions on how to make that better, after all with Sword of the Arcane Order, Battle Blessing, and some pretty swanky options you can make a Paladin that is every bit as competent as an out of the box Crusader, it just takes more work, and that is the essence of being a Paladin.

Admittedly, rangers and barbarians are a little different- I'd argue that Barbarian could just about be covered by a Warblade, if you went Tiger Claw and Iron Heart you could make a character who was tough, skilled, and also a little bestial, much like Conan.

Certainly. One can certainly build the same type of character a different way. But I'd argue Paladins are the least able to do this, because their code is such an inherent part of their character, and because they have many unique if not necessarily powerful abilities, it's much more difficult to clone them.

KorbeltheReader

2014-07-17, 07:16 PM

That's similar, in the same way that Barbarians are similar to fighters in that they're burly dudes fighting for whatever reason they fight. Paladin's codes and explicitly divine powers make for a different play experience, and thematic differences, they are not equivalent. Now one could build a Paladin like Crusader (Probably using some variant of RKV) but that's neither here nor there, the flavor content is different, and different enough that they shouldn't be treated the same.

Now I'm not saying if somebody says: "I want to play a holy warrior" that Crusader shouldn't be suggested. But flat out if somebody says "I want to play a Paladin," one should give suggestions on how to make that better, after all with Sword of the Arcane Order, Battle Blessing, and some pretty swanky options you can make a Paladin that is every bit as competent as an out of the box Crusader, it just takes more work, and that is the essence of being a Paladin.

This is very subjective, but I don't agree. Paladins and crusaders occupy extremely similar (I would argue identical) archetypes. Barbarians and fighters really don't to the same degree, even though you can make a fighter that looks like a barbarian. Frankly, for that matter, I would argue that a paladin using Sword of the Arcane Order to cast wizard spells can be less "paladin-y" than a crusader.

It looks pretty obvious to me that crusader is an analog of the paladin, swordsage of monk, and warblade of fighter, which (not) coincidentally are also the 3 PHB classes that get the most flack for being underpowered. Ultimately I agree that when people say "I want to make a paladin" you should suggest paladin things. I was just saying that despite the jerky-sounding tone of "play a crusader," people wanting to play paladins really should consider it.

atemu1234

2014-07-17, 07:20 PM

AMFV

2014-07-17, 07:23 PM

This is very subjective, but I don't agree. Paladins and crusaders occupy extremely similar (I would argue identical) archetypes. Barbarians and fighters really don't to the same degree, even though you can make a fighter that looks like a barbarian. Frankly, for that matter, I would argue that a paladin using Sword of the Arcane Order to cast wizard spells can be less "paladin-y" than a crusader.

It looks pretty obvious to me that crusader is an analog of the paladin, swordsage of monk, and warblade of fighter, which (not) coincidentally are also the 3 PHB classes that get the most flack for being underpowered. Ultimately I agree that when people say "I want to make a paladin" you should suggest paladin things. I was just saying that despite the jerky-sounding tone of "play a crusader," people wanting to play paladins really should consider it.

Yes, they are analogs. But they are different. Barbarians can be modeled more easily, because the concept of a Barbarian is more prevalent outside of D&D. Which means that "a Paladin" conceptually is defined by his particular set of abilities more so than a Barbarian. But the Crusader doesn't have a code, they don't have formal rules of conduct, and they aren't tied to good in the same way (although an individual might be) which creates a different thematic feel than a Crusader. I mean I love building things in D&D, if I wanted to build a more powerful Paladin character I'd probably do something like Cleric into Fist of Raziel, rather than Crusader. Probably with a dip into Harper Paragon for Favored Enemy (Evil) and then Nemesis (Evil) if I could afford it feat-wise. That would be a more thematic Paladin with the ability to smite, to detect evil, and all kinds of divine power.

holywhippet

2014-07-17, 09:53 PM

A paladin only gets good fortitude saves from levelling up. Clerics get good will and fortitude saves. A paladin does get a bonus from divine grace, but a cleric can match that with a protection from X type spell as long as they know the alignment of their opponent unless the paladin spends of lot of points/money on charisma enhancement. A paladin gets full BAB, but a cleric will eventually be able to cast divine power which gives them that and a bonus to strength. That's on top of the other spells they can cast to pump up their damage output.

