The Invisible Man's page

Important part:
I guess if the paladin is causing some DM's a lot of trouble I cant say it's not overpowered, but if others of us are dealing with it then it can't be proven that it is overpowered either. Maybe it just depends on the group, but that could be said for many other classes, PrC's, feats, and so on. To each his own I guess.

Edit: made a grammatical correction, and labeled the important part.

Palladin is ok, and there are enough tricks so he can't profit from his Smites. In a combat we had last week, the Palladin completly wasted two of his smites on opponents that were very mobile with movement and minor magic.

But I guess my point is, that once the party gets to fight a lot of evil Undead, Outsiders and/or Dragons, the Palladin becomes an incredible force that influences your entire campaign. And since those creatures play an important role in my current campaign, I would have to adjust half of the creatures accordingly. Since practically you can't let any of those monsters enter melee with the Palladin since he will completly and uterly destroy them.

Maybe we kinda agree than, hehe.

Come on Nero, you are smarter than that. You did see the graphic right?

I understand it's a lot of damage, but it has been proven that compared to a fighter the paladin is COMPLETELY balanced.

We are not taking into acount any other abilities, but I gotta say in a fight against evil the paladin will have a greater damage output, sure. But I still think the fighter will have much more tricks up his sleeve.

The last thing the graph shows is that the Palladin is balanced. It shows the opposite, how unbalanced it is. It is to weak against anything non-evil. And it is to strong against everything of the evil dragon/outsider/undead subtype. The Palladin is balanced against all evil creatures that are not undead/dragon/outsider.

Fighter is balanced, that is correct.

For what it's worth, I do kind of agree with this. Smite, as it stands now, might be balanced over the long haul (assuming you're fighting a fairly random selection of opponents) but it is borderline overpowered in specific circumstances and only balanced by long stretches of borderline suck. I'd much rather see Smite's damage lowered and give Paladins some other bonuses or abilities to increase their damage the rest of the time.

You, my friend are completly right.

They dont have to be rewritten for paladins either. Just use tactics instead of trying to trade blows with them. The paladin is now written to beat up your bad guys if they sit there in front of it.
If you allow any class to do its thing your bad guys are in for a short night.

There is no logic in your argument wraithstrike, you give yourself too much credit for making superior opponents. How bright is your party? In my campaigns, every character in- and out- of game knows that the Palladin will slaughter any evil creature (especially undead/outsider and dragon) within 2 combat rounds. So all they do is make sure the Pally gets into melee combat with the evil guy and has full round actions. And once he is there, the combat is over. Especially with a belt of battle. With a Palladin in the party, no other character should do anything else than making sure the Pally gets into melee.

Playing dumb, and as a wizard trying to burn a devil that is immune to fire is rather silly. While teleporting the Pally into range will completly neutralize the critter. There is not even much tactics in this.

Yup.. jut finished first book of legacy of fire, guess who killed the BBEG, you guessed it... the bard. Scorpion whip for 5.. dead. In fact the fighter and paladin were having a rough time combined and hasted keeping up with the BBEG damage on full attacks. If you want overpowered, bard is the way to go in pathfinder.. they are so sweet now.

Wow, I love the Bard and would like to force any of my players to play one, but according to us its so weak. When there is a bard in the party he usually has to stand back and watch out while the big guys take care of the monsters. Maybe you could give me some advice how to make a 'ok' Bard.

Some sources are broken for some players, while completly viable for others. I have seen arguments coming from you for a certain class which made no sense in my opinion, but I accept that other people have other gaming styles and a different peception.

Also I think its kinda arrogant to tell other people they don't know the rules. Technically this game is all about player perception, which cannot be proven broken or not broken, since perception differs. You like different girls (or even boys), than I do. Does that mean that one girl is uglier than the other girl? No, sorry, its all about perception.

The only scientifcally debatable broken thing in D&D are numbers. Negating all the other circumstances which depend upon the perception of the player. So if some character does on avarage 250 damage more than another, he is broken, but only if it is assumed that 250 more damage is a threshold large enough for brokness.

Perception often cannot be argued. Therefore I do not see much sense in your post, you can't blame other people for disagreeing with you, and thats pretty much what you do.

I think that they don't present the Blackguard and the Templar as new classes. Instead they are just Palladin paths for non LG characters.

