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So I got my group together for the first time to playtest tonight, we were really excited that part 2 just happened to come out at the same time as our first session.
The party consisted of an elf wizard, human fighter, gnome paladin, and dwarven druid we started they started at level 1. Since we were eager to see how the classes worked out we didn't roleplay and went straight to combat.
I threw 8 goblins at them since I figured the classes and races are a lot tougher at level 1.
The fight went well, but the paladin player was very dissatisfied (granted these problems were here with 3.5, but he wanted them fixed with 4e).
Problem 1: Detect evil, since the goblins used a surprise attack the paladin wasted his first round to detect evil because as he said "I only have one use a day and I'm not wasting it on the one nuetral goblin on earth." since goblins had already closed with him in the surprise round he didn't even move for fear of AoOs only took a five foot step. In 3.5 I had houseruled that detect evil was always on, but that it took a move equivalent action to focus and see auras (that way a paladin could site and smite in the same round) and this worked pretty well.
Problem 2: after using his one smite for the day on the leader of the goblins (which did result in a one hit kill which he liked) they found tracks leading into the woods, the rest of the party wanted to continue and see if they could wipe out the rest of the goblins (track no longer being a feat requirement went over big) but the paladin wanted to rest seeing as he had used his only first level feature his feat was combat expertise so he really had nothing going for him, at least the wizard and druid still had cantrips and orisons.
We had a long discussion about fixes for it that boiled down to two choices, making smite evil per encounter, this would make the paladin capable of ignoring the 5 minute work day and make him a little bit less of a crappy fighter but still only having one an encounter till level 4 means that a paladin really is a bit of a suckfest. The other choice, and the one we are working with right now, is that smite evil is a # per day X your CHA bonus, so with his 18 cha he has 4 a day. At 4th he'll have 8 per dy, 7th 12 etc. The only worry with this is that towards the end unless you really stick to the multiple encounters per day, you'll have a paladin basically smiting every round and since there's no way to accidentally smite non evil there's no reason not to. We talked about removing the it doesn't work if you smite a non-evil that way a paladin ran the risk of loosing powers for smiting those that didn't deserve it, but we weren't sure if that was enough to prevent or how other gamers would feel about it. it might even make the paladin too powerful.
As it stands the player wants to switch out his character until we run playtests at level 5 because he feels that until level 4 the paladin is still a (in his terms) suckfest.
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Honestly, I would seriously consider giving paladins their spells earlier. Since they're already lowered casters, why not go ahead and make them more like holy bards in that they get weak casting from the beginning? There would be a certain symmetry there, and it would let paladins have more than their one-trick pony daily smite.
Jeremy Puckett
Interestingly, before Alpha 2 came out, I ran playtests with a Gnome Paladin against a number of enemies at levels 5, 10, and 15. Of course, I used the Pathfinder rules for character advancement and the 3.5 Paladin progression. And what I found wasn't super good.
- Level 5: The Paladin was able to fight boss battles and hold his own against many of the enemies of his level. But he's a real one-trick pony, and if you put him in a situation where he can't lance things, he basically fights like a Warrior - which means that he gets clubbed. Furthermore, he has no real staying power. Once he uses his daily smites and healing, he comes up short again and again. In short, he's barely keeping up in about one conflict a day, and then he is relegated to the status of NPC character.
- Level 10: The Paladin was not able to keep up. At all. His tricks were numerically and breadth wise insufficient to deal with the problems posed by enemies of his level. There were occasional encounters where he could show his stuff, but in general he didn't do enough damage to pop enemies quickly with his lance charge and he didn't have anything to fall back on. Not only did he run out of steam quickly, but his full steam just wasn't that interesting.
- Level 15: The Paladin was even farther behind. At this point, he basically fought like an animal companion. His available daily healing was no longer sufficient to swing the tide of battle in individual combats, and his attacks weren't big enough to really sway enemies. I distinctly got the impression that most enemies of his level would seriously just ignore him to deal with other characters.
