Paladin of Wee Jas? What is this madness!


3.5/d20/OGL


I had someone who had their heart set on playing a paladin of Wee Jas. Being a kind-hearted DM, I acquiesced, and let them. Being that a holy-roller isn't really the kind of divine champion I imagine when I think of the Lady of Death, I tweaked the character.

Here is the variant I came up with - let me know if you think it is appropriate and balanced.

SKILLS: Replaced Knowledge(nobility), Ride, Heal, and Handle Animal with Knowledge(arcana) and Use Magic Device.

ABILITIES: I replaced a paladins summoned mount with the +2/level damage on a charging smite attack, and also changed the smite to only include evil outsiders, undead, and wizards in direct opposition to the will of the paladin's deity. Rather than Detect Evil, the paladin receives Detect Magic.

SPELLS: I completely removed spells and the lay on hands ability. Rather than healing points, the characters receives points of distributable Spell Resistance - thus a 9th level paladin with a charisma bonus of +2 has 18 points of Spell Resistance that she can besotw (no more than her CL + charisma bonus on a single target).

Is it too weak? Too powerful? Should I throw in Extra Turning as a bonus feat?


David Davidson wrote:
I had someone who had their heart set on playing a paladin of Wee Jas. Being a kind-hearted DM, I acquiesced, and let them... Here is the variant I came up with - let me know if you think it is appropriate and balanced.

I rather like it. Only one question -- how long does the bestowable SR last? Personally, I'd make that very limited.

Paizo Employee Director of Narrative

With Wee Jas a deity of magic, I would reconsider eliminating spell use.


David Davidson wrote:
...Should I throw in Extra Turning as a bonus feat?

It would probably be Rebuke Undead.


Daigle wrote:
With Wee Jas a deity of magic, I would reconsider eliminating spell use.

I like that you are allowing a Paladin of Wee Jas. I think that's awesome.

I also like that you're tweaking the class to best fit the character type.

But I agree that the Paladin should retain spell casting. Perhaps you could give arcane spells instead? Or maybe a spontaneous arcane spell caster?

I'm sure you could easily copy a spell list from some PrC or other limited arcane spell caster class.

I'm curious how your paladin will handle working with potentially evil clerics of Wee Jas. That's the best thing I've liked about the idea of Paladins of Wee Jas.

In my campaigns, Paladins fall under the clerics of their church, and are duty bound (to an extent) to follow the orders of those clerics.

Since paladins don't work for evil characters, I particularly like Paladins of Wee Jas because they are now duty bound to potentially follow the orders of an evil cleric.

I like that.

That scenario is also one of the fundamental things I like about Eberron. It's way more common, since alignment restrictions are pretty much out the door.

Liberty's Edge

David Davidson wrote:

I had someone who had their heart set on playing a paladin of Wee Jas. Being a kind-hearted DM, I acquiesced, and let them. Being that a holy-roller isn't really the kind of divine champion I imagine when I think of the Lady of Death, I tweaked the character.

Here is the variant I came up with - let me know if you think it is appropriate and balanced.

SKILLS: Replaced Knowledge(nobility), Ride, Heal, and Handle Animal with Knowledge(arcana) and Use Magic Device.

ABILITIES: I replaced a paladins summoned mount with the +2/level damage on a charging smite attack, and also changed the smite to only include evil outsiders, undead, and wizards in direct opposition to the will of the paladin's deity. Rather than Detect Evil, the paladin receives Detect Magic.

SPELLS: I completely removed spells and the lay on hands ability. Rather than healing points, the characters receives points of distributable Spell Resistance - thus a 9th level paladin with a charisma bonus of +2 has 18 points of Spell Resistance that she can besotw (no more than her CL + charisma bonus on a single target).

Is it too weak? Too powerful? Should I throw in Extra Turning as a bonus feat?

I like some of the ideas. I do, however, agree with the previous poster that this Paladin should get some spellcasting like the regular ones, and that it should be Arcane since we're dealing with a goddess of magic.

The Spell Resistance swap for Lay on Hands is clever, very clever. However, there is a potentially big problem here. If it works exactly as Lay on Hands, then this new Paladin has the ability to boost his SR ridiculously high. At 8th level, with a Charisma of 16, this character can in one shot, boost his, or an ally's, SR to 24. Once at Level ten the same character can have a 30+ SR. This ability either needs revision, or make it short term. Say, 1 minute per application, and dropping half now, and half later doesn't extend the duration of the first half. This way, he can give himself or his allies a temporary boost, or use them all at once for a big fight, but can't use it all day.

Here's another idea that fits with this variation. This new Paladin does get a companion, but not a Mount like normal. Instead, he gets a Familiar as a Sorcerer three levels lower(similar to the Ranger's Animal Companion being a lesser form of the Druid's). This still fits with the idea of this warrior being more Arcane than Divine.

Also, instead of calling this character a Paladin, to help differentiate, how about referring to this new class as an Arcane Champion?

