Small Fix for Paladin?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

So the Paladin underperfoms. It doesnt quite do what its intended to do. Lots of fixes exist, but they are often entire class rewrites.

Heres my situation. I run a low op table. I have run several before. Sometimes, a player will break into medium op. Examples of what has been achieved:

Wizards focus on blasting and buffing and are generally not very effective.
Fighters and non-pounce barbarians are solid, as are standard single class gishes (duskblade, battle sorc).
Shifter druids have been effective.
A well built tripping monk stole the show.
I have never seen anyone use divination.

That said, my table still suffers from a few things. Sorcs are left feeling a little unloved, and monks are poor, and I have never, ever, seen anyone enjoy playing a paladin.

I fixed Sorc. I fixed monk. I did so with very minor changes (gave sorc bonus metamagic, bloodline and heritage feats, moved monk BAB to fighter progression, removed flurry penalty, added gauntlets and spiked gauntlets as monk weapons that use unarmed damage and can take weapon enchantments). That should make them a little more fun to play. But you notice what I didnt do? I didnt rebuild spell progression, or tack on 300 new class abilities, or refluf a swordsage.

So, that leaves me with the Paladin. I dont want to make a whole new class. And for the sake of new players, I dont want to make "per encounter" abilities. So what "little" changes can I make to paladin? Im looking to MODIFY (not replace) a couple of class abilities that would take the class from "this is boring" to "ok, im as good as the fighter/war cleric who mostly hits things/rogue who stabs things".

[Khedrac]

For a start I would think about replacing lay on hands with the dragon shaman ability touch of vitality.

[Sir_Chivalry]

For a start I would think about replacing lay on hands with the dragon shaman ability touch of vitality.

This is easily one of the better ideas I've heard.

Other quality of life improvements would be changing x/day to x/encounter on smite evil and changing out remove disease for something both more frequent and more generally useful

[16bearswutIdo]

IMO, give them Battle Blessing as a baseline ability. The Paladin's "thing" should be divine gish combat, and having all of their spells be standard actions that eat their attack options is kind of lame.

If you don't want to add new things and just modify abilities: I'd change them to cast off of Cha, change remove disease to be usable more often or remove more than just diseases, or give them more smites.

[gkathellar]

A few thoughts:
More/better smite evil
More/better Lay On Hands (maybe merge it with Remove Disease and give the paladin a more general ability to heal conditions with Lay On Hands) Just take Khedrac's suggestion regarding Touch of Vitality
Consider incorporating some form of Favored Enemy, which fits decently with the paladin's flavor
Charisma-based casting will reduce MAD, full CL will help buff durations and whatnot
Steal an aura mechanic from another class (Divine Mind, Dragon Shaman and Marshal are candidates - Divine Mind in particular is a bad class that nobody should ever use, so stealing its stuff comes highly recommended)
Take a look at the Knight from PHB2, see if there's anything you want to hijack from that


For a start I would think about replacing lay on hands with the dragon shaman ability touch of vitality.

Very yes.


IMO, give them Battle Blessing as a baseline ability. The Paladin's "thing" should be divine gish combat, and having all of their spells be standard actions that eat their attack options is kind of lame.

This. As is, it's a feat tax.

[Albions_Angel]

Ok, so here is what I am thinking, having read that (remember, its low op. I dont need to make the paladin the best class ever, just fun to play).

Battle Blessing as a bonus feat. At level 1? Or at level 6?
Text for lay on hands replaced with text from touch of vitality. What should I do with cure disease? These now overlap.
Smite Cha Bonus times a day (not making per encounter). Still get +1 at 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th (so Cha+1 times for 5th, Cha+2 times for 10th, etc). This still gives a place for extra smite.
Cha casting.

Thats... about as far as I want to take it.

[16bearswutIdo]

Yeah, that's an extremely reasonable list of changes. I'd say Battle Blessing at 6, because Pallys don't even have spells at level 1.