It gets even worse assuming DMM abuse is allowed in a game. A cleric will have all of these bonuses pretty much permanently and they can still toss around even more spells.

Pretty much all the bonuses the paladin has can be matched by a cleric eventually with their spell selection.

eggynack

2014-07-17, 10:31 PM

I don't know, I'd buy that argument for the Fighter since they're flavorless, but not so much for Paladin, Barbarian, or Ranger. Who all have ways to pull themselves out of their relative mediocrity and their own interesting flavor.
I don't think I entirely agree in this case. Yes, paladins have ways to escape mediocrity to some extent, and they have interesting flavor, but at the same time, maximizing the degree to which they escape mediocrity reduces their attachment to flavor. Most of the best paladin optimization stuff out there tends to make the paladin into some odd bard facsimile. There's some other paladin optimization stuff that isn't as distant from paladin flavor, but even that puts you further away than a crusader. That's the true core of the matter, I think. When it comes to things that I consider uniquely "paladin", whether it be healing folks, tanking about, or helping allies, I think of the crusader. The crusader is more than just a paladin for optimizers. It's what the paladin should have been.

AMFV

2014-07-17, 11:00 PM

I don't think I entirely agree in this case. Yes, paladins have ways to escape mediocrity to some extent, and they have interesting flavor, but at the same time, maximizing the degree to which they escape mediocrity reduces their attachment to flavor. Most of the best paladin optimization stuff out there tends to make the paladin into some odd bard facsimile. There's some other paladin optimization stuff that isn't as distant from paladin flavor, but even that puts you further away than a crusader. That's the true core of the matter, I think. When it comes to things that I consider uniquely "paladin", whether it be healing folks, tanking about, or helping allies, I think of the crusader. The crusader is more than just a paladin for optimizers. It's what the paladin should have been.

But that's not what the Paladin is for. Tanking, healing, helping allies. Those aren't iconic abilities of the Paladin pre-MMO. The Paladin is pretty much a construct of D&D, in fact it and the druid are pretty unique in that respect in that those concepts were not as formalized before that.

I'm not sure if the Bard aspects or the SotAO avoid flavor. I could see how they could though, but they retain the same abilities that make a Paladin, they can sense evil, they can smite evil, they are required to have a strict code of conduct. A Crusader is certainly part of the way there to being a better Paladin, but... it's not a replacement. As I've said there are ways to build a Paladin replacement if you want a more potent Paladin, and I gave my methodology for doing that. I just don't think Crusader is that. And I like Crusader, they're pretty close to the perfect ToB gish class, given that gishes tend to need actions and their recovery method requires none, it's just none of their features, or their abilities scream Holy Warrior to me, and even those maneuvers that are thematically that aren't exactly based around that. The fluff in this case, for me, does not match the mechanics. I see a Crusader as a pure warrior, not somebody chosen by the Gods.

Edit: I can see that this is largely a matter of taste, in that some people are choosing different things as representative of Paladinhood. Also I feel that the code is extremely important, it defines Paladins their higher standards.

Vorandril

2014-07-17, 11:12 PM

I think my favorite example of this is remove disease. At 6th level a paladin gets the ability to use remove disease once per week. Sort of useful so long as you're fighting enemies who can inflict disease, but not too many enemies who can inflict disease. Meanwhile, a 5th level cleric unlocks 3rd level spell slots. This not only gives him the ability to use remove disease once per day he can instead choose to prepare cure critical wounds, water breathing, searing light, summon monster III, meld with stone or any of an additional twenty or so potentially useful spells on the off chance that today's adventure doesn't include one of the handful of CR6 appropriate monster who can inflict disease. Hell, if he does prepare remove disease and doesn't have a chance to use it he can just cure critical wounds instead.

