The Paladin Megatopic

[Cybernet21]

Basically the same as the Ranger Megatopic but about Paladins,i'll put some suggestions i came up,anyone is welcome to discuss about them or give other suggestions.

1(already rejected when i put on the suggestion box but worth a mention)-Soft WIS bonus
The idea was for paladins to get WIS bonuses at levels 5,10,15,20,15,30 and maybe get a few new spells on their spell book.This way they have one less ability score to worry about (all are useful/needed for pallies)

2-Give them two paths,one for CHA Paladins (Smiters) and one for STR paladins(Holy Fighters)
The Smiters get an automatic 1d6 agaisnt any evil creature that turns to 1d10 at level 25 of paladin,and maybe some new spells and +3 automatic turn undead uses.

Holy Fighters get AC bonuses (similar to Fighters) but less,like +1 Armor AC at level 5 and +1 Shield AC at level 15,and +1 AB at level 20,they also get 2 soft STR modifiers on level 15 and 30 respectively

That's all i thought for the two paths but you can suggest anything for them really

That's basically the best two suggestions i came up with,please discuss and/or speak of other suggestions you thought of

[Sockss]

Put smite evil on a CD and have it infinite uses, instead of having three uses/day so it's less ridiculous. (Lower the CD with Great Smite feats and Extra Smiting)

(CoT would be great to have a cooldown-style Divine wrath as well)

This would make, PvE, paladin much better, as they'd be able to use smiting regularly - and also pave the way for buffs as they won't be so imba vs evil PvP.

Give them half smite damage against neutral alignments.

Lay on Hands switched to a cooldown (Cooldown reduces based on paladin levels)
Remove disease switched to a cooldown (Cooldown reduces based on paladin levels). (Maybe have it additionally remove fear at epic paladin)

Again CD allows paladins to actually use these abilities regularly.

Thematic ideas of no huge mechanical consequence:

Extra AC vs Undead (Scaling on Paladin level)
Aura of courage grants +saves vs fear for party members in an aura.
Scaling negative energy immunity.

[Diegovog]

I'm not in favor of adding bonus/damage against evil characters. Otherwise we will only be encouraging evil characters to make them "neutral".

I'd like to see the wisdom requirement for spells gone. It's already enough to worry about str/con/cha (and dex if you even consider that crappy chainmail). Can't also have decent wis.

[Ork]

Got to be a hard bonus to wisdom for does to work.

[Aero Silver]

I wish i could see a path similar to the Cleric Healer Path, that forgoes Heavy Armor and makes use of the Padded Vestment of the Holy Squire. With the new Death System, paladins who can raise the dead like clerics are welcome.

[Cybernet21]

I'm not in favor of adding bonus/damage against evil characters. Otherwise we will only be encouraging evil characters to make them "neutral".

I'd like to see the wisdom requirement for spells gone. It's already enough to worry about str/con/cha (and dex if you even consider that crappy chainmail). Can't also have decent wis.

People already do that,but it's not most of the comunity,we are an RP server after all,people going Neutral on a character that is supposed to be evil just to not be affected by smite evil and such is just metagaming,and fortunately not a bunch of people here metagame.

And yeah not depending on WIS as well would be great,that way paladins can put the WIS points on DEX and don't need to rely more on consumables than most(Cats's Grace) or have more CHA or STR or CON,so they either don't get too much behind on Fighters of same level or buff their unique powers.

Would also love for some of the paladin changes go to CoT,but i also would understand if it didn't

[Ork]

Paladin are really in a good spot with most things. They have high AC & crazy burst damage due to spells like divine favor. They have solid damage but won't get the 137 crits that WMs get.

Paladins are generally considered MAD, but in truth it depends on the build. A smiter knowingly sacrifices dependable attack power for the smite - that's on them. STR paladins & Brycers play out fairly well, Brycer being supreme due to the high number of feats and fighter buffs they receive.

Their spells are wholly lackluster except for divine favor and aura of glory. Holy sword is a joke.

Their dispellability is really crippling due to the fact that a 20/7/3 WM has a 30 CL, and the typical heavy paladin will have a CL of 17 or 23. That's the major problem with the class.

[Mr_Rieper]

Their spells are wholly lackluster except for divine favor and aura of glory. Holy sword is a joke.

Pretty much this. Would be great if the Paladin and Ranger spells weren't so awful. I think it would go a long way in encouraging builds with more levels of paladin and ranger in them.

They don't necessarily need to be amazing in terms of raw numbers. Just unique and useful.

[Cybernet21]

Paladin are really in a good spot with most things. They have high AC & crazy burst damage due to spells like divine favor. They have solid damage but won't get the 137 crits that WMs get.