[gkathellar]

You can probably drop Remove Disease. If you feel you need to compensate for that, maybe give Hands of Vitality a slight decrease in costs.

[Castilonium]

You could just use the Pathfinder paladin (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/).

•Smite Evil changes from a singular attack to a "buff" whose bonuses apply to a particular evil enemy.
•Lay on Hands can be used several times per day and heals for d6s instead of level*cha mod.
•You get Mercies, which remove a particular debuff when you Lay on Hands someone. Pick the Diseased mercy if you still want to remove it like a 3.5e paladin.
•Spellcasting is cha-based instead of wis-based.

Those are the major changes. There are a few others. It looks like these changes fit the criteria you put in your OP.

[Zaq]

May I ask why you feel like per-encounter abilities aren’t good for newbies? Per-encounter abilities are slightly more bookkeeping than at-will abilities, but in my experience they’re a hundred times more newbie-friendly than per-day abilities, since you don’t have to worry about rationing them through a day with an unknown number of encounters in it. (And the newbie in question also doesn’t have to remember how many have been used between sessions. It’s common in my experience to end a gaming session in the middle of the adventuring day, but rare to end one mid-encounter.) The per-day abilities of the existing class are generally way underwhelming, so it’s interesting to me why you’d cut that off from the start.

If you’ve got other objections to per-encounter abilities, that’s another thing, but “think of the newbies!” is truly not the reason I would have expected. It even makes sense from a fluff perspective: when faced with a new worthy challenge, the paladin’s deity grants them a new dose of divine zeal.

Anyway, yeah, buffing LoH is a good starting point, as is going CHA-SAD (or at least removing WIS-dependency). If you keep Smite and their other tricks at an unusably low number of uses per day, do something to just raise the baseline of what the paladin is doing on turns when they aren’t using their paladin abilities to make them not just be a fighter without bonus feats. You can’t raise their BAB, but you can give them a few bonus feats, give them some kind of holy-feeling bonus, give them SOMETHING that differentiates them from the NPC warrior class when they don’t have Smite available.

Stapling on Knight’s Challenge is interesting. Might explore that a bit. Even gestalting with the knight class might not be OP.

[zlefin]

I would concur that either using the pathfinder paladin; or to better fit the 3.5 standards you otherwise use, take one or two of the pathfinder paladin's version of abilities, and use that.

[Lapak]

I like both the Touch of Vitality and 'Pathfinder smite' suggestions - those are two core changes that fit the class and measurably improve how it performs its role without being complicated to track.

[Albions_Angel]

So the per encounter thing is less just new players, and more how new players interact with the older players I tend to attract. For some reason, anyone experienced that I play with falls into one of 2 categories. Either they tried ToB, got confused/felt it jacked up the power level too rapidly from what they were used to, and never touched it again OR moved to 4th ed, hated it, moved back to 3rd with an extreme mistrust of at will.

When I tried having some classes with per encounter abilities, the greener players either got bogged down in book keeping, and the more experienced wouldnt help them properly, or they took to it like a duck to water, and the experience players that avoided it felt totally overshadowed.

For that reason, ToB in my world is restricted to a very small geographic region. As people progress, I can bring it in with "more traders turn up, one offers to train you/join you". I know its great, but it doesnt fly well at my tables.

Sticking with "per day" is familiar, and also easier for me to keep my eye on from a distance ("I use smite!", "are you sure? You used it a lot today.")

I have removed Remove Disease, and now the table looks a little empty. Bonus feats would be one final change I would be willing to make. I am thinking "Select from Fighter Bonus Feats and [Divine] feats". Thoughts?