Pitching in a day late and a dollar short but:

Functionally this is the root of the problem. Not the specific ability, but the nature of the complaint.
To be fair I have a much easier time when DM'ing and someone says that they want to play a paladin by just handing them PHB2 and putting them to the Duskblade page. Replace the Arcane spell failure chance with Smite as it is from Paladin. Then tell them to use Cleric Spells instead. And to take Aura of Courage and the Divine whatever that gives the bonuses to saves.

Nothing set in stone or particularly fantastic, but it keeps them from being left in the dust by the rest of the party in usability.

That or I tell them to roll a cleric and give them an option if they want full BAB; Sacrifice access to your Domains, or to Turn Undead, and I'll give you full BAB. And before people mention how Turning is so much more important due to feats that are powered by it, the only 2 people I know personally who want to play paladins don't min/max and wouldn't bother with the feats anyway. :smallwink:

eggynack

2014-07-17, 11:17 PM

But that's not what the Paladin is for. Tanking, healing, helping allies. Those aren't iconic abilities of the Paladin pre-MMO. The Paladin is pretty much a construct of D&D, in fact it and the druid are pretty unique in that respect in that those concepts were not as formalized before that.
I suppose it's plausible that our construct of a paladin is different from what one actually should be, but if we're talking about paladin as a class, straight from the PHB, it feels like that's what they were going for. It makes sense to me, meanwhile, that in a game where "Of God" tends to translate to divine magic, and where divine magic tends to mean healing and buffing, at least in theory, that a paladin/crusader would get a bunch of those things. Tanking fits in quite well too, due to the whole knight half of things.

AMFV

2014-07-17, 11:34 PM

I suppose it's plausible that our construct of a paladin is different from what one actually should be, but if we're talking about paladin as a class, straight from the PHB, it feels like that's what they were going for. It makes sense to me, meanwhile, that in a game where "Of God" tends to translate to divine magic, and where divine magic tends to mean healing and buffing, at least in theory, that a paladin/crusader would get a bunch of those things. Tanking fits in quite well too, due to the whole knight half of things.

Well I think I'm grabbing on to different elements of the PHB Paladin as those that make them iconic. Which isn't necessarily bad, but I don't think that Crusader is exactly a Paladin substitute for those reasons, and it's possible that other people would feel the same way. Also the nature of Maneuvers gives them less of a supernatural feeling even if they're "Granted", which I thought was a really stretched piece of fluff anyways. I think that a Crusader could certainly fill a similar role to a Paladin, but they aren't the same. Crusaders aren't held to a higher moral standard, and being a Crusader does not require that one is a paragon of one's alignment at all, much less a paragon of law and good. Even the "alignment" stances have no ties to alignment in any meaningful way beyond minor flavor.

eggynack

2014-07-17, 11:40 PM

Well I think I'm grabbing on to different elements of the PHB Paladin as those that make them iconic. Which isn't necessarily bad, but I don't think that Crusader is exactly a Paladin substitute for those reasons, and it's possible that other people would feel the same way. Also the nature of Maneuvers gives them less of a supernatural feeling even if they're "Granted", which I thought was a really stretched piece of fluff anyways. I think that a Crusader could certainly fill a similar role to a Paladin, but they aren't the same. Crusaders aren't held to a higher moral standard, and being a Crusader does not require that one is a paragon of one's alignment at all, much less a paragon of law and good. Even the "alignment" stances have no ties to alignment in any meaningful way beyond minor flavor.
The moral standard is quite possibly the easiest part to port in though, given that the code of conduct doesn't really interact with any other mechanics. Just write, "This class has this code of conduct, and is held up to a higher moral standard," on the class somewhere, and boom, instant paladin. I mean, you shouldn't necessarily shoehorn someone into that, but leaving it open as a choice is nice. Maybe even offer some minor mechanical reward for making use of that variant, though you certainly don't have to.

