I'm not offended. I never took part or read too much of those earlier discussions on this. I am hopefully not using what you call the poor fighter excuse.
I agree there could be something else available other than smite to aid in combat. I think the spells could fill this role. Don't remember if divine favor is on the paladin spell list, but a +3/+3 from a spell like that would go a long way here. Do you agree?
I have a fairly large post about the issue of people complaining about the paladin stepping on the fighters toes (yes I am tired of hearing it, no offense).
Also divine favor is a good spell yes, but it only lasts a few rounds and with it can be cast on anyone if i am not mistaken.
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I'm not offended. I never took part or read too much of those earlier discussions on this. I am hopefully not using what you call the poor fighter excuse.
I agree there could be something else available other than smite to aid in combat. I think the spells could fill this role. Don't remember if divine favor is on the paladin spell list, but a +3/+3 from a spell like that would go a long way here. Do you agree?
I have a fairly large post about the issue of people complaining about the paladin stepping on the fighters toes (yes I am tired of hearing it, no offense).
Also divine favor is a good spell yes, but it only lasts a few rounds and with it can be cast on anyone if i am not mistaken.
It's personal buff so it can only be cast on yourself and at half caster level it's very easy to have it stripped from.
Hi Roman, I appreciate your comments here and I think you are on the mark when you say that paladins could have two paths... however, I think you are wrong about what those two paths should be. Instead of the two paths being Holy Warrior and the other Mounted Warrior (Knight) I think the two paths are quite clear - Paladins who are focused on the martial path and then Paladins more focused on the divine, channelling path.
All paladins, regardless of path would receive the following abilities and powers:
Good BAB, Good Fort and Will saves.
Detect Evil, Divine Grace, LoH, Divine Health, Aura of Good, Smite, Aura of Courage, Divine Bond - Mount, Mettle, Remove Disease, Remove Curse, Aura of Resolve, Aura of Faith, Aura of Righteousness (DR 5/-), Holy Champion (DR 10/-)
All paladins must still be of Lawful Good alignment and follow the paladin code of conduct.
The Martial paladin would gain bonus feats at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels and a martial paladin would be permitted to purchase the weapon focus and specialization tree feats. Such a paladin could also choose to focus on mounted combat feats at their discretion. The martial paladin would also acquire an always on martial prowess ability granting them bonus to hit and damage in combat against all foes, not just evil. For example +1 to hit and damage increasing every 6 levels (+2 at 7th, +3 at 13th and +4 at 19th). This could be limited to a weapon of choice for the paladin, whereas the fighter gets his bonus with groups of weapons and the fighter’s bonus will always be a little better. This could be toned back so that the bonus doesn’t start until 6th level if there are concerns about the fighters little toes.This paladin would not have the ability to channel energy and would not gain paladin spells until 9th level. Caster level is ½ paladin level. Except for Aura of Courage, the martial paladin’s aura effects are limited to the paladin only. A martial paladin holy champion (20th level) does not gain the ability to banish with smite and, of course, does not channel energy.
The Divine or Channelling paladin would focus on abilities related to just that, channelling energy against his foes, spells and healing abilities. This paladin gains channel energy and can cast spells start at 4th level but caster level is equal to paladin level. This paladin would have extra smites per day equal to charisma modifier. The divine paladin also gets access to divine bond-weapon in addition to divine bond mount. I think it appropriate to break up divine mount from divine weapon since divine mount is not really very powerful as many encounters do not focus on mounted situations and it should be ok to grant to paladins on its own. The divine paladin has the full abilities for all auras and their radius effects as well as the full capability of all powers as described in the paladin table (all those mentioned already plus heal, break enchantment, aura of justice, full bore holy champion with max channelling and banishment).
I think your concept of two paths for the paladin to provide the opportunity to fit with the different opinions of what a paladin is. Is he the “Paladin In Hell” fighting machine against evil or is he a Conduit for the righteous energy of the powers of goodness? This would let players have the chance to be either. The split of powers and abilities could be adjusted and such, by no means written in stone. Just presented them as a start.
If this doesn’t seem like a good compromise, then the only other way I can see to make paladins special and rare is to make them a prestige class (an idea I hate, but one that seems to make more sense as I think about it) and tack on several prerequisites for characters to qualify.
Think on all this. Cheers.
You gave me some praise once before...right back at you bro!!! AMEN TO THIS!!!
you hit the high points that I want, paladin feats every 4 levels which includes the weapon focus/spec trees, an always active effect (OMG YES PLEASE!! they NEED THIS!!)
Mettle, almost a MUST, I would like to note that this should also have an "Aura" effect as I explained above please!
And caster level.
Seriously, the changes that are listed are great! But if you add these few things I think the job is done!
It's personal buff so it can only be cast on yourself and at half caster level it's very easy to have it stripped from.I'm not offended. I never took part or read too much of those earlier discussions on this. I am hopefully not using what you call the poor fighter excuse.
I agree there could be something else available other than smite to aid in combat. I think the spells could fill this role. Don't remember if divine favor is on the paladin spell list, but a +3/+3 from a spell like that would go a long way here. Do you agree?
I have a fairly large post about the issue of people complaining about the paladin stepping on the fighters toes (yes I am tired of hearing it, no offense).
Also divine favor is a good spell yes, but it only lasts a few rounds and with it can be cast on anyone if i am not mistaken.
Thanx for the clarification. One way to fix this is just let the paladin cast this at will for a standard action, that is only vs. evil. This gives all of us that want some form of always active hit/damage ability what we want but still makes the paladin sacrifice an action to do it.
3. If smite is going to stay, PLEASE don't make it only truly effective against fiends and undead. It's tantamount to dictating what the paladin has to do with his career. Don't continue to trap paladins in the ghetto of demons and vampires. There are so many, many other iniquities in the world! I would much rather see something like a +1/+1 every four levels vs. evil.I disagree with this. To me it makes perfect sense to me that Liches and Demons, the very exemplars of evil, should be affected more by Smiting than, say, a common bandit. However...
Respectfully, YOU have chosen these to be the exemplars of evil. I have not. Is an imp or a skeleton really more evil than an ancient red dragon or a human who wants to destroy the entire world? Please don't pre-set what kind of evil I can be good at fighting.
Don't think of the power of smite as coming from the nature of the evil it fights. Rather, think of it as coming from the strength of the paladin's righteousness.
WELL SAID! I have been saying for a awhile now. The paladin should not only seek to bring down righteous wrath on the worst of the worst evil! He should punish ALL!!!!!! EVIL! in ALL FORMS!!! This is the reason I have been fighting for some form of "always on" damage vs. evil...this fixes that problem.
I love this version and can't wait to play a Paladin. I do agree with the flaw in the DR at 20th level though. I think that with the addition of Smite Feats and other Paladin friendly ones to allow customization of Paladin specialties you've hit the Fist of God nail on the head.
If you want your paladin to be a smite machine, I would like you to be able to dump feats on beefing up that class ability. Other paladins will beef up channeling, spellcasting*, exotic mounts, etc. with their feats, or just take regular combat feats to beef up their general combat options.
* Perhaps something like this:
Improved Martial Caster
Requirements: Paladin or ranger level 4th, Wis 13+
Benefit: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to your paladin or ranger level.
Normal: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to half your paladin or ranger level.
I like the idea of boosting class abilities with feats. I wonder if instead of giving paladins equal effective cleric level to channel energy, that could be achieved with a feat.
The Improved Martial Caster seems overpowered, but I can't suggest an alternative that's as clean as what you propose. Some people have talked about improving a paladin's defensive casting or letting him cast spells with reduced casting time, to enable casting on the front line. If the paladin ever gets a less risky method of casting, it should be less powerful than what a back-row caster caster can do. I just bring that up to keep in mind when discussing options to boost a paladin's spellcasting.
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If you want your paladin to be a smite machine, I would like you to be able to dump feats on beefing up that class ability. Other paladins will beef up channeling, spellcasting*, exotic mounts, etc. with their feats, or just take regular combat feats to beef up their general combat options.
* Perhaps something like this:
Improved Martial Caster
Requirements: Paladin or ranger level 4th, Wis 13+
Benefit: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to your paladin or ranger level.
Normal: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to half your paladin or ranger level.
I like the idea of boosting class abilities with feats. I wonder if instead of giving paladins equal effective cleric level to channel energy, that could be achieved with a feat.
The Improved Martial Caster seems overpowered, but I can't suggest an alternative that's as clean as what you propose. Some people have talked about improving a paladin's defensive casting or letting him cast spells with reduced casting time, to enable casting on the front line. If the paladin ever gets a less risky method of casting, it should be less powerful than what a back-row caster caster can do. I just bring that up to keep in mind when discussing options to boost a paladin's spellcasting.
Something similar to the non-OCL Practiced Spellcaster? Add 4 to the caster level up to your level.
Smite Evil - Definitely an improvement but still has a couple of issues. First it the limited number of uses especially at low levels. The increased benefits are do help offset this, but with only on attack per round a miss means it is wasted for the day. The other problem is in the damage increase vs Evil Outsiders and Undead. It can be less than the normal damage bonus and is not multiplied by a critical as the flat bonus is. This is easily fixed by changing it from "instead of" to "in addition to". That is the 1d6/2 levels does not replace the 1 point per level but is in addition to it. That wouldn't be too much, would it?
