Help building Holy Paladin of Goodness.


Advice

Liberty's Edge

I'm thinking of making a Paladin and would like some help with building him. I know a bit about the standard Paladin but that's about it so any suggestions would be great.

Setting: PFS

Requirements:
1) Smites Evil things
2) Fey Foundling + A good amount of Lay on Hands to use
3) Doesn't kill non-Evil things (I.E. Knock them out, incapacitate)
4) Uses Ranged Combat
5) Eventually gets Ultimate Mercy? I like the idea of being able to revive someone that just recently died to save their life.

Theme:
Paladin who follows their deity and is opposed to outright killing unless that person/creature is innately Evil, which then the Paladin feels necessary to remove its presence to avoid any innocent bloodshed.

Race: highly considering Human for the extra feat

Materials: I own most books. Feel free to make suggestions.


To me, this is screaming Sarenrae since you wish to redeem everything and want to be good at healing.

Concerning the Non-lethal damage
You could look at the Redeemer Half-Orc Archetype which get Merciful Smite, damage done to the smitten target can be subdual.
Being a Champion of Irori could be another way to do non-lethal with the Improved Unarmed Strike.

I don't have any good ideas concerning the ranged attacks beside following one of the paladin guides.


I think you've laid out everything.

You're a Paladin Archer who is also going to take fey-foundling to get extra mileage out of LoH.

Take the Divine Hunter Archetype Paladin, as it makes you more adept at using a bow. Since you will be at range and have LoH to supplement hp, you should probably have stats such as Dex>Str=Cha>Con>Wis>Int.

For feats besides fey-foundling just pickup the standard archery feats.

To not kill non-evil creatures look into purchasing blunt arrows. They deal non-lethal damage. Though you will probably have a harder time getting your fellow players to agree to not killing creatures, so this may not work out all that well.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

ranged subdual damage is tricky...

the Rules wrote:
You can use a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage instead, but you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll. (emphasis added)

at 5th level you can use divine bond to put merciful on a bow (so don't take an archetype that trades that), but for the first 4 levels you don't even have the option to deal non-lethal damage with a ranged weapon (unless you can afford some kind of fancy arrows that probably exist in some supplement that do that).


nate lange wrote:

ranged subdual damage is tricky...

the Rules wrote:
You can use a melee weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage instead, but you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll. (emphasis added)
at 5th level you can use divine bond to put merciful on a bow (so don't take an archetype that trades that), but for the first 4 levels you don't even have the option to deal non-lethal damage with a ranged weapon (unless you can afford some kind of fancy arrows that probably exist in some supplement that do that).

Blunt Durable Arrows should do the trick. I'm uncertain if the combination is PFS legal, but I think so.

If not, blunt arrows by themself should be legal as they are in the Advanced Player's Guide.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Claxon wrote:
Blunt Durable Arrows should do the trick. I'm uncertain if they are PFS legal, but I think so.

thanks- out of curiousity, do you know which source those are from?


nate lange wrote:
Claxon wrote:
Blunt Durable Arrows should do the trick. I'm uncertain if they are PFS legal, but I think so.
thanks- out of curiousity, do you know which source those are from?

The durable quality is from elves of golarion I believe.

Blunt arrows are from APG.


Paladin archers can be rough, as archery is very feat intensive. Prepare for a pretty big valley of suck. I'd say you need to be human, cause you need lots of feats, especially since your throwing in Fey Foundling.

I actually don't like the divine hunter as I feel it gives up too much...unless your just dipping Paladin in which case its one of my favorite archetypes. The feat really does help though so its a trade off.

Definitely get blunt arrows. You don't want to be that archer who doesn't have them.

You may want to look into a fighter dip, or if you can stomach it a 2 level dip into zen archer, to pick up a ton of useful feats early on. Its a rough trade though as Paladin gains a lot by not dipping.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

yeah- i agree with UaBS. divine hunter has never seemed very good to me (unless you're only dipping pally), although the bonus feat is tempting. and i definitely don't think you should take fey foundling... you can't afford the feat and as an archer you shouldn't be taking enough damage to need that extra healing.

