[4E] Divine vs Combat challenge

[EneecauV]

Fighters get to use his signature move combat challenge against every creature that he targets for an attack. That includes multi-targeting powers like sweeping blow, opportunity attacks and the infamous Commander's Strike.
If a marked foe violates the mark the fighters get to opportunity attack him with a bonus equal to his WIS and the target has to stop moving if it tried to.
Did I get something wrong? If not, it's a really awesome ability.

Paladins get to mark a single creature each round, there are a few powers that allow you to mark more. If the foe violates the mark it recieves 3+CHA radiant damage. Can be used at range. And that's all there is to it.

In my opinion right now Fighters are much better at doing their common roles goal - defending their allies. Violating a Combat challenge can really hurt. When I DM I am honestly worried about my monsters health whenever a fighter has locked it down.
Not so with a paladin, especially since not all paladins max their CHA. Not every paladin get very high STR either, thus making those ones silly at OA:s.

Countermeasures for the Paladin - he can heal the damage a Fighter would have prevented in the first place.

Please, motivate me and my players to pick Paladin. I very much like the fluff and all but the holy warrior seems inferiour to a simple street brawler.

[Hzurr]

Hmm...I had always thought that the fighter could only mark one creature a turn.

Also, remember that if a creature chooses to ignore the fighter's mark, worst case senario is that the fighter is able to take an Opportunity Attack. If they ignore a Paladin's challenge, then they are guarenteed to take damage. Also, a Paladin doesn't have to attack to issue his/her challenge, he only has to end his turn next to a creature to challenge it (which means that the paladin can attack one creature, move, and mark a different one. The fighter can't do this)

[Tadanori Oyama]

The Fighter gets to hit more often but doesn't make him a better defender.

Paladins start with heavier armor and they have minor action powers via the Channel Divinity option.

Neither the 2Hand Fighter nor the Paladin is a purist defender, they both bleed across into other roles (Striker and Leader, respectfully).

Paladin Smites hit the enemy with penalties and boost allies with bonuses and their Dalies offer some ranged options with nice bonuses.

It's all a matter of what you want to do with your character. I choose Paladin.

[Artanis]

*The Paladin's marking ability can mark things that are 5 tiles away, whereas the Fighter can only mark things that are next to him.

*The "if it doesn't attack you" effect of a Fighter's mark lets the Fighter make an OA, which might deal damage, with the attack roll having a bonus from a stat that isn't exactly one of the Fighter's usual priorities. This also means that the effect only works on adjacent opponents. The effect of the Paladin's mark is guaranteed to do damage roughly equal to the damage of an OA, plus it's Radiant damage, which is one of the strongest damage types in the game. And yes, it works no matter where the marked guy is, so while the Fighter can't do anything about the archer plinking away at your Wizard, the Paladin guarantees that the archer is going to be hurting no matter what.


Edit: bah, a couple of ninjas

[jayphonic]

Couple of quick points:

1. The fighter doesn't get an Opportunity attack against a shifting marked target. He has the option of using an immediate interrupt. These two things are different. Only one immediate action can be used in a round when it is not your turn. An opportunity attack can be done once during each combatant's turn.

2. hit or miss all targets of a fighter's attack are marked. If said, fighter had the arcane initiate feat and used Scorching blast, all targets would be marked by him until the end of his next turn.

[KillianHawkeye]

jayphonic is right. Despite the Fighter's ability to mark mulitple creatures at a time, he can only use his Combat Challenge attack on one of them per round because it is, in fact, an immediate action and NOT an Opportunity Attack.

[jayphonic]

Still, fighters rock in 4e!

[Totally Guy]

We have a paladin and an infernal warlock that team up on the baddies.

The paladin marks the target.
Warlock curses the target.
The warlock stands adjacent to the target and starts blasting (with a +1 bonus for being closest).
The opponent takes an opportunity attack (-2 penalty for violating the mark)
Enemy gets blasted by divine challenge.