[Fizban]

I shall post for you my Monk and Paladin changes:


Monk: AC bonus is 2+1/2 level, monk's Flurry of Blows (or PHB2 Decisve Strike) can be used on standard action attacks, Slow Fall includes Wall Walker and Water Step (from Dungeonscape and Stormwrack) for free, Wholeness of Body is equal to your full normal hit point total. Add bonus feats at 10th, 14th, and 18th, Abundant Step can be divided into 40' increments. Quivering Palm is usable 1/day. All Monk bonus feats can be chosen from any associated with the class or otherwise deemed reasonable. Monks can use gauntlets or handwraps enhanced as weapons, and either Bracers of Armor or robes/martial arts uniforms enhanced as armor.

The biggest problem with the Monk has always been that it gets hit too much. People expect a kung fu master to not be hit, but the +1/5 level AC bonus is a joke compared to the assumed +4-20 that the game actually expects from armor and shield. Importantly, I don't consider full BAB to be a requirement or fix for the Monk. They're not supposed to be as good at attacking as a weapon user, otherwise why use a weapon? Toughness, mobility, and ridding yourself of dependency on actual weapons and armor come at the cost of 3/4 BAB, that's just how it's supposed to be. If that AC bonus is too high then it could be +1/2 levels or 2+1/3 levels or something.


As for the Paladin, there are a bunch of effectively zero-cost ACFs and options that char-op uses all the time. Since I don't disallow any of those all I have on the main fix is:

Paladin: Lay on Hands is equal to your full normal hit point total. Items that increase cha for Lay on Hands instead add +1hp/level for each effective +2 cha.

Because Lay on Hands is so garbage even the monk has a better version of it. Guardinals get a pool equal to their full maximum hit points, so should the Paladin. (Edit- actually I'm misremembering, Wholeness of Body is just 2*level, so not quite as good as Lay on Hands, assuming you have a bunch of cha or cha items, but the point stands: anything less than your full hp sucks. Even 1/2 your full hp is more than you would normally get until much higher levels).

Additionally, consider any or all of:

Add one spell per day at each available level, as a result bonus slots from charisma are no longer required to unlock spells at levels previously marked "0." This is pretty much straight taken from an "ACF" where there's no really loss (Paladin turn undead is useless), and the "0" slot mechanic has always been bogus. Paladin players should be using spells from Spell Compendium such as Rhino's Rush, Knight's Move, Find the Gap, Divine Sacrifice, Fell the Greatest Foe, etc. These have as much ridiculous combo potential as any other melee char-op build, and are just as decent on their own as any non-char op build.
Paladins have caster level equal to their Paladin level- there's no reason for them to have less other than tradition and maybe one or two Paladin-only spells that scale faster specifically to compensate for the penalty (Righteous Fury) or have tables based on the 1-10 cl. Giving them normal caster level means they can cast Divine Favor to full effect (removing the "but Divine Favor is better than Smite Evil forever and ever" complaint because now they have both), their buff durations aren't terrible, and any healing spells they cast aren't weirdly weak.
Paladins turn undead at their full level, and maybe even Clerics get the big 3 level delay.
All Paladins gain more powerful mounts as they advance, see DMG. These don't cost anything in the first place- the Paladin's Mount is their most powerful core feature thanks to those pages being added to the 3.5 DMG, but a lot of people read warhorse and assume anything more requires a handout from the DM or some special class (even though Druids get a free pass to pull animals out of their rear). So make them aware it's not a special handout, it's right there in the DMG, and they should be off that horse and onto a dire wolf or griffon or rhino or something as soon as possible.
Add Battle Blessing (Complete Champion) as a bonus feat. It's basically a steath-fix anyway, letting people who can't stand not charging in and attacking still use all their spells instead of just a few special ones. So no feat tax, it's just a thing you get. Or in core speech, all Paladin spells are Quickened for free.
And/or, add a bonus feat at say, 7th, 13th, and 19th. Maybe even start at 1st, for 1/7/13/19. These can be spent on Paladin-ish stuff, Extra Smiting and Battle Blessing in particular will do just fine fixing the dual problems of low smite uses and no time to cast, but there's also the various divine this or that or anything else that mentions Paladin. Combat Intuition (Complete Adventurer) lets you put that Sense Motive class skill to work figuring out enemy challenge ratings and a little extra attack bonus while you're at it. There's a tactical feat for Smites.