Paladins are generally considered MAD, but in truth it depends on the build. A smiter knowingly sacrifices dependable attack power for the smite - that's on them. STR paladins & Brycers play out fairly well, Brycer being supreme due to the high number of feats and fighter buffs they receive.

Their spells are wholly lackluster except for divine favor and aura of glory. Holy sword is a joke.

Their dispellability is really crippling due to the fact that a 20/7/3 WM has a 30 CL, and the typical heavy paladin will have a CL of 17 or 23. That's the major problem with the class.

That is true,but compared to almost all warrior-like builds out there in Areltih paladins kinda fall a bit back behind,just see most of paladin builds on this server,either you go smiter and suck at everything excpet agaisnt evil or you go STR paladins and at the end only have like...5 paladins levels at max.People who want to go RP build STR paladins (like me wich means most levels on paladin/CoT in a paladin build) fall evn more behind than those two.

Having a bit more of AB/AB and stuff like that plus better spells or WIS requirement gone would make them at least be toe to toe with the other warrior-like builds.Less raw numbers(not as much as it is now though) but spells to make up for it.Currently the numbers plus the spells still let them a bit behind

[Ork]

You could make a 17 paladin, 10 CoT, 3 rogue STR focus and still do very well. You could even go 23 paladin, 4 fighter, 3 rogue for even more CL, and I think you'd do well.

If you build for RP, don't be surprised when mechanics don't work out.

[Rabbid]

As stated above, the real problem imo is that Paladin spells, with the exceptions of Divine Favour and Aura of Glory, suck.

And I mean REALLY suck. As in, there's no real reason to even bother.

Hence the dominance of either smiters or, more commonly (i think) Bryce (22 fighter / 5 pally / 3 rogue). Unless you're building for RP or smiting there's no reason to take more than the minimum of pally for divine might/shield and even for RP building, it just doesn't make sense to focus on spellcasting as a paladin.

[Ork]

I mean.. currently there is no reason a paladin should have greater than 12 wisdom.

[Cybernet21]

I mean.. currently there is no reason a paladin should have greater than 12 wisdom.

Exactly,other than Freedom of Movement and Death Ward perhaps,Holy Sword not good on Arelith because only works in bronze

[Red Sunset]

Bless, bless weapon, divine favor, protection from alignment, Aid, aura of glory, blull's strength, remove paralysis, eagles splendor, resist elements, prayer, greater magic weapon, magic circle against alignment, remove blindness deafness, death ward, freedom of movement, neutralize poison. These all are useful spells a paladin has access to.

I'd like to see deafening clang and holy sword be useful, but paladins -do- get useful spells. Aid was fixed recently so even after losing the tiny bit of temporary hp the +1 ab remains. That's like another effective character level of ab. Freedom of movement is a lot more powerful than it used to be too. I do wish bless was turns per round for more than just healer clerics too. Its just a nice useful first level spell. Not sure why it was ever made rounds per level. Perhaps we could just add it to the breach list and make it turns or something.

Sure you can argue that you can just use a wand for these and have less chance to worry of dispel, but I rather look at that not as paladins are lackluster, but someone else is getting too big of bang for her dollar.

Also, I always view paladins as more aaah what is the mmo terms people use these days...burst damage? If you ward up with bless aid prayer divine favor divine might even if your strength is overall a bit lower due to this "MAD" you'll get more ab and more damage output for a short bit of time than a fighter could ever hope for. You get fear immunity and charisma bonus to saves too.

I think the problem is people are just min maxing instead of going for balance. I never shoot more more than a 10 (with buffs and items) bonus in charisma. More is diminishing returns.

Divine favor is effectively like adding +10 strength for the purposes of determining Ab and damage too. If anything that should equalize even more than equalize for MAD. Sure you gotta -cast- it, just like all casters rely a bit on their spells.

[Sockss]

Not a very good comparison there, you noted the obvious dispel vulnerability but, comparatively, in the round it takes for a paladin to buff, a fighter can have +6 damage (WS+EWS) and hit the +20 magical cap on AB - just by quaffing a TS potion.

Quaffing a TS potion is also /way/ more bursty, because you're more likely to hit every attack in a round.

But ahh, the main problem with Paladins is there's very little reason to take more than 4 levels.

[Red Sunset]

It's a fine comparison. One, the dispel vulnerability isn't any different than other casters; and, my opinion was that mundanes were getting to much value for their dollar. You disagree. That is fine, but it doesn't make my opinion poor. Second while fighter drinks said potion nothing prevents you from disengaging, and really that's all I'm going to say. Pvp is a lot more complex and situational than a single tactic. You're making assumptions the other side has no counter or nothing it can do to stop or mitigate. You can't just list a tactic without possible defenses.

