Paladin 3.5 Make For Solo Adventure

[Silverraptor]

I'm making a 6th level paladin for a solo campaign. I don't know too much about the campaign, but what is a good solo build for a 6th level character. You can range from race to skills to feats and equipment. The only restriction is paladin. (Cause that's what I want to play.)

I also asked one of my friends on here for help. He said this:

Feats: Power Attack, Battle Blessing, Divine Might, Divine Shield...
Mounted Combat and the like if you want to make extra use of your mount, otherwise take charging smite variant.

Skills: Ride in case of the latter, other than that heal is always nice.

So, ya. Any suggestions you can think of. And if you could explain the feat's definition when suggest it, that would help. I don't have all the books...

[The Blackbird]

I think you meant for this to be in Roleplaying Games...

[Silverraptor]

I think you meant for this to be in Roleplaying Games...

... I did?

Oops.

Soooo... what should I do?

[Veeda Vidlak]

Add Awesome Smite (Complete Champion) to the list of feats, it absolutely lives up to its name.

For races I suggest just going human for the extra feat. If the campaign is pretty high-powered take Neanderthal from Frostburn which is basically human except they have -2 to INT and DEX and +2 to STR and CON

For skills take Diplomacy for sure and Ride if you want to be mounted.

Absolutely take the charging smite alternative class feature if you don't want to take all the mounted feats (players handbook 2).

Although it requires roleplaying and is in one of the Faerun books (this feat is only if your looking for pure power) the Mage of the Arcane Order feat is awesome and allows you to cast arcane spells along with your Paladin ones.

And yeah...this should be in roleplaying.

[Silverraptor]

Alright. I'll shift this over then.

[deuxhero]

Crusader/Cleric/RKV, call yourself a Paladin.

[Mongoose87]

Ask your GM to use the Pathfinder Paladin! It is win!

[GenPol]

Depending on your DM and your Charisma score, the Leadership feat may be beneficial. It could help to partially make up for a lack of group. I know many DMs ban it, though it is core.

[Toliudar]

With a solo campaign, optimization becomes less of an issue, since the challenges are pitched to the ability of character anyway.

For a solo campaign, I'd try to reduce the rocket tag phenomenon, in which you tend to either one-shot an opponent or die trying. The paladin version of this is built around charging. Consider using a reach weapon and focusing on mounted combat, boosting your mount to give yourself a sort-of sidekick.

Skill-wise, diplomacy is a must, and I'd pump sense motive and ride as well.

Have fun!

[Soranar]

paladin/ranger

go paladin level 5
switch to ranger and take the feat devoted tracker
smite/mount stacks , you only lose paladin spellcasting

I suggest you take the mounted ranger combat training

[Runestar]

Take leadership and (later) draconic leadership.

With your mount, that's quite a decent party you have there.

[Boci]

paladin/ranger

go paladin level 5
switch to ranger and take the feat devoted tracker
smite/mount stacks , you only lose paladin spellcasting

I suggest you take the mounted ranger combat training

Take advantage of the fact that natural bond raises your affective druid level for the purpose of your animal companions strengths.

[Person_Man]

Special Paladin Mount Guide

For your ECL, I suggest Aglarondan Griffin Rider or Knight of the Iron Glacier. Strait Paladin 20 also works fine if you can take Leadership to improve your Mount.

If you don't want to be a mounted build, then I suggest Paladin 4/Whatever X. There's no reason to stick with Paladin above level 4 if you're not mounted.

[JaronK]

Would you consider Cleric 6/PrC Paladin 2? Obviously you can't get into Paladin until next level, but with Holy Mount and DMM Persistant Divine Power it's strictly better than Paladin 8, with tons of awesome spellcasting abilities. It's something to consider anyway.

JaronK

[Ashram]

Power Attack, Cleave, Leap Attack, Great Cleave, Power Lunge with a two-handed sword, preferably greatsword.

2d6 + Str modifer x 2 (Double Str mod for Power Lunge, only downside is that you take an AoO from target) + Enhancement bonus damage x 4 (Double Power Attack damage when wielding a two-handed weapon, triple damage thanks to Leap Attack when charging) + Smite Evil damage.

Then all the other fun paladin feats, like Battle Blessing.

Charging Leaping Power Attack Smite Evil. =D

[Soranar]

the charging from a mount build is a lot simpler and starts working a lot earlier (and less feat reliant than jumping, if you're worried about a large mount play a halfling and use a medium one, there is a halfling that gets ranger as favored class)

just get a lance

charge/smite

x2 damage

then as you gain in levels

spirited charge

x3

and add power attack 2 handed+ divine might for one insane amount of damage

[Callista]

Do what you can to boost the healing--buy a wand of CLW if you can; healing is a big limiting factor if you are adventuring on your own. Keep your Lay on Hands for mid-battle healing.