Other comments:
The Paladin still lags in combat capability behind the other full BAB classes when not using Smite Evil. A few bonus feats would round this out and bring the Paladin up to speed. Say at 1st, 5th, 11th, and 15th.
With regard to Spellcasting, I don't see a problem with giving the Paladin (and Ranger for that matter) full caster level instead of 1/2 as they get primarily buffs and few spells per day. I would also not be against giving them their entire spell list spontaneously cast like a Sorcerer as opposed to prepared like a Wizard or Cleric. Granted this last part works best with core only and may be unbalanced (and definitely more complicated) with the addition of non-core spells.
I really like the idea of "in addition to", I think that is an EXCELLENT idea and I agree with you. Absolutely not over powering by any stretch.
The addition of the bonus feats is something many of us have been fighting for, I would add in that these feats may be spent on the weapon focus/spec tree as well, for those paladins that want to focus on martial combat.
I would really like to see full caster level and I am up in the air about spontaneous casting but I dont feel that it would hurt anything. Most of the paladin spells are of minimal affect to game play as it is.
Looking over the whole post I see a few trends....
Most agree with the addition of Mettle, I can not describe how much sense this makes.
On top of Mettle I still want to argue for making it some form of Aura. As I said above many of the paladins auras already ask that the paladin's group members bunch up around him. This could be the making of many TPK's. If you allow the paladin to keep them in his "bubble" that allows for the abilities to be used and the group to be protected.
Next is the always on effect or even the addition of bonus feats that also allow you to select from the weapon focus/spec tree. Any combination of this would be great. With those bonus feats paladins could choose weather or not they want to be more martial oriented or more caster oriented, this is a needed option for the paladin.
Lastly I think many people want to see some form of increase to caster level. This has been suggested in many forms. Some want full CL or even CL - 3. Either of those would be fine with me.
Others are even suggesting spontaneous casting which I could get on board with because he is supposed to be in the front lines and his spells are not that world breaking.
I know we only have a couple days left to argue our cause here so I want to say it again.
The changes suggested are AWESOME, but I still feel that the paladin needs Mettle (with an Aura), bonus feats (that include new divine feats and weapon focus/spec) and some boost to caster level.
After that I dont see any possible arguments for the paladin and I would feel that he was the HOLY WARRIOR he is supposed to be!!!
It's personal buff so it can only be cast on yourself and at half caster level it's very easy to have it stripped from.I'm not offended. I never took part or read too much of those earlier discussions on this. I am hopefully not using what you call the poor fighter excuse.
I agree there could be something else available other than smite to aid in combat. I think the spells could fill this role. Don't remember if divine favor is on the paladin spell list, but a +3/+3 from a spell like that would go a long way here. Do you agree?
I have a fairly large post about the issue of people complaining about the paladin stepping on the fighters toes (yes I am tired of hearing it, no offense).
Also divine favor is a good spell yes, but it only lasts a few rounds and with it can be cast on anyone if i am not mistaken.
While it is a personal spell, as a cleric I often use Imbue With Spell Like Ability to give the fighter and/or rogue 3 uses of it. Quite worth the loss of 3 first level spell slots, especially at higher levels, especially now since PFRPG has un-nerfed divine favor. In addition, if the target of Imbue does not use all of the Divine Favor spells in the same day, I can prepare a new spell in the 3rd level slot I used for it, and any first level slots made available by Divine Favor spells the target did use. In addition, since cleric is full caster level, when someone tries to dispell it, they have to roll against my caster level, and not the paladin's half-level.
Is a more caster oriented paladin really needed? It sounds like a cleric to me. As far as the weapon focus/specialization tree, I like the idea that it is for fighters only. Fighters need some kind of advantage.
You mean the constant bonus to GROUPS of weapons they get from weapon training? or do you mean the huge increase to their AC from armor training? Maybe you are talking about the fact that these abilities are ALWAYS ACTIVE. Allowing the paladin to take weapon focus and spec does not hurt the fighter at all. I am not going to get into the whole shpeel about people worrying about the fighters toes, ive said that till im blue in the face.
As for Mettle being an Aura. Yes I think it is powerful but does it not also seem right? I mean look at all his other auras, of course groups are going to want to group around the paladin (within 10 feet) to gain these advantages. No, they will probably not do it all the time, but the bonuses are nice. Then once they do this and the AoE's start dropping you are going to see less use out of the paladin's auras, part of the reason people are saying the paladin is "tough enough". Yes I would settle for just mettle but I want to protect my group, how else am I going to do that?
I think we could continue to use the LoH as a resource to power some of the suggested abilities. Ex:
Use LoH to give the bane (vs evil) enhancement onto the weapon for a duration.
Use LoH to cast quickend or spontaneous spells.
I do like the idea of mettle, but not as an aura or radius.
I still don't like giving the weapon spec feats to a paladin. If you did that (along with the bonus feats suggested), there wouldn't be any need for a fighter class anymore.
Smite: Good change mechanically, but I would get rid of the offensive bonus, since smite ought to be offensive thematically.I assume Roman means "get rid of the defensive bonus" here. If so, I agree. To me Smite Evil should be an offensive power.
Yes, that is indeed precisely what I meant. It was a typo on my part.
I feel the need to address this, since it is somewhat deceptive. In theory, you are indeed correct that a 20th level Paladin with 22 CHA (that's a rather high CHA though...) could heal 960 hit points per day, but that's assuming that he would roll all 6s on all his rolls. This is so incredibly unlikely as to be practically impossible. The probability of that happening is 1 in 6^160 which equals approximately 1 in 3.193 x 10^124 !! Yes, that's a more than 3 with 124 zeroes after it. Just for the sake of comparison, the observable universe is estimated to have approximately 10^80 atoms in it in total, which is many orders of magnitudes less than 3.193 x 10^124. We can safely say that a Paladin healing 960 hit points, even at 20th level and even with 22 Charisma, is impossible for all practical intents and purposes.
But here is the bonus: Even if it were somehow possible, it wouldn't be disastrous. Why? Because a typical 4-member 20th level party will have around 600 hit points (and that's assuming much, much lower Constitution scores than your assumption for the Paladin's Charisma), so the Paladin will not even be able to heal the party twice to full from a highly beaten-up state (and as I pointed out in the paragraph above, such amount of healing is practically impossible to achieve in practice).
One more thing to add: The total amount of healing per day only matters for the purposes of the length of the adventuring day of the party. The real place where healing can actually be broken is not total healing per day, but rather the amount of damage healed per round, since that matters in combat. In this regard, I think Channel Positive Energy (though not necessarily Lay on Hands) is indeed overpowered due to healing multiple...
You're forgetting that average d6 is 3.5 cure light is 1d8+2 or 6.5 so LoH is weaker then then clw. Lvl 4 it's 7 vs 13, lvl 8 it's 14 vs 26. So LoH is weaker healing then appropriate level healing from a cleric. However this healing comes as a swift which does boost it's power, but if used on an ally it's not really a big deal.
Nevertheless A 3.5 at lvl2, 7 at lvl 4 and 14 at lvl 8 and is out paced by damage done by monsters. Even a cleric's cure spells tend to be out paced by monster's attacks anyway. There are arguments that it's more efficient for the cleric to attack instead of heal, even when everyone else is almost dead.
So that leaves paladins using LoH abilities for outside combat, which gives about average 560 HP at lvl 20 (3.5 x 10= 35 which average roll for LoH. Assuming 22 CHA which 6 bonus and extra 10 due to levels for total of 16. So that means they can give that 35 heal back 16 and 35x16 = 560. However you have to remember you're expected to have 4 encounters per day so that's an average 140 heals after each encounter. Then you might have to factor in that not just the paladin might need heals but your other 3 comrades. So factoring in healing your buddies would mean that 140 heal becomes a 35 per person after encounter.
I don't think Lay on Hands is overpowered.
Now before you say Channel Energy is over powered remember it takes 2 LoH per use. Which means that 35 heal could be used 8 times now but AoE, which gives you an average of 280 per day or 70 per encounter.
While 280 may sound like a lot of heal however a clw wand gives an average of 275 heal per use. So in effect a Paladin is only saving the party a clw each (or 3,000 gold for a party of 4). By level 20 the character wealth is 880,000 (according to the Pathfinder Beta). So if people want to argue about pc saving 3,000-4,500 (4-6 size party) at level 20. While 3,000-4,500 may sound a lot, just remember the pc should have 880,000 wealth. Even pc going from 19 to 20 are expected to accumulate an extra 195,000 wealth in gold.
I don't see why people are making a big deal for the party saving 3,000-4,500 worth of gold when they're earning 780,000 gold.
