I need to break the Paladin in Pathfinder. Help.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I am in a game, we are level 10, and I have prior to level stat bumps base stats of 16 15 15 14 12 10.

Only restrictions are as follows, 7th level Leadership, Oath of Charity and must be Tiefling.

Multiclassing is allowed, and I am open to different classes with a Paladin feel.

Tiefling Varients are allowed.

I am dealing with a deadly DM, who likes RAW and could use any help at all.



Edited: Changed Oath of Mercy to Oath of Charity

[Hamste]

Getting your hands on ultimate mercy could be nice if you expect a deadly DM. Fey Foundling on a paladin is great and take the favoured class bonus to heal more hp on yourself and hospitaler with the quick channel feat. Max charisma of course and get a resistance item first for saves and then the items boosting your healing.

I don't recognIze oath of mercy but as long as you didn't mean oath of charity you are a healing machine that refuses to die.Heal up yourself nearly to full every turn, bring back the dead and heal your allies.

If you can multi-class to three levels of skald the celestial totem amps up the healing a bit.


Not really broken but pretty good at staying alive and keeping others alive.

[Gnaeus]

I would ask your DM about Dreamscarred Press content. It is 3rd party, but
1: DSP stuff is generally better balanced than the PF material,
2: It is essentially a reprint of stuff that was first party in 3.5
3: A lot of it (especially path of war) is on the PFSRD.

If yes, investigate: Warlord (and empyreal guardian tradition), and Daevic. Both are martial charisma classes with a paladin feel. I'm playing a Warlord/Paladin//Daevic now, and it is the most fun I ever had with a non full caster.

[Hamste]

If at all possible, I highly suggest not going oath of charity. Give away your money if you want, help the homeless or what ever you want to do to be charitable. Choosing new mercies every day isn't worth healing yourself half as much hp from using your lay on hands on yourself and your channels from hospitaler will be better healing for others anyways as it heals multiple people.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Unfortunately I go the Oath of Charity because it really fits the character and his entire concept. I mean it really fits in with the Sarenrae worship.

But are there any items, stats allocation, feats, spells or combo's I should be looking at?

Or should I just go Warpriest?

[GreyBlack]

Unfortunately I go the Oath of Charity because it really fits the character and his entire concept. I mean it really fits in with the Sarenrae worship.

But are there any items, stats allocation, feats, spells or combo's I should be looking at?

Or should I just go Warpriest?

Generally speaking, Warpriest is a "fixed" version of Paladin, without all of the fiddly bits carried over from 3.5 and 2e; you get LoH (sort of) in the form of Fervor, it isn't LG exclusive, etc.

As a general rule, the only reason to choose Paladin over Warpriest is if you're going to maximize your mount; you playing a Tiefling means you're not going to be able to maximize your ability to use your mount, as you're medium size. Unless you want to go full RAW on the DM, in which case you can ride a small mount as a medium creature.

[Florian]

I am in a game, we are level 10, and I have prior to level stat bumps base stats of 16 15 15 14 12 10.

Only restrictions are as follows, 7th level Leadership, Oath of Charity and must be Tiefling.

Multiclassing is allowed, and I am open to different classes with a Paladin feel.

Tiefling Varients are allowed.

I am dealing with a deadly DM, who likes RAW and could use any help at all.



Edited: Changed Oath of Mercy to Oath of Charity

Depending on your group setup, easiest and most effective route might be Paladin VMC Oracle (Life), archery feat chain and Ultimate Mercy. Inner Sea Races has some nice ARFs for Tieflings here.

[Hamste]

Assuming you want to heal the concept doesn't change much. You are worse off with oath of charity but you can still be a decent healer.

I would suggest
Fated Champion (Skald)3/Hospitaler (Paladin) 7

With oratory as the perform you train (Give stirring speeches for your rage song)

Get Lesser Celestial Totem for your rage power (This is a lot better with fewer casters assuming casting take concentration).

Hospitaler gives you a better channel and has no interaction with lay on hands.

Stats

Str 15 Dex 14 Con 15 Int 12 Wis 10 Cha 16
Go Demon-spawn since variants are allowed for +2 str and +2 cha and -2 int. Traits don't really matter here. Scaled skin is pretty good but resistances are kind of nice as well. Add +2 to your charisma from your level up.

Favored Class to lay on hands healing to self if you think you will use lay on hands on yourself more than twice per day.

For feats I suggest:
1:Fey Foundling (worse because you are making your lay on hands worse but still so good)
3:Greater Mercy
5:Quicken Channel
7: Leadership
9: Selective Channel

Ultimate Mercy is nice but at level 9 you only have 8 lay on hands and there is no room for using feats on extra lay on hands.

