Let me start off by saying that the paladin divine bond revision is a work of unparalleled genius and that I'm looking forward very much to adapting the rules to Chaotic Evil paladins to harass my party with in my next campaign.
That being said forcing a player to chose between a cool weapon and a mount seems slightly unfortunate.
I would like to see a paladin only feat (or two) that allows them to gain the other benefit.
My draft suggestions are included below:
Suggested Feats:
Expanded Bond:
You expand your divine bond ability to employ both a weapon spirit and a special mount
Prerequisites: Paladin Level 10
Benefit: Whichever Divine bond ability you did not recieve at 5th level you now receive. This alternative is resolved at your paladin level -5
Perfect Bond:
Your bond with your deity matures such that both your weapon spirit and special mount are equally blessed.
Prerequisite: Expanded Bond:
Benefit: Both divine bond abilities you possess use your full paladin level.
Director of Games
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Let me start off by saying that the paladin divine bond revision is a work of unparalleled genius and that I'm looking forward very much to adapting the rules to Chaotic Evil paladins to harass my party with in my next campaign.
That being said forcing a player to chose between a cool weapon and a mount seems slightly unfortunate.
I would like to see a paladin only feat (or two) that allows them to gain the other benefit.
My draft suggestions are included below:
Suggested Feats:
Expanded Bond:
You expand your divine bond ability to employ both a weapon spirit and a special mount
Prerequisites: Paladin Level 10
Benefit: Whichever Divine bond ability you did not recieve at 5th level you now receive. This alternative is resolved at your paladin level -5Perfect Bond:
Your bond with your deity matures such that both your weapon spirit and special mount are equally blessed.
Prerequisite: Expanded Bond:
Benefit: Both divine bond abilities you possess use your full paladin level.
Interesting concept.. and one that could be used with a number of classes.
Thoughts?
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
... Expanded Bond ... Perfect Bond ...
Interesting concept.. and one that could be used with a number of classes.
Thoughts?
Highly in favor of including some option along these lines. If this is expanded to every class with a bond ability though, I worry it's going to leave the non-bond classes slightly underpowered in comparison, unless they have something similar added as well.
On the other hand... Paladin and Ranger could both use a boost, and Wizards having a Familiar and Bonded item isn't insanely broken, so perhaps it wouldn't be too big of a deal.
Druids worry me, animal companions are already nice enough, without getting domains as well. On the other hand, the domain bond is weak enough that it might not be game breaking and the nerf to wild shape along with most buff spells has gone a long, long way to fixing Druids and Clerics.
I guess in order of preference, I'd want...
1st choice: Paladin and Ranger expanded bonds only, no pumping pure casters, please.
2nd choice: Everyone but the droods, and add an option for Sorc to gain a similar buff so they can keep up with wizards, possibly through expanding their bloodline powers with some sort of feat chain.
3rd choice: Everyone with an Arcane/Natural/whatever bond has access to these feats, and everyone who doesn't have a bond has access to something with comparable power. Heck, maybe just add a feat or two that would allow other classes to gain similar bonds, something like
Shaman's Gift
Prerequisites: Barbarian level X + A second prereq feat (Bonded Soul or somesuch)
Benefit: You gain access to the familiar class ability, as a wizard of your level -3.
(sorry, that's feat is kind of clunky, but I'm in a rush, I'll try and clean it up a bit later.)
This sounds great. It also works out similar to how Weapon Training does:
one chosen group is advanced at the highest level, and you can pick up others, but always at lower power than your main choice.
A Paladin will be sub-Par to Fighters at Combat Feats anyways (and don't have the other Combat Augmenting of Barbarians), so Paladin-specific Feats catering to their particular abilities mean they have SOME Feats which really play to their strengths.
This also makes it more likely that BOTH aspects of the Class will be played, so you won't have Players who go "Holy Companion? What?"
since they never used it. I don't think the Paladin's in danger of being overpowered, and given their Alignment/Code restrictions, they SHOULD be able to use all the powers their God grants.
Someone mentioned applying this to Druids & the Nature Domains...
Allowing a Domain option for Paladins (gaining 2 Domains like a Cleric), along with Weapon and Mount, also works with this type of Feat.
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I like it, but it definitely needs to cost more than one feat to get the full effect -- having the first feat grant the additional bond at level -5 (or even 1/2 level) is a good compromise, with a second feat (maybe with a high level requirement?) available to kick it up to full use.
Some players aren't going to care about grabbing both options (familiar who?) but others will want all the class-based flavor they can have. And if the second feat in the chain has a high level requirement, the the ability is going to be competing against other juicy options.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I think allowing Wizards the chance to take a feat like this is a great idea. Why not allow them to have both a staff and a familiar, for instance, at the cost of a feat?