I do indeed think that Channel Positive Energy is overpowered (for both Clerics and Paladins), but for a completely different reason than what you describe. The total amount of healing per day that Channel Positive Energy can accomplish, which is what you are analyzing above, is perfectly fine and I have no problem with that whatsoever. It is how this healing is structured that is the problem in several ways:
1) The first issue is that Channel Positive Energy can heal hit points as an area of effect effect even at low levels. This enables the Cleric/Paladin to heal all party members simultaneously eliminates the need for him to maneuver to get to the person needing healing. Normally, it would be a 5th level spell, Mass Cure Light Wounds, that would enable the Cleric to do this from level 9, but the Cleric/Paladin can now do practically the same thing at level 1. Yes, in terms of healing, level 1 Channel Positive Energy is almost equivalent to a 5th level spell.
2) It does not end there, though, as when the party is fighting undead, the same action that enables the Cleric/Paladin to do this large amount of healing quickly, also enables him to do an equal amount of damage to undead, and additionally force them to make a saving throw or.... This is an absolute deathtrap for undead, as I found out when my party repeatedly managed to fight off my undead creations without too much difficulty, despite the fact that the encounter level was much higher than the level of the party.
As such, Channel Positive Energy is overpowered not because of the total healing it enables per day, but because it enables large amount of healing in an area of effect and quickly at levels far earlier than when the Cleric should be able to do so... and at the same time does equivalent damage to undead.
This problem, of course, is solvable. Suppose that instead of the current healing/damage mechanic, we would instead take cue from "Cure ... Wounds" and "Cause ... Wounds" spells, which after all, are supposed to rely on positive and negative energy respectively.
Channel energy would require a touch to function at the lower levels. In its positive energy version, it would cure hit points to the tune of 1d8 + 1 per level (max. 5), plus an additional 1d8 hit points every two levels thereafter (hence 2d8 +1 per level (max. 10) at third level, 3d8 +1 per leve (max. 15) at fourth level, etcetera). Of course, the ability would also do equivalent damage to the undead upon a succesful touch attack. The Channel Negative Energy ability would, naturaly, work in the opposite manner. The neat thing is, that the Cleric's Channeling improves (under current rules) at the same levels, as the Cleric gains new spell levels, so this would work perfectly in this regard.
In effect, Cleric would expend each Channel Positive/Negative Energy use to spontaneous cast a "Cure/Cause ... Wounds" spell of the highest level he can cast (or lower if he so chose), but with the additional benefit of turning/commanding undead and indeed the Turning/Commanding effects would remain bursts, even though the healing/damage would be touch effects. The actual turning and commanding mechanics would remain the same as they are in the current Channel Positive/Negative Energy desciptions, with the will save determining whether the undead in question flee/are commanded.
At 9th level, Clerics gain 5th level spells and Cure Light Wounds, Mass (or Cause Light Wounds, Mass) is among them. At this stage, it is therefore feasible and balanced to give the Cleric the option to also use Channel Energy to cause an area of effect burst (30' centered around the Cleric) healing damage to living creatures and dealing damage to undead. It would start at at hit points: 1d8 + 1 per level (max. 25) and rise from there every two levels just like the "Mass Cure ... Spells" do. Of course, the Cleric could still use the single target spells if he chose to do so - perhaps even upgraded ones that do not exist in standard rules (additional +1d8 per two levels of Cleric [and increasing the maximum +1/level bonus by 5 per two Cleric levels]).
Given this kind of transparency between cure/cause spells and the Channel Energy ability it would probably be best to remove spontaneous casting of cure/cause spells from the Cleric (perhaps adding domain spontaneous casting instead, though that is for another debate).
In fact, I have implemented something like this in my campaign, though this is a compromise solution mirroring "Cure ... Wounds" spells precisely but adding the turning and undead-damage effects, whereas in my campaign I was even harsher. We could easily use the system, but bring the dice back down to d6 or not add the +1/level bonus or even both - after all Channeling has something extra on the "Cure ... Wounds" spells - notably that it also damages and turns undead.
Also, with Channeling substantially weaker, we could make it usable as a move action either as standard or as a feat, thus ensuring that the Cleric can really do other things while healing in the same round. To prevent abuse, it could still be limited to one Channel Energy per round.
If this is all too complex, how about keeping Channel Energy as it is now, but decreasing the damage healed/dealt to d4 / 2 levels? I have not playtested this, but maybe it would make a difference.
Although I might be somewhat hesitant to allow them, at higher levels, there could even be feats (with suitable pre-requisites) to increase the d4 to d6, since it would be less problematic at very high levels and the Cleric/Paladin would be forced to expend resources (feats) to achieve the effect.
I feel the need to address this, since it is somewhat deceptive. In theory, you are indeed correct that a 20th level Paladin with 22 CHA (that's a rather high CHA though...) could heal 960 hit points per day, but that's assuming that he would roll all 6s on all his rolls. This is so incredibly unlikely as to be practically impossible. The probability of that happening is 1 in 6^160 which equals approximately 1 in 3.193 x 10^124 !! Yes, that's a more than 3 with 124 zeroes after it. Just for the sake of comparison, the observable universe is estimated to have approximately 10^80 atoms in it in total, which is many orders of magnitudes less than 3.193 x 10^124. We can safely say that a Paladin healing 960 hit points, even at 20th level and even with 22 Charisma, is impossible for all practical intents and purposes.Actually, a 20th level paladin automatically heals the max. amount every time he uses Lay on Hands, thanks to the Holy Champion ability. I know that it's a 20th level ability, and indeed it may not be such an issue before that, but even then it's a bit clunky mechanic which slows down combat rounds later on. I prefer the Beta system, but if Lay on Hands need a boost, then I think the 3E mechanic (CHA x LEVEL per day ; divided into as many uses as needed) is a better and also *quicker* way without rolling and claculating X dice. This could be upgraded to 2 x (CHA x LVL), or something like it in PF.
Ehm, good point on the maximum healing from the Holy Champion ability - I somehow overlooked that. Perfect efficiency is nonetheless unlikely, due to the fact that it will be very rare when the party is missing precisely that number of hit points and none will go to waste, but yes it does make the 960 hit points healed per day as feasible. That just brings is to what I wrote in the next paragraph though.
But here is the bonus: Even if it were somehow possible, it wouldn't be disastrous. Why? Because a typical 4-member 20th level party will have around 600 hit points (and that's assuming much, much lower Constitution scores than your assumption for the Paladin's Charisma), so the Paladin will not even be able to heal the party twice to full from a highly beaten-up state (and as I pointed out in the paragraph above, such amount of healing is practically impossible to achieve in practice).He does get 'Heal', though, although using it means he spends his Lay on Hands -ability uses. All in all I think the Paladin's "role" in the group should not be that of a healer per se -- rather, I see him as a Holy Warrior who is effective in combat against evil opponents, *and* often acts as a leader/commander who boosts the morale and abilities of his allies. Having said that, I think it's better to include more auras and "smite powers", rather than upgrade his healing abilities.
I *do* know that high-level parties often run out of healing, but IMO that's not actually solved by making the paladin more effective healer -- it's a "problem" that's caused by a number of different factors. 4E solved this by giving everyone Second Winds, Healing Surges and whatnot -- PF has a different take on it, and it remains to be seen how succesfully it deals with this issue.
I think making the Paladin an alternate healer is a decent way to approach this issue and does help to address the length of the adventuring day and provides alternative sources of healing apart from just the Cleric. As such, I see little downside to this and it does fit the Paladin themetically pretty decently too.
3. If smite is going to stay, PLEASE don't make it only truly effective against fiends and undead. It's tantamount to dictating what the paladin has to do with his career. Don't continue to trap paladins in the ghetto of demons and vampires. There are so many, many other iniquities in the world! I would much rather see something like a +1/+1 every four levels vs. evil.I disagree with this. To me it makes perfect sense to me that Liches and Demons, the very exemplars of evil, should be affected more by Smiting than, say, a common bandit. However...
Respectfully, YOU have chosen these to be the exemplars of evil. I have not. Is an imp or a skeleton really more evil than an ancient red dragon or a human who wants to destroy the entire world? Please don't pre-set what kind of evil I can be good at fighting.
Don't think of the power of smite as coming from the nature of the evil it fights. Rather, think of it as coming from the strength of the paladin's righteousness.
And this is the crux of it, I think. I've been reading these threads and adding in where I can, but we seem to have really hit a wall with the Paladin. All our prolific posters have been advancing their own ideas, methods and rule sets to fit what they see the Paladin. Many are good, but very few of them are compatible.
PRPG, as the successor to 3.5, should really embody the principles of flexibility and openness that made 3.5 great. As an example of that flexibility: In three of my four campaigns (yes, I play that many) we have a Paladin. One is a stick-in-the-mud warrior of good who grew from an awkward farm boy. One is a jolly questing knight in search of a grail-equivalent. One is an Elven Knight-Protector.
All three battle demons, undead, orcish hordes, corrupted officials, banditry, and the occasional dragon. I like varied opponents, different missions, and different terrain types. These Paladins become MUCH less useful if they're limited in their abilities to fight evil.
The best rulesets are those which allow the players to use the basic rules to customize the campaign. I use the examples above not because I want to force the rules to match those, but because I don't want to invalidate my particular uses. As we discuss these rules, rather than try and make it one way, let's broaden and simplify.
