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There's only one thing that bothers me with the new modifications on the Paladin, and this is the 1d6 per 2 levels of the Smite versus Evil Outsiders and Undead.
The player in my group said just yesterday: "Boy, it would have been better if the guy was NOT an Evil outsider but a plain evil character... at least, I would not have rolled so badly!"The fact that the Paladin has become a better character is obvious.
The fact that Smite Evil has been improved is obvious.
The fact that Smite Evil SHOULD be better against Evil Outsiders and Undead is not so obvious.Sure, the "bypass all DR of the creature" that works only against Undead and Fiends is a life-saver, BUT: the fact that the bonus damage is a random variable, that this variable cannot be multiplied in case of the scoring of a critical hit, and the fact that a poor roll can result in a damage lower than that against a "plain vanilla" evil monster is a bit... discouraging.
Let's talk of facts: a 3rd level Paladin (my player's one) deals 3 extra damage (can be multiplied if a critical hit is scored) against evil monsters BUT only 1d6 (possible result, as effectively happened = 1) against the Paladin's nemesis... and this cannot be multiplied if he scores a critical hit.
My solution would be to ADD the "1d6 for every 2 levels" to the regular "1 per paladin level" bonus damage of the Smite against a Fiend or an Undead.
In that case, a critical would multiply AT LEAST the fixed bonus; also, a poor roll would however be a BONUS on the basic bonus of the Smite Evil.
Just my 2c.
Rolls can hurt you, but then again they can also easily double the damage from your crit. If your paladin rolls a 6 next time, which is what your smite would be doubled to on a crit, but he doesn't crit is he going to complain. Yes it can turn out worst for a character, but on average its better, and then when luck is with you it's way better. Next level he gains an extra d6. On two bad rolls he is worst, on one roll he equal and on all the rest he is better than before. And here's the really great thing, on the best roll possible he is dealing x3 over what he is capable of with his current smite.
Does that make the occasional bad rolls suck less? not really, but the odds are in his favor for doing better all the time. I'm willing to accept that. And don't forget at least now he gets the AC boost as well.
And remember, I'm dealing x4 damage with a crit from my character, so I know I'm loosing out on the dice rolls when dealing with crits, but crits are rare as they are unless you're playing a crit build, and smites are rare enough do to their limited duration so depending on to rare events to coincide cause it will be better then, isn't in my opinion worth having a gimped ability.
As an aside, your idea is good, but you'll never get it past the people here who are afraid that the paladin is too good now and I honestly don't think considering that Jason made it situational to begin with, that he's willing to make it permanent, and then even better.
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There was one more discussion I wanted to have about feats since I was just looking at feats to take for level up. In the new form of Paladin you can either take extra lay on hands, or extra turning. Extra lay on hands gives you two extra lay on hands. Extra turning gives you two extra channel energies a day. Under the current paladin design that means 4 extra lay on hands. So is it supposed to be 4 extra lay on hands that can only be used for channeling? or do I just have two channels now that are seperate from my lay on hands pool, or is it really just 4 lay on hands, in which case woohoo as long as it's after level 4 I can just take extra turning, and never channel.
Seriously, the combining of the two is more trouble and rules adjudication than it's worth, on top of breaking backwards compatability you have to add a whole bunch of text explaining how to adjudicate feats and if you dip a level of cleric, etc. It was a good try, but in the end it's better if they are seperate. Or I can keep showing more and more ways in which it's more trouble than its worth.
Oh for those following this thread I have now have Weapon focus, law devotion, and Victor's Luck which allows me to re-roll one critical confirmation roll a day. Right now I'm planning on taking unbelievable luck next feat which will give me a +2 to my worst save and two luck re-rolls, then take better lucky than good. On top of my legacy weapon getting keen as it's weapon property, I'll have a 1, 19-20 x4 crit. Then we'll be having some fun.
Current HP is 50. My current stat array is 12, 10, 12, 11, 17, 16. When I get to eighth level I will be putting it into intelligence cause I loves me mah skill points.
My saves are Fort +9, Ref +5, and Will +11
I have a +8 to attacks with my pick
I have two smites per day which do a whole lot of nothing in the campaign I'm in.
I can LoH 5 times a day, or channel 2 times and have one LoH leftover.
I have a pick and shield that will be legacy weapons, and a sword that we have yet to identify. +1 full plate mail, +1 ring of protection, +1 amulet of natural armor, +1 cloak of resistance, So I'm not buying any magic items any time soon (for the record my ally that got his character thrown out of the order was the one with the ring of prot, amulet, and cloak. I just got them for succeeding where he failed as a knight, I didn't choose or buy them)
I have a boar, she has 45 hp, +6 to attack, 2d6+3 damage, and power attack, improved overrun, and Improved Natural attack. I will probably wind up getting her weapon focus to increase her attack bonus even though I know it's a crappy feat, but she misses a lot.
Yup, in the fight involving the owlbears, I rolled three times above a 3. Now, those three times hit hard, but only three times did I roll above a 3.
In terms of combat, the spiked-chain wielding fighter built using an "interesting" design philosophy is continuously doing the most damage, hands down. He's built for that, mind, but he has no issues, even on minimum damage rolls, of outdamaging most of the rest of the party. Well, unless the wizard hits with his Sudden Maximized Scorching Ray spell.