Now, if a big part of your problem is that Special Mounts don't get used because your adventures are all inside, then you're gonna need to swap that out for something. And naturally, if the Paladin is getting increased spell slots, the Ranger ought to as well, possibly even the Bard. Whether the Ranger also needs quickened spells is less sure, since they're sneakier and have archery options rather than expected meatshield/charging.

Instead of removing Remove Disease, why not just make it better? Add more stuff that it can remove as you level up. Restoration and Greater Restoration are important to have on hand, as are de-petrifying, de-cursing, and even de-paralyzing against some things.

Just looking over other Champions of Valor sub levels to poach from-
The ability to full attack after charging, if that enemy threatens an ally.
Share the AC bonus of fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise with adjacent allies (this is also a feat, Allied Defense in Shining South).
Gain uses of Shield Other, Zone of Truth, or other things that are actually on the Paladin list but you might want sooner, in place of various things.
Daily uses of Greater Dispel Magic on hit (basically Mystic Fire Knight is just Better, -3 total hp and bad features, +spells and good features).
Uses of Heroism (which is not on your spell list) instead of Remove Disease.
Automatically know which foe is the most powerful.

[GreatDane]

It sounds like you're well on your way to settling on a few choice fixes. I just wanted to chime in that my only paladin house-rule (for my low-to-medium-op table) is to make their spellcasting entirely dependent on Charisma.

I really like the upgrade of Lay on Hands to the dragon shaman's Touch of Vitality. I've had a dragon shaman player before, and the ability to mete out healing to cure conditions is quite handy. It is worth noting that although Touch of Vitality offers twice as much healing, it doesn't affect undead. You could house-rule that away or not; paladins already get Turn Undead, so it's a little redundant.

[liquidformat]

So Complete Mage already has Curse Breaker to replace remove disease, it works thematically and is already in place so just grab that and run.

Some other thoughts:

Why not just change smite evil to smite, so it will function with chaotic alignments as well as evil. That gives it a bit more use without much of a change or issue.

Move turn undead to level 1, it is a bit silly it isn't there already...

[Rhedyn]

Use the Pathfinder Paladin but keep 3.5 smite.

Pathfinder smite fits the least in 3.5 but everything else should work.

[gkathellar]

I have removed Remove Disease, and now the table looks a little empty. Bonus feats would be one final change I would be willing to make. I am thinking "Select from Fighter Bonus Feats and [Divine] feats". Thoughts?

That sounds pretty reasonable to me. What levels were you thinking of granting them?


So Complete Mage already has Curse Breaker to replace remove disease, it works thematically and is already in place so just grab that and run.

This would be a reasonable substitution, especially since curses are one of the things Touch of Vitality specifically can't address. It might be a little niche, though - really depends on the game and the monsters encountered.


Why not just change smite evil to smite, so it will function with chaotic alignments as well as evil. That gives it a bit more use without much of a change or issue.

Move turn undead to level 1, it is a bit silly it isn't there already...

These are both reasonable suggestions, although smite working against chaos does change the paladin's thematic overtones a bit.

[Fizban]

Properly reading the thread- I've never been enamored of the Touch of Vitality at all. Doubling the normal Lay on Hands amount is still terrible, and the number of serious conditions you can remove is tiny. While the ability to remove daze or sicken is fairly unique and cheap, and poison isn't too expensive, but 20 points to get rid of blindness or a negative level? A full 5 per point of ability? The costs are all over the place, while even one or two uses of Restoration or Panacea are more valuable. Unless you need to remove daze or sicken over and over, I don't see it. And it's also quite fiddly, which isn't great if fiddly things don't sell well.

