Raudabjorn Kjallaksson's page

I played a dwarf stonelord paladin to 14th or 15th level in PFS. Easily the best AC for his level of any PC I've made, because defensive stance without waiting to qualify for a prestige class is very good.

The two main challenges that I had with the build were:

1. You give up smite, which is a big part of a standard paladin's damage output. Mine never did as much damage as other martials of his level, but feats and weapon enchantments can help with that.

2. The action economy can take some practice to get used to, especially if you enemy doesn't conveniently stand still. You won't get as many mercies, but you want fatigue to be your first one so that can: move (break stance, become fatigued); swift to lay on hands (remove fatigue); standard to attack; then, next turn, swift to re-enter the stance if you're adjacent to a target. There is also an option at higher level that lets you take a 5-ft step without losing the stance.

So, if he was able to play a dwarf - Stone Lord Paladin is the way to go.

My stonelord paladin was the most defense-oriented PC I ever played in PFS, though I did struggle a bit with keeping up his damage output (mostly because they lose smite).

For a non-dwarf, take a look at the stalwart defender prestige class. However, the earliest you could take start in that class would be 8th level. (In contrast, The stonelord gains the stalwart defender's defensive stance ability at 4th level, but is restricted to dwarves.)

You can already use a standard action as a swift action in Pathfinder if you wish. It's just that you will have to use a standard action to ready a swift action and you can set that readied action to trigger immediately if you wish, thus converting a standard action into a swift action.

While technically true, that still won't let you use more than one swift/immediate action per round, which is what the OP is seeking a way to do. The only way that I know to do it is the Corset of Delicate Moves, as Tom Sampson suggested.

My stonelord paladin has one, pretty much entirely so that he can swift-action lay on hands on himself and assume defensive stance in the same turn when it really matters. He's not high enough level yet to take a 5-foot step while maintaining his stance, but the corset effectively lets him mimic that ability once a day: 5-foot step (ending his stance), swift to lay on hands to remove the fatigue he gained from ending the stance, move (using corset) to re-enter stance, and standard to attack once.

Once way to get two swift actions in a turn, albeit only once per day, is the corset of delicate moves. My stonelord paladin has one in case he is in defensive stance but urgently needs to move (ends stance), lay on hands on himself to heal damage and remove the fatigue from ending the stance (swift), then resume his stance in his new position (swift), all in the same round.

If the character is a dwarf then the dwarven waraxe is would be a good axe for sword and board. I don’t think it would be worth spending a feat for a non-dwarf character.

It's basically the axe equivalent of the bastard sword (and even does the same base damage, 1d10). A dwarf wielding one of those as a martial weapon and a human spending their bonus feat on Exotic Melee Weapon come out roughly equal, really.

It wasn't all over in a single round, but I have played in one PFS scenario where a character with the possession spell made the end boss fight absolutely trivial. In this adventure, the boss monster started out as mythic, and the PCs had to perform various actions to de-power it while evading its attacks, which were treated as hazards instead of a straight-up fight (because it would easily obliterate the PCs otherwise). Once it's weakened in this way, it's still supposed to be a pretty tough fight. However, this PC cast possession the first round, the monster failed the will save (which had a very high DC, thanks to the caster's highly optimized build), and the possessing PC just stood there and let the rest of the party beat on the monster's body until it died. Meanwhile, the body of the caster, who was deliberately built to be a near-defenseless pushover for just this kind of situation, was easily grappled into submission until their soul snapped back when the possessed body died. (I think the caster may have even had themselves bound pre-fight, because psychic casting is purely mental.)

Nobody else at the table enjoyed that fight; we all felt cheated out of the big emotional payoff. I'm not even sure the player who derailed it enjoyed doing so. And it seriously soured the GM on having anything to do with psychic casters for a long time afterwards.

A defensive build can crank up the AC pretty high. A 12th level paladin with a defensive build can get around a 35 AC at 12th level without smite evil. Smite evil will bring it up to about 37 (CHA is a deflection bonus so does not stack with ring of protection). A character with that high of an AC will likely have the GM coming to the forums complaining about not being able to deal with the paladin without killing the rest of the party.

My waraxe-and-shield stonelord paladin hits those numbers pretty solidly. His AC means that most of the damage he takes is from area attack spells, not weapons--and it still takes a lot to take him down. He's not the biggest damage-dealer (the archetype loses smite) but does enough that foes can't afford to ignore him when he's up in their face.

Depends on whether you're prioritizing damage or defense. If you want to be the dwarf paladin who slays everything (despite not having smite) then find the biggest weapon you can and start smashing. (A reach build with a longhammer or longaxe and Combat Reflexes could be a potent combo with defensive stance, as long as you have an answer to foes surviving long enough to get adjacent to you.)

OTOH, maximizing your defense, with or without defensive stance, begs for shield use, so a waraxe is a good choice if you go that route. My own stonelord does this, and his favorite tactics include blocking a chokepoint, or rushing ahead to engage as many enemies as possible. He's rarely been the biggest damage dealer at the table, but he's an excellent living shield for the rest of the party. (He had a 30+ AC by around 8th level, and is up to 40+ at Seeker tier now. He still gets hit, because he goes out of his way to make himself every boss monster's target, but it's pretty near impossible to take him out.)

Best example of this was in a PFS game.

Player 1: I’m playing a paladin.
Me: I’m playing a cleric. (Wait for the party to ask which god I follow. No one does.)

A bit later on, we have a social encounter.
3/5 of the party: Paladin, deal with it.
Paladin: But I have no points in Diplomacy, I’m a combat build
3/5 of party: You’re the charisma class, do the Social stuff
Me: Um, I do have maxed out diplomacy and sense motive, do you want me to handle this?
3/5 of party: No, we have a paladin, and they’re a charisma class.

3/5 of the party has clearly forgotten how few skill points paladins get!

My stonelord paladin only has a +1 or so Cha because he doesn't get spellcasting or divine grace, and only has full ranks in Diplomacy because of a headband (which easily makes it his best skill).

OTOH, I'd expect most PFS players bringing a cleric, paladin, or inquisitor to the table to at least volunteer their patron deity when the group does character intros at the beginning of session.

When I play a character who has an unusual build for their class, I try to point that out during char-gen (in campaigns) or character intros (in PFS) to head off exactly these kinds of assumptions. It avoids some of the inevitable mantra of "I'm not that of X" later on.

For example, my PFS paladin is a stonelord, so lacks spellcasting and smite evil. But he excels at defense, and his stone friend is annoyingly mobile underground.