A Smite Evil, no matter it's mechanics, that does not assume the villains the Paladin will be fighting allows general flexibility and doesn't hurt the Paladin when the villains change up. Using feats to broaden it limits the Paladin even further, because they're forced to use precious feats for each type of opponent the DM favors. Feats that let the smite evil work more effectively against undead, outsiders, or abberations, however, are a great idea because they allow customization rather than require it.
As such, I must advocate a general smite evil with feat options that make it specialized against specific enemy types.
Couple of comments:
Alternate Paladin path: There is a very positive trend of giving classes at least two 'paths' along which they can advance. The Ranger can become the super-archer, or the super-dual-wielder, Sorcerers can chose bloodlines that differentiate them, Paladins have such a huge feat selection that they have effectively multi-path development and so on. One of the exceptions is the Paladin.
I think a similar approach would work well for the Paladin too. The Paladin is particularly tied to two social roles, that of the holy warrior and that of the mounted warrior (knight). At the moment, the Paladin is mechanically geared to being the holy warrior, but apart from the mount, does not receive any actual abilities that would help him in mounted combat.
Hi Roman, I appreciate your comments here and I think you are on the mark when you say that paladins could have two paths... however, I think you are wrong about what those two paths should be. Instead of the two paths being Holy Warrior and the other Mounted Warrior (Knight) I think the two paths are quite clear - Paladins who are focused on the martial path and then Paladins more focused on the divine, channelling path.
All paladins, regardless of path would receive the following abilities and powers:
Good BAB, Good Fort and Will saves.
Detect Evil, Divine Grace, LoH, Divine Health, Aura of Good, Smite, Aura of Courage, Divine Bond - Mount, Mettle, Remove Disease, Remove Curse, Aura of Resolve, Aura of Faith, Aura of Righteousness (DR 5/-), Holy Champion (DR 10/-)
All paladins must still be of Lawful Good alignment and follow the paladin code of conduct.
The Martial paladin would gain bonus feats at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels and a martial paladin would be permitted to purchase the weapon focus and specialization tree feats. Such a paladin could also choose to focus on mounted combat feats at their discretion. The martial paladin would also acquire an always on martial prowess ability...
A martial versus channeling path is certainly also feasible, but the reason I chose a holy warrior versus knight/mounted-warrior paths was that a martial Paladin without any further descriptor might be too similar to a fighter. Basically, if the Paladin has a specific 'martial path' distinct from the holy-warrior path, than it needs to be narrowed down further, such as to the mounted-warrior/knight path (though I am sure there are other decent possibilities too).
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I do indeed think that Channel Positive Energy is overpowered (for both Clerics and Paladins), but for a completely different reason than what you describe. The total amount of healing per day that Channel Positive Energy can accomplish, which is what you are analyzing above, is perfectly fine and I have no problem with that whatsoever. It is how this healing is structured that is the problem in several ways:
1) The first issue is that Channel Positive Energy can heal hit points as an area of effect effect even at low levels. This enables the Cleric/Paladin to heal all party members simultaneously eliminates the need for him to maneuver to get to the person needing healing. Normally, it would be a 5th level spell, Mass Cure Light Wounds, that would enable the Cleric to do this from level 9, but the Cleric/Paladin can now do practically the same thing at level 1. Yes, in terms of healing, level 1 Channel Positive Energy is almost equivalent to a 5th level spell.
2) It does not end there, though, as when the party is fighting undead, the same action that enables the Cleric/Paladin to do this large amount of healing quickly, also enables him to do an equal amount of damage to undead, and additionally force them to make a saving throw or.... This is an absolute deathtrap for undead, as I found out when my party repeatedly managed to fight off my undead creations without too much difficulty, despite the fact that the encounter level was much higher than the level of the party.
As such, Channel Positive Energy is overpowered not because of the total healing it enables per day, but because it enables large amount of healing in an area of effect and quickly at levels far earlier than when the Cleric should be able to do so... and at the same time does equivalent damage to undead.
This problem, of course, is solvable. Suppose that instead of the current healing/damage mechanic, we would instead take cue from "Cure ... Wounds" and "Cause ... Wounds" spells, which after all, are supposed to rely on positive and negative energy respectively.
Channel energy would require a touch to function at the lower levels. In its positive energy version, it would cure hit points to the tune of 1d8 + 1 per level (max. 5), plus an additional 1d8 hit points every two levels thereafter (hence 2d8 +1 per level (max. 10) at third level, 3d8 +1 per leve (max. 15) at fourth level, etcetera). Of course, the ability would also do equivalent damage to the undead upon a succesful touch attack. The Channel Negative Energy ability would, naturaly, work in the opposite manner. The neat thing is, that the Cleric's Channeling improves (under current rules) at the same levels, as the Cleric gains new spell levels, so this would work perfectly in this regard.
In effect, Cleric would expend each Channel Positive/Negative Energy use to spontaneous cast a "Cure/Cause ... Wounds" spell of the highest level he can cast (or lower if he so chose), but with the additional benefit of turning/commanding undead and indeed the Turning/Commanding effects would remain bursts, even though the healing/damage would be touch effects. The actual turning and commanding mechanics would remain the same as they are in the current Channel Positive/Negative Energy desciptions, with the will save determining whether the undead in question flee/are commanded.
At 9th level, Clerics gain 5th level spells and Cure Light Wounds, Mass (or Cause Light Wounds, Mass) is among them. At this stage, it is therefore feasible and balanced to give the Cleric the option to also use Channel Energy to cause an area of effect burst (30' centered around the Cleric) healing damage to living creatures and dealing damage to undead. It would start at at hit points: 1d8 + 1 per level (max. 25) and rise from there every two levels just like the "Mass Cure ... Spells" do. Of course, the Cleric could still use the single target spells if he chose to do so - perhaps even upgraded ones that do not exist in standard rules (additional +1d8 per two levels of Cleric [and increasing the maximum +1/level bonus by 5 per two Cleric levels]).
Given this kind of transparency between cure/cause spells and the Channel Energy ability it would probably be best to remove spontaneous casting of cure/cause spells from the Cleric (perhaps adding domain spontaneous casting instead, though that is for another debate).
In fact, I have implemented something like this in my campaign though this is a compromise solution mirroring "Cure ... Wounds" spells precisely but adding the turning and undead-damage effects, whereas in my campaign I was even harsher. We could easily use the system, but bring the dice back down to d6 or not add the +1/level bonus or both.
If this is all too complex, how about keeping Channel Energy as it is now, but decreasing the damage healed/dealt to d4 / 2 levels? I have not playtested this, but maybe it would make a difference.
Although I might be somewhat hesitant to allow them, at higher levels, there could even be feats (with suitable pre-requisites) to increase the d4 to d6, since it would be less problematic at very high levels and the Cleric/Paladin would be forced to expend resources (feats) to achieve the effect.
The entire Mass Cure Wounds line spells are broken! You're sacrificing 5+ level spell slot to do extremely limited healing (in the case of mclw it's 13.5-19.5). Honestly the mass cure spells should really take one spell slot higher then their base cure spell.
This is a great fix.
There seem to be two schools of thought on smiting. Some of us think there needs to a more generalized, low-level boost vs. evil all the time to make the paladin a better combatant. The other group feels that a passive bonus is no fun. They want to make an active choice that turns their paladin into an evil-slaying bad-ass.
I think there may be a compromise. In Races of Destiny, there's a racial substitution level for half-orc paladins to take in place of smite. It's a blend of barbarian rage and smite evil.
Righteous Fury (Ex): A half-orc paladin can fly into a fury of righteous fervor once per day, dealing powerful blows to his enemies. Entering a righteous fury is a free action. While in a righteous fury, the half-orc paladin gains a +2 morale bonus on melee weapon damage rolls. This bonus increases by one for every four class levels, to +3 at 4th level, +4 at 8th level, up to a maximum of +7 at 20th level. The half-orc remains in this fury for one round plus one round per point of Charisma bonus (minimum 1 round).
At 5th level, and at every 5 class levels thereafter, the half-orc paladin may enter this righteous fury one additional time per day.
I'm not proposing we go with this exact mechanic, but I think the general idea could make everybody happy. Something that was less massive--spread broadly over more rounds and foes would make Group One happy. And it would be an active power that's fun to use, which would please Group Two. Everyone thinks barbarian rage or a dervish dance is fun to use. I think everybody could be happy here if we're willing to compromise.
As such, I must advocate a general smite evil with feat options that make it specialized against specific enemy types.
The revised smite evil as presented gets a bonus against undead and evil outsiders. Normally I'm sympathetic when someone wants to strip away limiting assumptions and open up more options. I want to like this idea. However, opening up the list of enemy types makes the paladin feel just like the ranger. Would the proposed feat buy you one favored enemy or two? For example, could I get undead and evil outsiders for one feat, and could I just as easily choose fey and construct? I wonder if the paladin with its stronger archetype inherently comes with more built-in assumptions.
The revised smite evil as presented gets a bonus against undead and evil outsiders. Normally I'm sympathetic when someone wants to strip away limiting assumptions and open up more options. I want to like this idea. However, opening up the list of enemy types makes the paladin feel just like the ranger. Would the proposed feat buy you one favored enemy or two? For example, could I get undead and evil outsiders for one feat, and could I just as easily choose fey and construct? I wonder if the paladin with its stronger archetype inherently comes with more built-in assumptions.As such, I must advocate a general smite evil with feat options that make it specialized against specific enemy types.