The new cleric is actually a cleric 1/ Sorc 2. And with only one level of cleric is consistently outhealing the paladin in every way using channels, and actually is holding up in combat fairly well.
The wizard (universalist) that replaced the player's former character (the Knight, God that character was an a%+$~+#), completes the spectrum shift from high defense, low damage party to low defense, high damage party. It's an interesting shift, and I'm actually looking forward to more playtesting with the paladin to see how he holds up with this change, especially as we move into a higher number of encounters per day. I'm intending to step it up into as many as 6 if I can work it in believably, since it'll really show the stretch of resources that way (prior to this, the only resources to burn were the paladin's LoH and Smites, really). If he can keep on par with the multiclass casters in terms of usefulness in combat, I'm willing to reluctantly say his per/day resources are a little tight, but okay. I'm going to prophesy here that he's going to fall back into near uselessness except as another set of actions to take in a round. Replaceable by a hired NPC character, more or less. We'll see after monday's game, though.
There was more I was going to chime in with, but I'm sleep deprived and can't remember it.
I need a bit of clarification on the new Smite Evil of the Paladin.
My group is about to fight a Kyton (Chain Devil) in a village, after beating the cultists that worshipped him.
We finished the session with the "cliffhanger" of the Kyton himself jumping from the window on the 2nd floor of the building where the cultist were inside right in the middle of the battle in the village.
My question is simple: the "new" Smite Evil bypasses all the DR of a Fiend or Undead, and so the DR 5/silver or good of the Kyton would be no prob for the Pally; BUT the Kyton has also Regeneration 2 against all except from damage from good weapons and spells with the good descriptor.
My question is: is the Smite Evil of the Paladin considered Good-aligned (and so, the Kyton cannot regenerate the damage) or not? I know that the paladin's regular attacks are considered good-aligned only from 14th level, and he is of al low level (3rd) and so he has not access to spells like Bless Weapon.
So, is there an official answer? I think it's reasonable that a Smite Evil attack coulb be considered good-aligned, but I'm not Rule-proof about it...
(good thing that the Ranger has a Flametouched Weapon and so all the damage is considered good-aligned, btw...)
The paladin does not align his weapon when he smites so yes you bypassed DR, but no you did not beat his regeneration.
Somehow, I thought so... oh, well, at least they are able to harm him(and then the Ranger can behead the "Hellraiser guy" with his greatsword when he is helpless)
Thanks a lot for your reply !
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Not much to report today, Game was pretty much all roleplay, I did perform the ritual to unlock my shield though (yay) it's first power is flameater, I have imp. evasion to any fire based reflex save effect. If I am targeted by a damaging fire effect that doesn't grant a save, I get a save. Sound really powerful, but when you realize all you have to do is hit me with lightning instead, it's not really that great a boost.
It did save my life though. We got to a cave where we found the dwarf colony slaughtered and their bodies all melted and decomposed. We wanted to see to the bodies but they were all gross and would literally liquify if you tried to move them. So I poured oil on them, and got a tindertwig from my ally, at this point the wizard in our group who has maxed out knowledges took off running and to be safe I sent out our allies. I then struck the match. DC 20 reflex save for half damage, I rolled a 19. So taking cover behind my shield the flames swept around me in a massive explosive gout of flame (DM said that even half damage might have killed me :) ). Then came the DC 20 fort save to not just die from the massive impact, I rolled an 18. Kinda dissapointing that the one time my divine grace could have been the difference between life and death I rolled high enough to not need it anyways *rolls eyes*. Anywho, the bullrush effect did launch me tumbling backwards 300ft. It was pretty hillarious when I got up unhurt, brushed myself off and said "well, I guess we'll follow the orc tribe then." and just moved on without another word. My character keeps seeming more and more badass, by complete luck of my rolls more than from build/abilities. Although I haven't failed a crit conform in a while and even if I did, I could reroll it :D
The rest of the session was just roleplaying and the poor fighter/rogue failing miserably to spot or disarm any traps. luckily my high AC meant that I didn't get hit but the fighter/rogue now has a 6 dexterity. So I'm going to waste my lesser restoration scroll to heal him. Game ended with the entrence to the evil mages complex clicking shut behind us as we got to the second set of doors. I'm expecting the classic smushing walls trap. We'll see...
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The rest of the session was just roleplaying and the poor fighter/rogue failing miserably to spot or disarm any traps. luckily my high AC meant that I didn't get hit but the fighter/rogue now has a 6 dexterity. So I'm going to waste my lesser restoration scroll to heal him....
Hey!! Ok the first trap we weren't even thinking of traps (luckily only the mage got hit). I spotted the next two. I disabled the (crushing) boulder trap. I (critically) failed to disable the poison gas trap. And the doors at the end...I'm thinking that was just dramatic DM cliff hangerish stuff.