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It's more like 250, actually, and by that point both the Paladin and Fighter are dealing so much damage on a full attack that there is nothing, not the oldest Red Wyrm or most advanced devil, flat nothing that has enough HP to stand toe to toe with them for more than a single round and survive, Smite or not.

Hehe you might be right here. But wait! A new monster manual is being released, maybe the monsters got some hp boost! I think they did!!

So you are suggesting that the very small % of the time when the paladin gets to "do his thing" he is OP...... right...

So when every other class in the game is "doing their thing" I guess they are OP too.

When a Barb is raging, when a fighter is... Uhhh doing everything. When a ranger is going against his favored enemy or in favored terain. When a caster is, well, casting.

Right I see how you view balance.

Yeah, if you make such silly comparisons, than I know where you come from. If you can't see the difference between a smiting Palladin with a Ranger fighting his favored enemy or a Fighter just fighting than you should....oh wait, check the graph to check the difference.

The Pally does 300 damage more in a full attack against an evil outsider/dragon/undead, that is overpowered for me, sorry.

But over the long course of his career...he is going to average out because the opportunities to smite will be 1/3.

Isn't that what I have said? The fact is that this is still a problem. When the party faces an evil creature that is an Outsider, Undead or Dragon the Palladin changes into a Super Sayan while against everything else he is basicaly a fighter.

So it is pretty clear from your table: the Palladin IS OVERPOWERED when he is smiting and is slightly UNDERPOWERED when he is not Smiting.

Crystal clear.

Works now, thanks!

This was a mistake on my part. It should be fixed now.

Still the same error occurs, I still download the second preview even when I click on the first one.

Why don't you guys just do a contest of some sorts "send in to us, Paizo, potential names for a class." Than make a large poll and let people vote for their favorite name, let them choose from between the 4 best names + the one you had in mind (Oracle).

Had seen a few websites/comapnies do simmilar stuff, works always and results are astonishing!!

PS: Personally, I also rather dislike the Oracle name, and pretty much everything mentioned here before sounds better...urg

Hello there!

One question, I was wondering can a Lion (large) grab a target while mounted? I assume it would be at least difficult for the rider to hit the grappeled target, but doesn't the mount need all his paw's to hold the knight ridding it?

Hmm, I can't find anything in the rules about this. So let me know what you think!

A 20th level fighter or barbarian that is properly built can take a pit fiend if he allows himself to be full attacked. By that argument all of the base classes are probably overpowered.

You obviously missed my earlier post where the paladin was beat down by a dragon, and an ice devil in a real game. Creatures that smart don't allow full attacks.

What do you mean what if situations? A bow is the easiest weapon to break. Sunder/disarm pick you poison.

I agree, however maybe thats than just your cup of tea, but I have never seen a barbarian or a fighter with the same damage output capacity and Damage Reduction bypassing ability against Evil Undead/Outsiders/Dragons as the Palladin. Than I'm also not considering Palladin other extraordinary powerfull abilities. But if you play in campaigns where every properly built character can kill a Pit Fiend than you probably have indeed no problems with the Palladin. We on the other hand, even though playing high power campaigns do not kill such monsters at will, except for the Palladin than.

Technically even a level 1 flying creature (imp or so) with a reach weapon can kill a lone level 20 Palladin in 1000 rounds or so since he has no innate ability to fly! DUH!!! (he could jump though or try to hurl his weapon assuming he has no bow, or only one bow which has been sundered, however his full plate armor is too heavy to jump, maybe he has a mount with wings, that could work - nah he is lost)

Anyways Smite Evil is Evil!! :-)
We have house ruled the double damage and the damage reduction bypassing. The Palladin still owns the party fighter in combat against all evil creatures, and than not considering all his other non-combat abilities. I'm just suprised so many people like it while according to me its heavily damaging to your campaign (run a combat against evil outsiders with a Palladin and without - a huge difference).

Everyone knows that if the paladin gets to the pit fiend he can kill him,

Hehe finally we agreed. This was exactly the point I'm making. And this is exactly what makes the Palladin overpowered. Lets not consider "what if situations" since "what if the Pit Fiend fails to shatter the bow" or "what if the Palladin has 2 or 3 bows" even a normal bow can kill a Pit Fiend in the hands of a Palladin after all. So not considering all the actual circumstances, Palladin and Pit Fiend builds and magic items, the Palladin can kill the creature easily in hand to hand combat, or archery as well, with his normal class abilities which are always actieve.

