Good Paladin Feats

[quiet1mi]

I am thinking about making a single classed paladin for a friend's game... I was wondering what are some good feats to pick up...

[Narmoth]

Battle blessing - let's the pally cast standard action spells as swift action spells
The rest really depends on setting, lvl and so on

[Greenish]

Battle Blessing and paladin spells from Spell Compendium give paladins all sorts of nice tricks. If you want even more spells to toss around, Sword of the Arcane Order.

Also look at the Devotion feats in Complete Champion, your Turn Undead will be rather weak for your level, but you should have decent charisma, so a couple of those lets you make a good use of your Turning attempts.

[Person_Man]

What level, what books are allowed, and does he want to go Paladin 20, or Paladin 4/Something X/Something Y?

[Pluto]

Dictum Mortuum's guides are always good places to start, if you don't have a plan.

Paladin's Handbook 2007

[Hawk7915]

The aforementioned feats are the best out there; with the right books Battle Blessing single-handedly raises the Paladin a few tiers, to the realms of almost decent in most parties.. As far as devotion feats go, I think that Law Devotion (huge armor or AC boost that you can swap each round), Knowledge Devotion (free attack and damage in the right setting...for a generic environment, make Nature the knowledge gained to cover the largest number of monsters) and Travel Devotion (swift movement is awesome, although less great for you as your swift actions will be spent casting spells). Protection Devotion is okay too (less of an armor boost, but it's a bonus that stacks with everything and that applies to all allies within 30').

Divine feats can be good if you have the stats for them (namely, if you have a high charisma without having a terrible strength for meleeing). Divine Vigor and Divine Might are my favorites.

You can work towards optimizing your smiting, if that appeals to you, but that's really campaign-specific. Awesome Smite is, well, awesome, letting you get free knockdowns, ignore DR, or ignore concealment/miss chance if you use a Smite + Power Attack. Extra Smiting is nice to make sure you actually have enough smites to go around. Smiting Power lets you use your Smite to power Bull Rush attempts, letting you fling people farther and still damage them. Silver Smite and Improved Smite are campaign specific and/or Dragon magazine material, but together would add +2d6 damage to your smite attacks. Finally, while also deity and setting specific, Cuthbert's Smite lets you smite Chaos as well as Evil, which is pretty handy, and gives you an extra shot of smiting per day.

Finally, you can take more mundane "fighter"-y things. Paladin is a great base for mounted combat fighting (Mounted Combat -> Ride-by Attack -> Spirited Charge) because you get your own indestructible super mount. Paladins aren't as great a base for a "shock trooper" build (Power Attack -> Improved Bull Rush -> Shock Trooper) as a fighter or barbarian, but with full BAB, good strength, and a d10 HD, they can still do the job. Combine those two feat trees to deal earth-shattering damage while making a cavalry charge.

[gbprime]

Devotion feats indeed. One of the most useful is the Protection Devotion, and is almost always in the portfolio for a Paladin's deity. Once you get Turn Undead, and with a CHA of 14, you have 3 uses of the feat per day.

[Greenish]

Knowledge Devotion (free attack and damage in the right setting...for a generic environment, make Nature the knowledge gained to cover the largest number of monsters)

Well, paladins don't really have the skillpoints or the skills to make most of Knowledge Devotion.

[Tinydwarfman]

Devotion feats indeed. One of the most useful is the Protection Devotion, and is almost always in the portfolio for a Paladin's deity. Once you get Turn Undead, and with a CHA of 14, you have 3 uses of the feat per day.

I have to disagree that protection is the best devotion feat, as Law, Strength, Travel and Animal are all at least as good, if not way better than Protection, and animal also has utility uses. I would pick up those before protection.

[gbprime]

I have to disagree that protection is the best devotion feat, as Law, Strength, Travel and Animal are all at least as good, if not way better than Protection, and animal also has utility uses. I would pick up those before protection.

Law devotion. It's a great personal buff, no doubt, but when choosing personal versus party buff, I tend to choose party.

Strength devotion = bypass hardness. Not DR, just hardness. You'd spend a feat on this?

Travel Devotion = free movement over and above full attack action. That's awesome in the first round or two of a fight, provided you can follow it up with crippling amounts of damage. Otherwise it's "merely" useful. Then there's the issue of having a Paladin's deity with the Travel domain... it's less common.

Animal domain. While the strength buff is nice, you have even more of an issue finding a Paladin deity with the Animal domain.

[Pluto]

A Paladin doesn't need to have patron deity to choose a domain feat:
"If you do not follow any specific deity, your basic system of beliefs should support your domain feat choices. A good rule of thumb is to designate one to three domains (in addition to that corresponding to your first domain feat) that are important to you. These beliefs must also be consistent with your alignment."

Travel meshes seamlessly with the knight errant. Or pretty much any adventurer (read: PC).

Animal Devotion isn't exactly contradictory with the Paladin's values either.

Unless there's a dramatic contradiction (say, Evil Devotion on a Paladin of Honor), I don't see why you'd hold deity selection as a case against powerful feats.

[WoodenSword]

Battle Blessing and paladin spells from Spell Compendium give paladins all sorts of nice tricks. If you want even more spells to toss around, Sword of the Arcane Order.

OI! Y U HAVE TO STEAL MY SCHTICK?

But thats a good combo beside the point

[Greenish]

Law devotion. It's a great personal buff, no doubt, but when choosing personal versus party buff, I tend to choose party.

If everything is going well, the squishier peeps shouldn't need AC. If things go badly, is that going to help?

Strength devotion = bypass hardness. Not DR, just hardness. You'd spend a feat on this?

Also, all attacks are Adamantine, strong natural attack.

Travel Devotion = free movement over and above full attack action. That's awesome in the first round or two of a fight, provided you can follow it up with crippling amounts of damage. Otherwise it's "merely" useful. Then there's the issue of having a Paladin's deity with the Travel domain... it's less common.

Full attacks every round. That's not merely useful, it's godssend.

Animal domain. While the strength buff is nice, you have even more of an issue finding a Paladin deity with the Animal domain.

Strength buff or flight. From level 1, if you wish.

Oh, and you can take Devotion feats even if your god doesn't have said domains, can't you?

[Tinydwarfman]

Law devotion. It's a great personal buff, no doubt, but when choosing personal versus party buff, I tend to choose party.

It depends on your party. If you are the primary or one of the only meleers, then a party buff might be better, but generally, the casters and other non-meleer's don't appreciate the buff.

Strength devotion = bypass hardness. Not DR, just hardness. You'd spend a feat on this?

The big thing is you get an awsome natural attack that you can use on a full attack, and they become adamantine. Also can break down doors easily.

Travel Devotion = free movement over and above full attack action. That's awesome in the first round or two of a fight, provided you can follow it up with crippling amounts of damage. Otherwise it's "merely" useful. Then there's the issue of having a Paladin's deity with the Travel domain... it's less common.

Don't need a diety with that domain, and this is pouce, but better in some situations and worse in others And everyone agrees that pounce is crazy awesome.

Animal domain. While the strength buff is nice, you have even more of an issue finding a Paladin deity with the Animal domain.

like before, don't need a diety with the right domains, you;re not a cleric. And it has more than just the STR buff.

[Greenish]

like before, don't need a diety with the right domains, you;re not a cleric. And it has more than just the STR buff.

Clerics could pick up Devotions outside their god's portfolio too. I can't offhandedly think of any deity opposed to Travel, and only the undeath ones might oppose animals. I mean, it lets you grow wicked fangs and bite people!