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The rest of the session was just roleplaying and the poor fighter/rogue failing miserably to spot or disarm any traps. luckily my high AC meant that I didn't get hit but the fighter/rogue now has a 6 dexterity. So I'm going to waste my lesser restoration scroll to heal him....Hey!! Ok the first trap we weren't even thinking of traps (luckily only the mage got hit). I spotted the next two. I disabled the (crushing) boulder trap. I (critically) failed to disable the poison gas trap. And the doors at the end...I'm thinking that was just dramatic DM cliff hangerish stuff.
by poor I didn't mean bad, I meant misfortunate.
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Oh ok :-)
At least after I realized "oh yeah I'm the rogue" I told you all to hang back a bit, which is why I was the only one to be hit by the poison gas trap.
For those that don't know my character is a fighter2/rogue1 with a str18, dex10 (6 now), con14, int12, wis8, and cha14. More fighter then rogue who's 6'6", 220lbs, +12 intimidate, and wields a multiple weapons, although mostly the spike chain. When I was disarmed last week I just drew another weapon and started whacking on the owlbears. Granted if I was not still in the saddle I'd have picked up the chain again.
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Oh ok :-)
At least after I realized "oh yeah I'm the rogue" I told you all to hang back a bit, which is why I was the only one to be hit by the poison gas trap.
For those that don't know my character is a fighter2/rogue1 with a str18, dex10 (6 now), con14, int12, wis8, and cha14. More fighter then rogue who's 6'6", 220lbs, +12 intimidate, and wields a multiple weapons, although mostly the spike chain. When I was disarmed last week I just drew another weapon and started whacking on the owlbears. Granted if I was not still in the saddle I'd have picked up the chain again.
I thought that was a crit fumble, I don't remember an owlbear disarming you.
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I thought that was a crit fumble, I don't remember an owlbear disarming you.Oh ok :-)
At least after I realized "oh yeah I'm the rogue" I told you all to hang back a bit, which is why I was the only one to be hit by the poison gas trap.
For those that don't know my character is a fighter2/rogue1 with a str18, dex10 (6 now), con14, int12, wis8, and cha14. More fighter then rogue who's 6'6", 220lbs, +12 intimidate, and wields a multiple weapons, although mostly the spike chain. When I was disarmed last week I just drew another weapon and started whacking on the owlbears. Granted if I was not still in the saddle I'd have picked up the chain again.
Well the owlbear didn't technically disarm me...it only did enough damage to take me to -1. Luckily I made the ride check and slumped over the horse instead of off. And remember I had two owlbears on me because you told me to protect the prisoners.
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Well the owlbear didn't technically disarm me...it only did enough damage to take me to -1. Luckily I made the ride check and slumped over the horse instead of off. And remember I had two owlbears on me because you told me to protect the prisoners.I thought that was a crit fumble, I don't remember an owlbear disarming you.Oh ok :-)
At least after I realized "oh yeah I'm the rogue" I told you all to hang back a bit, which is why I was the only one to be hit by the poison gas trap.
For those that don't know my character is a fighter2/rogue1 with a str18, dex10 (6 now), con14, int12, wis8, and cha14. More fighter then rogue who's 6'6", 220lbs, +12 intimidate, and wields a multiple weapons, although mostly the spike chain. When I was disarmed last week I just drew another weapon and started whacking on the owlbears. Granted if I was not still in the saddle I'd have picked up the chain again.
Which you did so feel good :)
Tamec has a point, I mean the trap he succeeded on was the most difficult, and might have caused some serious pain. The other two were pretty "minor" in comparison.
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Tamec has a point, I mean the trap he succeeded on was the most difficult, and might have caused some serious pain. The other two were pretty "minor" in comparison.
guys seriously I'm not saying he was a failure, honestly I was out of the room when the boulder trap happened, I didn't even know about it until tamec mentioned it, I was just saying that he was misfortunate and missed the traps. lets move on :)
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Tamec has a point, I mean the trap he succeeded on was the most difficult, and might have caused some serious pain. The other two were pretty "minor" in comparison.guys seriously I'm not saying he was a failure, honestly I was out of the room when the boulder trap happened, I didn't even know about it until tamec mentioned it, I was just saying that he was misfortunate and missed the traps. lets move on :)
Moving on *Parry! Dodge! Spin! Thrust! Dazed for a round* :-) That's one of my favorite fumbles...takes me back to watching daffy duck...although really it should automatically fumble again the next round.
I swear, if that's actually on a crit fumble card and I draw it. I'm ending the game right there :P
On topic of being constructive, this week will definitely see more of the "lower cr higher encounter rate" changes, so there will be a definitive side-by-side comparison. As it is, the cleric 1/sor 2 is out "Divine"ing the paladin 5. 1 level of cleric beats out paladin 5? what? Yes. It is.
Maybe we'll see how fighter 2/rogue 1 beats out the paladin in combat without flanking this week, hmm?
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Maybe we'll see how fighter 2/rogue 1 beats out the paladin in combat without flanking this week, hmm?
Unless he crits of course I'll outdamage him, Cain's Str 18, Heraguv's Str 12(?). I do 2d4+6 damage with my chain. Well, maybe when Heraguv is Cain's age he might be as strong as cain. *buys Hereguv a 8 year membership to Gold Coin Gym and an 8 year supply of Canseco brand steroids.* Counting his boar though, she puts out a massive amount of damage, bandits hanging from the chandelier anyone?
Although you could throw in a skeleton of imp for him to smite.