That was my point from the beginning and I think that this is overpowered. Also I'm pointing out that this is not only the case at level 20, but also at level 10 and even level 8. Where I have seen higher CR opponents trying to run away from the Palladin to save their ass, but failed misreable since at those level its not always possible to teleport away at will.

Technically speaking in a 1 on 1 combat it would probably be a tie, Palladin being more powerful, but Pit Fiend being more resourceful to save his ass with his abilities.

It might not be what the Paladin wants, but in what sense of "realism" would a Pit Fiend fighting a Paladin on the Paladin's own terms be?

No, but its neither realistic to position the combat miles apart. Obviously the Pit Fiend can use his tricks. What I point out is that once the Pit Fiend is hit once or twice by the Palladin he has to reconsider his tactics from the offensive into how to get out of there allive.

Once the devil gets 100 damage on one attack, if he is really as inteligent as some claim, he will know that he can't out damage the Palladin and he will have to flee.

EDIT: If you want to hurl fireballs untill the Palladin is out of lay on hands, I'm sure both the DM and the Player(s) will fall asleep at a certain point. You keep on coming with nice ways how a Palladin will fail, obviously if you really want him to, he will fail. But if you look at it realisticly, the Palladin does simply to much damage on his favored enemies forcing you to make every combat intensly complicate in order to give the buggars a chance. And he does this extra damage very often and very hard, which makes almost every combat complicated. And that is what I'm pointing out.

Anyways maybe we should just drop the Pit Fiend case.

Ah, Aura of Righteousness. Immunity to Compulsion spells, and the Power Words are compulsions (why are they compulsions? oh well...).

Still, the simple matter of greater dispel magic at will prevents a solo standard melee paladin from having any hope of killing the pit fiend. Even an archer is going to be outranged: maximum range for a composite longbow is 1,100 feet (with a -18 to hit at that range, which means even a non-iterative smite has a good chance to miss a pit fiend), while the range on a CL18 fireball is 1,120 feet.

Sorry friend, but we play battles on a grid, when someone is 1,120 Feet away he is out of grid and out of combat. Also when a creature is 1,120 Feet away and trying to do harm to my character, I would just go home (in game - get out of there) to slay the beast another day. Yes, you would play a perfect Palladin just sitting there on half a mile distance and waiting for a high level spellcaster to come near. Please lets use realistic arguments for battle examples.

This brings up another point. The supposedly overpowered paladin cant even take the 3.5 pit fiend. Once it gets the extra feats the paladin surely has no chance. It will probably get flyby attack allowing it to sunder the paladins bow or use disarm to just take it away after winning initiative, and since the paladin is flat-footed and not in threat range he cant do anything about it. We might as well call this part of the debate done.

PS: The compulsion thing is strange.

I still haven't heard any single good argument where the Pit Fied wins from the Palladin. The beast can't harm the Pally and if he does, the Pally will heal himself to supperior levels once again. Fly-by attack, we use such attacks at level 10 or even level 8, that should be no suprise for a near epic Palladin. If the dumb devil takes the flight the Palladin will get his bow and shoot the beast to pieces, or mount his flying mount and slash the poor devil. Even for grappling the Palladin will have a HUGE CMB + CMD plus he can always heal himself. Sorry guys, I willing to play this game 10 times over but as long as the Pallay bypasses the creatures demage reduction and does almost 100 damage on each attack the Pit Fiend will fly, just to save his own ass and flee from the hero that wants to slay him.

Also we play high power games, and even over here one level 20 character is not supposed to take out one CR 20 character easily.

Try that encounter again without the Wizard (so no teleport) and come back to us. Paaldin's can't teleport and so the Pit Fiend is easily able to avoid him. Paladin's are clearly too weak without a Wizard backing him up.

You completly miss the point, no matter if the entire party cooperates or if the Palladin has wings or if the wizard can teleport him. He could buy a pair of boots of teleportation as well. Thats exactly not the point. A DM can always put the party in a unfortunate situation where no one can get into reach with the monster. In such cases niether the ranger nor the rogue, nor the palladin nor the fighter really matter. But realisticly there are always encounters where the party can go into melee and the point is:

The point is that in such cases the Palladin DOES TOO MUCH DAMAGE against Evil outsiders/undead/dragons and not only at level 20 but also at level 10 and level 6.