Only one more potential problem I can see. By the PHB, LN Clerics(and to an extent, one could say, Paladins) who serve Wee Jas cannot Turn/Destroy Undead, they Rebuke/Command them.


David Davidson wrote:
SKILLS: Replaced Knowledge(nobility), Ride, Heal, and Handle Animal with Knowledge(arcana) and Use Magic Device.

Class skills are as a whole arbitrary and unnecessary, so changing a few of them around isn't going to affect balance.

David Davidson wrote:
ABILITIES: I replaced a paladins summoned mount with the +2/level damage on a charging smite attack, and also changed the smite to only include evil outsiders, undead, and wizards in direct opposition to the will of the paladin's deity. Rather than Detect Evil, the paladin receives Detect Magic.

Is this paladin LG or LN? I think limiting his smite to specific evil-doers and removing his ability to identify them is a needless handicap. If the character is LG, just leave the smite ability as-is and add Detect Magic to his spell list. If he's LN, give him Smite Chaos rather than Smite Evil.

David Davidson wrote:
SPELLS: I completely removed spells and the lay on hands ability. Rather than healing points, the characters receives points of distributable Spell Resistance - thus a 9th level paladin with a charisma bonus of +2 has 18 points of Spell Resistance that she can besotw (no more than her CL + charisma bonus on a single target).

Spell Resistance should always be based on a set base number plus level. I'd change this ability to something like "you can bestow spell resistance on a number of allies equal to your charisma bonus. if you have no Cha bonus you may only grant yourself SR. your granted SR equals 11 + your paladin level."

David Davidson wrote:
Is it too weak? Too powerful? Should I throw in Extra Turning as a bonus feat?

Right now I'd say it's weaker than the standard paladin, but not by leaps and bounds.

TS

The Exchange

I have done this many times. I felt no need to change the class any, just had them be Paladins in red. Then I had a PrC that allowed them to take on and fight undead more directly. These Paladins were few since they did not believe in resurrection since that takes a soul away from the red lady. They also had a very romantic side to them since these were paladins of the lady of lust. It makes for a very interesting twist and it turns out very well. In point of fact in Greyhawk I allowed any Paladin to follow a deity that was with-in 1 alignment change from lawful good such as a cleric might want to do.


Sounds like an awesome character. As far as spells are concerned I agree that the character should retain spellcasting but it should be arcane. Perhaps they could retain their spell progression but choose spells from the Bard list instead. This way the character can still have some healing but will have more offensive arcane spell options. That's what i would do, anyway.

In my Shackled City game I have all gestalt characters and one of them is playing a paladin/druid. She has to be LG but is having a good time with it. I always felt that paladins were a little too restrictive and like to change it up a little. Even back in 2nd Ed I used to allow evil of neutral paladins depending on the god they follow.


Wow - I was really impresed with the input. I've taken into consideration everything said and finalized it as such, using a few variant paladin rules:

Spellcasting: The idea for the paladin is more of a arcane defender rather than an actual arcanist - as such, I deigned to nix giving him the abilities to cast spells as his abilities need to focus around arcane defense, rather than arcane offense. Though I used canon DnD deities, I made Wee Jas a little more... friendly.

ALIGNMENT: LN

SKILLS: Remove Ride, Animal Empathy, Heal, and Knowledge (nobility); add Knowledge (arcana), Use Magic Device, and Spellcraft.

DETECT/SMITE: Remove Detect Evil, add Detect Magic. Lost Smite Evil and gained Smite Undead/Opposed Spellcaster (this will eliminate the issue of having a paladin with a useless Smite Evil when he cannot use Detect Evil). It will be my decision whether or not a spellcaster is actually directly opposed to the goddess' will.

TURN UNDEAD: Changed to Rebuke Undead - I think this will be a good swap for spells, considering that a good paladin's spells aren't all that great, and allowing him to have a personal strike-force of undead creatures more than makes up for it.

SPELLS: Still no spells.

OTHER ABILITIES: Removed Mount as in PHB II. Replaced Remove Disease with Aura of Disrupt Undead (Undead cannot be summoned/created within aura, all undead within aura take -2 to attack and damage rolls). Removed Aura of Courage and replaced with Aura of Sanctity (Paladin immune to death effects, allies within aura gain +4 bonus on saves against death spells).

Finally, the Lay on Hands change - glad you thought it was clever.

Paladin can use Lay on Hand points to grant self and allies SR equal to points spent. HOWEVER - these points only last 1 round/level + CHA modifier - ex. A paladin of 3rd level with a CHA mod of 2 could grant SR for 5 rounds(if you think this is too weak, I was thinking of making it 1 min./level). A paladin can only bestow a maximum number of SR on allies and self equal to his Paladin level + CHA modifier. A paladin of 11th level with a CHA modifier of 3 could therefore only bestow a maximum of 14 points SR on a single character - this makes it impossible for a high-level paladin to give someone ZOMG spell resistance. I figured that this is balanced, because at 11th level the party will be fighting some high-level casters with Spell Penetration, and even a lower-level caster, as long as they roll over 10 on the d20, will be able to surpass it.

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