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Sneak attack has been around long enough that most DM's know how to deal with it. This new smite thing has them/us having to come up with new ways to stop players and many DM's dont like that.One thing I find really odd is that everyone talks about the Smite, but no one says a thing about Sneak Attack, sure you have to flank and all that, but it's VERY usable and does much more damage, am I crazy here?
BTW, glad you liked my "Smite evil is EVIL" thread ;)
wraithstrike, you hit on something here that bugs me greatly, both as a DM and a player.
The DMs job is to create a challenge and set up a scenario in which everyone has fun. Intentionally "stopping" a player from using his shtick seems bush league to me. I'm not saying, for instance, sneak attack (3x) being pointless in an undead heavy adventure, it happens, but going out of the way to minimize a character's strength.
Paladins were weaksauce in 3x. Period. They kicked serious ass in 1e. 2e? Somewhere in between. Pathfinder brought them back to "kick ass" status, but in a specific set of circumstances. If a DM only uses neutral opponents in a campaign with a paladin, specifically to counteract what a paladin does well, that's bush. Just ban th epaladin outright, rather than have them exist in a campaign world where there are no opponents that would necessitate the existence of paladins in the first place.
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I think I'll put this another way:
From what I've seen on these and other boards is that people hate the IDEA of paladins, so now that they don't suck ass (like they did in 3x) and people might actually want to, I don't know, play one, everyone has their panties in a twist over it.
Paladins are a lot better than they were in 3x. They still aren't as good as clerics or wizards. They aren't "overpowered".
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Paladins are a lot better than they were in 3x. They still aren't as good as clerics or wizards. They aren't "overpowered".
What he said.
Paladins, finally, don't *suck.* They've sucked for long enough. As someone who doesn't play them, I'm nothing but happy for those that do play them. I'm not jealous at all.
Yay for Paladins. I prefer Clerics (and Druids), which have been less (or more) weakened by the Pathfinder changes, and I'm still not jealous that the Paladins got something shiny. It's about time.
Paladin does divine favour and makes his weapon +1, and then does smite evil - BOOM! Go get your shine box boy! +12 damage to every attack. He's using a greatsword so that's 2d6+22 damage altogether on every single hit, and god forbid he gets a critical hit. The others might as well go whoring and just throw the Paladin at every evil villain they encounter. And the...
Fighter 4/Barbarian 3: Human
Str: 24 (17+2 racial, +1 stat increase at level 4, +4 Rage bonus)
Power attack: -2/+6
Weapon Specialization: +2
Enhancement bonus: +1
Total: 2d6+19 (Average 26) - against anyone
Rogue 7: Human Two Weapon Fighter
Str 10
Sneak attack: 3d6
Enhancement bonus: +1
2 short swords
(1d6+3d6+1) x2 (Average 30) when flanking
Paladin
2d6+22 vs Evil (average 29)
I'm not seeing a huge difference here...
Granted, the damage bonus is comparable to other classes. The problem with smite evil is the bonus to attack rolls and armor class. A paladin with a 20 charisma, gets +5 to all saves, +5 to hit, and +5 to AC.
In order to match monsters to the paladin, the rest of the group becomes even more ineffective, as they can't hit the monster, and their AC is inadequate. When the paladin can solo a monster 5 levels higher than them, with the monster further buffed with double hit points, heroism potion, bull strength potion, and a +3 cheating factor, it is just silly to say the paladin is not overpowered.
Sure you can bend over backwards to work around this exceptional power, but you are ignoring the issue of the paladin being overpowered. Saying you need multiple boss mobs instead of a single boss when GM'ing a paladin, just proves paladins are overpowered. Any time something completely breaks the game it is overpowered.
I guess I could give all evil monsters levels in anti-paladin, to fight fire with fire, but escalation is not the same as balance.
I copy this by the original post of savant.
"Fighter gets a couple of hits in, but he's not terribly effective - he's tanking it and hoping for the best.".
Fighter is tanking? If the paladin is the only that can do a high damage the dragon should hit and grab him on the first round, why it should hit the tank?
Overpowered is subjective. The paladin never gave me any trouble, and I did not have to bend over backwards.