Going over my notes and the Pathfinder A2 update, I can't really see anything that would have made a difference. At 5th level he's literally exactly the same, and at 10th level he's picked up a single daily Smite and immunity to charms. And while that's not nothing, it seriously wouldn't do much in the majority of the battles he fought in, and its overall impact in the daily grind is precious close to zero.
Things a Paladin needs:
- A Better Mount This is D&D. People ride Hippogriffs at level 5. If you get a class feature that is "has a really good mount" then that mount had better be good. Like, Hippogriff good. Hopefully better than that. If you have a special mount that comes in at levels 5+ and it doesn't fly, it had better be able to breathe fire or be bear-strong or something. A horse with extra hit dice is insulting.
- Have more Daily Stamina. Life in the fast lane is painful and short when your abilities expend themselves in one combat. And while that would be excusable if your abilities were things like "all enemies must save or die" (like a Wizard's sleep), the Paladin's Smites and Lay on Hands aren't nearly that good, especially at later levels. A Paladin should be able to recover Smites in a few minutes of not fighting. At later levels, a Paladin should be able to recover all of their Lay on Hands points a couple of times a day - the linear nature of Lay on Hands does not by itself keep up with the exponential daily healing needs of a party.
- Have a more versatile Smite. Smite Evil only really works with Charge Builds. The damage bonus does not keep up with the hit point inflation of higher levels, nor does it keep up with the rate of attacks that combat styles other than lancing grant. What Smite Evil should do is grant the bonus on all attacks made during a round, because that way it would work with Two Weapon Fighting, or Chain Fighting, or Sword and Shield Fighting, or any of the other combat styles which don't rely on getting a small number of attacks and applying a damage multiplier to them.
- Keep Up with Turning. The damage/healing caused by Channeling Positive Energy is a joke. If anything, Paladins should be better at channeling positive energy than clerics, because they don't do anything else.
- Have something to do at High Level. The 3.5 Paladin stops getting abilities at 5th level. The Pathfinder Paladin gets a few abilities straggling in there every 3 levels or so, but this is in no way sufficient to deal with the 3 level power jump between a Stone Giant and a Cloud Giant. The ability to penetrate DR/Good is a 2nd level Cleric Spell, and it is a poor substitute for real character abilities at 14th level.
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And yeah, it would be nice if Paladin Spellcasting was replaced with something that we gave a crap about, or if Paladins could get a better set of Saves, but I doubt that's going to happen.
-Frank
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I'm not gonna comment on the higher level stuff since we haven't playtested, and I'm not even sure the player will want to playtest it again. But the character was interesting, he was really excited that gnome's made good paladins too due to the con and cha bonus. He weilds a greatsword so that he could eventually go powerattack and make up for his str and size penalty. Good rolls still had him with a 15 str after racial adjustment, he used dex as his dump stat and wants imp init. and mithral full plate to make up for it. he loves that feats are every other level now as before it would have taken him to level 9 to do that and now he will have it at level 5 (well maybe not the mithral) and then begin along feat selection for powers (he wants me to let complete divine and champion in but I'm not for our playtest).
Problem 2: after using his one smite for the day on the leader of the goblins (which did result in a one hit kill which he liked)
We had a long discussion about fixes for it that boiled down to two choices, making smite evil per encounter, this would make the paladin capable of ignoring the 5 minute work day and make him a little bit less of a crappy fighter but still only having one an encounter till level 4 means that a...
I've always thought that the paladin should get more uses of Smite per day. Maybe something based off his Charisma. Like half your Cha bonus + 1 per two lvls per day.
Secondly do you think the fact that the Paladin was a Gnome hampered his physical presence?
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How so, being small size in no way affects the abilities, other than a reduced damage die. He was still a capable character, but as opposed to the other characters he had one choice, make his AC go up and hope to get high rolls after he used that single smite.
Well if you base it off of cha, why have it be half at all, why not just say 1+your cha bonus per day? that way a 20 cha paladin would have 6 per day at level one, while that seems like a lot, you have to remember that he has no other abilities, so he probably will use at least two a fight unless he goes nova, three fights is not going to kill the system.