You've misunderstood Brother Willi. He's advocating a Smite Evil that works equally well against all evil foes.
In addition, feats might be used to add specialized secondary, effects against certain foes. An example that already exists is Turning Smite, which adds an effect useful against undead to smites affecting them. Other such feats might add effects to smite that temporarily lower a fiend's spell resistance, force an evil lycanthrope to change back into human form, or temporarily disable a dragon's breath weapon.
That way, if you were playing a campaign of Arthurian chivalry and would never so much as see a demon or ghoul, your smite evil would work well against villainous human knights and you could take a feat to make it work even better against those pesky fairy ones. Or if you were playing in an Arabian campaign, you could take a feat so that your mighty blows might hamper the magics of the foul ifrits who will not head the words of the Prophet.
You've misunderstood Brother Willi. He's advocating a Smite Evil that works equally well against all evil foes.
I was thinking of the following:
If the creature hit by a paladin using smite evil is an outsider with the evil subtype or undead creature, the bonus to damage increases to 1d6 points of damage per two levels the paladin possesses (minimum +1d6) and the damage automatically bypasses any DR the creature might possess.
Is he saying that the 1d6 per 2 levels and DR-bypass would apply to all evil creatures, and feats would add effects for specific types on top of that?
In addition, feats might be used to add specialized secondary, effects against certain foes. An example that already exists is Turning Smite, which adds an effect useful against undead to smites affecting them. Other such feats might add effects to smite that temporarily lower a fiend's spell resistance, force an evil lycanthrope to change back into human form, or temporarily disable a dragon's breath weapon.
There were other goodies along these lines in the Paladin Smite Effects thread, where the idea was to choose new effects automatically as you level up or every time you gain a new smite.
That way, if you were playing a campaign of Arthurian chivalry and would never so much as see a demon or ghoul, your smite evil would work well against villainous human knights and you could take a feat to make it work even better against those pesky fairy ones. Or if you were playing in an Arabian campaign, you could take a feat so that your mighty blows might hamper the magics of the foul ifrits who will not head the words of the Prophet.
Makes sense. Assuming a reasonable mechanic, I like the idea.
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Love most of the changes, and the few things I might quibble over (such as the interaction between clerical channel energy and paladin channel energy) are minor, and have already been gone over by others. Since I already made one for the alternate rage and alternate animal companions, I threw together a PDF for the new paladin. Should make it easier to use without having to cross reference between Pathfinder, the SRD, and the new rules presented here.
The PDF for the new paladin can be found here. (http://rapidshare.com/files/152853507/Paladin.pdf.html)
Brodiggan...
Have I told you lately, that I love you
Have I told you lately, that I caaaaarrrrrrrre...
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I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking for my thoughts on these so here we go.
Now for some questions. Do these upgrades, especially those made to smite evil, help to level the playing field for a paladin in melee? (Note that the paladin should not, generally speaking, equal the fighter unless the circumstances are favorable to the paladin).
Short answer no. Long answer the only time this begins to bring parity to the class is level 7-20 when fighting evil outsiders and undead where you have more than one or two uses a day, gosh forbid you are just opposing an evil cleric or vicious barbarian dictator. Levels 1-5 is still a crapshoot since you can miss with your one hit. My question is the duration of 1 round, is that just your round or the entire round I.E. until the start of the next turn. If the first then it really doesn't change anything for the low level paladin (I'll go into more detail why when I get to detect evil) if the last then at least if he misses he might get off the lucky AoO.
I do love the AC boost though, that will synergize nicely with my law devotion. But I'm focusing on the melee aspects of the class.
Also situational modifiers can be a pain for the DM if the paladin doesn't know what he is fighting is a demon/undead and before people start crying out "But he should use his detect and alway know now" A) there are spells and magic items that can mask your aura. B) Sometimes you just don't have time to detect. What is a DM supposed to do in those situations, it's kind of hard to keep discrete rolling 2d6 dice to add and not let the player know it is in fact evil. I would much rather have level x2 damage always aplicable than +d6 dice aplicable sometimes. And only dropping DR on two types of monsters isn't that great, oh evil cleric I smite you, to bad you aren't an evil outsider cause that DR of yours is making this pretty much a normal attack.
Does the change to lay on hands and channel energy allow the paladin to be a capable healer without overshadowing the cleric?
I hate to be the voice of decent, and I will talk to my DM about re-running our low level fights to get some good playtest data. but Honestly while it helps, it hurts just as much, also it promotes selfishness in the paladin which just runs sooooo against type that it gets under my skin.
How it helps... the ability of lay on hands to heal better than before at low levels is a boon, but without any kind of bonus to the healing rolls your likely to waste the action on a roll of a 1. A simple fix is to allow 1/2 paladin level (min +1) as a bonus to the healing rolls that way even with crap rolls you are never healing bare minimum damage.
How it hurts... By unifying lay on hands (and I hate to be the voice of dissent but I have to weigh in that its not a good change to unify the rules. I would much rather have two working subsystems than one underpowered easily memorizable system) You'll actually cut your healing if you need to channel. let me explain, at 4th level when you get the ability you will have 2+ cha mod uses of lay on hands a day. lets say you have a 16 cha mod, that means you have 5 lay on hands. Before that would have given you the exact same # of lay on hands (albeit with no combat utility rather than some combat utility depending on your luck or if you want to spend all your time healing yourself only) and an additional although severely gimped 1+ cha mod channels. And thank you for making channeling no longer that rather limpid paladin level -3 that was sooo needed. for a total average of 32 hp a day to one target + however many were in your range. Now the new rules if you use just the lay on hands you are healing 35 average hp at fourth level, which is comparable, but if you try to use a channel which takes two uses instead you're healing average drops by 7 per use of the ability. Which means while it's more useful in combat (but still not really useful) you are healing on average less than before.
Also by making it take two Lay on hands uses to get a channel god forbid you don't play a healing paladin and try to use those channels to fuel divine metamagic or domain devotion feats. in order to get an additional use of a law devotion feat it takes 3 channel energies. Which is six lay on hands. But when you get lay on hands with a 16 charisma you only have 5 lay on hands a day which means you can't even use those channels to burn anymore.
If the stated goal of backwards compatability is still in place (although i think half the people on these boards have forgotten or assumed new ones) then this breaks backwards compatability and is actually as much of a nerf as the original reduction to 1+ cha mod channels per day.
Please break these two systems apart and retain their usefulness. there is really no reason to combine them. I know some people like it, but it hurts more than it helps and if they were seperate systems again then it would actually be a total all around improvement where as it stands it's a partial improvement and a larger gimp.
Considering the rules from the [Design Focus] Animal Companion thread, do the rules for a paladin's bonded mount provide a suitable mount across all levels?
This is where so far I'm actually on your side. I wouldn't mind seeing some special paladin only boosts that the ranger and druid don't get but other than that, I like the change and feel that this is one instance where unification works.
One thing though. This is a simple change that would make everyone happy. Change the name Divine Bond to Righteous Bond and make the flavor text say your holy cause has made a celestial spirit choose to follow and assist you this way players who don't like having religion shoved down their throats as paladins (which before was never an issue) can play their secular paladins just dandy.
Do you prefer the current version of the rules (where the mount stays on your plane and can teleported to your location) or the old version (where the mount roams the celestial realms to be called by you)?
Honestly when reading the description I couldn't tell you made that change. I like it, I also love that you can summon it more than once per day. I can't wait to see what feats you have for improving mounts, I'm gonna get a boar even though my half orc can't ride it yet and wait for improvements that will allow me to do so (the boar fits my character concept so much better than the horse)
Other thoughts?
Yes paladins still need to cast spontaneously. All in all the changes help although the low level paladin is still getting that I'm a warrior NPC other than once per day, but I'll heal you feel. I'm glad that you are working on this and I can't wait to see what new abilities you'll give us when they roll around. I'm a lot less depressed about the state of the paladin although his channeling is still seriously hurting.
Also this is something that should probably be saved for the spells when they roll around, but the paladins detect evil at low levels is so shafted that unless he suspects outsider (no evil half demons or tieflings) or undead he might as well not use it, which also hampers his ability to smite. A paladin is starting to come into his own against outsiders and undead, but unfortunately outsiders and undead aren't the totality of the evils the paladin faces.
Others may have already covered some of these, the boards have been acting screwy so I haven't been able to read more than the first page yet. YMMV I am looking forward to continuing to fight to make the paladin worth taking the class.
You mean the constant bonus to GROUPS of weapons they get from weapon training? or do you mean the huge increase to their AC from armor training? Maybe you are talking about the fact that these abilities are ALWAYS ACTIVE. Allowing the paladin to take weapon focus and spec does not hurt the fighter at all. I am not going to get into the whole shpeel about people worrying about the fighters toes, ive said that till im blue in the face.A 20th level fighter would get +6 to hit and +8 on damage from Weapon Training, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.
