Healing variant

[stupidmonkey]

I'm starting a new character soon, and I wanted to go the Paladin route... however, it seems Im gonna have to be a heal-monkey of the group (other chracters are barbarian, wizard, bard, and brass wyrmling) or at least share the duties with the bard.

Since most of the campaign will be spent in dungeons and whatnot, I was looking for class variants the can trade my mount for more healing.

[Tough_Tonka]

I know a good varient that does just what you're asking...

Its a class called the Cleric

[ocato]

Well, try a Strength domain cleric. War isn't bad either. Infact, you may find a Strength/War cleric is a slightly better overall melee combatant than a Paladin. Divine Power makes up for the loss of full BaB. The ability to add your level to a round's worth of strength rolls is quite nice with power attack. Add in automatic weapon proficency/weapon focus of your deity's favorite weapon. It can get interesting, especially when you get high enough to get an animated shield. Now, you asked for a paladin build, and I feel bad saying 'zomg clericz' so I would suggest sitting down with your DM and working on a paladin variant. However, the best you can hope for is more lay on hands, because full cleric healing casting is going to be difficult to bargain for.

[stupidmonkey]

Which is good - but I wanted the higher HD and BAB of the Paladin - I want to be a melee character - with healing as a back-up if needed.
Plus Paladin's have fewer spells to maintain.

edit: Ocato, I'll take a look at those domains for the cleric - maybe it will help me make the kinda character I want, thanks. A home brew variant works too - I was just to lazy to make one.

[Neon Knight]

Which is good - but I wanted the higher HD and BAB of the Paladin - I want to be a melee character - with healing as a back-up if needed.
Plus Paladin's have fewer spells to maintain

As earlier pointed out, Clerics can out melee paladins easily with a little CoDzilla work. However, you seem set on Paladin, probably because the Paladin archetype is more focused on fighting, even if in actual execution it lags behind the cleric slightly.

I know of no existing Paladin variants that could aid you. I doubt trading your mount in will net you better healing progression. The mount has little application in a dungeon complex, and is of little value. Unless you're a small race or something. Then your mount could be medium and you might be able to pull it off. If you could, that would make your mount a more valuable trade in.

Just a thought about how you could justify the trade to your DM.

[Mad Wizard]

I believe there is a variant in Dungeonscape that replaces the mount with the ability to summon "holy spirits" that give you and allies near them fast healing, or DR, or a bunch of other things.

[Fat Daddy]

Not really what you're asking for, but you seem to not be thrilled about the Paladin spells and focused on melee. So Complete Champion has Alternative class features. Holy Warrior gives up spellcasting to gain bonus feats. Underdark Knight give up your mount for a bounty of mobility, skills and spell-like abilities.

You may be able to leverage those options into more healing with your DM.

Hope that helps.

[Damionte]

Dual class the Paladin and Cleric. Then leave the cleric behind when you reach a lvl you're comfortabel with.

Or the Palladin and favored Soul.

Full BAB isn't that important. You can afford to give up 1-2 points of BAB in order to actually fill your role in this party. They won't be hurting for combat folks.

Really though you could just play a cleric or Favored Soul straight up.

You could also look into the Ardent from Complete Psion.

[The_Snark]

I believe there is a variant in Dungeonscape that replaces the mount with the ability to summon "holy spirits" that give you and allies near them fast healing, or DR, or a bunch of other things.

This variant is pretty much everything you're looking for, if you want to stay a paladin rather than go cleric. Full details can be found on the Wizards excerpt from that book here.

In the short term, it can triple your lay on hands ability, though the extra is only going to be useable for a few rounds. The rest of the spirits are pretty good, too.

[Ponce]

Start off as a cleric and take the Prestige Paladin variant.

[Damionte]

Exccept the prestige Base Classes are only balanced in if you don't have the normal class in the game world.

If you allow Prestige palladins you have to throw out Normal palladins. The prestige classes take the place of the normal one.

[goat]

There's a variant from Dragon 328 which involves giving up your turn undead abilities in exchange for choosing a domain. You can choose Magic, that lets you use wands and scrolls as a wizard of half your paladin level. Then you just need to load up.

Of course, that still leaves you without anything except lay on hands until level 4.

[Ponce]

Exccept the prestige Base Classes are only balanced in if you don't have the normal class in the game world.

If you allow Prestige palladins you have to throw out Normal palladins. The prestige classes take the place of the normal one.

There are no other Paladins in the party. It doesn't really matter if NPCs still use the Paladin base class.

[ocato]

There's a variant from Dragon 328 which involves giving up your turn undead abilities in exchange for choosing a domain. You can choose Magic, that lets you use wands and scrolls as a wizard of half your paladin level. Then you just need to load up.

Of course, that still leaves you without anything except lay on hands until level 4.

The thing about that is he can already use wands of cure, because cure is a divine spell (except for bards, etc). So being able to use arcane wands, while feasibly useful, isn't going to increase his healing potential.

[GolemsVoice]

Take the Dungeon Paladin Variant from Dungeonscape. He trades his mount for so called "spirits". As he advances up the paldin ladder, his spirit gets more and more powerful. What exactly those do, I don't remeber, but it goes in the direction of stationary healers, buffers.

[KIDS]

The thing about that is he can already use wands of cure, because cure is a divine spell (except for bards, etc). So being able to use arcane wands, while feasibly useful, isn't going to increase his healing potential.

This might be good at low levels but please don't do it at higher ones. At lvl 6 you can get Sacred Healing (Complete Divine) feat (change Turn attempts into fast healing for the entire party lasting dependent on your charisma - awesome for Paladin). Also, there was a skill trick "healing hands" which also helps in Complete Scoundrel