Seems like stretching for more reasons to push cha, but what it really does is force greater attribute dependency. Cha to saves is already enough reason to push cha, even without divine feats that want it. Get rid of the "0 slot" problem by adding +1 at each level and you don't need a ton of wis, replace tiny x*level*cha pools with =hit points for Lay on Hands and you don't need a ton of cha. You're not punished for being low on either, but you still gain benefits if you have more.

Bonus feats at 1/7/13/19 give room for Extra Smite at 1st if desired (more smites without penalizing lower cha, and you can take it again later if you want), Battle Blessing at 7th, or whatever. Note that there are already swift spells, so you don't strictly need Battle Blessing to use your slots, if you want something else at 7th bonus, and it's still a feat you could take earlier or later. If you want to force the floor up then just make them all quickened with no mention of the feat.

Change Remove Disease into Remove Disease/Curse, up to Restoration or Panacea at 8th, Heal or Break Enchantment at 11th, and Greater Restoration at 14th fill out more spots on the table. Leaving the condition removal pool at weekly means there's still a lot more value in preventative measures or preparing the spells or consumables.


Incidentally, why is it that players have never had fun with Paladins? I would guess that it's because fighter and barbarian have simple constant bonuses while the paladin only has daily smites. This is why lots of people suggest the continuous buff smite, but that's not a smite. If they don't want healing or keeping track of spells then making lay on hands remove a bit more hp and some status effects and making spells easier won't matter as much. But continuing to toot my own horn, I would expect a class feature which basically reads "double hit points" to get better attention, and if you boost the cl to normal along with the quickening, you can point them straight at Divine Favor as a way to fill up spell slots with easy to use bonuses. Though at full cl that might be too much, but without it Paladin doesn't hit +2 until 12th.

[liquidformat]

These are both reasonable suggestions, although smite working against chaos does change the paladin's thematic overtones a bit.

It kind of does, in a lot of my games I have changed paladins in general to be holy knights needing the same alignment of their patron deity rather than just LG and CG, LE, CE with UA options added.

[Psyren]

You could just use the Pathfinder paladin (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/).



I would concur that either using the pathfinder paladin; or to better fit the 3.5 standards you otherwise use, take one or two of the pathfinder paladin's version of abilities, and use that.


Use the Pathfinder Paladin but keep 3.5 smite.


+1 Pathfinder Paladin. If full-on Battle Blessing is too much, you can also just port in the Litany line of spells.

[AvatarVecna]

1) Good Will save
2) 4+Int skill points per level
3) Smites are per-encounter now
4) Remove Disease is per-day
5) Increase Lay On Hands per-day healing limit

...that's probably enough to make it fairly solid, without making it too complicated or homebrewy. Not really where I want it, but eh.

[Uncle Pine]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the A-Game Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?445134-Weekly-Optimization-Showcase-quot-A-quot-Game-Paladin&p=19866804#post19866804), so here it is in case you want to use it for inspiration.

Personally I believe "optimize paladins better" to be a good solution to your problem as it also sets up a good learning curve for players, but to each his or her own.

[Elkad]

1) Good Will save
2) 4+Int skill points per level
3) Smites are per-encounter now
4) Remove Disease is per-day
5) Increase Lay On Hands per-day healing limit

...that's probably enough to make it fairly solid, without making it too complicated or homebrewy. Not really where I want it, but eh.

That's the solid core right there. I'd still switch casting to Cha, or at least access & bonus spells (leaving DCs based on Wis).
I hate cha-based casting on all primary casters. It's too good a stat to be SAD around with all it's other uses. But a paladin is the epitome of Cha-based, or should be, and they are still plenty MAD.

Another one to consider. Alter Remove Disease to include Remove Blindness, Deafness, Paralysis, Addiction, Nausea and Fatigue (one effect per use). Possibly some others as well that make sense to be healing effects, like dazzle, daze, and stun. I wouldn't put Remove Curse in there, you can't [Heal] that. Keep your x/day instead of x/week change as well.