Alterntively the target is denied an opportunity attack.

We noticed a trend that at the end of a fight the party was all bloodied except the warlock. This tactic converts the HP (con being highest stat) of the warlock into damage.

[EneecauV]

[QUOTE=jayphonic;5201011]Couple of quick points:

1. The fighter doesn't get an Opportunity attack against a shifting marked target. He has the option of using an immediate interrupt. These two things are different. Only one immediate action can be used in a round when it is not your turn. An opportunity attack can be done once during each combatant's turn.


Oh, then we were doing it wrong. That makes fighters challenge a bit less powerful of course. I allowed him to attack as an AO, thus getting +3 from Wis. Thanks for pointing it out

Those of you who have played paladins, is the damage from Divine challenge good enough to compete? 18 cha nets 7 damage. its not close to what even sword-board fighter could deal on a hit. You think it evens out by the hit/miss ratio of combat challenge?

[Myshlaevsky]

[QUOTE=jayphonic;5201011]Couple of quick points:

1. The fighter doesn't get an Opportunity attack against a shifting marked target. He has the option of using an immediate interrupt. These two things are different. Only one immediate action can be used in a round when it is not your turn. An opportunity attack can be done once during each combatant's turn.


Oh, then we were doing it wrong. That makes fighters challenge a bit less powerful of course. I allowed him to attack as an AO, thus getting +3 from Wis. Thanks for pointing it out

Those of you who have played paladins, is the damage from Divine challenge good enough to compete? 18 cha nets 7 damage. its not close to what even sword-board fighter could deal on a hit. You think it evens out by the hit/miss ratio of combat challenge?

Sword and board deals 1d8+4 or 1d10+4, and they have to roll to hit. It's not that bad. 1.5 less than 1d8+4, 2.5 less than 1d10+4.

[Tadanori Oyama]

We have a paladin and an infernal warlock that team up on the baddies.

The paladin marks the target.
Warlock curses the target.
The warlock stands adjacent to the target and starts blasting (with a +1 bonus for being closest).
The opponent takes an opportunity attack (-2 penalty for violating the mark)
Enemy gets blasted by divine challenge.

Alterntively the target is denied an opportunity attack.

We noticed a trend that at the end of a fight the party was all bloodied except the warlock. This tactic converts the HP (con being highest stat) of the warlock into damage.

You can't Interrupt an Interrupt. The targeted monster doesn't provoke from the Paladin.

[Yakk]

Citation for "cannot interrupt an interrupt"? I believe there are two restrictions on immediate actions:
1> You cannot use them on your turn,
2> You can only use 1 per round.

Similarly, there are two restrictions on opportunity actions:
1> You cannot use them on your turn,
2> You can only use 1 per opponents turn

These make it tricky to interrupt an interrupt in some cases, but in the case described, it should work.

...

The key to realizing why the Fighter isn't amazing compared to the Paladin is that the Fighter only gets to do combat challenge damage once per turn, as it is an interrupt.

No matter how many opponents are marked, if they all ignore the fighter and attack someone else or shift away, only 1`of them gets attacked by the fighter.

Now, the fighter is sticky in that the fighter stops movement with a +wis to attack roll opportunity attack... That is a feature that the Paladin misses. The Paladin, in exchange, has some fun marking tricks (like marking from range, or marking 1 target and attacking another) that the Fighter lacks.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Ah, I may well be mistaken now that I go back and check my source.

I was remembering a question I asked the Wizard's Q&A:

Question-
If my Elven Ranger uses Disruptive Strike, an immediate interrupt responce to an attack, with his longbow against a melee axe attack targeted at him by an Orc, does he provoke an opportunity attack for using a ranged attack in melee?

Answer-
"That is a very good question. You can not take attacks of opportunity on your turn. So in your example, if the Ranger is attacked and uses Disruptive Strike, the attacker would not be granted an Opportunity Attack. This is cover on page 290 in the 'One per Combatant's Turn' bullet point."

