Advice on a 3.5 paladin build


3.5/d20/OGL


I've got a non-optimized 15th level desert paladin (complete with divine warcamel mount) that has proven to be far too squishy, mainly because I didn't outfit her very well. Now I've been encouraged to cheese her up equipmentwise (within the means of a 15th level character), and I need some advice.

Due to her desert background she's leery of metal armor, so she has bracers of armor and some homebrew "spidersilk" armor that stacks with them, but her AC still sucks. I'd like a non-plate armor method of beefing up her AC. Losing the spidersilk is not a problem.

She's specialized in using a glaive or, at closer quarters, a falchion. However, the ones she has aren't magical and basically suck. She deals something like an eighth of the damage of the other combat characters in her party. Somehow I don't think her god is impressed with her nearly dying every fight she's in.

I can probably argue for anything found in an official 3.5 splatbook, and possibly even non-official splatbooks, but I've never played such a high-level character before and just don't know HOW to cheese her up. Any advice is appreciated!

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ask to change class into a Crusader or something else viable, 3.5 Paladin is ahead of Monk in the suck department.

Silver Crusade

Refer to Al Quadim, I dont know how to post links but there are alot of sites with info. The magic weapons especially 3.5 refer to Sandstorm. There are a ton of magic items and yes at 15th level you should glow in the dark with magic.


So unless I am mistaken your charecter does not use metal armor because of background. The first thing that comes to mind is the "cooling" property listed in The Magic of Faerun. That solves your heavy metal issue.
If metal armor just won't do for whatever reason then might I suggest Dragon hide armor(druids swear buy it) It counts as heavy armor.
If weight is a fcator then turn instead to Arms and Equipment from 3rd ed and consider Leafweave or Darkleaf armor(again a fav of the druid sects)

Now that the armor is taken care of I would also suggest checking out some Holy symbols. Look in the planular handbook as well as Manual of the planes and take the "greater" holy symbol then combine it with a "true" holy symbol. I call it a True Greater symbol and it gives you a +2 on turn checks and the empowered turning feat.

Next use the magic item compendium to get a ring of arming. Instead of takeing forever to don armor it's on or off in one round. Great if your running around in mithral full plate in the desert.

I can't help any further with tghe "paladin" aspect because my group doesn't allow them. My DM got tired of me killing them and sacraficing them useing the BoVD and getting wishes, Go figure.

Anyway Good luck.


Heh, yeah, paladin may not have been the best choice, I just really liked the concept.

Al-Qadim is 2e, unless I'm mistaken? I did check Sandstorm, but didn't really find much of use.

Steven, thanks for all the suggestions! I couldn't find the cooling property in Magic of Faerun (do you have a page number?), but I'll keep an eye out for it when I check the other books I have. Otherwise I'll have to see if I can talk the DM into letting me have dragonhide armor, or do a quest for it (though I'm not sure I'd survive getting it without it! Catch 22!) Otherwise I guess it's leaf armor for me. Anyone have any cheesy suggestions for enchantments to put on it? (No, the chainmail bikini is out.)

Our cleric pretty much has me beat for turning, but the ring of arming sounds pretty sweet. Thanks again!

Silver Crusade

Al Qadim had fan pages where they have updated everything to 3.5. Google search the hell out of it and have fun. Leaf armor and your character is from the desert region? The old Al Qadim book was for 2e but it tells you about equipment in the desert. Chain shirts, and NO PLATE. The Dragon Hide Armor would be a cool addition. Sticking with the theme of your character look at the Desert type environs and the reason I suggested Sandstorm was for the flavor of some of the weapons and magical effects. BTW White Camels are sacred so it would be pretty cool if your holy war camel was white. Anywhoo have fun. Another 2e supplement that would have alot of good info is Anauroch, from the FR. I use alot of my 2e stuff for the information they provide not the rules. Sounds like a great character and I hope you let us know how it turned out.


Zealot wrote:
Al Qadim had fan pages where they have updated everything to 3.5. Google search the hell out of it and have fun. Leaf armor and your character is from the desert region? The old Al Qadim book was for 2e but it tells you about equipment in the desert. Chain shirts, and NO PLATE. The Dragon Hide Armor would be a cool addition. Sticking with the theme of your character look at the Desert type environs and the reason I suggested Sandstorm was for the flavor of some of the weapons and magical effects. BTW White Camels are sacred so it would be pretty cool if your holy war camel was white. Anywhoo have fun. Another 2e supplement that would have alot of good info is Anauroch, from the FR. I use alot of my 2e stuff for the information they provide not the rules. Sounds like a great character and I hope you let us know how it turned out.

I'll have to check if my roleplaying club has the Anauroch supplement, but I think they're pretty much just 3.5/4e and a bunch of non-d20 systems. I could be wrong, I seem to recall some Planescape stuff there, so it's worth a look. I'll take a look around for the 3.5 updates to Al-Qadim too. You're right, a white camel would be cool! Anything that ups the awesomeness factor is good. :D

Now to plan for some good enchantments for the armor she ends up with...

We're not scheduled to play again until late this month, so I have plenty of time to plan. I'll definitely let you know how it goes. :)

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