A 20th level paladin who is able to cast Divine Favor and Righteous Might (both personal spells) would get +5 to hit and +6 on damage. in addition, the change in size would bump up the damage output so that the paladin would be probably be doing more damage than the fighter. If the target is evil, throw in Smite, and the paladin has a higher bonus to hit and on damage. The only problem here is that Divine Favor and Righteous Might are standard actions. I'd like to be able to get at least one off as a quickened spell by burning turning or lay on hand attempts.
As far as AC goes, as a fighter's AC climbs up at high levels, AC becomes much less important.
As for Mettle being an Aura. Yes I think it is powerful but does it not also seem right? I mean look at all his other auras, of course groups are going to want to group around the paladin (within 10 feet) to gain these advantages. No, they will probably not do it all the time, but the bonuses are nice. Then once they do this and the AoE's start dropping you are going to see less use out of the paladin's auras, part of the reason people are saying the paladin is "tough enough". Yes I would settle for just mettle but I want to protect my group, how else am I going to do that?Giving paladins Mettle is a huge bonus. Allowing them to extend it to the party by way of an aura seems overpowered to me.
Ok, yes Divine favor is a pretty good +3/+3 for a couple minutes a day at best. Righteous Might is Cleric only if I read that right.
The crux of the problem here is balancing the paladin between the cleric and the fighter. There are SOOOO many posts all over these forums that are all for the paladin having more "cleric" abilities. And no one complains about that, why is that? That is because the cleric is seen as a good if not even over powered class.
But when someone wants to argue the martial side of the paladin THAT IS PART OF THE CLASS!!!! Then all the "poor poor fighter" types start talking about how if we give the paladin ANY "fighter" type abilities then the fighter's toes have been stepped on and we can not have that.
I say the fighter has had his two weeks. I will even say that the fighter is a BAD ASS, but i am not going to argue for him here. This is a PALADIN thread.
When you think about these proposed changes, some bonus feats, some form of always on hit/dam against evil or even weapon focus/spec for the paladin do you think wow that just makes them too good! Or na that does not feel like something paladins would do? No I dont think so, I think some people just think, "man that is really good, and if it has to do with fighting the fighter should get it."
I say BS! The paladin is a fighter AND a cleric. Should he cast or heal better than a cleric? no! Should he fight consistently better than a fighter? no! Should he KICK EVIL IN THE TEETH better than BOTH?? HELL YES HE SHOULD!!!!
So it comes down to this (and I have another big thread about this) if you want to fight evil like a paladin should, and you can put up with the restrictions that the paladin has then play a damn paladin!! But if we DONT give the paladin things that he SHOULD have just because it will hurt the fighter's feelings then we have lost track of everything we are trying to do here!
I read most of the fighter design discussion and I dont remember one place where someone said, "will the fighter be able to do all that against evil too? NO NO NO that steps on the paladin's toes, we can not have that!"
So basically what has been said is that it is ok for the paladin to be as "cleric" as he should be but he can not be as "fighter" as he should be because we can not upset the fragile sensibilities of the fighter.
I really hope that the devs take this sort of stuff into account on the final revision of the paladin. He SHOULD have some form of always active hit/damage against evil (or weapon foc/spec tree). He SHOULD have Mettle (and an Aura would be nice!). And yes he should get a better caster level in some way.
If I have not said it right or you still dont understand, please read my other thread where this same discussion has been talked about in much detail and most have agreed with me. PLEASE let the paladin be as much fighter as he is cleric, right now it is not even close!
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I agree, a Paladin should not "use up" their Smite when they miss. This could be added onto the new wording, so once ONE attack hits, the Smite is used, and applies until the Paladin's next round (or later when longer Smites are acquired) This could most simply be achieved by making Smite a free-instantaneous action that you use AFTER the attack roll, so you can decide to activate it if you hit anyways, or the Smite would MAKE you hit, and if it wouldn't, don't activate it...
As an alternative, could be to change Smite to X OPPONENTS/day, and would apply to all of the Paladin's attacks against that opponent for as long as needed....??? Though that would probably need to make Smite somewhat weaker...
I think the first option is easily do-able, though...
I could definitely get behind the "declare smite AFTER you hit" concept. In fact, I think I proposed it as an alternative at some point. Obviously, it would make the bonus to hit moot on the first attack, but I think that's a worthwhile price to pay for avoiding fizzles. Something to the effect of:
Smite Evil (Su): When you strike an evil creature with a weapon or unarmed strike (including ranged attacks within 30 feet), you may activate this power as a free action. All melee and ranged attacks within 30 feet that you make until the beginning of your next turn gain a bonus to attack rolls (including critical hit confirmation rolls) equal to your Charisma bonus and a damage bonus equal to your paladin level. You also inflict an extra 1d6 damage per 2 paladin levels to undead and evil outsiders.
At 8th level and again at 16th level, you may add 1 round to the duration of your smite.
You may smite once per day at 1st level, and you gain one additional use of the ability every 3 levels thereafter.
Something like that perhaps. The CHA bonus is mooted on the first hit (though it would apply to a crit confirm roll, should you be so lucky on your initial hit), but no fizzles, ever, cuz you only activate it when you actually hit.
Well, you could fizzle if you smite something that's not evil, but I think everyone is pretty okay with that as a limitation.
Thoughts?
Well, sure, but the attack bonus should ALWAYS apply to a Smite Attempt. Otherwise, it doesn't even EXIST at low levels (for non-2WF). Disallowing it, but allowing it for the Crit Confirm? That's an absurd artifact of the rules.
A simple way around this is to disambiguate a Smite ATTEMPT from a Smite USAGE.
The Paladin may ATTEMPT a Smite against any eligible foe, with the Smite Attack Bonus, but a Smite USAGE (Smite Point for the new school kids?) is not deducted unless he actually SUCCEEDS (at least one hit). So the Smite Usages/Day are SUCCESSFUL Smites, not chances to TRY to Smite. Once you've spent all your Smite Usages, you can't attempt them anymore.
("Sorry kid, them's your 3 tosses, 50 copper more if ya wanna 2nd try for the stuffed donkey...")
I think this is a intuitive usage, that doesn't really require any complicated wording at all: It just means Smite Usages (Smite Points? it's really growing on me...) follow a different paradigm than SPELLS, which of course are "consumed" even if they produce no effect.
I agree, a Paladin should not "use up" their Smite when they miss. This could be added onto the new wording, so once ONE attack hits, the Smite is used, and applies until the Paladin's next round (or later when longer Smites are acquired) This could most simply be achieved by making Smite a free-instantaneous action that you use AFTER the attack roll, so you can decide to activate it if you hit anyways, or the Smite would MAKE you hit, and if it wouldn't, don't activate it...
As an alternative, could be to change Smite to X OPPONENTS/day, and would apply to all of the Paladin's attacks against that opponent for as long as needed....??? Though that would probably need to make Smite somewhat weaker...
I think the first option is easily do-able, though...
I could definitely get behind the "declare smite AFTER you hit" concept. In fact, I think I proposed it as an alternative at some point. Obviously, it would make the bonus to hit moot on the first attack, but I think that's a worthwhile price to pay for avoiding fizzles. Something to the effect of:
Smite Evil (Su): When you strike an evil creature with a weapon or unarmed strike (including ranged attacks within 30 feet), you may activate this power as a free action. All melee and ranged attacks within 30 feet that you make until the beginning of your next turn gain a bonus to attack rolls (including critical hit confirmation rolls) equal to your Charisma bonus and a damage bonus equal to your paladin level. You also inflict an extra 1d6 damage per 2 paladin levels to undead and evil outsiders.
At 8th level and again at 16th level, you may add 1 round to the duration of your smite.
You may smite once per day at 1st level, and you gain one additional use of the ability every 3 levels thereafter.
Something like that perhaps. The CHA bonus is mooted on the first hit (though it would apply to a crit confirm roll, should you be so lucky on your initial hit), but no fizzles, ever, cuz you only...
I am happy for the smite not to go off unless you actually hit an evil creature, but you should have to decaler it before you roll the attack not declare after a hit otherwise the player can save declaring until they roll a critical threat thus only ever doing 'double damage smites'
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We used these new rules tonight in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, during day two of the assault on Fort Rannick.
Smite Evil: The full round smites were a welcome improvement, but a string of unlucky rolls had the paladin (7th level) hitting only once with her second attack on her very last use. So, three rounds, six attempts and one successful smite. Yeah, it was a bad run for her, but the player really wasn't pleased. She thought smite was too strong of a word to use for a mechanic that could leave her character looking like a fool (she stopped roleplaying "summoning the righteous hand of Iomedae" after whiff number three). The character has a +1 charisma bonus.
We discussed using smites only after a successful hit, but we all thought that made the paladin seem silly and accidental at the moment she should seem most certain.
Lay on Hands: She thought the swift action was great, but didn't have much of a chance to use it. Ended up healing the rogue/fighter who met the bad end of an ogre hook.
Detect Evil: Didn't use, thought we all love this new mechanic. Less like 'evil-dar', more dramatic.
Will Save: No problems here.
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Now for some questions. Do these upgrades, especially those made to smite evil, help to level the playing field for a paladin in melee? (Note that the paladin should not, generally speaking, equal the fighter unless the circumstances are favorable to the paladin). Does the change to lay on hands and channel energy allow the paladin to be a capable healer without overshadowing the cleric?