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Maybe we'll see how fighter 2/rogue 1 beats out the paladin in combat without flanking this week, hmm?Unless he crits of course I'll outdamage him, Cain's Str 18, Heraguv's Str 12(?). I do 2d4+6 damage with my chain. Well, maybe when Heraguv is Cain's age he might be as strong as cain. *buys Hereguv a 8 year membership to Gold Coin Gym and an 8 year supply of Canseco brand steroids.* Counting his boar though, she puts out a massive amount of damage, bandits hanging from the chandelier anyone?
Although you could throw in a skeleton of imp for him to smite.
She does big damage but she misses consistently having only a +6 attack, I would have given her weapon focus gore to improve it, but I had to take power attack for improved overrun, cause c'mon how is a boar trampling over people not iconic.
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I'll cover it more when I do my full playtest report later today, but that was because they had 6 hp and had to roll at least a 19 to hit me. As it stands I'm not going to waste a smite on a creature that a level 1 cleric was killing with channel energy and that if my boar hit would kill with one blow.
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As it stands I'm not going to waste a smite on a creature that a level 1 cleric was killing with channel energyYou know I'm just yanking your chain. :-) Anyway after I got the "broken haft" fumble you outdamaged me :-)
No I didn't actually, my boar did, but I had piercing and slashing damage so the max damage I could deal was 3.
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wow wierd, I'm finishing writing my entire playtest report and my computer jumps back about 12 webpages loosing everything I typed.
Take two...
For informations sake the lower level guys leveled last session, so now the party consists of a cleric1/sorcerer3, a wizard 4, and a rogue1/fighter2/sorcerer1
So we get into dungeon crashing mode. first I use my scroll to heal the fighter/rogue and he jumps ahead of the party to scout for traps. Then we get to a room that is full of spiders, the big ones, four of them and the fighter takes more poison dex damage. So much for the scroll.
Well my party forms a solid tactic at this point, me and my high armor class block the door with the aid of my boar we can block a 10ft passage and have a 22 and 24 AC respectively. So we play defense while the casters cast from behind and the fighter bashes with his reach weapon.
The spider die without hurting me or my boar. So the cleric heals up the fighter and we move on. the fighter jams a lock and kicks open a door into a mess hall where the enemy has thrown the tables up as cover and when the fighter kicked open the door, he got pin cushioned. So my boar and I rush in to make sure they don't pincushion anymore and we make swift work of the four mooks taking one prisoner. But as we are arguing about what to do with the prisoner the one who ran off with came back with 7 better armed and equiped reinforcements. I considered using my smite at first, the first guy I detected wasn't evil and because they tried to rush us they were well positioned to fall to the wizards burning hands. After that we had it pretty well handled and never got into a situation were I needed to use my smite.
I used only one lay on hands. I might've used more, but the cleric would pop his cure wand on me. So after the fight the cleric gathers everyone together and pops four channel energies to get the party up to par. That leaves him with 3 left for the day. Hmm, cleric level 1: 7 channels a day, paladin level 5: 2 channels a day. I would at this time like to congradulate Jason on the new Animal companion rules for my "mount". My boar does a lot of damage, but it is balanced by missing half the time. And it has a high AC, but an abysmal touch AC so it's easy to bypass.
Anyways after that we decide that the fighter unlocks the doors, I open them, and this works well for us. the rogue got the wizard hit with one trap, and I got hit with a trap that was made pitiful by my shield 2 fire damage, oooh my chest hair is singed.
So we continue to search the complex, our greedy wizard comes across a spellbook with a symbol of pain on it. Now he is using wands because he wont leave the book behind, but the concentration check for symbol of pain was high enough that he can't cast his spells reliably.
We end after a fight with a closet full of skeletons Woohoo, undead finally. Except that they are all level one skeletons which doesn't even count, our level one cleric took out half of them with his channel and they couldn't hit me so my boar and I just held them in the hall and took them out one by one.
After four fights I have all of my smites and 4 of my lay on hands. The smites because they are too precious to waste so I am waaaay to miserly with them because unless it's life or death, or I know it's the BBEG I'm not smiting, and the Lay on Hands because a cleric with a wand seems able to keep the party up on healing. Granted our fights have been lots of mook monsters so far, but still. His healing wand keeps pace with my LoH which funny thing heals less than my channel because channel gives me more uses every two levels, where my LoH is based on half my levels which means I won't get to 3 dice healed till next level but I channel 3 dice at level 5. I now know for a fact that with a cleric in the party my spellcasting and channeling are useless. My LoH is still useful because it doesn't eat up an action, but my channeling and spellcasting do, spellcasting is matched by the level 1 cleric and my channeling uses up too much of my resources to be worth using. Channeling needs to be split into it's own pool again so I can use it how I want too instead of not using it at all.
Because I'm not needing to use my abilities because others do it better, and because my AC could easily be matched by other classes, I still spend most of my time feeling like an NPC warrior. I have options, but I'm right back to none of them being better than swinging my pick.