How so, being small size in no way affects the abilities, other than a reduced damage die. He was still a capable character, but as opposed to the other characters he had one choice, make his AC go up and hope to get high rolls after he used that single smite.
Well if you base it off of cha, why have it be half at all, why not just say 1+your cha bonus per day? that way a 20 cha paladin would have 6 per day at level one, while that seems like a lot, you have to remember that he has no other abilities, so he probably will use at least two a fight unless he goes nova, three fights is not going to kill the system.
1. A reduced dmg die is nothing to scoff at. And coupled that with the Gnomes -2 to Str. and it could greatly hamper a Paladins physical prowess. Not saying it's not doable though. I have a Gnome barbarian in my party.
2. Well setting a flat rate for Smite is kinda boring. It's more fun to see a core ability grow with the character. So maybe Cha. bonus +1 per 2 lvls. could be a nice compromise so long as it doesn't unbalance the character at low lvls.
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I agree, that's why we never seriously considered that option.
The gnome rolled two 17 and put one of them in Str the other in Cha giving him a respectable 15 str and a 19 Cha. I agree that the die decrease hurts, but he two handed a greatsword so he still has a respectable damage output. He averaged about 6 damage a hit, at higher levels he wants to take power attack to further enhance his damage output. His real hurt was in AC but his size bonus made up for his dex negative and he plans for that mithral full plate so I think he's doing a good job of min/maxing (not optimizing or powergaming, just min/maxing). Now the only question is if he is willing to stick with the class seeing as its such a "suckfest" till level 4. I hate repeating myself but I don't want to always have to houserule smites to a per encounter basis, I want them to be playable through the low levels, especially since they can't multiclass.
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I've always thought that the paladin should get more uses of Smite per day. Maybe something based off his Charisma. Like half your Cha bonus + 1 per two lvls per day.
Yep, that's a good and pretty easy solution to the problem. I would even give them 3 + CHA Bonus so it would not be an overkill at higher levels, but it would feel significant at lower levels and make paladins "shine" in melee, too.
Talking about Smite (and I've posted this on three threads now ;)) ... to make paladins more "versatile", I think their class abilities should work just like the barbarian's do (with Rage Points): why wouldn't the paladins get "Smite Points", or whatever you wish to call them. You could activate any of your Paladin Auras, Weapon Bond, Smite Evil, etc. -- why not even Turn Undead/Channel Positive Energy? That would be mechanically consistent, too, because barbarian's abilities work like this, as noted.
And, I'd personally give paladins "Shield Bond", too, so you could channel divine energy into your shield instead of your weapon. (compare to the 3E Feat 'Divine Shield'). Or perhaps there should be Divine Feats which lets you do that, and also give your more Auras to pick from? In any case it would be cool if you could upgrade or enhance your auras. For example: 'Aura of the Martyr' which would work like the 3E FR paladin (4th level) spell 'Glory of the Martyr' -- you take half of all physical damage dealt to all allied creatures within your aura.
Thoughts?
Yeah, Gnome Paladins are great synergy. You get a -2 to damage (the size bonus to-hit cancels the strength penalty), and +1 AC. Also you get +1 to-hit while smiting and racial bonuses against many common opponents. But it's just not enough, and the woefully insufficient smites is only the tip of the iceberg.
As for Divine Feats, I would like them to go away. Positive Energy Channeling should just be something good for Paladins to do with their life, rather than making it useless and then forcing every Paladin to spend a feat to trade it for something they actually want.
-Frank
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As for Divine Feats, I would like them to go away. Positive Energy Channeling should just be something good for Paladins to do with their life, rather than making it useless and then forcing every Paladin to spend a feat to trade it for something they actually want.
-Frank
Well now that it heals allies, I don't think it's as much of a waste, but the fact that they need divine feats just to be useful is a major design flaw. I would rather play a hexblade personally than a paladin, and just pretend my hexblade was a paladin, hey you know, that actually sounds like a good character concept, I think I know what I'm playing in my next game :)
Interestingly, before Alpha 2 came out, I ran playtests with a Gnome Paladin against a number of enemies at levels 5, 10, and 15. Of course, I used the Pathfinder rules for character advancement and the 3.5 Paladin progression. And what I found wasn't super good.