Other thoughts?
I just played a 7th level dwarven Pathfinder paladin in Gallery of Evil.
SPOILER ALERT: Reference encounters and monsters in the module. STOP HERE if you're planning to play in this module. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now for some questions. Do these upgrades, especially those made to smite evil, help to level the playing field for a paladin in melee?One Smite Evil knocked two of the bearded devils to half hitpoints in Area 3. Trouble in the Ballroom. My DM said that if my PC had connected with the second Smite Evil full attack, he would have liquefied them.
Does the change to lay on hands and channel energy allow the paladin to be a capable healer without overshadowing the cleric?My PC found himself constantly flanked by the above bearded devils and had to use Lay on Hands to keep himself alive. Swift action allowed him to attack (and miss), move, and heal, all while being solo for many rounds. Both DM and players found the ability far more powerful than its 3.x counterpart, constantly asking how many I had left. (My PC has 8 instead of 6 due to a feat. I used 5 during combat).
Other thoughts?
I assumed Divine Bond doesn't add its +1 to my PC's +1 magical waraxe. I used it, instead, to give the waraxe the Keen weapon ability. Would it needed to be a +2 weapon to give it the Holy ability?
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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If you want your paladin to be a smite machine, I would like you to be able to dump feats on beefing up that class ability. Other paladins will beef up channeling, spellcasting*, exotic mounts, etc. with their feats, or just take regular combat feats to beef up their general combat options.
* Perhaps something like this:
Improved Martial Caster
Requirements: Paladin or ranger level 4th, Wis 13+
Benefit: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to your paladin or ranger level.
Normal: Your caster level for paladin or ranger spells is equal to half your paladin or ranger level.
I like the idea of boosting class abilities with feats. I wonder if instead of giving paladins equal effective cleric level to channel energy, that could be achieved with a feat.
The Improved Martial Caster seems overpowered, but I can't suggest an alternative that's as clean as what you propose. Some people have talked about improving a paladin's defensive casting or letting him cast spells with reduced casting time, to enable casting on the front line. If the paladin ever gets a less risky method of casting, it should be less powerful than what a back-row caster caster can do. I just bring that up to keep in mind when discussing options to boost a paladin's spellcasting.
I know the proposed feat sounds extra-juicy, but consider:
1. How few spells a paladin gets per day.
2. How low-level their spells are (max 4th, at high levels).
3. How short their spell list is, and how few (i.e., no) gamebreaking spells are on it.
4. How often a paladin will have other things to do (like fighting) that would make casting a suboptimal choice.
Just from where I sit, I don't know that there's anything you could do with the paladin's spellcasting that would make it OVERpowered. YMMV.
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Okay boards are starting to drive me nuts, here is attempt four to post this...
I ran the encounters my group faced that got us to level 4 over the weekend (to a degree) to see if the changes made a difference. I will break it down for you.
Smite Evil Okay so as non-sensical as the Armor boost is, I love it. It synergizes so nicely with my law devotion feat, I can switch my +3 from my AC to attack for a whopping +6 and still maintain my 21 AC. However, the situational modifier is anoying. I have not faced a single outsider with the evil subtype, or undead yet so I'm still smiting at a whopping +1-4 damage, woopideedoo. I don't like that it only works on those types because it changes the flavor of a paladin from a crusader against evil, to a demon/undead hunter, that's a specialized rangers role. I don't like being mechanically shoehorned into certain types, I want to play a scourge of evil warlord, and clerics who seek to shatter the world, oh but you aren't undead, well take your piddly extra 4 damage and I hope you don't have DR. I also whenever I hit with a smite, would then roll as if the creature was in fact a demon, the extra damage was nice and never overpowering, so why the shoehorn?
detect evil This is the one change that I have nothing but good things to say (the actual detect evil spell and nature of auras will wait till the spells section). Much needed and much appreciated, now if only it worked on creatures with less than 5 HD so I wasn't shooting in the dark with my smite.
lay on hands Yay, finally an ability that has combat utility weee. Love that it now actually heals, however, without any bonus to the amount healed it's to risky to waste a standard action on healing allies (when I did I healed a whopping 3 damage at 3rd level, not the worst possible, but still the risk/reward benefit is skewed) mechanically it's much better to just wade in and use all of the LoH on myself, saving one for ICoE use. I'm just not a fan of a mechanic that encourages the paladin to be selfish with the healing.
Channel energy: OK I hate raining on the parade, but this change was just aweful. It's wonderful, wonderful that the healing is no longer nerfed to level-3, but it now costs twice as much as before, doesn't add extra uses and therefore cuts your total healing in half. There is no benefit to using channel energy, it's much better to just heal yourself with LoH, you heal more, and never loose an action. Then there is the horrible blow it deals to people who don't want to play a healing paladin. In 3.5 when I got turning, I would be able to instead get 2 extra uses a day of my law devotion. In the original Beta this got cut to 1 extra use, and a channel energy left over. In the new version I HAVE TO WAIT TILL LEVEL 6 TO GET AN EXTRA USE OF MY FEAT. Channel energy is a waste. There is still no reason to take level 4 of paladin, instead take level 1 of cleric. You would get three times as much healing (because you'd get lots of extra channeling without loosing you LoH), and actually have enough to burn for divine and domain devotion feats WITHOUT LOOSING YOUR LoH!
Spells see the rant about level 1 cleric being better than level 4 paladin, I would get more spells, unlimited cantrips, and two domain abilities. At least with spontaneous casting you can't say that the first level of cleric is better, because it's completely different.
Level 4 is still the worst level for a paladin in the game because you had to wait on it and you're still looking jealously at what the cleric got 3 levels ago for the sacrifice of +1 BAB I'm sorry, I really don't see how that is a fair trade.
We used these new rules tonight in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, during day two of the assault on Fort Rannick.
Smite Evil: The full round smites were a welcome improvement, but a string of unlucky rolls had the paladin (7th level) hitting only once with her second attack on her very last use. So, three rounds, six attempts and one successful smite. Yeah, it was a bad run for her, but the player really wasn't pleased. She thought smite was too strong of a word to use for a mechanic that could leave her character looking like a fool (she stopped roleplaying "summoning the righteous hand of Iomedae" after whiff number three). The character has a +1 charisma bonus.
We discussed using smites only after a successful hit, but we all thought that made the paladin seem silly and accidental at the moment she should seem most certain.
At lower level it is even worse, since my (player's) Pally has 1 attempt and 1 attack per round. Smite is the only class ability that I can think of that combines mediocre probability of success with a small number of attempts. Being able to smite with a full attack is cool, but does little to improve the situation for characters with 1 attack.
I am going to try targets/day in my Runelords campaign. It means ignoring the new duration fix, which plays havoc with the new AC bonus, but it satisfies all my other needs for a smite. Now the paladin just declares one enemy to be anathema to his god's will, and all attacks against that enemy are +cha to strike and +level to damage, until the creature is dead, defeated, or banished. I'm keeping bonus damage, and adding dragons to the type list.
The Paladin outperforming the fighter against a single target is thematically solid, IMO. Fighting an army of orcs? Send a fighter. Fighting a dragon? Send a paladin.
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We used these new rules tonight in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, during day two of the assault on Fort Rannick.
Smite Evil: The full round smites were a welcome improvement, but a string of unlucky rolls had the paladin (7th level) hitting only once with her second attack on her very last use. So, three rounds, six attempts and one successful smite. Yeah, it was a bad run for her, but the player really wasn't pleased. She thought smite was too strong of a word to use for a mechanic that could leave her character looking like a fool (she stopped roleplaying "summoning the righteous hand of Iomedae" after whiff number three). The character has a +1 charisma bonus.
We discussed using smites only after a successful hit, but we all thought that made the paladin seem silly and accidental at the moment she should seem most certain.
At lower level it is even worse, since my (player's) Pally has 1 attempt and 1 attack per round. Smite is the only class ability that I can think of that combines mediocre probability of success with a small number of attempts. Being able to smite with a full attack is cool, but does little to improve the situation for characters with 1 attack.
I am going to try targets/day in my Runelords campaign. It means ignoring the new duration fix, which plays havoc with the new AC bonus, but it satisfies all my other needs for a smite. Now the paladin just declares one enemy to be anathema to his god's will, and all attacks against that enemy are +cha to strike and +level to damage, until the creature is dead, defeated, or banished. I'm keeping bonus damage, and adding dragons to the type list.
The Paladin outperforming the fighter against a single target is thematically solid, IMO. Fighting an army of orcs? Send a fighter. Fighting a dragon? Send a paladin.
What's funny is that he still won't outperform the fighter, might outlast him, but not out damage.
I agree with all the points you have made. Especially what lastknight just said about out lasting but not out damaging the fighter. No one wants the paladin to be a better fighter than the fighter...BUT!!!
I just can not say this enough...please give him his "fighter" side. The paladin is part fighter and part cleric right? Right now he is A LOT cleric and very VERY LITTLE fighter. There needs to be changes made that add to this side of the class.