For items I would suggest (Not going to be able to afford all of them most likely but things to consider):
cloak of resistance (Saves are the thing most likely to kill you)
Bracers of the Merciful knight (+2d6 more healing from lay on hands and 2 more uses of lay on hands a day) 15600 gold
Phylactery of Positive Channeling (+2d6 more healing for channel. Better than the Bracers of Merciful knight) 11000 gold
Crusading armor enchantment is also nice because of your nerfed lay on hands as well


Your full healing routine if you had the phylactery and bracers as well as your rage song up:
1/2*(7d6+31 Foundling, Tiefling, lesser celestial totem) uses a lay on hands and a swift
followed by
(4d6+18 lesser celestial totem and Foundling) 8 less for others as a move for 2 channels
then either
1.5*(7d6+10) lay on hands on another as a standard or
(4d6+18) 8 less for other as a standard for a Channel

Average 27.75 for your swift (55.5 if you hadn't halved it) additional 2.75 if no mercy is applied
32 AoE heal for your move (24 for others)
Either
51.75 to someone else for your standard (34.5 if you hadn't multiplied it by 1.5) additional 5.25 if no mercy is applied
or 32 AoE heal for your standard

You will have 10 lay on hands and 7 channels so you can keep this up for three rounds of move channeling with standard attacks or lay on hands before you are basically out of channels (I personally suggest just trying to find something to do with your move action so you don't waste the extra channels too often for quickening them.

[Florian]

Generally speaking, Warpriest is a "fixed" version of Paladin, without all of the fiddly bits carried over from 3.5 and 2e; you get LoH (sort of) in the form of Fervor, it isn't LG exclusive, etc.

As a general rule, the only reason to choose Paladin over Warpriest is if you're going to maximize your mount; you playing a Tiefling means you're not going to be able to maximize your ability to use your mount, as you're medium size. Unless you want to go full RAW on the DM, in which case you can ride a small mount as a medium creature.

No, I don´t really agree here. While the handling might be similar, the main thrust directions, therefore intended synergies, are very different between the main builds of the two classes.
Paladin: Archery, Twohander, Mounted, Oradin (or VMC Oracle).
Warpest: TWF, Twohander, Unarmed, Bad Touch (or VMC Cleric).

The only real overlap I see is the handling of the Twohander builds.

[ArchangelAzrael]

Hello there!

Consider taking a 1 level dip in oracle for the nature's whisper revelation ( replace dex with cha for AC and CDM without armor restriction, but doesnt help with initiative and reflex)

does you Dm allow 3rd party materials? is yes as a curse take frenetic ( cant take 10, minus 2 to take 20, roll twice for initiative and at level 9 you get cha to reflex). if not legalistic is a tame curse for paladins

Now i suggest twohanded fighting style as it needs very few feat (power attack mainly) to work and Nodatchi as the main weapon. First feat should be fey foundling or Noble scion (war) ( noble scion war replace dex with cha for initiative and if you manage to grab all of the above now dex is almost completely replaced)

for additional feats i would consider
1) Cornugon Smash and hateful
2) eldritch heritage Orc feat chain ( at level 10 it should be 2 feats committed and a trait (community minded), but at lvl 11 its starts to pay off especially if you also toss in quicken spell-like ability in the mix which should be doable at level 10 with retrain rules)
3) extra lay on hands & Greater Mercy perhaps even ultimate mercy but it is not vital (although very cool)
4) improved critical (so you can milk bless even more)
5) dodge & Osyluth Guile (Combat) (for cha based dodge bonus) also perhaps Armor of the Pit
6) any of the above combination (although orc heritage requires more commitment later on)

as for the race I assume you don't need to waste a feat to choose Demon-Spawn
(Pitborn). Alternative racial traits to consider would be: Pass for Human, Light from the Darkness. See since you aren't rolling a human see if you can squeeze flaws from 3.5 to grab another feat.

Stats that i would choose would be 15 (17 with racial mod) str 10 dex 15 con 12 (10 with racial mod) int 14 wis and 16 (22 with racial mod and level up mod) cha

for traits consider grabbing magical knack and/or any trait that gives you Use magic device

[BoutsofInsanity]

Thank you guys for all your suggestions.

Third party is of course not allowed. But I will check out that Noble Scion stuff.

[GreyBlack]

No, I don´t really agree here. While the handling might be similar, the main thrust directions, therefore intended synergies, are very different between the main builds of the two classes.
Paladin: Archery, Twohander, Mounted, Oradin (or VMC Oracle).
Warpest: TWF, Twohander, Unarmed, Bad Touch (or VMC Cleric).

The only real overlap I see is the handling of the Twohander builds.