AMFV

2014-07-17, 11:43 PM

The moral standard is quite possibly the easiest part to port in though, given that the code of conduct doesn't really interact with any other mechanics. Just write, "This class has this code of conduct, and is held up to a higher moral standard," on the class somewhere, and boom, instant paladin. I mean, you shouldn't necessarily shoehorn someone into that, but leaving it open as a choice is nice. Maybe even offer some minor mechanical reward for making use of that variant, though you certainly don't have to.

Also the abilities don't seem as thematically appropriate, being able to soak up damage for example, it doesn't fit as thematically to me. I know that this is largely a matter of taste, so I can understand having a different perspective and that it's probably impossible to really explain mine, but it just feels different to me, I can't do much more than that for you. To me it just does, and I'm actually pretty surprised that there are people for whom it doesn't, there's no accounting for taste I guess.

DMVerdandi

2014-07-18, 02:07 AM

As it has been said, a better Paladin can be made with a cleric. The paladin to the cleric is like the adept to the archivist. It's that far apart in power and variety.

I think one thing that needs to often be clarified is the roles of the two. I think often people get the cleric and the paladin's roles very confused. The paladin is the knight in shining armor, and even more than that, he is actually the DISNEY knight in shining armor. He doesn't actually get his powers from god, but from good.

Paladin's aura of courage comes off of his perfectly white teeth gleaming in the sun. He is like empowered by his own nobility and nobilesse oblige. That is why the code of conduct of the paladin is so important. It is because ascribing to the "higher path" is where the paladin's powers come from.

Clerics get their powers from two things. Deities, or Philosophies/idealism. They are the champions of faith. They are the sacred templars, and soldiers of god(s). Because of their FAITH/UNION, they gain the blessing of whatever concepts they focus on, personified or raw. (Interestingly enough, the deities and demigods book implies that clerics don't actually receive the powers from deities, as there is a different mechanic of being granted spells by a deity, but that the Clerics have this divine power within themselves.)
They use these "God-granted" abilities to bring wrath down on the enemies of their faiths.

But anyway, A cleric can simply become a cleric of Nobility and Good, or Law and good, and voila. That is the exact flavor of the paladin. It can then take the smiting spell feat, and boom. So much better than a paladin.

I mean, at least rangers have the whole two-swords/Bows things that makes them unique from druids.
Paladin just takes a few spells, and waters them down. Meh.

Paladins are bad because cleric can completely take over the role, and bring more success at the table, have FAR less stipulations on powers, and no code of conduct that they don't impose on themselves personally.
Cleric is not bound by alignment either. It can be the warrior of truth and good, the chaotic destructive worshiper of carnage, the Evil tyrant, or any one of those alignment extremes, Or not, and just flavor itself by picking whichever domains explain their calling.

Kaeso

2014-07-18, 03:08 AM

It has been mentioned before, but the problem is that the Paladin has no niche, I think. At the very least the monk has the niche of "mystical fighter who punches things and has an uncanny ability to avoid damage and run fast". Yes, I just favorable compared the monk to any class that isn't CW paladin or an NPC class.

Literally everything a paladin can do, a cleric does better. At low levels, the marginal difference in HP and BAB is so small, it's irrelevant. At higher levels you can either take the Persist DMM trick or the less cheasy Ordained Champion to either get all day Divine Power or Divine Power as a quickened spell for free.

Practically, all you need to make a good "Paladin" is a Cleric with the war domain. Either dedicate yourself to a cleric that's LG or the very concept of LG (which gives you a longsword as a favored weapon) and voila, you've just made the Paladin redundant.

The celestial mount (which can be turned into an übercharger) is probably the only thing that the Paladin does better, but a Cleric can always take the animal cohort feat. Now, clerics don't have ride as a class ability, but I think all the other things a cleric can do more than make up for it.

EDIT: Swordsage'd

AMFV

2014-07-18, 07:53 AM

Paladins are bad because cleric can completely take over the role, and bring more success at the table, have FAR less stipulations on powers, and no code of conduct that they don't impose on themselves personally.
Cleric is not bound by alignment either. It can be the warrior of truth and good, the chaotic destructive worshiper of carnage, the Evil tyrant, or any one of those alignment extremes, Or not, and just flavor itself by picking whichever domains explain their calling.