The feat as proposed would need to have the language tighened up to apply to all classes with a choice like this. For instance, the wizard's bonded item doesn't really interact with level in any way, but it could if the feat was clear enough - in this case allowing the wizard to cast any spell that they could cast at their wizard level -5 that they know. But I agree, that this would be good for all of the classes that it could apply to.
Let me start off by saying that the paladin divine bond revision is a work of unparalleled genius and that I'm looking forward very much to adapting the rules to Chaotic Evil paladins to harass my party with in my next campaign.
That being said forcing a player to chose between a cool weapon and a mount seems slightly unfortunate.
I would like to see a paladin only feat (or two) that allows them to gain the other benefit.
My draft suggestions are included below:
Suggested Feats:
Expanded Bond:
You expand your divine bond ability to employ both a weapon spirit and a special mount
Prerequisites: Paladin Level 10
Benefit: Whichever Divine bond ability you did not recieve at 5th level you now receive. This alternative is resolved at your paladin level -5Perfect Bond:
Your bond with your deity matures such that both your weapon spirit and special mount are equally blessed.
Prerequisite: Expanded Bond:
Benefit: Both divine bond abilities you possess use your full paladin level.Interesting concept.. and one that could be used with a number of classes.
Thoughts?
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Wow, I really like that idea, I mean I really really like it. It just sort of makes sense. As for how it might work with other classes... well, one should bear in mind that Wizards are still pretty damn powerful in comparison to everyone else when considering writing this as a generic feat for any class.
I'll just re-post this because apparently my threads are retarded:
Here's a problem, y'see--the paladin's ability to call a celestial spirit to enhance her sword is no good. Really no good.
First of all, I don't know how long the ability lasts. Poor writing that can be corrected with ease--it's supposed to be 1 minute/level, but the ability just says that the weapon "shed[s] light as a torch for 1 minute/level." That needs to be cleared up.
Second of all--and more importantly--this is weak. Weak, weak, weak, weak, weak. A +6 weapon at level 20? And the enhancements that you choose don't stack with those of your current weapon? And the list is extremely limited? Urgh. Just not worth it. If the bonuses stacked, then the ability might be worth taking.
When the paladin uses this ability, he should become the ultimate evil-smiter. He should be able to tear through demons and devils like nobody's business.
Here's my suggestion:
The paladin uses his divine bond ability and he gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls, and this improves by +1 for every three levels the paladin has.
The paladin does an additional +1d8 points of damage to evil creatures. This improves by +1d8 for every four levels the paladin has.
The paladin's sword gives off light like a torch at fourth level. At eighth level, the sword gives off light as though casting a daylight spell; the spell level is equal to 1/2 the paladin's level (allowing him to dispel darkness spells), and it has a caster level equal to the paladin's level. In addition, any evil creature within the radius of bright light is dazzled.
(Basically, I'd like to see the paladin become what the shining blade of Heironeous should have been.)
Thoughts?
The stacking is something I had a question on, does it not stack at all (it kind of seems like it does, as it points out you must start with a weapon enhancement of at least +1 coming from somewhere) or do the various abilities not stack with themselves (or total + bonus not add together)?
For example if I have a +2 flaming Weapon and used the spirit bond, could I add the holy and merciful traits to have a + 2 flaming holy merciful weapon?
Thoughts?
I'd agree the ability needs some clarification but I don't think its all that weak. I'd say its on par with the other option of a loyal mount.
State the duration per use and clarify the stacking or just let it stack with a +10 cap and call it good.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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The stacking is something I had a question on, does it not stack at all (it kind of seems like it does, as it points out you must start with a weapon enhancement of at least +1 coming from somewhere) or do the various abilities not stack with themselves (or total + bonus not add together)?
For example if I have a +2 flaming Weapon and used the spirit bond, could I add the holy and merciful traits to have a + 2 flaming holy merciful weapon?
This is the $64 Million question. If the non-stacking means that the spirit bond completely replaces the existing magic of the weapon, then it's not a very good ability. If it simply means, you can't take a +1 weapon, add +2 fromt he spirit bond, to make it a +3 weapon, that's fine, since you can still add all of the special abilities you want as long as you don't double up, and you can still take a +1 sword and make it +X from the bond if you like, but you lose out on +1 worth of bonus. (Not as advisable with a +2, +3, etc. weapon though.)
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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That's it, no pumping pure spellcasters, just this option if applied to any other classes I'd be against it.
1st choice: Paladin and Ranger expanded bonds only, no pumping pure casters, please.