Vincent
Customer Service Representative
Wizards of the Coast


Anyway, that's a wholly seperate issue and I retract my statement.

[EneecauV]

The fighter has several feats that improve his combat challenge like Distracting Shield. Does the paladin have any of the like? Perhaps granted through some channeled divinity?

Also, anybody have written any guide for paladins?
Like this one do for fighters. http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1062073

[Oracle_Hunter]

The fighter has several feats that improve his combat challenge like Distracting Shield. Does the paladin have any of the like? Perhaps granted through some channeled divinity?

Also, anybody have written any guide for paladins?
Like this one do for fighters. http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1062073

No feats to improve Divine Challenge, aside from Astral Fire (+1 to fire & radiant damage), but honestly, Divine Challenge is plenty good. It sticks around so long as you remain adjacent to the target, and does automatic damage if your target violates its conditions.

As for guides, there's this one (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1054956). But if you want advice on a given type of Paladin, I'm sure you can find a lot of it here.

Generally, a Dragonborn Sword & Board Paladin is going to be good. Go high on CHA and WIS, and if you keep a decent STR you should be fine on OAs.

[THAC0]

Fighters are defenders-sub-controllers and pallys are defenders-sub-leaders.

The paladin mark can be useful. There's the "cowardin" approach which involves marking it, then hanging back and using ranged weapons while the fighter gets in it's face, forcing it to either attack the fighter and take the damage or spend it's actions trying to attack you while the fighter kills it.

Another nice trick is that there is a power out there at mid-high heroic (I forget which one exactly), which makes the target vulnerable to radiant damage, increasing the mark's damage significantly.

[Shadow_Elf]

We have a paladin and an infernal warlock that team up on the baddies.

The paladin marks the target.
Warlock curses the target.
The warlock stands adjacent to the target and starts blasting (with a +1 bonus for being closest).
The opponent takes an opportunity attack (-2 penalty for violating the mark)
Enemy gets blasted by divine challenge.

Alterntively the target is denied an opportunity attack.

We noticed a trend that at the end of a fight the party was all bloodied except the warlock. This tactic converts the HP (con being highest stat) of the warlock into damage.

Unless your paladin is ranged, they have to be next to the marked target or Divine Challenge wears off. So technically, this shouldn't work, unless your paladin took an MC at-will or javelins or somesuch.

[Mauril Everleaf]

I think everyone is forgetting that there is more to the Paladin and Fighter than just their respective marking abilities. One reason to take the Pally is that there are more non-AC targeting abilities. I will take those any day.

[TheOOB]

I personally think the fighters mark is better at making it foes target the fighter and no one else. It's pretty scary to provoke the fighters attack, and even shifting causes problems. Plus it's so much easier for the fighter to apply their mark that they can focus more on dealing lots of damage...a fighter is a defender primary striker secondary though, so that makes sense.

I think the paladin's mark is a little less, robust, but it can be used at a ranged(and kept active with a paladin's ranged attacks, which a fighter doesn't have many of), and provides guaranteed damage when it does trigger. More over, a paladin has other ways to protect their team, their utilities protect and aid their allies, they have channel divinity, lay on hands, and many of their attacks decrease the enemies abilities to fight back. They don't beat people up as much, but they help the team quite a bit while fighting, makes sense for a defender primary leader secondary.

I will say that a fighter is much easier to play well then a paladin. A fighter pretty much just needs to get into melee and beat up the most powerful foe to be an effective defender, while a paladin needs to think a bit more to reach the same level of effectiveness.

[The New Bruceski]

And note that, as stated, Combat Challenge is NOT an opportunity attack. As such you don't add wisdom to hit, and it doesn't stop movement if the target can shift multiple squares.

[Mando Knight]

...while a paladin needs to think a bit more to reach the same level of effectiveness.

Ironically, thinking's what the Paladin himself isn't good at... the player should always have a higher Int than his Paladin, else the character won't work. (actually, that should be a good rule of thumb--don't play characters who have better all-round mental stats than you... unless you can pass arcanobabble (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagiBabble) under the DM's radar...)