- Level 5: The Paladin was able to fight boss battles and hold his own against many of the enemies of his level. But he's a real one-trick pony, and if you put him in a situation where he can't lance things, he basically fights like a Warrior - which means that he gets clubbed. Furthermore, he has no real staying power. Once he uses his daily smites and healing, he comes up short again and again. In short, he's barely keeping up in about one conflict a day, and then he is relegated to the status of NPC character.
- Level 10: The Paladin was not able to keep up. At all. His tricks were numerically and breadth wise insufficient to deal with the problems posed by enemies of his level. There were occasional encounters where he could show his stuff, but in general he didn't do enough damage to pop enemies quickly with his lance charge and he didn't have anything to fall back on. Not only did he run out of steam quickly, but his full steam just wasn't that interesting.
- Level 15: The Paladin was even farther behind. At this point, he basically fought like an animal companion. His available daily healing was no longer sufficient to swing the tide of battle in individual combats, and his attacks weren't big enough to really sway enemies. I distinctly got the impression that most enemies of his level would seriously just ignore him to deal with other characters.
Going over my notes and the Pathfinder A2 update, I can't really see anything that would have made a difference. At 5th level he's literally exactly the same, and at 10th level he's picked up a single daily Smite and immunity to charms. And while that's not nothing, it seriously wouldn't do much in the majority of the...
What if using the paladin's smite was a free action that gave a bonus to damage on all attacks for that round?
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Smite evil once a day might be worthy if it was a seriously big hit. But it's frequently not.
In my 3.5 RotRL campaign I gave my Paladin player a sword with a special ability to allow him to smite evil an extra # of times per day = to his CHA modifier. It's worked great and has been NO game-breaker.
I was very surprised to see it still 1 time a day in Alpha 2.
-DM Jeff
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In my 3.5 RotRL campaign I gave my Paladin player a sword with a special ability to allow him to smite evil an extra # of times per day = to his CHA modifier. It's worked great and has been NO game-breaker.
This is the big point, I can't think of a single DM who would like to see a paladin in pathfinder running around at level 1 with the rest of the classes, they need something more going for them than an aura that someone with detect good sees.
Thought: At first level, Smite Evil means that your melee attacks against Evil opponents get 1 + Str Mod + Cha Mod to-hit, and inflict W + Str + 1 damage. That's still less of a bonus than raging at this level.
In short, if Smite Evil was on literally all the time, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. In fact, a 1st level Paladin would still struggle to justify his existence next to a Barbarian who had less MAD, more hit points, more skill points, and inflicted more damage.
While at first it looks like the Paladin is getting a bigger to-hit bonus than the "mere" +2 from Raging, he actually isn't. Because Paladins end up Charisma focused, they end up having Charisma as a primary and Strength as a secondary. Thus, their base to-hit can and should be thought of as being Charisma based. So looking back at our playtest Gnome, he's actually getting just a +2 to-hit (his Strength bonus), and a +1 to damage (his level). And that's less than a turn of Raging.
So yeah, as near as I can see, just making Smite Evil into a constant ability at first level and getting rid of the concept of Smites/Day would not only fail to break the class - it wouldn't even make the class into an high performer at first (or any) level. The character would still need to do other tings to justify his existence. I suggest:
- A Good Will Save.
- Lay on Hands from Level 1 (it's level dependent anyway, it won't break a thing).
- Full leveled Channeling when they get it at all. Getting an ability that behaves as if you were lower level is never appropriate at any level. Being bad at your own class features is a slap in the face.
- A much faster Aura Progression. He doesn't need Diabloesque Auras, but seeing him cause Save penalties to enemies in his reach like a Blackguard would give much needed synergy with spellcasting characters and help justify his existence nicely.
- Some actual high level abilities that vaguely compete against a Cleric sitting back and dumping a few 6th level spells into self and party buffs.
- Much better spellcasting. Caster level and spell effects should be level appropriate.
- Example Spellcasting idea: since spell levels on Paladin Spells are so low, it would not be broken for the Save DCs to be 10 + Wisdom Modifier + Charisma Modifer.