I'm just curious, how would letting the full caster classes take this be pumping them? It would be at the cost of 2 feats, which they could use to more directly improve their spellcasting should they choose (spell focus, greater spell focus, spell penetation, etc.) If instead, a wizard wants a familiar in addition to his item bond, there's a trade off there, it's not just pumping the wizard's power (at least from my perspective).
If the issue is that the wizard (or druid, etc.) 2 choices are simply too powerful in your opinion, wouldn't it be better to scale one or both options down in power isntead of not letting a character take both at the expense of feats?
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That's it, no pumping pure spellcasters, just this option if applied to any other classes I'd be against it.
1st choice: Paladin and Ranger expanded bonds only, no pumping pure casters, please.
I'm just curious, how would letting the full caster classes take this be pumping them? It would be at the cost of 2 feats, which they could use to more directly improve their spellcasting should they choose (spell focus, greater spell focus, spell penetation, etc.) If instead, a wizard wants a familiar in addition to his item bond, there's a trade off there, it's not just pumping the wizard's power (at least from my perspective).
If the issue is that the wizard (or druid, etc.) 2 choices are simply too powerful in your opinion, wouldn't it be better to scale one or both options down in power isntead of not letting a character take both at the expense of feats?
Not necessary, it's not that it's a boost in power its that its another Hey you get this too thing. The paladin and ranger actually are pretty darn close to needing this (not so much the ranger, but the paladin needs all the help he can get) the spellcaster don't need yet another option. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree. Maybe how badly the paladin is shafted is jading me to improvements to other classes I don't know, I need to take a break from thinking about it.
I like the idea of taking feats to enhance the bond, especially for range, and paladin.
I agree the wording on the bond could get cleaned up. It should be able to stack weapon abilities, but maybe not the enhancement bonus.
I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of point system for the paladin, like the barbarian got, with all of their abilities drawing out of the pool.
I like the idea of taking feats to enhance the bond, especially for range, and paladin.
I agree the wording on the bond could get cleaned up. It should be able to stack weapon abilities, but maybe not the enhancement bonus.
One of the nice things about the 3.5 PHB, that I hope the play-testing and review process will replicate for Pathfinder, is the amount that rules are explained as they relate to each other.
Some clarification might be of benefit but the rules for divine bond seem crystal clear to me as a veteran DM of many min-maxers and rules-lawyers. In a nutshell like abilities don't stack, different abilities would stack, enhancement bonuses would not stack.
My in depth discussion on the point for those who are interested:
Stacking
In most cases, **modifiers to a given check or roll stack** (combine for a cumulative effect) if they come from different sources and have different types (or no type at all), but do not stack if they have the same type or come from the same source (such as the same spell cast twice in succession). If the modifiers to a particular roll do not stack, only the best bonus and worst penalty applies. Dodge bonuses and circumstance bonuses however, do stack with one another unless otherwise specified.
So a weapons has two rolls that can be modified, Attack and damage, Enhancement clearly does not stack as it is of a particular named type. Other bonuses include particular damage types, (in this case fire or holy) which would not stack with like bonuses. This doesn't preclude one from adding flame to a holy sword as the bonuses aren't of the same kind.
Then you have abilities that grant different qualities which don't grant a purely numerical bonus which I don't think there is any reason to think you could double up on (see the speed ability for precedent)Thus at level 20 a paladin could take a warhammer which is normally +5 flaming holy, axiomatic(+5 enhancement, +5 from special abilities) and apply diving weapon spirit for: Disruption +2, Speed +3, and defending +1 and go smash some Liches. An effective +16 bonus is balanced nicely vs fighter bonuses and level 9 spells. In the next combat against living creatures he could summon divine bond to get brilliant energy +4, Flaming burst +2. Here Flaming burst would not 'stack' with the flame on the sword and so the sword would use the more powerful ability and be treated just as a flaming burst weapon. (well technically a +5 holy axiomatic, brilliant energy, flaming burst weapon)
With this reading it's pretty darn powerful, I like it, it seems just the kind of thing that paladin needs to get a powerful and flavorful boost to bring them in line with other melee classes. More abilities could be added to divine bond at DM prerogative.
I guess one of my concerns is that this power, though cool or even necessary, might eclipse mounts and it was the intent of my initial post to ensure that mounts remain a possibility for those wishing to have their cake and eat it too.
Thanks for the support so far everyone.
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[B]UPDATE ALERT: A REVISED VERSION OF THE BETA PALADIN HAS BEEN POSTED BY JASON ON THIS THREAD.
Check it out, and save yourselves debating changes that have already occurred!