I would argue that being bound by good is the defining trait of a Paladin, it's why my Paladin cleric replacement had prestige classes and feats that resulted in the character being bound by their Exalted nature. It's the same exact issue I have with the Crusader as a replacement, watering that down removes a fundamental part of what it is to be a Paladin.

Kaeso

2014-07-18, 08:41 AM

FishBonePendant

2014-07-18, 09:33 AM

A paladin can actually make a damn fine supporting player if you find ways to use his more useless abilities. (Oh my why did I type that sentence?)

If you take Sacred Healing (Complete Divine) as a feat you can burn your ****ty turn attempts to heal your entire party either right after a fight, or in the middle of one against undead enemies. 3 Fast Healing for 7 rounds on 3 other people 7 times a day is a lot of healing. (588 HP per day) Not Including Lay on Hands

Take Holy Strike(Complete Divine) and now you're doing massive extra damage to evil creatures without using up our vary few Smite attempts. Also any weapon you hold is now considered blessed and holy at lvl 1. All just because you got one lame class feature.

Want your whole team to overcome obnoxious DR too? Take Glorious Weapon(Also Complete Divine)

Want Smite to work even better since you can only use it a few times a day? Take Improved Smiting and overcome DR AND do an additional 1d6. Boom, your ****ty greatsword now does 5d6 damage to evil at lvl 1 (lvl3 if not Human). Early game bossfights are now all about you.

And would you look at that mount. Let's take a look at the fact that you get and indestructible super animal companion for free. Sure, you might get a horse like most paladins, but the thing is you have a massive range of animals you can take as mounts (Giant Eagle up in this mother ****er) That share your (pretty big) saving throws.

A few measly skill points in ride and maybe 2 feats makes you a 80ft flying speed terror on the battlefield. Now yes, you won't do much damage since you can't optimize like a fighter, but can a fighter FLY A ****ING INDESTRUCTIBLE EAGLE FOR ZERO COST? NO? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Then just grab a Unicorn Amulet, buy the weapon focus feat from an NPC (If your DM allows training for minor feats), spend all your gold on buffing items and dominate.

Shining Wrath

2014-07-18, 09:39 AM

Because someone asked them the wrong question at the wrong time, and no matter what they chose, they fell.

ShurikVch

2014-07-18, 10:17 AM

FLY A ****ING INDESTRUCTIBLE EAGLE FOR ZERO COST? NO? Since when the Giant Eagle is indestructible? :smallconfused:

FishBonePendant

2014-07-18, 10:40 AM

Since when the Giant Eagle is indestructible? :smallconfused:

When it's a Paladin Mount. bonus HD, bonus AC, and Really good shared saves (Bonus points if it's a gestalt game and all the paladin's saves are good).

Kennisiou

2014-07-18, 12:57 PM

Paladin is a lot better by itself than people give it credit for. Top of tier 5/bottom of tier 4 is honestly not a bad place to be. It can make a good base class for a number of builds that intend to prestige, and that's just what it looks like if you don't consider how much splat content there is for it. Even if you don't consider ACFs, just splatbooks providing it with a number of useful feats and spells, paladin is a solid t4 character. Battle blessing, spell compendium expanding their spell list with a number of nice spells, BoED giving them useful exalted spells, Complete Champion and Complete Divine both giving him useful things to do with his turning pool... Paladins get a lot of great stuff even if you don't look too hard. At any table where a Warlock or Rogue isn't going to be made useless, a single class paladin with no ACFs but good feat and spell selection will contribute just fine.

And then there's all those freaking ACFs. Monk is in a similar position of having tons of ACFs that make it much better outside of core, but none that compare to Paladin. Both can be the core part of a respectable build with the right ACF selection, but Paladin gets more and better options. A-Game Paladin (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3407376) and other builds that make use of the Paladin's many strong feats and ACFs can honestly contribute in a T3 game just fine, playing the combat support role as well as even Crusader and Warblade.