I'm speaking more on a flavor level than on a role level. They're both holy warriors with a martial connection to their higher purpose. We can quibble that one is more of a caster and one is more of a beatstick, but I'm saying they're both religious warriors bound by codes of conduct to serve a higher power. In flavor, the two are extremely similar, with the Warpriest being unbound from a specific alignment and capable of reflecting a multitude of paragon alignments.

ETA: It's a callback to 2e, wherein the Paladin was supposed to be a literal cross between a Fighter and a Cleric. Remember when your Cleric level for spell casting was your Paladin level -9, but you had the THAC0 of a fighter?

[Florian]

ETA: It's a callback to 2e, wherein the Paladin was supposed to be a literal cross between a Fighter and a Cleric. Remember when your Cleric level for spell casting was your Paladin level -9, but you had the THAC0 of a fighter?

Those were good times. I only had it twice that someone managed to roll up the necessary stats to create a Paladin and, oh boy!, were they proud of it and into the whole role.


I'm speaking more on a flavor level than on a role level. They're both holy warriors with a martial connection to their higher purpose. We can quibble that one is more of a caster and one is more of a beatstick, but I'm saying they're both religious warriors bound by codes of conduct to serve a higher power. In flavor, the two are extremely similar, with the Warpriest being unbound from a specific alignment and capable of reflecting a multitude of paragon alignments.

And that, I don´t see. The "Paladin" is a very powerful archetype with a specific background and a lot of cultural implications. Understand those and the actual class is a natural fit.

There´re a lot of classes that you can model in the same direction and you´ll get good results, maybe even superior performance, but don´t tell me that you would´t feel "locked in" by the "Paladin" archetype when you use those classes to emulate it. That just would´t feel natural. (You can take that statement anyway you want. I posit that the whole "Code" is a positive thing that really enforces the underlying archetype)

[GreyBlack]

Those were good times. I only had it twice that someone managed to roll up the necessary stats to create a Paladin and, oh boy!, were they proud of it and into the whole role.



And that, I don´t see. The "Paladin" is a very powerful archetype with a specific background and a lot of cultural implications. Understand those and the actual class is a natural fit.

There´re a lot of classes that you can model in the same direction and you´ll get good results, maybe even superior performance, but don´t tell me that you would´t feel "locked in" by the "Paladin" archetype when you use those classes to emulate it. That just would´t feel natural. (You can take that statement anyway you want. I posit that the whole "Code" is a positive thing that really enforces the underlying archetype)

Man, good times. I've often considered running a 2e game withmy current PF group just to give them a culture shock. I actually ran a Paladin in 2e, and boy howdy it was a blast!

But therein lies the problem: the 3.5/PF version of the Paladin is so out of place and "balanced" to the point of either outright uselessness or mediocrity. The old safeguards in place in 2e don't function adequately for either the flavor or the power of what the Paladin should be, which is a Fighter++. Ergo, I'm fine with scrapping the Paladin and replacing it with a similar concept that works within the context of the new system: the Warpriest.

ETA: However! I will note that there actually _IS_ a proper analogue for the Paladin in 3.5: the Prestige Paladin. Maybe it's just me, but the stat requirements almost necessitated entering Paladin from another class (e.g. fighter), so the analogue in 3.5 would be entering paladinhood through a PrC. Don't mind me, though, I'm just a grumbling old dinosaur. Get off my lawn!

[Florian]

Man, good times. I've often considered running a 2e game withmy current PF group just to give them a culture shock. I actually ran a Paladin in 2e, and boy howdy it was a blast!

But therein lies the problem: the 3.5/PF version of the Paladin is so out of place and "balanced" to the point of either outright uselessness or mediocrity. The old safeguards in place in 2e don't function adequately for either the flavor or the power of what the Paladin should be, which is a Fighter++. Ergo, I'm fine with scrapping the Paladin and replacing it with a similar concept that works within the context of the new system: the Warpriest.

Maybe that actually is a cultural thing, but I only have good experience with players choosing the Paladin class for 3,P. Discarding powergamers there, I´ve experienced that a lot of people do not pick classes that don´t have a strong archetype attached to them, no matter how mechanically powerful they are.

[GreyBlack]

Maybe that actually is a cultural thing, but I only have good experience with players choosing the Paladin class for 3,P. Discarding powergamers there, I´ve experienced that a lot of people do not pick classes that don´t have a strong archetype attached to them, no matter how mechanically powerful they are.

Oh, don't get me wrong. One of my favorite characters I've ever played in 3.5 was a paladin/blackguard/shadowbane inquisitor (in that order!). I just feel like the grandeur of the Paladin is kind of undermined by the mechanics involved. Instead of being literally the best of the best, the Paladin is just a fancy fighter, which breaks my heart.