Liberty's Edge

Well maybe archer is asking for too much for a Paladin. Any build suggestions for a mounted Paladin? Would human work or would a halfling or gnome paladin be ok? Are there any good mounted archetypes or any archetypes that you can combo to be a good mounted paladin?

Also looking for ways to get lots of Lay on Hands and would like to know what others suggestions for feats would be.

Silver Crusade

You will definitely want to look into this feat to go along with your blunt arrows.

I think you're fine with a Divine Hunter. Here's how I would build one:

Human Paladin (divine hunter) 11
Str: 14
Dex: 16 (+1 each at 4 and 8)
Con: 12
Int: 8
Wis: 10
Cha: 14 (+2 racial)

Level 1: Bludgeoner, Fey Foundling
Level 3: Point-Blank Shot
Level 5: Rapid Shot
Level 7: Greater Mercy
Level 9: Ultimate Mercy (only if you have your bracers by now, otherwise it moves to 11)
Level 11: Extra Lay on Hands

Gear: +1 adaptive holy composite longbow, belt of incredible dexterity +4, celestial armor, headband of alluring charisma +4, bracers of the merciful knight, cracked vibrant purple prism ioun stone

At level 11, when not smiting, your attacks seem pretty paltry:

longbow +17/+17/+12/+7 (1d8+2d6+3/x2) which is average damage per hit of 14.5.

However, when you smite and have your Divine Bond (adds +3 to weapon) going:

longbow +25/+25/+20/+15 (1d8+2d6+17/x2) which is average damage per hit of 28.5.

At level 11 you will also have 14 uses of Lay on Hands that will each heal you for 8d6+16 or you can expend 10 of them to bring somebody back to life. And with celestial armor and a 22ish Dex, your AC will be through the roof.

For traits, I'd recommend you make one of them Dangerously Curious so that you can get and use a wand of gravity bow and increase your base damage to 2d6.


First thing first, You need to priorize your roles, do you want to be a healer first or damage dealer or tank?

You could probably be a a healer + 2h-weapon striker because both are not feat intensive.

From my understanding you prefer having some kind of support role, you could also look into the Oradin (a mix of Oracle and Paladin) and simply put as many feat as you can in an archer build with the weapon divine bond (with Merciful ability) knowing that you will not be a powerhouse but still useful.

P.S. Mounted Paladin is also relatively feat intensive.

If you priorize the damage dealing, there is no way you'll still have feats left for the healing functions.

Hope this helps you.

Liberty's Edge

Well I'm looking at 3 feats spent if I go the improved healing route - Fey Foundling, Greater Mercy, Ultimate Mercy which leads me with 4 feats left. It sounds like my archery damage would be pretty paltry. Would I still be able to deal decent damage with 4 feats towards mounted combat? (I guess 3 feats if I went with a small race)


The 2-handed weapon specialist simply uses a big sword to put the hurt on and is efficient from the get go.

Archery is 5 feats and easier to manage than Mounted Combat:
-Point-Blank Shot
-Precise Shot
-Deadly Aim
-Rapid Shot
-Many Shot

Mounted Combat is even more feats:
-Mounted Combat
-Ride-By Attack
-Spirited Charge
-Power Attack
-Furious Focus
-Vital Strike could be good also
Then if you want-> "Trick Riding" leading to "Mounted Skirmisher" for full attacks while your horse moves.

So a Sarenrae Paladin with a Weapon Bond is my suggestion with the build suggested by Bdj.

As a side note, you could look into a 2 level dip into Life Oracle with the Lifelink revelation.

Liberty's Edge

Well I've decided to not go the archery route but instead take the archetype Hospitaler and possibly Sundering.

Feat Selection -
Lvl 1: Fey Foundling, Power Attack
Lvl 3: Greater Mercy
Lvl 5: Improved Sunder
Lvl 7: Adept Champion
Lvl 9: Ultimate Mercy
Lvl 11: Selective Channel (or?)