It's silly I still have to explain this to seasoned warriors. Nevertheless, I will try to do it again.

It was a suprise encounter for the party and the Pit Fiend, yes they won initiatief and killed the beast. The point is that the Palladin spoils the fight for the rest of the party by being so incredibly important during all encounters with evil outsiders or undead. Once he is gone, the same monster can kill the party, while the Pally kills the little creature in just 1 or 2 rounds.

What I want to add is that I like the Palladin being powerfull now, but I think they have overdone it slightly, there is no shame in that. And people who really want to defend Paizo, I'm not attacking them, I love Pathfinder but everyone makes mistakes and no-one is perfect. Now we need to solve the issue of the Palladin being overpowered.

And please, invisbility, flying, code of conduct, running away, gender: are all no compensations for the Palladins brute power. His damage output is simply too high against evil undead, outsiders and dragons - it is simple math and it spoils the game.

The Invisible Man wrote:

Lets be realistic: anyone who cannot see that Smite Evil is now overpowered is at least slightly crazy :P just like people who prefer 4e instead of Pathfinder :P.

Insulting people is not the way to go. As I said before I pimp slapped the paladin. The correct phrase is that it is overpowered for your game

What level was the paladin that beat the pit fiend and how did the fight go? This remind of threads where people claim they were 12th level and defeated a dragon in 2 rounds, but when the details come up it was due to some nonsense.

What I said, he was teleported into melee range by the party wizard. Than did his full attack and hit three times doing around 280 damage. The Paladin was level 20. And no character is supposed to defeat a Pit Fiend in one round, something is broken if that happens.

If he would have two weapon fighting I'm sure he would have done at least 400 damage. Now I think of it, two-weapon fighting should be banned for Palladins with Smite Evil. Very brutal!

Lets be realistic: anyone who cannot see that Smite Evil is now overpowered is at least slightly crazy :P just like people who prefer 4e instead of Pathfinder :P.

The level 20 Palladin from our group defeated a Pit Fiend on his own in one round. The wizard only teleported the Pally next to the Fiend. Obviously this is not so strange, my Enchanter 20 defeated a Pit Fiend on his own as well (this was some time ago already in another campaign - we don't fight Pit Fiend's every day), but my enchanter is much more vulnerable to attacks while the Palladin is pretty much untouchable, except for area damage spells, and even than he can heal a trillion d6 of hitpoints.

I like the better Paladin as well, but lets just all admit they have overdone it at least a little and focus this discussion towards a reasonable house rule.

We have house ruled the Smite now: no bypassing DR and no double damage. The Smite still owns, but at least the poor Pit Fiend lives.

The Invisible Man

Don't fancy losing my Dex bonus and -2 to my AC for a round....Especially if there's a rogue about to sneak attack!

Unless you are the rogue or you have a AC of 33 because of your awesome magical super duper full plate armor and shield, if you are none of that you are F*****. :P

Therefore mirror image is just a stupid spell, it cannot give someone more than 50% miss-chance. Since its better to close your eyes and swing than to keep them open and aim.

Still I don't like the fact that the spell is not affected by area magic and that it can even cancel touch spells (I know this was already implemented in Beta). This is more powerful against offensive spells than defensive spells obviously.

I don't like the dispel magic change as well, in our last campaign a wizard dispelled 10 or so spells with his dispel magic. He threw incredibly high, call it luck or destiny, nevertheless this is now impossible. Dispelling will be more difficult now. These changes make casters MORE powerful and the rest, well stay the same.

I will probably keep the old (3.5) versions of those spells, I can't like everything from Pathfinder. Furthermore there is little exciting to this character. Although I'm a great fan of pathfinder, these previews does not make me particularly hot or happy! How about the bard class stats!? I'm looking forward to those!! :-D

Anyone feels mirror image is overpowered for a level 1 spell? The only way to get rid of it now is to make x attacks (and hit) or dispel it. And once its gone the wizard will simply recast it since its that good.

I would now definately choose a mirror image over displacement, and even over invisibility. There is almost no weak element to this 2nd level spell.

I must say this is great. I was looking forward to 4th edition untill I got it, after a few hours of studying I returned the books back to the store. Than I found out about you guys - and I love you. You made my day!

Saterday we are beginning a new campaign and it will be a Pathfinder one.