Needing more than a single boss is not really a paladin issue. Due to economy of actions that single boss is almost always hosed if you have good players anyway. The paladin just makes it easier because he does more damage. I use the same strategy against groups with paladins as I do as groups without paladins. If I am running an AP and the boss is 3+APL I drop him down to 2+APL, and use the remaining CR as backup.
It's my understanding that Pathfinder underwent extensive playtesting before release, yes? I have to wonder if they even tried out the Paladin, because I have someone playing one in my campaign and whoever tweaked the paladin rules is *nuts*.
Let me explain. I've got 4 players in my group, a fighter, rogue, draconic sorcerer (going for dragon disc.) and a paladin. They just got to level 7, but I'll speak of the lower level adventures they've had thus far.
If the party encounters a group of neutral monsters, or mercenaries it's a nicely balanced party. No-one is too powerful or underpowered (nice job to the authors, seriously good balance here.)
However, when the Big Bad guy at the end is evil (as villains so often are), the paladin does his smite evil and effectively gains 5 or more levels. He has 20 CHA (started with an 18, +2 for human), so that's +5 to hit, +5 AC, (lets say he's level 6 in this example) +6 damage to hit with no chance of any DR stopping it. I could live with all that, but the fact it stays on the target until it's dead (or the paladin decides to go have a nap) is insane.
What was a nicely balanced adventure suddenly turns into "Paladin ruins it for everyone else by killing the climactic villain in 3 rounds FLAT". I go and put a CR 11 black dragon in, the party is all level 6. I'm pretty sure they can take it, but it'll probably be challenge.
Fighter gets a couple of hits in, but he's not terribly effective - he's tanking it and hoping for the best. Sorc gets some nice scorching rays in, though 1 gets deflected by the dragon's SR. Rogue tries a couple of tricks but ultimately decides to stay the hell out of the way.Paladin does divine favour and makes his weapon +1, and then does smite evil - BOOM! Go get your shine box boy! +12 damage to every attack. He's using a greatsword so that's 2d6+22 damage altogether on every single hit, and god forbid he gets a critical hit. The others might as well go whoring and just throw the Paladin at every evil villain they encounter. And the...
Just jumping into the middle of this but I wanted to chime in on the way we used to 'handle' Paladins, and by handle I mean challenge in a way that lets them shine as they should without overshadowing the entire party.
We just tried to avoid single big boss monsters. A sorcerer or wizard with a horde of underlings, or two or three big bad henchmen instead of just one. The big limitation on Smite Evil is how few foes it can be used against in the course of a day and the fact that it can only be used against one at a time. Let's say the final fight is, instead of a single dragon or demon, a fight against a boss who is able to fly and cast at range and his two demon/ogre henchmen. Who does the Paladin assign his Smite Evil against? And once that foe has been smited, does he have to burn another one to help finish off the other henchman? What if instead they faced a large number of lesser monsters (like a variety of zombies and monster zombies)? There should be plenty to do for the entire party.
In the interest of full disclosure, I've been running a human paladin (Oath of Vengeance) with the Orcish bloodline Edritch Heritage feats and I'm completely in love with him. Generally I play as the secondary fighter, protecting the casters and whatnot until an evil boss makes his appearance atwhich time I lay the smackdown. No one in the party feels outshined at all.
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I think Paladins are slightly overpowered. I think they do the Cleric's job better than the Cleric most of the time, and usually quicker as well. While I don't think they outdo the Fighter, Ranger, or Barbarian, they are pretty close, and I think they recieved too much in the PF treatment.
Especially as it seems just about every Archtype is actually a downgrade for the base class, I think the options are a little too good, and should probably be handled a little more like the Druid, either this or that, rather than being granted all of it.
The math on this has already been done.
Click there for charts.
Why are you people ressurrecting a thread that was dead for over two years?
Also, if the pally is outdoing the cleric on spellcasting there is something wrong with your game.
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Not spellcasting, but most of the affects the Pali can do through either spellcasting, free action heal self, mercies, etc. . ., but doesn't for instance need to worry about having a certain number prepaired for the day.
As for resing an old thread, it happens. People see something they are interested in, usually linked from another thread, and don't pay attention to the date. And it starts from there.
You said the clerics job. That is divine spellcasting. Even if you meant healing that is demonstrably false.
