Help with Paladin Build 3.5

[Dlabuga]

Hello boys,

I'm trying to build a powerful progression to keep up with the other players in the campaign. I really enjoy playing as a paladin and want to optimize the Smite Evil ability. So I'm using the variant Charging Smite, Curse Breaker, and possibly the Mystic Fire Knight with Sword of the Arcane Order.

We're using a point-buy system with 36 points.
STR 14 DEX 8 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 9 CHA 18 - Using Lesser Aasimar.
I was thinking of going with 1 Cleric/19 Paladin with the following talents, focusing more on charisma to eventually use the Thunderlance spell.

The Cleric level is for Turn Undead since I lose that ability using the Mystic Fire Knight variant and replacing the Law domain with the Devotion feat and Magic Domain to use arcane scrolls.

Power Attack, Dynamic Priest, Divine Might, Battle Blessing, Strength of Conviction, Sword of the Arcane Order, Leap Attack.

[holbita]

Also... I would skip the cleric level completely, you have good BAB and should have plenty good defenses, you don't need law devotion, and since you are already going for Mystic Fire Knight the feat "Sword of the Arcane Order" should be enough for your arcane needs. In fact, being able to cast thunderlance with your slots may be better on the long run on your resource consumption.

That being said you should check how much of the weaponlike spells rules you are going to apply here, because I believe some of the things you are choosing are not going to work as you expect, like Power Attack.

Also, if you are just going to take turn undead from cleric 1 it's not going to be really useful unless you really have something to use it on, and I can tell you Law Devotion is definitely not worth it. So unless you want to invest in some other feats I would skip it completely.

Now, regarding a smite build... are you sure you are going to be fully using smite during your adventure? it's a very specific ability and sometimes it can completely useless... if that's not the case go for it, but keep in mind that some diversification may be better than full investing on it.

[ciopo]

If you're taking a X-to-Y feat, I'd go with Serenity to be WIS-centric for casting, rather than dynamic priest, higher will save and more useful linked skills, unless you're wanting diplomacy/intimidate.

No sapphire smite for more smites per day?

Since you're dipping 1 level of cleric, make a consideration for being an azurin, because there is that combination of the ACF that substitute your cleric ( so your paladin one remains untouched) turn undead for a free aciton gain temporary essentia, combine with that feat to use turn undead to increase the amount of essentia you can put into incarnum feat, and it's basically .. a doubling or so of smites -per day

azurin cleric 1 / paladin X

cleric 1
channel incarnum - nominally wisdom based thanks to serenity by the power of transitive properties, 1/round free action gain 1 temporary essentia
sapphire smite - invest X essentia (generally 1 +1/6 character level is the rough formula for the pool size), gain X extra smites per day, and they deal X extra damage
Divine soultouch - spend 1 turn attempt and gain 1 extra temporary essentia and the size of your receptacles increases by 1

it's 1 to 5 extra smites per day at an investment of 3 feats and 2 out of many channel incarnum.

works better if you have a second essentia receptacle to put essentia in, such as the one increases lay on hand pool, for example, or the one improving power attack


also also, there are a couple domains that give you a separate pool of smiting, so if oyu're dipping cleric, maybe take those domains? Celestial and Destruction I remember, I think there's also Orc domain that does the same


I made a smite-centric entry for the iron chef round on arcane duelist, of course you can make it much more "tight" when you don't have jump trough hoops for being an arcane duelist, but you cna see the core of smiting it had all the same, here's the link

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25479472&postcount=83

[Biggus]

Not sure if Strength of Conviction is worth a feat for just one powerful smite per day. I'd probably take Awesome Smite (CCh) instead.

If material from modules is available, the spell Devastating Smite from The Forge of War p.113 is pretty good.

[remetagross]

Ï don't think you want to use Serenity in such a build. Feats like Divine Might will still add your Cha to a bunch of things when you fuel them with Turn Undead, but you're Wis-centric now.

[Inevitability]

Heading into Ordained Champion after you pick up Smite Evil isn't the worst idea: it'll let you turn Turn Undead attempts into smites on a 1-for-1 basis, and it'll even let those smites affect anyone regardless of alignment. You should ask your DM about making it work with charging smite.

It would force you towards a more martial deity, so you'd miss out on Mystic Fire Knight, but on the flip side you'd be able to get two free fighter bonus feats out of your cleric dip by trading in domain granted powers. Paladin 5 / cleric 1 / ordained champion 3 is a really nice basis to take into other PrCs of your choice.

You could even go Ordained Champion 5 and make the whole thing Wisdom-based, with Serenity (Dragon Compendium feat) switching your key stat for Divine Grace, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Lay on Hands to Wisdom, and Ordained Champion letting you use wisdom instead of strength for attack and damage rolls.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Cleric 1/ Paladin 19 is perfect.

Use Cloistered Cleric (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) for that dip. Replace your free Knowledge domain with Knowledge Devotion, and use the high base skill points to put one rank in each Knowledge skill that's relevant to a creature type (arcana, dungeoneering, nature, local, religion, the planes) so Knowledge Devotion will always give you +1 to attack and damage against every opponent. That's going to be better than Law Devotion anyway. The Magic domain is a good choice, and I'm a big fan of the Inquisition domain's granted power for the next part.

Trade your Paladin Turn Undead ability for the Divine Counterspell ACF in CM. The Inquisition domain granted power gives you a +4 to those checks, and any items that add levels to your effective Cleric level for turning undead should also apply to your effective Divine Counterspell level. Take the feat Divine Defiance from FCII, which allows you to spend a Cleric Turn Undead use to attempt a counterspell as an immediate action, which you'll of course use for a Divine Counterspell which doesn't even require a Spellcraft check. This makes you an absolute boss at counterspelling without sacrificing any actions on your turn, for very little opportunity cost. This is a much better option for defeating enemy spellcasters than Mystic Fire Knight.

I love Charging Smite, but in practice you'll likely already be using Leap Attack and (Wand of) (Extended) Wraithstrike and Rhino's Rush and a Valorous weapon, etc. so it's not really necessary. Plus it's not consistent given how situational it is. A much stronger ACF overall instead of that is Underdark Knight from Complete Champion, which adds a ton more than just situational damage. That grants Earth Glide at 12th level like earth elementals have, which is particularly powerful as well as unique.

Get a bunch of Pearls of Power to cast Rhino's Rush and other low level spells more often. Wands take the same type of action to activate as the casting time of the spell contained per the Rules Compendium, so a wand of a swift action or immediate action spell takes that same type of action to use as long as you're already holding it. Put a wand chamber in your weapon (or several, if it's a double weapon like a quarterstaff or an elvencraft longbow) so you're always considered to be holding every wand it contains as long as you're holding it.

Edit: Take the feat Magical Training (PGtF) is possible, which gets you a few arcane cantrip spell slots and a spellbook which you've already put some cantrips into. Per the Rules Compendium, any character who prepares and casts spells from a spellbook can add more spells to that spellbook via a method that's identical to how a Wizard does so. This automatically gives you the ability to add more Wizard spells to that spellbook, which you can prepare and cast using Sword of the Arcane Order.