[Bohandas]

Add all the spells from the Good, Law, Protection, Strength, and War domains to their spell list

[BowStreetRunner]

I have removed Remove Disease, and now the table looks a little empty. Bonus feats would be one final change I would be willing to make. I am thinking "Select from Fighter Bonus Feats and [Divine] feats". Thoughts?How about something like this:

Paladin
Alignment: LG Only
HD: d10
Class Skills: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Sense Motive (Wis).
Skill Points: 2 + Int mod
BAB: Full
Fort: Good
Ref: Poor
Will: Poor
1st: Aura of good, Detect evil, Smite Evil 1 + Cha bonus/day
2nd: Divine grace, Touch of vitality (heal wounds)
3rd: Aura of courage, Divine Health
4th: Turn undead, Spell casting (Cha based)
5th: Smite evil +1/day, Special mount
6th: Touch of vitality (remove conditions)
7th:
8th:
9th: Battle blessing
10th: Smite evil +1/day
11th:
12th: Bonus domain (Good, Law, Protection, Strength, or War) or Devotion feat
13th:
14th:
15th: Smite evil +1/day, Bonus feat (Fighter or Domain)
16th:
17th:
18th: Bonus domain (Good, Law, Protection, Strength, or War) or Devotion feat
19th:
20th: Smite evil +1/day

[ExLibrisMortis]

For a high-level paladin, I would consider adding the celestial template (spread across a few levels, if needed) around level 10, the half-celestial template around level 14, and/or then the archon subtype across levels 12-20 (archons are LG celestials). That subtype adds a lot of stuff, from darkvision to immunity to electricity to at-will greater teleport, so it's easy to spread around an end with a big capstone.

[CharonsHelper]

That said, my table still suffers from a few things. Sorcs are left feeling a little unloved, and monks are poor, and I have never, ever, seen anyone enjoy playing a paladin.

I fixed Sorc. I fixed monk. I did so with very minor changes (gave sorc bonus metamagic, bloodline and heritage feats, moved monk BAB to fighter progression, removed flurry penalty, added gauntlets and spiked gauntlets as monk weapons that use unarmed damage and can take weapon enchantments). That should make them a little more fun to play. But you notice what I didnt do? I didnt rebuild spell progression, or tack on 300 new class abilities, or refluf a swordsage.

So, that leaves me with the Paladin. I dont want to make a whole new class. And for the sake of new players, I dont want to make "per encounter" abilities. So what "little" changes can I make to paladin? Im looking to MODIFY (not replace) a couple of class abilities that would take the class from "this is boring" to "ok, im as good as the fighter/war cleric who mostly hits things/rogue who stabs things".


I would concur that either using the pathfinder paladin; or to better fit the 3.5 standards you otherwise use, take one or two of the pathfinder paladin's version of abilities, and use that.


+1 Pathfinder Paladin. If full-on Battle Blessing is too much, you can also just port in the Litany line of spells.

I'll add in my $0.02 and also suggest Pathfinder's paladin. It's generally considered one of the more potent martials in Pathfinder.

But I'll actually go a bit further. I'd suggest that you adopt more Pathfinder classes - such as Unchained monk & their sorcerer rather than worrying about patching them yourself. The Unchained Monk is a full BAB variant which is both competitive and pretty easy to play, and Pathfinder buffed the sorcerer substantially with bloodlines. (Still not quite as potent as wizard - but in a low OP group the difference would be negligible.)

Frankly - while Pathfinder suffers from the general martial/caster imbalance starting at level 10ish (pretty inherent to the system), their class balance is substantially better than 3.5's, especially using the Unchained variants (most notably monk & rogue). There are things I prefer about 3.5, but Pathfinder definitely has better class balance. (Once 5th level spells start the whole d20 system starts to fracture - but that's something that you both can't just patch and shouldn't matter much to a low OP table.)