Lay on hands is strictly worse than Channel energy. The pally can Channel energy, but less times than the cleric. The paladin has less spell slots, less spell levels and cannot swap spells for cure spells. Clerics don't have to prepare cure spells they can focus on other stuff, like buffing (making any buffing that the pally does, through auras or his spells, look pale in comparison), and clerics get high level spells like HEAL that makes whatever the pally can do in that area seem like a poor excuse.
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<I love Clerics>
Also, beware assuming that the cleric's job is to cast heal and not dismissal or some similarly useful thing that is way beyond the paladin's abilities.
Saying a paladin can do what a cleric does, you know, "heal people" and hang around in the melee... that's not a very good comprehension of just how awesome clerics are.
</I love Clerics>
Yay, necrothread. Let's call in a paladin to kill it.
*fails to resist urge to continue topic*
In my games I did make a few slight nerfs to smite. Enough to prevent stupid things from happening (like a smite crit one shotting an undead enemy on the first swing due to x4 damage bonus), but not so much that it should really keep Paladins from continuing to be awesome.
My Smite houserules:
- Smite damage doesn't double on a crit. (I do this to many other kinds of bonus damage)
- Smite doesn't bypass all DR, instead it makes your weapon attacks good and lawful aligned for the purposes of overcoming DR.
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I love Clerics, too, (at least the concept), but I feel this a lot when playing with a Pali. I'm not saying that Paladins are 100% better than Clerics, but I do think that PF Paladins do step to far on he Cleric's toes.
Especially after the first 3 or 4 levels (ish) the Paladin can actually pretty much cover the Cleric's "healer" position, and between high Cha -> UMD wands and their own spells, can cover a good deal of buffs, too.
The reason I resurrected this discussion was because I used the search function. If I had started a new topic, people would complain I didn't use the search function.
I made my post because I, as the DM, and the other players not playing paladins were shocked by how insanely powerful the paladin was at our previous play session. The 5th level paladin was able to essentially take down a CR 9 Blue Dragon with help from only the groups sorcerer (the Dragon was a guardian pet, and was not allowed to fly or retreat). The other group members were distracted by other things happening in the dungeon and by the time they made it to the fight, the dragon was dead.
Later he challenges a CR 10 vampire barbarian/fighter (110hp, AC25, +18 spear d8+15 and +21 bite d4+14+ 2x energy drain) to a duel and that ended up being close (paladin won though), but only because I didn't know about Smite Evil bypassing damage reduction. It would have been a cake walk for the paladin, otherwise. Now the vampire had gotten a bunch of buffs and a heroism potion before the fight, but he still had a hard time hitting the 5th level paladin's buffed AC of 34. The Paladin had self-buffs to AC(all different), non-magical half plate, a +3 heavy shield, borrowed a +2 ring from another player for the duel, and got +5 AC from Smite Evil. The other player characters have AC in the 18 to 22 range.
So what other class can have a stand-up solo fight with a monster with a CR rating 5 above their level? The way I understand Challenge Rating, is that it is supposed to be for a group of 4 players, not a single paladin. Again it isn't about damage output, but being able to self heal, have insanely high AC from self buffs, and have the best saving throws.
I see Smite Evil as an all out attack, not a defense. So, I am going to house rule that Smite Evil subtracts from AC as much as it adds to attack bonus (so lose 5 AC instead of gaining 5 AC). This may help some.
How is a paladin taking on a dragon? The dragon has reach, and can fly. He also should have been killed by the barbarian/fighter. One full round of power attacking puts about 60 to 70 points of damage or more on the 5th level paladin. Round 2 the match is over barring the dice gods interfering.
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My main gripe (and what I WILL remove when DMing a Pally) is the complete bypassing of any DR.
DR/good, or DR/law? No prob, smite away.
DR/slashing, etc? Strange, but be my guest.
DR/material? Kind of on the fence, but ok.
However...
DR/evil DR/chaos? No. Just no. (Rare enough for smiteable beings, anyway)
DR/epic? Come back when you're an epic pally.
DR/vorpal? DR/named artifact? DR/-? Just forget it.
Yes, that lets the pally smite a BBEG with DR 20/good and silver quite nicely. However, even a level 1 paladin (or someone with a one level pally dip) utterly nixing a DR 30/epic? Just not gonna happen.