Also we neeeeeed to talk about spellcasting. I don't really use my buffs because the cleric can cast them too and there'd be no difference other than mine will last longer as long as he stays focused on sorcerer levels. But at the same time I don't want to memorize spells I might not need. So I'm just stuck with a crappy spell selection that pretty much says memorize weak buffs and only cast if absolutely necessary. Spontaneous casting time and again would be such a fix for this because none of his spells are actually that strong but all can be situationally useful. As opposed to them now where they have the most minute utility of a class feature I have ever seen. I might as well just memorize cure light wounds every time and be done with it, have some more out of combat healing in case the cleric uses up his wand. Yippeee Have I told you how much fun that is?[/sarcasm]
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rogue1/fighter2/sorcerer1 ... and the fighter takes more poison dex damage. So much for the scroll.
correction rogue2/fighter2 I have no inkling (at this time) of taking any sorcerer levels, although I did learn to speak draconic last level for some reason...and I'd like to see you face 6 spiders in rogue armor without getting bit. Not all of us get to add our Con and Cha mods to fort saves :-P
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rogue1/fighter2/sorcerer1 ... and the fighter takes more poison dex damage. So much for the scroll.correction rogue2/fighter2 I have no inkling (at this time) of taking any sorcerer levels, although I did learn to speak draconic last level for some reason...and I'd like to see you face 6 spiders in rogue armor without getting bit. Not all of us get to add our Con and Cha mods to fort saves :-P
Not all of us take rogue levels and wear rogue armor with a 10 dex either :P
And for the record I never rolled a save against the spiders, they never hit me. I only rolled one save the entire night, and it was for a fire trap.
LKL, the skeletons could only hit you on a 20. +1 for a standard medium sized human skeleton.
And it was 20 skeletons.
Out of the fights involved, two were on average CR (4), one was 2 below (the skeleton one), and one was 1 above. Also, none of them really warranted the paladin blowing a smite on. However, when we ended the session, there was that deactivation of one of those rings, and you DID hear what sounded like two big nasties about to try to crack your skulls open.
Besides, the symbol takes 1 hour to wear off after he leaves the radius of it's effect, anyhow. Still would be screwed at this point. I really find it funny how badly he failed that save.
Should have been a 5x5, unless I laid down the wrong tile. Considering how hard I was failing at life that night, I may have done exactly that.
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Okay take two I went into more detail earlier, but I am a steady victim of the dang post eating bug.
Well my paladin is finally starting to feel like a decent warrior, realizing that my boar is a class feature makes it feel a lot better.
We need to talk about smites. the current number leads to scenarios like the last two sessions.
The day before we waded through mooks, 5 individual fights against mooks, I never used a single smite. Why, because I wanted to save it for the final battle, I wound up with everyone else burned through their resources and I didn't use a single smite. Then when we fight something worth smiting I blow through them so quickly they're gone in one fight I went one day with no smites in the entire 5 fights, to blowing both in the first fight.
The good things. in the fight with the succubus the change to making smite last one round was a wonderful and much needed change. If I hadn't still been smiting my AoO when the sucubus tried to grapple and kiss me would have succeeded. I literally could not do enough damage to bypass her DR without smite even with an 18 str my max damage would have been 10 which was her DR. The damage is just enough to make smites impressive without being overpowered. I really think that one round durations with an extra attack instead of lasting 3 rounds at high level is the way to go, it would keep smite relevant at all levels. I've seen what a difference being able to deal smite damage with an AoO is.
My boar I love, I can't wait to see what feat will allow me to turn
her into a mount.
LoH still useful.
The bad things, smite should always be like this, I shouldn't have to wait for my DM to ram-rod a creature type into the campaign just so smite feels useful. Favored enemy works because a ranger picks their types and even if their first type doesn't fit the campaign they can always fit the campaign with future type picks. A paladin can. He either gets a smite that sucks till level 8 or he fights in a campaign heavy with the same creature types every time. PLEASE LET SMITE WORK THE NEW WAY ALL THE TIME. I would much rather have a one round smite that was good at all levels, i.e. when you smite you gain an extra attack at your highest bonus. Then wait till level 8 to have a decent smite unless I'm fighting demons/undead with DR, lame.
Now I had actually prepared bless weapon by complete coincidence and luck, but due to the pace of battle i didn't cast it till she was running, I cast it on my crossbow shot her with a smite, and rolled a 2, wasting two rounds and 25% of my resources. Yeah that's right, thanks to the joining of channel and loh I have 11 total daily use resources. 5 loh, 2 spells, 2 smites. At least with channels It'd only be 1/5 of my daily resources instead of 1/4.
Channel still never used ever, nor will I ever use it so long as we have a cleric in our group, terrible way to waste effective ability by paying twice as much for something that someone else can do. Please put it back in it's own pool where I can use it the way I want instead of never because I want to have my good lay on hands!
I hit level six, I'll post my thoughts on this level later.
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ugh rolled a 1 for hp nothing says loving like a terrible HP roll. Oh well, I'm sure I'll roll a ten soon.
Oh as a side note, I love the new, a 20 on a CMB is an autosuccess, a 1 on a CMB is an autofailure.
My boar was missing prety regularly, so I started just for the fun of it shoving enemies off the cliff since it made them go splat. I rolled nat 20 twice, since there's no confirmation roll, bye bye little kythons.