Thoughts or suggestions? This isn't set in stone but just an idea, not sure how well it would work out but being able to sunder armor, items, weapons should help in majority of PFS fights I would think.

~~~

Just to reiterate my goals with this character -

Requirements:
1) Smites Evil things
2) Fey Foundling + A good amount of Lay on Hands to use
3) Would like some way to stop fights without killing non-evil foes
4) Primary direction is great ability to heal self and others with Lay on Hands, Channels, etc. (Considering Hospitaler for the Positive Channeling that's independant of Lay on Hands uses per day.)
5) Eventually gets Ultimate Mercy? I like the idea of being able to revive someone that just recently died to save their life.

Liberty's Edge

Any suggestions or improvement/build advice? Thinking Sunder may be a good attempt to rendering enemies incapable of fighting back so they surrender and majority of those that you can't sunder stuff, they're probably evil or unintelligible.


Defiantly go for a paladin of Sarenrae. Not only does she fit what you are looking for but she has the trait Blade of Mercy that lets you do non-lethal damage at no penalty with a slashing weapon and does an extra point of damage when you do so. Max out strength and use a falchion and your damage will be fine. This way you can even smite evil without doing lethal damage.

Take a bow as a backup weapon and pick up some blunt arrows. Just because you are not focusing on archery does not mean it will not be useful especially when you are fighting flying creatures. Remember smite evil works on any weapon so don’t limit yourself. Without the feats you are not going to be doing as much damage with archery, but some damage is better than none.

Silver Crusade

Here's a half-elf Oradin of Sarenrae build. The blackened curse means you'll never be truly effective with weapons, but it adds some fire spells to your oracle list, which is pretty thematic. This makes your Smite Evil ability slightly less useful, but you'll only have 1 use of it until level 11 anyway. If you want to be a true healing force, dump Str down to 7, Wis to 7, and raise Cha to 20 and Int to 11. The dumped Wis won't hurt you very much considering Will is a strong save for both classes and you'll get Cha to saves at character level 6.

With this build you'll be a healing force. At level 12 you can Lay on Hands yourself for 5d6+14 as a swift, quick channel for 3d6 as a move, then use your standard to channel for 3d6 again. With up to 4 Life Links set up on party members, you'll soak up some of their damage, then Lay on Hands it away. Then you channel twice to top your teammates off.

The big decisionis going to come when you decide whether to get a headband of alluring charisma +6 to give you 3 more channels in each of your channel pools, or to get a phylactery of positive channeling which increases each channel by 2d6. Overall the phylactery leads to more healing, but it can also lead to overhealing. It will be a personal choice and there is no wrong answer.

Half-elf blackened life oracle 4/hospitaler paladin 8
Str: 12, Dex: 14, Con: 14, Int: 8, Wis: 10, Cha: 18
Oracle 1: Life mystery, haunted curse, Channel positive energy revelation, Fey Foundling feat, elf alternate favored class bonus for oracle
Oracle 2: elf alternate favored class bonus for oracle
Oracle 3: Life Link Revelation, Selective Channeling feat, +1 skill point for favored class bonus
Oracle 4: +1 skill point for favored class bonus
Paladin 1: Eclectic feat, elf alternate favored class bonus from here on out
Paladin 2: elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 3: Quick Channel feat, elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 4: elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 5: Greater Mercy, elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 6: elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 7: this is your only real open feat, elf alternate favored class bonus
Paladin 8: elf alternate favored class bonus


If you add Bracers of the Merciful Knight to what Bdj suggested, you get even better LOH.

But I wouldn't go with the Blackened curse because you wont be able to use the added spells being only Oracle lvl 4. I would go with Legalistic since you will be someone to hold very strongly to your oaths anyway.

For the original build guide into the Oradin, you can check http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?257365-PF-Oradin-Mini-Guide-O r-How-to-be-a-Healbot-minus-the-bot

Silver Crusade

Oh yeah, legalistic works very well for an oradin.

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