I did remove the ability to ignore Dr/epic, but it was for verisimilitude. The 1st level paladin who was just a squire two days ago should not be able to bypass the DR of a demonlord, IMHO.
Smite Evil is nothing compared to the dreaded 11th level ability, Aura of Justice.
My Second Darkness campaign had the climax where:
the big boss, who was a CR 25 demon, assailed the party (who were 16th level). I had expected a brutal encounter where the party would need to be saved (something I decided to add). WRONG!!
To my horror, the paladin simply used Aura of Justice and the party proceeded to slaughter the Big Bad Guy. When the fighter, now with an extra +6 attack, bypassing all DR and dealing 32 extra points of damage PER HIT, I realised the encounter would be over in about 3 rounds.
When the archer did a full attack with the same bonuses, I realised the encounter would likely be over in 2.
Smite evil certainly needs to be revised though. I will be taking up some of those house rules.
That Aura of Justice probably should never have seen the light of day. I do want to have someone try it in my game though so I can see it first hand only because another board member claimed to have no problem with it.
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I've seen my players run paladins from 1st through 17th in the Age of Worms, the Curse of the Crimson Throne, and now in Jade Regent. They may be BA against stupid evil that tries to stand toe-to-toe with them, but intelligent evil will avoid them. They haven't been overpowered at all. Worry about the full casters and leave the paladins alone. If your frustrated, throw some moral quagmires at them in a more RP session and see em sweat as they try not to lose their powers.
How did Aura of Justice pan out in Jade Regent and Curse of the Crimson Throne?
How is a paladin taking on a dragon? The dragon has reach, and can fly. He also should have been killed by the barbarian/fighter. One full round of power attacking puts about 60 to 70 points of damage or more on the 5th level paladin. Round 2 the match is over barring the dice gods interfering.
Honestly? A bow.
That's what happened to me in Runelords, anyway. Luckily, that AP has some really nasty stretches for the paladin, with a bunch of neutral enemies, so I never felt the need to actively nerf the paladin.
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The reason I resurrected this discussion was because I used the search function. If I had started a new topic, people would complain I didn't use the search function.
I made my post because I, as the DM, and the other players not playing paladins were shocked by how insanely powerful the paladin was at our previous play session. The 5th level paladin was able to essentially take down a CR 9 Blue Dragon with help from only the groups sorcerer (the Dragon was a guardian pet, and was not allowed to fly or retreat). The other group members were distracted by other things happening in the dungeon and by the time they made it to the fight, the dragon was dead.
Later he challenges a CR 10 vampire barbarian/fighter (110hp, AC25, +18 spear d8+15 and +21 bite d4+14+ 2x energy drain) to a duel and that ended up being close (paladin won though), but only because I didn't know about Smite Evil bypassing damage reduction. It would have been a cake walk for the paladin, otherwise. Now the vampire had gotten a bunch of buffs and a heroism potion before the fight, but he still had a hard time hitting the 5th level paladin's buffed AC of 34. The Paladin had self-buffs to AC(all different), non-magical half plate, a +3 heavy shield, borrowed a +2 ring from another player for the duel, and got +5 AC from Smite Evil. The other player characters have AC in the 18 to 22 range.
So what other class can have a stand-up solo fight with a monster with a CR rating 5 above their level? The way I understand Challenge Rating, is that it is supposed to be for a group of 4 players, not a single paladin. Again it isn't about damage output, but being able to self heal, have insanely high AC from self buffs, and have the best saving throws.
I see Smite Evil as an all out attack, not a defense. So, I am going to house rule that Smite Evil subtracts from AC as much as it adds to attack bonus (so lose 5 AC instead of gaining 5 AC). This may help some.
Holy captain thread necromancy. See my previous posts in this thread. All classes have a thing they are really good at. Or at least one thing. In theory each class should have one thing they are the best at (even if that thing is being good but not great at the most things [read bard]).
The problem arises when one class is the best at doing something a lot of dms like to do mindlessly. The paladins expertise is going one on one with the big bad evil guy. Thats what they are built for. They are the hero that duels with the evil overlord at the end of the game. So if you put a SINGLE evil enemy against a party containing a paladin, you have made a mistake as a dm. Particularly if you wanted that fight to be important.