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Okay so I leveled up and had our first session at level 6. First off I like that now that I finally have itterative attacks smite won't feel as useless when not fighting demon/undead. Also my saves increase. I get an additional use of lay on hands, and the healing increases to 3d6. I also get the ability to remove disease, since we have a cleric in the party I will probably never use said ability. Although depending on how the cleric player continues his multiclassing he may never have enough cleric levels to actually be able to cast it, so so far so good. All of my abilities I have except channeling improve and I get a new ability that might come in handy.
Oh wait because Kythons are pretty darn tough the DM has decided instead to saddle us with a DMNPC *rolls eyes* who is a full cleric, so no, this ability will stay useless for a while.
Oh yeah something that needs to be mentioned. As aweful as my spellcasting is I finally broke down and spoke to my DM. At level up I used the retraining rules from the PHII to replace my luck feat with battle blessing. That's right, I had to ignore what I wanted to do with my character in favor of something that will make his spellcasting worthwile. Yippie!
My AnCo gets a huge boost at this level, her AC and stats improve dramatically. I am now being shown up on every combat level by my boar, that is to be expected when you have low physicals like mine, but still it stings a bit. I have to remember that between the two of us My character actually kicks some ass!
Up next, playtest report...
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Okay so playing tired leads to suckage for me.
I only had about 4 hours of sleep so I was out of it for the most part. but I did learn some interesting things.
Hey until level 8 Smite still sucks if you use it on a charge YAY. I learned that when I tried it out as part of a readied action. I'm becoming thoroughly convinced that dropping the multiple round duration past level eight and instead implementing at level 1 that smite allows a single extra attack in the round at your highest attack bonus is the way to go. That would help through all levels instead of making smite a waiting game till level eight or demons/undead to be worth a damn.
Oh as a result of making spellcasting swift actions, I have learned that swift actions are everything to the paladin. Smites, LoH, spellcasting. every danged round I am having to choose what is more important to my character to preform. It's crazy.
What I'm also learning is that without my boar, my damage output is negligible, during the fight my DM forgot to set my boar figure on the mat and I was so tired I forgot to ask about it, so after the fight is only 1-2 rounds from being done I realized, Hey my boar is missing. I wasn't responsible for the fall of a single enemy. That isn't to say i didn't hurt them, I just didn't bring a single one down. This is after adding magic weapon to my sword to increase damage. On the plus side, as swift actions. I was able to actually buff up in the middle of the fight so my AC hit 27, so I was being missed a lot.
Yeah, you were being missed an epic asston. Good thing the casters weren't calling more attention to themselves than they were, since it made that fight quite a bit easier.
For reference, totally not a cleric capable of healing anybody hardly ever. More of a mobile tank (relatively speaking, he IS a dwarf), and comedic relief.
No a%&**!$ Knight means that comedic relief is missing again, had to put it in somehow. Someone's going to kill him out of annoyance, too, I'd wager.
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Someone's going to kill him out of annoyance, too, I'd wager.
Gonna have to go through me, I like him. Then again I'm not a stick up the....well nevermind...but my Knight has been glaring at me since I grew claws. "It's not knightly to wield a spiked chain, It's not knightly to claw people." Good thing they did away with a dragon disciple's bite attacks or I might get a lecture on biting people too.
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How's this as a variant: Whenever a Paladin uses smite on an evil outsider or undead, he can CHOOSE either the flat damage bonus or the d6 per 2 levels AFTER the to hit roll is made (including critical confirmation). In the end, this doesn;t really add any power at all to the Paladin, since the choice is really one of lowerign your damage or not except in very specific, rare circumstance. Flavor wise, it removes an element of chance (chaos) from a very lawful class, which also makes sense.
How does that help the paladin at all? The damage bonus from the extra dice is actually better than the flat bonus 80% of the time. The problem is that you suck smiting NON-evil outsiders/undead, not the other way around.
Personally I think we need to get rid of the flat bonus altogether, the only time it's useful is after level 6 when you get the extra attacks in the round. Even then it only really starts to be good after level 8 where it lasts multiple rounds. Waiting 8 levels to have a decent class feature isn't fun to me.
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Okay so this session saw me saddled with a force of over 4000 soldiers, so the first half of the session was me setting up logistics for the army. I set up scouting patrols and outposts in an expanding net out, as it became clear that the kythons were coming from the southwest I expanded the net to the southwest with extra outposts. It’s a good thing I had; loosing an outpost gave us advance warning that there was a force on its way. So I ordered the remaining outlying southwestern outposts converge on the next in line at the net, took that force (approx 350 knights and soldiers including approx 20 low level spell casters) to look for the enemy.
We found them and we set up a surprise attack, using a small force (the size of a patrol) we attacked the enemy scouts to draw the enemy towards us. Confident in their numbers they came charging towards our small force, we had the majority of our army concealed in the surrounding hills which waited till the enemy was too close to pull out without heavy casualties then let loose with a hail of arrows and the cavalry took a wide birth around to charge from behind in a pincer maneuver.
That was all good and fun in its own way, but the actual combat was full of fail.