EDIT: Whoah... didn't realize that the Trope wiki actually had separate tropes for techno- and mage- babble...

[Dacia Brabant]

Ironically, thinking's what the Paladin himself isn't good at... the player should always have a higher Int than his Paladin, else the character won't work. (actually, that should be a good rule of thumb--don't play characters who have better all-round mental stats than you... unless you can pass arcanobabble (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagiBabble) under the DM's radar...)

EDIT: Whoah... didn't realize that the Trope wiki actually had separate tropes for techno- and mage- babble...

That's why my Tactical Warlord does all the thinking for his Paladin meat-shield pal. :smallamused:

I was a little apprehensive about the defender being a Pally when there seems to be more synergy between Fighter and Warlord, but all in all Divine Challenge works very well for keeping the main threat in each fight on him while I give him bonuses and the casters blow up the minions and the shooters.


We have a paladin and an infernal warlock that team up on the baddies.

The paladin marks the target.
Warlock curses the target.
The warlock stands adjacent to the target and starts blasting (with a +1 bonus for being closest).
The opponent takes an opportunity attack (-2 penalty for violating the mark)
Enemy gets blasted by divine challenge.

Alterntively the target is denied an opportunity attack.

We noticed a trend that at the end of a fight the party was all bloodied except the warlock. This tactic converts the HP (con being highest stat) of the warlock into damage.

This is a great idea, and as we also have a ConLock in my group I may have to steal it. The fact that he can blink away and spend a healing surge in the same turn (thanks to a nice magic item) and also has the highest HP in the group and can generate temp hit points like crazy, may help to persuade him to be used as bait that way.

[skywalker]

You can't Interrupt an Interrupt. The targeted monster doesn't provoke from the Paladin.

I think what he means is, the opponent takes their opportunity attack against the warlock.

Then gets blasted by divine challenge, which is not an attack. This is a handy feature of the paladin's mark, he doesn't have to expend any actions(and what's the rarest thing in D&D, kids?) to cause you pain for attacking someone other than him.

[Totally Guy]

I think what he means is, the opponent takes their opportunity attack against the warlock.

Then gets blasted by divine challenge, which is not an attack. This is a handy feature of the paladin's mark, he doesn't have to expend any actions(and what's the rarest thing in D&D, kids?) to cause you pain for attacking someone other than him.

That's right. The enemy either takes divine damage or has to accept that the warlock will keep blasting with a +1 at close range and there's nothing they can do about it.

[Shadow_Elf]

That's right. The enemy either takes divine damage or has to accept that the warlock will keep blasting with a +1 at close range and there's nothing they can do about it.

I posted this earlier in the thread, but I think it may have been lost in multiple conversations.

This strategy doesn't work unless you have a ranged Paladin. If you do, then this is brilliant, and I have another option for you to consider:

Divine Challenge + Eyebite + Psychic Lock feat. Go Feylock MC Paladin, and use your 1/encounter Divine Challenge on an enemy and just lock down that target with eyebite. Make sure to stay moving also, and maintain Prime Shot, and Solos will fall before you. Especially if you can find ways to lower their Will defenses.

[Totally Guy]

This strategy doesn't work unless you have a ranged Paladin. If you do, then this is brilliant, and I have another option for you to consider:

Can't the paladin flank for a further +2?

[TheOOB]

One very useful tactic of the paladin is to challenge a spellcaster and use ranged attacks to weaken the caster and maintain the mark, and then run away from the group so their area of effect spells don't kill the party as much.

We had a problem in our group where someone wanted to play a paladin, but only had the tactical sense to run into the fray and beat enemies with a sharp metal stick. We tried to explain to him that doing that would work as a fighter, but not as a paladin.

[Shadow_Elf]

Can't the paladin flank for a further +2?

But then the Warlock is no longer the closest. And I'm not sure if you can flank with ranged attacks, but I think you can't.