They are too damned ingrained in peoples heads but single enemy encounters are almost ALWAYS a bad idea in this game. I if I could have a signature on these boards it would contain a statement about how you have to be VERY careful about single enemy encounters and really they should be avoided except in cases where you have a very solid plan on how to keep from getting overwhelmed. Action economy is important. Until there is a major rules change, your bad guy will do one thing, then the party will do 4 or 5. Your bad guy is at a disadvantage right from the start. If you happen to be foolish enough as a dm to park a single team evil (undead, dragon or outsider) big bad in front of a party containing a character who is specialized in fighting single big bad guys, congradulations, you have fed your bad guy to the paladin.
Every class is good at certain things. No one complains if the rogue is the best at sneaking or if the bard is better at social situations then anyone else right? No, because that is their thing. No one complains that the ranger outperforms just about everyone when tracking the bad guys through the woods right? No, because that's their thing. The paladins thing is going one on one with the big bad guy. If you put no obstacles in his way (minions/leutenants, terrain, moral choices etc) and just let him walk up to your bad guy and smite the crap out of him, YOU as a DM have made a mistake.
I dont care what the module said, or how awesome you thought the fight was going to be. You have failed to account for what one of your pc's is really good at. Thats on you. Next time dont have just one enemy in a fight, have several, preferably with all of them being high enough cr to be a threat. Or have a fair maiden dangling off a cliff along side the big bad, so the paladin has to rush to save her before he fights the bad guy. Or have pits and terrain the paladin has to get across while the bad guy shoots/slings spells at the paladin and his companions. Or have a bunch of hard fights before the big bad guy forcing the paladin to use up his smites (or just get beat up) before getting to the big bad. There are lots of other ways to manage this, but just parking a blue dragon chained to the floor in front of a damned paladin is not the way to do that.
There was a lot of stuff in here, but I didn't see anyone point out that the paladin x2 smite damage bonus against undead, evil dragons, and evil outsiders only applies to the 1st hit not all hits. So a L7 paladin smiting only gets +14 on the 1st hit. All other hits only get the +7 damage. Depending on your printing this is in the errata.
As someone else pointed out that 20 charisma is pretty impressive at Level 7. I am wondering what point buy you used and what the paladins other stats are. If you used a 25 point buy or rolling models you are abound to end up with this sort of min-maxing thing. If you use a 15 or even 20 point buy you won't be seeing a 20 cha at level 1 unless their other stats are junk. Which balances them out nicely.
This thread started when Smite still doubled damage on every hit against those targets, ValarakarU. It has since be errata'ed to the current 'first hit only'.
Yea, removing the constant double damage from smite went a long way towards fixing the paladin=overpowered problem.
Holy captain thread necromancy. See my previous posts in this thread. All classes have a thing they are really good at. Or at least one thing. In theory each class should have one thing they are the best at (even if that thing is being good but not great at the most things [read bard]).The problem arises when one class is the best at doing something a lot of dms like to do mindlessly. The paladins expertise is going one on one with the big bad evil guy. Thats what they are built for. They are the hero that duels with the evil overlord at the end of the game. So if you put a SINGLE evil enemy against a party containing a paladin, you have made a mistake as a dm. Particularly if you wanted that fight to be important.
They are too damned ingrained in peoples heads but single enemy encounters are almost ALWAYS a bad idea in this game. I if I could have a signature on these boards it would contain a statement about how you have to be VERY careful about single enemy encounters and really they should be avoided except in cases where you have a very solid plan on how to keep from getting overwhelmed. Action economy is important. Until there is a major rules change, your bad guy will do one thing, then the party will do 4 or 5. Your bad guy is at a disadvantage right from the start. If you happen to be foolish enough as a dm to park a single team evil (undead, dragon or outsider) big bad in front of a party containing a character who is specialized in fighting single big bad guys, congradulations, you have fed your bad guy to the paladin.
Every class is good at certain things. No one complains if the rogue is the best at sneaking or if the bard is better at social situations then anyone else right? No, because that is their thing. No one complains that the ranger outperforms just about everyone when tracking the bad guys through the woods right? No, because that's their thing. The paladins thing is going one on one with the big bad guy. If you put no obstacles in his way (minions/leutenants, terrain, moral choices etc) and just let him walk up to your bad guy and smite the crap out of him, YOU as a DM have made a mistake.