As one large fight between first scouts then the main force, a battle that lasted approx 30 rounds my resources were worn pretty thin. The enemy force used a silence spell to keep me from making commands, but this also caused the kythons to avoid us like the plague (apparently they are blinded in areas of silence, good to know). So the enemy leader was able to close with us. He surrounded himself with skeletons yay, finally a chance to channel, oh wait turns out after I channel he’s a cleric. So he channels more than me, waste of my LoH. I would like to point out at this point that using one channel by the new rules meant that I wasn’t able to get a second use of my law devotion. My DMs house rule would have allowed it, but I had used LoH so I didn’t even have enough. That meant that my law devotion petered out in the middle of the fight with the BBEG and I couldn't get it back. I can’t stress how much I hate the joining of channel energy and lay on hands. It has gimped my capabilities; you can’t call it a fix, if it makes things worse.
And then smite oh lord, I saved both for the BBEG who turned out to have an AC 31, I missed with both smites all four attacks, my first attack actually had a decent chance of hitting, my second one only hit on a 19-20 on the die. So even had I hit with my first attack, odds are I would have dealt 6 extra damage from smiting. Let me repeat that, I have only two per day, that I save for BBEGs because I only have two per day, and when I get to those BBEG, they have huge ACs so my smites are usually good for an extra 6 damage because my iterative won’t hit. Why BBEGs don’t cower in fear of my smiting I have no idea. 6 extra damage is sooooooo powerful that we can’t increase the number of smites, until level 8 effectively. Why aren’t bad guys crying and running at the thought of facing my paladin? Oh wait, demons and undead do, yippee! To bad the skeletons were mooks and the BBEG was just an evil knight/cleric multiclass human!!! Without smites I could only hit on a 19-20, the bad guy had not as bad a time but close enough hitting me, so it was litterally about 10 rounds of I swing I miss (i couldn't confirm crits so if I did hit it wasn't critical) he swings he misses. I didn't go down until the kythons closed and started attacking (he dropped the silence)
Spell casting. What a terrible disappointment. I finally break down and take a feat that allows me to actually consider it worth casting spells, and if I don’t just want to memorize the same three spells, I wind up with one unused. In this instance I memorized know greatest enemy figuring that could come in handy in a large battle, too bad the BBEG was obvious from the beginning (for those of you following the thread, it was Almerik the former knight PC who got kicked out of the order and turned into an NPC by the DM). With the cleric or wizard, they get enough spell slots that memorizing a spell that might not be used but could turn out very useful is okay, with the paladin, he doesn’t have enough daily resources to make it worthwhile. From now on its Prot. Evil, bless weapon, and divine favor every time. Hm just like every paladin I’ve ever seen.
My Animal companion kicked some kython butt, so far so good, well balanced and fun. and when I finally fell to the BBEG my boar (who wound up being the only meleer in the party standing at the end of the fight) used its imp overun to charge through a kython to my square and prevent the eventuall BBEG stab him while he's bleeding out. Yay, for the boar saving my butt. I like the new AnCo rules and can't wait to turn her into a mount.
So in review
Smite Evil: Needs work, I mean seriously what fun is saying oooh just wait till I’m level 8? The best solution I’ve seen (and admittedly it was suggested by me, but others have agreed) is to get rid of the multiple round durations starting at level 8, and instead just allow smite to grant an extra attack at your highest attack bonus every time you smite from level 1-20. Also I would like to see that aweful flat damage dropped and the new demon/undead damage method become the way smite always works. At level 1 this is only one round that grants two attacks with an extra 1d6 damage bypassing DR, Maybe I’m not seeing it, but that doesn’t sound unbalanced or overpowered considering its once per day.
Detect Evil: didn’t need it this battle because it was all kythons, undead, and a guy channeling negative energy, still I love the move action detect feature and have used it before.
Lay on Hands: Love it, don’t change a thing.
Channel Energy: Hate it, I’m sorry but this is easily the worst “fix” ever. If a fix ends up ruining several other things to make the one thing worthwile, then it isn’t a fix, it’s a nerf, even if the one thing does end up okay. My paladin’s capabilities have been nerfed. I’ll speak to my DM about going back to channeling as its own pool because I can’t stand this new version.
Animal Companion: Love it, don’t change a thing.
spellcasting: Okay, I have full access to both the spell compendium and all the completes. I have a very large spell list for a paladin, and I can officially say that 95% of them will never see the light of day unless you open up the paladin to be a spontaneous caster. I can also say reviewing that spell list that it is still not going to be overpowered to just let him cast from the full list. Otherwise spellcasting without the battle blessing feat will just be a forgotten class feature and even with battle blessing isn't that great that I'm acting like a full spellcaster.
Stuff.
Many of the new paladin class features emulate many of the things they had already received from spellcasting. The effects aren't /exact/, but they're very /similar/. Now, spellcasting is nice in the one sense that it's a rare area that potentially opens up options for the paladin with every new release.
However, most paladins don't have alot of time to buff.
I wonder if, even having been a fan of spellcasting in the past, if it shouldn't be tossed out the window...
...And in its place, give the paladin more aura effects. Things to help his/her party. Of course, to do this, you'd need to bump up channeling, since these effects would burn from the same.