I know we are out of the 2 weeks for paladin but I can not scream this enough! Not all of us want to play a WEAK cleric with a little better BAB and HD, thats what we are now!
Some form of hit/dam boost that is constant!
Mettle (with an aura please, but if not ok :(
And a better caster level, full or even -3 would work great.
Those changes really would make all the difference.
Over powered? no.
Out classing figher? no.
Out classing cleric? Hell no.
Letting the Paladin be what a paladin should be? A scourge to all that is evil. priceless! (sorry, had to).
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Well, sure, but the attack bonus should ALWAYS apply to a Smite Attempt. Otherwise, it doesn't even EXIST at low levels (for non-2WF). Disallowing it, but allowing it for the Crit Confirm? That's an absurd artifact of the rules.
It's only an absurd rules artifact on the first attack where you smite after you hit. For any multiple attacks, AoOs, etc. your attack roll comes in afterwards.
Besides, go ahead and say you get the attack bonus on all your attacks, including the one you just hit with. My meaning was that whether you get the attack bonus or not on that initial attack that triggers the smite is a moot point anyway when you can declare after - your attack bonus is irrelevant cuz you ALREADY HIT! You could say "well, you really did get your CHA bonus to your attack roll," but who cares, cuz you don't get bonus points for hitting by more than the number.
A simple way around this is to disambiguate a Smite ATTEMPT from a Smite USAGE.
The Paladin may ATTEMPT a Smite against any eligible foe, with the Smite Attack Bonus, but a Smite USAGE (Smite Point for the new school kids?) is not deducted unless he actually SUCCEEDS (at least one hit). So the Smite Usages/Day are SUCCESSFUL Smites, not chances to TRY to Smite. Once you've spent all your Smite Usages, you can't attempt them anymore.
("Sorry kid, them's your 3 tosses, 50 copper more if ya wanna 2nd try for the stuffed donkey...")I think this is a intuitive usage, that doesn't really require any complicated wording at all: It just means Smite Usages (Smite Points? it's really growing on me...) follow a different paradigm than SPELLS, which of course are "consumed" even if they produce no effect.
Meh, either way is fine by me.
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I just can not say this enough...please give him his "fighter" side. The paladin is part fighter and part cleric right? Right now he is A LOT cleric and very VERY LITTLE fighter. There needs to be changes made that add to this side of the class.
Hah, sorry this made me laugh, the paladin isn't honestly a lot of cleric. he's no-where near the cleric on any identical abilities. He's cleric very light, fighter very light. Even these fixes which help still provide enough hindrance that he isn't a lot of either. I'm just worried that other's are being taken in by the shinney newness (and it is pretty at first glance, it's only when you actually start deconstructing and comparing it to what you had previously that you see the flaws) smite is an overall improvement, it just stopped short by limiting itself to demons/devils/undead
Hah, sorry this made me laugh, the paladin isn't honestly a lot of cleric. he's no-where near the cleric on any identical abilities. He's cleric very light, fighter very light. Even these fixes which help still provide enough hindrance that he isn't a lot of either. I'm just worried that other's are being taken in by the shinney newness (and it is pretty at first glance, it's only when you actually start deconstructing and comparing it to what you had previously that you see the flaws) smite is an overall improvement, it just stopped short by limiting itself to demons/devils/undeadI just can not say this enough...please give him his "fighter" side. The paladin is part fighter and part cleric right? Right now he is A LOT cleric and very VERY LITTLE fighter. There needs to be changes made that add to this side of the class.
I totally agree with you and you are right the paladin is not a lot of cleric but he is WAY WAY WAY more cleric than he is fighter. Im just saying I really want to see some more of that martial side of the class that is being glossed over because people are so worried about the poor little fighter's toes.
As far as smite goes I agree with you too, I see no reason not to change it where the D6 is a constant thing for all evil and then make that D6 still stack on top of the +1 per level. Thus the bonus damage for a lvl 5 paladin against any evil would be 2D6+5...thats not crazy at all. I have said it so much on other threads, the paladin should smite ALL evil equally! It does not matter if you are THE MOST EVIL EVIL!!! or the littlest little goblin evil, you are EVIL! you should not get less punishment for your evil acts just because you have not had a chance to grow into that BBEG yet!
I just want to argue this till it is beat to death, the paladin needs to see more of his martial side. He is a combatant, someone that gets in the thick of things, a front line warrior. He needs more abilities that support this. Some form of always on hit/dam and Mettle are 2 items that would achieve this goal.
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Channeling energy from the sideof the Paladins is not nerfed, actually a 20 level Paloadin would get more than your normal Cleric arriving at such levels
why? because their lay on hands grows at 20 level they would have 10 lay on hands + charisma mod (which i would suppose goes from +2 to +5 at least), which means they have about 6 uses of Channel energy
Clerics would only be able to use 3 + charisma mod, which would be avarage or good, but not always excellent.
both have feats available to push this quantity up... meaning the paladin might get positive channel uses that doesn't affect his other uses of "Lay on Hands"
i really liked this change
Over powered? no.
Out classing figher? no.
Out classing cleric? Hell no.
Letting the Paladin be what a paladin should be? A scourge to all that is evil. priceless! (sorry, had to).
I agree
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Channeling energy from the sideof the Paladins is not nerfed, actually a 20 level Paloadin would get more than your normal Cleric arriving at such levels
why? because their lay on hands grows at 20 level they would have 10 lay on hands + charisma mod (which i would suppose goes from +2 to +5 at least), which means they have about 6 uses of Channel energy
Clerics would only be able to use 3 + charisma mod, which would be avarage or good, but not always excellent.
both have feats available to push this quantity up... meaning the paladin might get positive channel uses that doesn't affect his other uses of "Lay on Hands"
i really liked this change
I agreeOver powered? no.
Out classing figher? no.
Out classing cleric? Hell no.
Letting the Paladin be what a paladin should be? A scourge to all that is evil. priceless! (sorry, had to).
I'm not seeing the huge boost, it looks like if the cleric puts a few points into his charisma they'll have relatively == # of channels, in the meantime the cleric will be hurt less by burning his for divine/domain feats, but a paladin will be severely cut short on his healing abilites.
This change locks those uses into healing only because the cost =/= the expenditure so a paladin that wants to not play a healer doesn't have that choice unless he's willing to accept a subpar route.
And I'm still not seeing how it's not better at level 4 to substitute a level of cleric in place of paladin level 4.
I like the idea of the change, I'm just saying that the implementation shafts the paladin.
Also that's great for 20th level, to bad you had to wade through levels 1-19 to get there.
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I guess I'm coming across as too negative. Do I like the idea of combining Channel Energy into lay on hands, yes I do like the idea, but I've said from the very begining that my concern is that paladins have basically crap at low level, that starts to even out upper mid levels, and is fun high levels. I'd rather not hate to play low level paladins when I enjoy every other class at low levels.
This change while an interesting idea does hurt the paladin more than it helps. I will repeat again that I love the loss of the level-3. But if the cost is the complete loss of my ability to burn them for extra uses of feats, then it fails in its intention of backwards compatability and isn't worth the change.
There are a couple of ways to work with this, my DM has already e-mailed me saying that LoH now counts as a targeted channel and thus burning a LoH is the equivalent of burning a channel. That helps but it still doesn't adress the hit you take in the amount of daily healing or that you still wind up with less uses than before (until higher level). So on top of that you need a boost to the # of uses you get at 4th level.
I'm not saying I dislike the idea of unifying the mechanics, I'm saying that it's current implementation continues to make the paladin a "oooh just wait till i hit level X" class. Once again, if there's a way to do this without shafting the low level paladin I'm all for it.
It's only an absurd rules artifact on the first attack where you smite after you hit. For any multiple attacks, AoOs, etc. your attack roll comes in afterwards.
Well, yeah, but that just makes it more absurd, in my book :-)
Besides, go ahead and say you get the attack bonus on all your attacks, including the one you just hit with. My meaning was that whether you get the attack bonus or not on that initial attack that triggers the smite is a moot point anyway when you can declare after - your attack bonus is irrelevant cuz you ALREADY HIT! You could say "well, you really did get your CHA bonus to your attack roll," but who cares, cuz you don't get bonus points for hitting by more than the number.
I understand your point that an attack that would have hit anyways doesn't need the CHA Attack bonus.
My point is that those cases where a (Smiting) Attack would NOT have hit without that bonus,if the Paladin is declaring a Smite ATTEMPT, they should definetely get the to-hit bonus.
That's the benefit of distinguishing a Smite Attempt from a Smite Usage
(which is 'used' when at least one Smite Attempt Attack HITS).
Love most of the changes, and the few things I might quibble over (such as the interaction between clerical channel energy and paladin channel energy) are minor, and have already been gone over by others. Since I already made one for the alternate rage and alternate animal companions, I threw together a PDF for the new paladin. Should make it easier to use without having to cross reference between Pathfinder, the SRD, and the new rules presented here.
The PDF for the new paladin can be found here. (http://rapidshare.com/files/152853507/Paladin.pdf.html)
Brodiggan...
Have I told you lately, that I love you
Have I told you lately, that I caaaaarrrrrrrre...
Heh, Thanks, just glad I could help.