I dont care what the module said, or how awesome you thought the fight was going to be. You have failed to account for what one of your pc's is really good at. Thats on you. Next time dont have just one enemy in a fight, have several, preferably with all of them being high enough cr to be a threat. Or have a fair maiden dangling off a cliff along side the big bad, so the paladin has to rush to save her before he fights the bad guy. Or have pits and terrain the paladin has to get across while the bad guy shoots/slings spells at the paladin and his companions. Or have a bunch of hard fights before the big bad guy forcing the paladin to use up his smites (or just get beat up) before getting to the big bad. There are lots of other ways to manage this, but just parking a blue dragon chained to the floor in front of a damned paladin is not the way to do that.
+1 because I can't favorite this enough times.
How is a paladin taking on a dragon? The dragon has reach, and can fly. He also should have been killed by the barbarian/fighter. One full round of power attacking puts about 60 to 70 points of damage or more on the 5th level paladin. Round 2 the match is over barring the dice gods interfering.
The dragon was a pet, confined to a room. There was a nice 90 foot long by 5 foot wide corridor leading to the Dragon's room. The dragon got off a breath weapon and a free AoO attack before the paladin was able to close ranks. The paladin was able to heal himself as a free action for 3d6 every round (has greater Mercy for extra +1d6, and with feats/spec about 12 uses of Lay on Hands). The dragon had a hard time hitting the paladins high AC, so really only the breath weapon, and a rare lucky attack would affect him.
The vampire would hit with none or one of his attacks for about zero to 18 damage a round, average about 12 damage a round. The paladin would make his saves against the energy drain and self heal with LoH for about 11 damage per round.
The monsters may have not have acted intelligently in the fights, but they were not supposed to. Not all opponents are sneaky underhanded schemers. After the fight, the paladin made a truce with the Vampire Warlord and his minions, and agreed to hand over 2 minor magic items to the vampire in exchange for killing his pet dragon. The defeated vampire was vary persuasive, and the paladin very lawful stupid. So, I would say even though the paladin won the fight, he lost the battle.
How is a paladin taking on a dragon? The dragon has reach, and can fly. He also should have been killed by the barbarian/fighter. One full round of power attacking puts about 60 to 70 points of damage or more on the 5th level paladin. Round 2 the match is over barring the dice gods interfering.The dragon was a pet, confined to a room. There was a nice 90 foot long by 5 foot wide corridor leading to the Dragon's room. The dragon got off a breath weapon and a free AoO attack before the paladin was able to close ranks. The paladin was able to heal himself as a free action for 3d6 every round (has greater Mercy for extra +1d6, and with feats/spec about 12 uses of Lay on Hands). The dragon had a hard time hitting the paladins high AC, so really only the breath weapon, and a rare lucky attack would affect him.
The vampire would hit with none or one of his attacks for about zero to 18 damage a round, average about 12 damage a round. The paladin would make his saves against the energy drain and self heal with LoH for about 11 damage per round.
The monsters may have not have acted intelligently in the fights, but they were not supposed to. Not all opponents are sneaky underhanded schemers. After the fight, the paladin made a truce with the Vampire Warlord and his minions, and agreed to hand over 2 minor magic items to the vampire in exchange for killing his pet dragon. The defeated vampire was vary persuasive, and the paladin very lawful stupid. So, I would say even though the paladin won the fight, he lost the battle.
So your problem is solved - because I'm sure that the Paladin lost all his powers immediately once he started doing things like making truces with Vampire Warlords and handing over magic items in apology for killing a Dragon...
Let me see. So, a CR 9 dragon who has had his best defense (flight) taken away is easy to kill. Gee, who'd a thunk it?
You've got a dragon with it's flight gone (-2 CR) confined in an area where it can't manuever (just a long hallway)... that's pretty much the easiest kill ever. A ranger with favored enemy (dragon) could have solo'd it too.
Now, as to the paladin's 34 AC...
Let's see, full plate presuemably? That's +9, so 19. Dodge maybe? +1. Dex Bonus +1, that's 21. Where's the other 13 points of defense coming from? I suggest that your paladin is HUGELY out of whack on WBL. He's probably sporting +2 full plate and +2 amulet of NA, and +2 ring of deflection, and so on. Even with all those, he's still below 34. So how's he getting 34 AC at level 5? That's your problem, right there. Post his build, or check his sheet, I guarantee you a paladin built to WBL isn't going to have a 34 AC.