True, there's no replacement for Divine Favor, but if every paladin is casting that before every battle, and needing it, or taking a feat to ensure they can cast it and gain that measly +1, then something needs changed in the core class. :)
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Stuff.Many of the new paladin class features emulate many of the things they get from spellcasting. Now, spellcasting is nice in the one sense that it's a rare area that potentially opens up options for the paladin with every new release.
However, most paladins don't have alot of time to buff.
I wonder if, even having been a fan of spellcasting in the past, if it shouldn't be tossed out the window...
...And in its place, give the paladin more aura effects. Things to help his/her party. Of course, to do this, you'd need to bump up channeling, since these effects would burn from the same.
True, there's no replacement for Divine Favor, but if every paladin is casting that before every battle, and needing it, or taking a feat to ensure they can cast it and gain that measly +1, then something needs changed in the core class. :)
Actually I've had thoughts along those lines, but I think that might be too big a loss and break BC too much after all there are a few paladin only spells out there. But I'm open to the idea, the thing is right now that's what I'm using it for, at higher level it will be much more useful, although still needing fixes.
When you're going through your playtest, maybe keep it in mind?
Just off the top of my head, these are the "Spell Replacements" the paladin now gets:
Remove Disease
Remove Curse
Neutralize Poison
Break Enchantment
Heal
Banishment
Magic Sword option
Granted, half of these weren't explicitly on the spell list to begin with. However, I say /explicitly/ because they're very similar to what was already there. And, it's not too much of a stretch to see a paladin burning some divine energy to negate some ability damage, for instance.
But, you get the idea. There's a decent amount of duplication.
Another option might be to keep the spells, but remove the "spell duplicates" and turn those into aura effects. Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, but let's see how it plays, right?
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When you're going through your playtest, maybe keep it in mind?
Just off the top of my head, these are the "Spell Replacements" the paladin now gets:
Remove Disease
Remove Curse
Neutralize Poison
Break Enchantment
Heal
Banishment
Magic Sword optionGranted, half of these weren't explicitly on the spell list to begin with. However, I say /explicitly/ because they're very similar to what was already there. And, it's not too much of a stretch to see a paladin burning some divine energy to negate some ability damage, for instance.
But, you get the idea. There's a decent amount of duplication.
Another option might be to keep the spells, but remove the "spell duplicates" and turn those into aura effects. Anyhow, that's neither here nor there, but let's see how it plays, right?
As it stands we play by the book to the point of sillyness. DM fiat rarely rears it's head unless it's specifically not covered by the rules, so even though I have a dozen ideas on how to fix things I can't playtest them.
For the record, I was the one pushing to separate the channel and LoH again so it was useful.
Other than that, yeah, I second the gaining a second attack at your full BaB on the smite. It really would have made the difference between hitting and missing on a, in all honesty, not horribly optimized AC at all. In fact, it was fairly middling.
The new AnCo rules really make a difference in combat. It's like having a full-on second PC for frontlining, and it really helps shore up the melee line.
And yes, spellcasting is a rapidly falling away in usefulness ability. If the intent is to not require spell-buffing to +'s to hit, then the base class needs to change to reflect this, honestly. With some many defensive spells that stack with existing armor, it's way too easy to get a hard-to-hit AC at this stage in the game.
I'm puzzled as to why, after Tome of Battle came out, the paladin's smite evil wasn't viewed as a good candidate for the per encounter tech vs. the per day standard.
Maybe 5 (7) smite evil per encounter was deemed too much? Seems to me that, given the number of attacks that take place in a high level encounter, it'd still be a relatively minor boost.
Lay on Hands should definitely get pumped a bit. Perhaps allowing more than one charge to be expended in a single healing action?
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I'm puzzled as to why, after Tome of Battle came out, the paladin's smite evil wasn't viewed as a good candidate for the per encounter tech vs. the per day standard.
Maybe 5 (7) smite evil per encounter was deemed too much? Seems to me that, given the number of attacks that take place in a high level encounter, it'd still be a relatively minor boost.
Lay on Hands should definitely get pumped a bit. Perhaps allowing more than one charge to be expended in a single healing action?
Heh waaaaay before the tome of battle even came out, I knew that 3.5s smite evil sucked soooo much balls that the first time I ran with a paladin in my group I made his smite a per encounter power. he still dropped the paladin as a class by level 4 and made a ranger.
Just a 'shout out' in appreciation of this thread.
Informative and funny.
We're just switching over to Pathfinder from 3.5. No Paladins in the mix, but I'd like to play one when I get the chance.
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Oh no problem, when I die, I hope that's what they say about me...
Here lies Nathan, informative and funny
Unfortunately the DM asked that we take a break from the campaign so he could get some prep time and then he got promoted to a new position that left him unable to game with us anymore so Heraguv has fallen as the latest victim to my inability to get a game going for more than a few levels. :( I have a new group going that I'm DMing for but no palladins are in it.
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Lay on Hands should definitely get pumped a bit. Perhaps allowing more than one charge to be expended in a single healing action?
Oh and as a side note, as long as it's split from channel energy Lay on hands now rocks in it's current state. It was the one good ability my paladin had.
That and the new animal companion rules for my mount that wasn't a mount, but I'm sorry, a boar made a much better fit for the character and his story. And I was seriously hoping for a way to increase its size so I could ride it.