Oh, and don't forget to trade in your Turn Undead for something useful. You're a paladin; Turn Undead will suck for you anyway.

[SurlySeraph]

I wouldn't advise Battle Blessing at 6th level. It's nice, yeah, but when you only have two spells per day and have great spells that are swift actions anyway (by which I mean Rhino's Rush, which doubles your damage on a charge) it's not very useful.

Divine Might is good if you have high CHA, but I'd take Law Devotion instead. Law Devotion lasts for a minute and gives you +3 either to attack or AC (more at higher levels), and you can switch which it applies to at the end of each round. If you just use the attack bonus it gives you so you can power attack for more (using a two-handed weapon) you'll almost definitely be doing more damage than you would with Divine Might.

@V: 6th level WBL is 13,000 gp. A +1 Valorous weapon (a great option for a charger) is 8,000 gp, and a +2 ability score booster is 4,000 gp. Not much money left for Pearls of Power if you want to be powerful in melee.

[Draz74]

I wouldn't advise Battle Blessing at 6th level. It's nice, yeah, but when you only have two spells per day and have great spells that are swift actions anyway (by which I mean Rhino's Rush, which doubles your damage on a charge) it's not very useful.

Depends how many Pearls of Power you have. You're right that it's a lot more powerful at higher levels, though.

[Grumman]

I'd suggest Crusader (or Crusader-Cleric-RKV) over Paladin.

Otherwise, how about Paladin 5 / Beastmaster 1 with Devoted Tracker, for a special mount that eats faces?

[Silverraptor]

Thanks for reminding me about leadership. And I know how my friend DM's, he'll let me.

And everything looks cool from what you suggested. But some of this stuff is flying over my head. I really only have the core rulebooks and don't really know the other stuff mentioned. Can someone please verify?

[Draz74]

Can you be more specific? I don't want to go through and explain every non-Core thing that's been mentioned in this thread.

[Silverraptor]

I guess take your pick. Like Battle Blessing. Or how can I change my Turn undead to something else?

Whatever you want to cover.

[Dimers]

Do what you can to boost the healing--buy a wand of CLW if you can; healing is a big limiting factor if you are adventuring on your own. Keep your Lay on Hands for mid-battle healing.

Oh, and don't forget to trade in your Turn Undead for something useful. You're a paladin; Turn Undead will suck for you anyway.

Both these thoughts can be combined easily: Sacred Healing feat in CD, requires 8 ranks in Heal. You can spend turn-undead attempts to grant fast healing to all nearby living creatures for a number of rounds based on your Cha bonus (which should be pretty high for a Leadership paladin). It's especially useful in between battles, when activating it won't cause your enemies to heal too. With Cha 16 you can heal as much as 72 hp per creature every day ... 105 hp for Cha 18 ... 144 hp for Cha 20. You and all your allies can enter every battle in good fighting trim.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Unfortunately it's against the forum CoC to give you a full description of anything that's not in the SRD, that is to say describing both exactly what the feat does and its prerequisites. With that little reminder out of the way, since you're going to be either alone or with a very small/weak group while you adventure, focusing on defense is important, especially since you pretty much have to get out of core to get the things that make one-shotting a baddy routine. Make sure you can reliably get your AC past a minimum of 33 or any melee monster you come across will eat your face. Carry a ranged weapon so you have a better chance of drawing first blood, you don't need a lot of dex and it doesn't have to be anything too snazzy, just a composite bow rated for your str will do to give you a chance to do some damage before the enemy can respond in kind. Wand of CLW is an absolute must have. A mundane tower shield is portable cover against attacks from a distance that aren't targeted spells. In a solo event survival is just as important as being able to squish the other guy because you can't expect to be raised if you get taken out.

[Draz74]

I guess take your pick. Like Battle Blessing. Or how can I change my Turn undead to something else?

Whatever you want to cover.

Battle Blessing is the best high-level Paladin feat ever, from Complete Champion. It essentially Quickens all your Paladin spells for free.

A myriad of [Divine] feats from a number of sources let you do various cool things, like add to your melee damage or add metamagic to your spells or whatever, by spending your Turn Undead attempts on them.

[Silverraptor]

Alright. Thank you all. I now know what kind of paladin I should make. Though you can still give me ideas since it will be a while before I play him.