- Second Spellcasting idea: Character should have a reasonable number of spells per day. As is, keeping your Wisdom up to get a single 1st level spell at 5th level is a joke, and the most successful Paladins I've seen have used Wisdom as a dump stat.
-Frank
My paladin fix had two bonus auras: one that worked like the blackguard's/paladin of tyranny's and another that worked like the paladin of slaughter's.
Paladins should have:[list]Like what? Follow more like a fighter I say.Some actual high level abilities that vaguely compete against a Cleric sitting back and dumping a few 6th level spells into self and party buffs.
Let's put things in perspective. Imagine for the moment that instead of having a Paladin in the party, you had a Cleric who dumped divine power and divine favor on himself backed up by Persistent Spell (certainly an option in high level play as things currently stand). Now imagine that he took his Paladin replacement role seriously and spent some spell slots from each of his high level slots on party buffs.
That's what's on the table in the over ten bracket. And we aren't really even trying here or diving into splat book spells like spikes (all allies do +10 damage) or persistent vigorous circle (all allies have Fast Healing 3).
-Frank
well just to have said what I feel should be said. I really like the feel of the old fashioned paladin.
So... you want him to be incapable of hording money or owning more than he can presently carry and to be surrounded at all times by an abjuration effect 20 feet across that creatures of evil literally cannot cross?
-Frank
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Just to chime in on my thoughts and experiences with smite, my latest paladin character (not using P-RPG rules) has taken the Charging smite feature instead of a mount from the Players Handbook II. with his 17 Cha and 16 Str at 6th level he can charge in with his Greatsword with an attack bonus of +11 doing 2d6+4 damage. If I choose to charging smite I get +14 to hit and do a whopping 2d6+22 points of damage! plus if I miss the attack isn't wasted.
I've taken extra smite as my 6th level feat giving me smite evil 4 times per day and if need be I can further increase the damage with power attack. This makes me a very effective combatant with the sacrifice of a mount which isn't necessary as the campaign has us climbing a mountain to reach a tower.
The use of smite on a charge does kind of force me to use it once per encounter but I was waying the use of smite versus a standard full attack.
If I get +9/+4 with a damage of 2d6 +4 each hit my average damage is 20. with the charging smite the average is 28, with a normal smite added to my full attack its 26, overall the damage increase isn't that much of an increase on average DPR (damage per round). Its not much more powerful than a rogue level dip to gain sneak attack really although the chance to hit is significantly improved and sneak attack can be used whenever the requirements are met.
While I feel adding smite 1/day per paladin level would be too powerful I do think simply removing the "use is wasted if you miss" option needs to be removed.
I'm not advocating that smite should be as powerful as sneak attack, simply because sneak attack is the payoff for a weaker BAB that rogues deserve, what I would want to see is a little more flexibility with a paladins smite as a defining ability and not so much of a hit or miss feature.
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Well, I'm not a fan of turning smite into a always on ability, I think smite should be something that you choose to use, it just needs an overhaul to make it playable at all levels. Also I think if the first level aura did more, could the aura of good operate as an always on protection from evil, then I could understand everything else being a little weaker, correct me if I'm wrong and it already is like this I haven't looked at the book since the playtest.
Unfortunately I didn't have to play test the new Paly to see the level 1-4 suck-fest that it is.
Quite frankly the update for the Pathfinder RPG did nothing to fix the problems with the class that have existed since the 3e release.
I do not like the point system suggestion, it adds a layer of complexity that I think we need to move away from, not embrace. I say this about rage points as well.
I will again say that smite evil is nowhere on par with a core rules barbarian's rage. I will also again say that the smite should be 1/combat, not 1/day.
Here is a link to my post on how I think smite should be handled:
Paladin Smite Suggestion
Bryan Blumklotz
AKA Saracenus
One suggestion that came up in our games with paladins in 3.5 was quite good. The paladin lost the ability to smite evil, but the spell selection was expanded slightly to add a couple offensive options, and they were given the ability to take reserve feats. Also their weapon gained a minor fire component that progressive got better as they leveled until any weapon they did their prayers with automatically added +1d8 fire damage. I played that paladin from 1st until 15th and never felt the least bit underpowered. I always felt I was contributing to the group damage wise and healing, but I did take two reserve feats (fiery brust and healing touch).