So in short, Paladin's not a weak class. Core only is just a bad way to play him. The tier list in general looks at things like common usage, generally measuring how powerful a class is without a lot of optimization or splatbook diving, mostly operating under the assumption that a high op tier 5 class isn't going to change in power more than a high op tier 3 class. The main problem with the system is that, no, for real, they totally do. Samurai with the right feat selection is an easy t4, making one of the best combat intimidators, providing out of combat utility via being a decent party face, and being a passable ubercharger with the right feats (not as good as barbarian or warblade based uberchargers, but a samurai 20 ubercharger does it about as well as a fighter 20 does, and provides significantly more utility via combat intimidation and party facing). The tier list isn't a bad tool for getting a general picture, but it's also not the be all end all of comparative power measurements between classes.

shadow_archmagi

2014-07-18, 01:00 PM

I would argue that being bound by good is the defining trait of a Paladin, it's why my Paladin cleric replacement had prestige classes and feats that resulted in the character being bound by their Exalted nature. It's the same exact issue I have with the Crusader as a replacement, watering that down removes a fundamental part of what it is to be a Paladin.

Interesting viewpoint.

I wish I had my old D&D books so I could see how the paladin's code and alignment restrictions have evolved over each edition, so we could get a better idea of what the core concept of the paladin was.

I think my first experience with something called a Paladin was the hero in Warcraft 3.

EDIT: I found an OD&D blog saying that the original Paladin was a prestige class for fighters, and came with the restriction of only lawful party members (Which was considerably different, as law, neutrality, and chaos were the only alignments back then- you were either Us or Them, basically, and one DM would commonly have 20+ player characters, only some of whom would go on any given adventure.) Interesting that that limitation was one of the very earliest paladin class features.

Vortenger

2014-07-18, 02:23 PM

Wait, what? It's true that pathfinder gives the paladin a little more oomph- Replacing Turn Undead with Channel Positive Energy, and letting them use that as a cleric instead of as a cleric minus three.

It also gives them a "free" magic weapon if they don't want a paladin horse.

It does not give them significantly more options in combat, or significantly reduce their MAD (It does eliminate the need for wisdom, but that still leaves strength, dexterity, charisma, constitution, and intelligence if they want skills)

Crusaders have a flavor that's identical to Paladins, though. They're holy warriors out fighting for a cause. Done and done. Same thing for monks/swordsages- they're eastern-type guys who know strange martial arts.

Admittedly, rangers and barbarians are a little different- I'd argue that Barbarian could just about be covered by a Warblade, if you went Tiger Claw and Iron Heart you could make a character who was tough, skilled, and also a little bestial, much like Conan.

The OP requested how to up the power of the paladin, not how to be another class. Does the PF pally not do this? Smite's last all encounter, swift action healing, class features that matter until level 20, as you mentioned you can trade the horse for a scaling weapon and invest WBL elsewhere, etc. You say it doesn't reduce MAD, but its class features are entirely Cha dependant. Does having SAD class features not reduce MAD somehow? The martial problem concerning stats are just as true for the ranger (str, dex, wis, con) and the crusader (if you're playing up the charismatic holy warrior, i.e. the same flavor, as you say. Still need cha to do that...and Str,dex and con), or any other martial. So thats moot. Not everyone can be a wizard. PF pally does have extra options in combat compared to others, or have you not read the new lay on hands or the Oradin guide that maximizes upon it? Combat healing is a thing and the PF pally does it quite well. As a swift action. It may not be for everyone but its there.

It may be more of a patch than a full-on fix, but please explain how that isn't exactly what the OP asked for? The ToB has its own unique classes. Just because you can supplant them in place of core classes doesn't always make it fun to do so.

shadow_archmagi

2014-07-18, 03:04 PM

The OP requested how to up the power of the paladin, not how to be another class. Does the PF pally not do this?

It may be more of a patch than a full-on fix, but please explain how that isn't exactly what the OP asked for? The ToB has its own unique classes. Just because you can supplant them in place of core classes doesn't always make it fun to do so.