The vampire would hit with none or one of his attacks for about zero to 18 damage a round, average about 12 damage a round. The paladin would make his saves against the energy drain and self heal with LoH for about 11 damage per round.
How is he doing LoH's every round, and still doing any damage to the vampire? You do know that as a Supernatural ability, it takes a standard action to activate LoH's right? That means any round he heals, he doesn't attack. And he only get's 2 + CHA modifier LoH's per day. Theoretically he used some of those on the dragon (since you said he did).
EDIT : Never mind, forgot it's a swift action on himself. Still, he's only got a few of those per day, and used some on the dragon.
And the sorceror engaged the paladin in melee? Without lots and lots of physically powerful backup? Paladins are designed to destroy evil - if they can reach it. Dragons can fly and use magic, can they not?
This may have already been mentioned, but I haven't read the entire thread. The paladin's smite goes until the target is dead, even when using a bow. If the paladin isn't built toward ranged combat, he will still be effective, it will just take a little longer. If the paladin is built for ranged combat, then the fight goes even faster than it would if he weren't and the dragon fought him in melee.
Once Smite is activated, the paladin becomes a real powerhouse.
Now, as to the paladin's 34 AC...
It still falls short, but remember that Paladins get their Charisma modifier as a Deflection Bonus when Smiting. It doesn't stack with a Ring, but that is still a nice boost.
Now, as to the paladin's 34 AC...It still falls short, but remember that Paladins get their Charisma modifier as a Deflection Bonus when Smiting. It doesn't stack with a Ring, but that is still a nice boost.
Even if we give him a 20CHA, that's only a +5. So 26 AC, that still leaves 8 AC unaccounted for. And if the Paladin has a 20 Cha, unless he rolled excessively good, he's not doing damage or having hp.
The reason I resurrected this discussion was because I used the search function. If I had started a new topic, people would complain I didn't use the search function.
I made my post because I, as the DM, and the other players not playing paladins were shocked by how insanely powerful the paladin was at our previous play session. The 5th level paladin was able to essentially take down a CR 9 Blue Dragon with help from only the groups sorcerer (the Dragon was a guardian pet, and was not allowed to fly or retreat). The other group members were distracted by other things happening in the dungeon and by the time they made it to the fight, the dragon was dead.
Later he challenges a CR 10 vampire barbarian/fighter (110hp, AC25, +18 spear d8+15 and +21 bite d4+14+ 2x energy drain) to a duel and that ended up being close (paladin won though), but only because I didn't know about Smite Evil bypassing damage reduction. It would have been a cake walk for the paladin, otherwise. Now the vampire had gotten a bunch of buffs and a heroism potion before the fight, but he still had a hard time hitting the 5th level paladin's buffed AC of 34. The Paladin had self-buffs to AC(all different), non-magical half plate, a +3 heavy shield, borrowed a +2 ring from another player for the duel, and got +5 AC from Smite Evil. The other player characters have AC in the 18 to 22 range.
So what other class can have a stand-up solo fight with a monster with a CR rating 5 above their level? The way I understand Challenge Rating, is that it is supposed to be for a group of 4 players, not a single paladin. Again it isn't about damage output, but being able to self heal, have insanely high AC from self buffs, and have the best saving throws.
I see Smite Evil as an all out attack, not a defense. So, I am going to house rule that Smite Evil subtracts from AC as much as it adds to attack bonus (so lose 5 AC instead of gaining 5 AC). This may help some.
Too much magic gear. Btw, shield gives +5 AC by himself, so maybe the enemy should try another tactic, grab the paladin or break the shield or disarm him.
Cha to AC, yes?
Ok, let's break this down...
+1 Full Plate (2950 gp) 10AC
+1 MW Large Shield (1350 gp) +3 AC
Note that we've already spent over 40% of our wealth on defensive items. That's more than we're supposed to.
Dex : +1 AC
Dodge Feat : +1 AC
10 + 10 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 25 AC
The only way he could have +5 to AC from smite (note that it's only Charisma mod, so we're talking a human that put his +2 into CHA, who's playing a martial class and put an 18 into Cha).
I just don't see it, but even then, he's at 30 AC, not 34.