Also paladins could get epic weapon specialization too, depends on preference if you want 6 fighter levels or not.

Furthermore each class has distinct weaknesses that can make it vulnerable to another. You cant list that a fighter is weak against a mage or a cleric then conclude fighters are weak. You cant claim a paladin is weak against a fighter and then conclude it is weak either. Its about more than one class versus another. Paladins are very strong against casters in general, much more than fighters. Its a trade off, I'd say.

[Cybernet21]

It's a fine comparison. One, the dispel vulnerability isn't any different than other casters; and, my opinion was that mundanes were getting to much value for their dollar. You disagree. That is fine, but it doesn't make my opinion poor. Second while fighter drinks said potion nothing prevents you from disengaging, and really that's all I'm going to say. Pvp is a lot more complex and situational than a single tactic. You're making assumptions the other side has no counter or nothing it can do to stop or mitigate. You can't just list a tactic without possible defenses.

Also paladins could get epic weapon specialization too, depends on preference if you want 6 fighter levels or not.

Furthermore each class has distinct weaknesses that can make it vulnerable to another. You cant list that a fighter is weak against a mage or a cleric then conclude fighters are weak. You cant claim a paladin is weak against a fighter and then conclude it is weak either. Its about more than one class versus another. Paladins are very strong against casters in general, much more than fighters. Its a trade off, I'd say.

How so?Paladins are more buffs and potions deoendant that Fighters,and their spells are super easy to dispel for casters,the only good thing paladins have against casters is Holy Sword,and on Arelith 14 WIS for Holy Sword is not worth it

[Diegovog]

Paladins are weaker against mages.
Since they need too many stats, their CON is greatly hurt and their HP is considerably lower than your usual WM build, meaning IGMS and Damage Shields will be much much deadlier.
Also, WM can timestop and have a pretty good chance to quickly crit down a mage before an effective use of -pray. However, a paladin doesn't have nearly as much damage and to even the damage a bit, a paladin has to cast Divine Favor and use Divine Shield, which means two full rounds of IGMS in your face, aka potential 480dmg from a quick caster.

[Astral]

There's no single reason in the world, no matter how RP focused your builds are, to give up mundane caster lvl for.... divine favour and aura of glory. Better off pick a class without a spellbook at all. That's true for rangers as well.

[Peppermint]

Paladins, how to fix:

1. Grant a hard wisdom bonus per X paladin levels. (e.g. 1/6 paladin levels).
2. Improve Holy Sword dispel: caps at CL 20, benefits from abjuration focuses.
3. Have Deafening Clang's damage scale with caster level and make the spell last 1 turn / level, but replace temp essences.

[Sockss]

My point was that, you have better things to do in a round as a Paladin than cast your spells.

Like drink a potion.

If you're casting favour AND drinking a potion, then sure.

I'm also assuming that people in your explanation would be engaged, since there's nothing stopping someone from disengaging after a Paladin buffs. (If not, I guess non monk melees are the worst and kensais are super strong? Lol)

Though that extra 15-ish damage in a round (if you're lucky) is going to pale in comparison to the round of damage you missed out on using it in the first place.

Ergo, casting divine favour is not bursty compared to easily available alternatives.

Dispel vulnerability is very different from casters, Paladin doesn't scale well, going more than 4 Paladin is only for meme smite builds.

[Ork]

You're talking about 1 round of TS v 10 rounds of divine favor. Unless your gulping TS like it's happy hour, divine favor would outdamage it.

Most people are smart enough to disengage for a round of TS.

[Sockss]

I'm not sure man, people wouldn't use TS if most people were smart enough to disengage.

I'm not saying that DF is useless, I'm saying it's not 'bursty'. It's great in PvE, sure - however it's not a great option for PvP.

Running around in a circle is a great way to fight a paladin, they're very reliant on short term power spikes - such as might and shield. What's running around for a minute really going to cost you? (Aside from /style/ points!)

[gilescorey]

Everyone knows that style points are the most important kind of points.

[Mr_Rieper]

What's running around for a minute really going to cost you? (Aside from /style/ points!)

Everyone knows that style points are the most important kind of points.

Style points are pretty important. This is an RP server after all.

If you fight like a wuss, people will remember the disgraceful victory. Even if they weren't the ones salty about it.

Hell, I still remember certain people running around the Sibayad arena like headless chickens, trying to survive the barbarian rages. Not that they had much choice, but still memorable.