The claim made was that it fixed nearly every issue. It does not fix nearly every issue. It's a patch, not a fix, as you so eloquently put it.

LudicSavant

2014-07-18, 03:27 PM

That's really depressing, actually. Why would WotC do that? They've got very talented designers and play testers; you'd think they would notice that they had a class that was strictly worse than another, and would simply provide an example build of the better class. Either

A) Maybe not talented enough.

B) Monte Cook's version of Ivory Tower game design, in which trap options are intentionally created. This can't possibly account for everything, since the designers themselves have often stated that a lot of issues were unintentional.

C) Group dissent / executive meddling (for instance, a LOT of problems in 4e actually got pointed out by the CO boards consult playtester group and got ignored. Some of the things they pointed out before 4e was even released didn't get addressed until several rounds of errata in, and more still just got ignored entirely. However, those playtesters didn't get to make the call. For even worse examples you need look no further than the Pathfinder open playtest, in which I saw a statistician get shouted down by a handful of people who took any suggestions for mathematical improvement as "munchkiny" or some sort of weird personal attack).

In short, the talented people who know the score don't always get to make the calls.

D) Compartmentalized development with multiple writers may cause the left hand to not know what the right is doing if there aren't clear lines of communication, cooperation, and review. I think it's safe to speculate that such cross-checking isn't really going on at WotC, because some of their basic issues seem like they'd be pretty hard to get past an editor (such as all of the inconsistent statblocks, for instance).

E) Combination of the above, plus other things we don't know about.

Either way, it accomplishes little to speculate on what caused questionable design decisions here, and hindsight is 20/20. The good news is that the Paladin problem isn't much of a problem, so long as you realize that a great paladin fix already exists within the rules: Simply play a melee Cleric build. Throw in things like Ordained Champion or Ruby Knight Vindicator for bonus points.

You could honestly just post a cleric build on the homebrew forums, change all the names to things like "Death Before Dishonor" or "A Hero Never Falls" or "Legendary Smite" or "Aura of Courage" or "Lay on Hands" or "Celestial Steed" or "Consecrated Knight," hide half or more of the cleric spell/domain list, and have people go "wow that is the best paladin fix, it even improves the heroic flavor!" and half of them not get the joke that it isn't homebrew (it's been done before on the pre-Gleemax WotC boards).

Snails

2014-07-19, 12:13 AM

There are issues between how primary casters and non casters are balanced, but that is not why paladins are particularly bad. There are issues from MAD -- that certainly dings the paladin, but it does not really explain why either.

I think there are three main sources of design errors that particularly impact the paladin:

(1) 3e had an enormous amount of play testing when compared to every RPG that came before it, but the bulk of the play testing was with low to middling level single class characters.

(2) 3e made a decision to err on the side of adhering to 1e/2e, in order to be more easily accepted by old-timers.

(3) The designers consistently overvalued interesting abilities, when compared to simply good and easy to use abilities.

#1 meant the designers were blind to the fact that the paladin abilities due not "age" gracefully when multi classing. In a sense, every paladin ability is "like a spell" in that its effectively is tightly coupled with the number of paladin levels.

#2 meant that the paladin was handed a large grab bag of abilities because that is how it was before. I am sure that most optimizers will heartily agree that a few carefully chosen flexible abilities that stack together well are usually much better than two or three times as many random abilities thrown together in a stew.

#3 is not just a paladin issue, but we can see it in the magic items as well (the Big Six problem).

As someone who has played paladins, what I find the most annoying is not so much the raw power issues (there are easy ways to tweak that), but that the Paladin class has an underlying inflexibility. Other than the Spirited Charge stack, it just does not blend well with other classes, including PrCs. Most options just feel less "paladin-like".

And finally, there is a fourth factor worth mentioning: the accident of history of the order of the splatbooks. As the fightery splatbooks were first out the door, the designers were relatively cautious about power boosts when compared later books. For example, the majority of the early divine feats are completely terrible -- the one resource that paladins are uniquely able to take great advantage of.