Some of you might not like these ideas, but just thought I would throw it out there.
I mistakenly presented other problems I have found with the paladin class in the general forums. Nevertheless it has generated a lot of discussion and some interesting ideas for fixes if you would like to come visit.
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Yeah I took a look at your thread when this one slowed down, the issue that I don't agree with what you see as some of the issues of the paladin class, I don't think there is anything wrong with MAD I think the issue is honestly with SAD, I would prefer other classes be turned to MAD then see MAD classes go SAD.
also I didn't feel that the thread (although good ideas did spring up) should be bumped cause it was out of place and based off of reaction and not actual playtesting.
This thread is trying to deal with an actual playtesting issue which is that while the other classes are able to continue going like little energizer bunnies, our poor pally was out of use after one fight.
Yeah I took a look at your thread when this one slowed down, the issue that I don't agree with what you see as some of the issues of the paladin class, I don't think there is anything wrong with MAD I think the issue is honestly with SAD, I would prefer other classes be turned to MAD then see MAD classes go SAD.
also I didn't feel that the thread (although good ideas did spring up) should be bumped cause it was out of place and based off of reaction and not actual playtesting.
This thread is trying to deal with an actual playtesting issue which is that while the other classes are able to continue going like little energizer bunnies, our poor pally was out of use after one fight.
Actually there is a fair bit of playtesting involved in my conclusions. Its just that its all basically damage calculations and mock battles based on common situations rather than playing with other people (Most of my play group is in college, so they hardly have time to keep our weekly campaigns going, let alone indulge my playtesting theories).
To give you an example of the kind of work I did, I put together a fairly typical party of Paladin, Druid, Rogue, Wizard. The wizard was an evocation specialist, and the druid focused on healing. The rogue was melee duel wield and the paladin was his flanking buddy, focusing on tanking and some riding skills. Point buy was a 28.
I challenged the party at 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th levels in various ways. At first level, there were the typical challenges against goblins, orcs, small animated objects, and zombies. At third level things became a bit more interesting, facing down Ghasts, Ogres, a Grick, and a viper pit filled with 3 large vipers. At 5th level the party faced a huge animated object, a basilisk and a zombie umber hulk. At 10th level the party faced a Clay Golem (Lame!) a Bebilith Demon, a group of harpies led by a harpy 6th level fighter, and a pair of colossal monstrous spiders.
My conclusions mirrored yours in many ways. A paladin has no staying power, particularly compared to the other melee classes, fighter and barbarian, and doesn't have the raw power or diversity offered by a melee cleric (although a paladin doesn't have to spend the same amount of time buffing). Repeated combats wear down a paladin's resources very quickly and he doesnt typicly have the raw stats to keep going just with his melee abilities.
A paladin has to spread his money out to cover all his jobs, making him progressively weaker as the game reaches higher levels. Even with the new abilities, the paladin doesn't scale into the higher levels very well.
The paladin does have some upsides. The paladin that chooses to forgo his melee stats and focus entirely on charisma and defense is very difficult to take down by any means other than raw force. Even the standard 16 Cha pally shines whenever repeated saves become an issue, although even then you can roll low. The change from turn undead to channel positive energy is a boost, but doesn't come into play as often as one might hope. Paladin spell-casting and low number of skill points is still a problem.
I am happy that you found some of our ideas helpful. I hope you will leave your conclusions about their relevancy to the designers. Hopefully I will be able to post more, but right now I am late for a class ^_^
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I did, I enjoyed the thread, and like you said relevancy is not for me to determine. However, having seen the pally played I can say that it would work best with a better defined code, (prevent that okay kill them in their sleep it's okay they're evil debates)and some abilities that keep him from being a one combat wonder, personally I want the aura of good to act as a prot from evil within 30ft effect. and a smite system that doesn't just say, well that was a waste now what do I do?