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Merely flippant exaggerations don't count. And saying a 10th-level paladin can cast cure light wounds is a flippant exaggeration; or have you forgotten about lay on hands, for level x Cha hp (so ~40 for a Pal10, comparable to 10 CLWs, with no AoO, parceled out exactly as you need it)? Have you forgotten about smite evil, which has some pretty nice synergy with that warpony, allowing you to deal some 3d8+40 damage or thereabouts in a single lance attack, somewhere between half and a third of a CR 10 monsters' hp? Have you forgotten that some of the most insane damage dealing combos on the different minmaxing forums relied on smite?
Since the relevant threads have already been linked, I hope you will forgive me. But none of the benifits past 3rd or 4th level of the 3.5 class meant anything. It was a much better idea to go fighter or cleric or something that gave you useful abilities.
Lay on Hands, using the 40 points you supposed, that's a good number. A fire giant does 3d6+15. A clay golem does 2d10+7 that can't be healed. A CR 10 hydra has 11 attacks. You are healing one rounds worth of damage if you are lucky.
Smite Evil? Only works on the fire giant. As was pointed out by others, if you hit. And at tenth you only have 3 chances to hit with it. For an extra 10 points of damage. 30 points you might not even get. Seriously, you run out of smites and you are a fighter with better saves and some parlor tricks.
Yes, your warpony is awesome with charging damage. As long as your DM is nice and doesn't have the monsters eat it. And he will, after seeing you do that 3d8+40 damage once, because you're 'overpowered'. And the moment you have to go into the crypt of the devil-lich, your pokemon is going to hang out in Celestia waiting for you to leave and go somewhere you can get use out of it.
So yes, the Pathfinder paladin is way better. But it is better for a reason.
Since the relevant threads have already been linked, I hope you will forgive me. But none of the benifits past 3rd or 4th level of the 3.5 class meant anything. It was a much better idea to go fighter or cleric or something that gave you useful abilities.Lay on Hands, using the 40 points you supposed, that's a good number. A fire giant does 3d6+15. A clay golem does 2d10+7 that can't be healed. A CR 10 hydra has 11 attacks. You are healing one rounds worth of damage if you are lucky.
Smite Evil? Only works on the fire giant. As was pointed out by others, if you hit. And at tenth you only have 3 chances to hit with it. For an extra 10 points of damage. 30 points you might not even get. Seriously, you run out of smites and you are a fighter with better saves and some parlor tricks.
Yes, your warpony is awesome with charging damage. As long as your DM is nice and doesn't have the monsters eat it. And he will, after seeing you do that 3d8+40 damage once, because you're 'overpowered'. And the moment you have to go into the crypt of the devil-lich, your pokemon is going to hang out in Celestia waiting for you to leave and go somewhere you can get use out of it.
So yes, the Pathfinder paladin is way better. But it is better for a reason.
Lay on hands could have done with a bit of a boost, ie making it a free action for the paladin using it on himself - but 40 extra hp's for a 10th level paladin is a decent amount, about 40% of the paladins hitpoints at that level-- now assuming the paladin has 18 cha he gets 9 uses at 5d6 (average 17.5) total 153hps, it is 4 x more powerful and is a free action- so say 5x more powerful.
I considered smite evil to be good as it stood in 3.5- though it could do with a bit of a boost -such as a recahrge after combat if you missed or whatever. Lets assume it is used against an evil thing which takes about 4 rounds to kill- that means new smite is now about 8 x more powerful. A 10th level gets 4 so it is now 40/3, about 13 x more powerful, add in the deflection bonus, the undead etc boost and the DR penertration. Maybe this makes new smite about 15x more powerful than old smite
I agree the old horse was totally lame- the new horse is like the druids animal and gets templates!, or it is a supersword. This has gone from being a rarely used barely useful ability to being a great extra boost. (BTW compare it to the rangers companion. It is a druids animal -3 level and doesnt get templates, or the ranger gets to share its only cool ability with its teamates- If the paladin could swap out his horse for a supersword couldnt the ranger get the ability to say make his weapon bane?-- sorry getting off point )
add in the mercies
the good will save
the aura of resolve
I acknowledge the paladin needed a boost but did it need its lay on hands to become 5x better? its smite 15 x better? its horse much better and its miscellaneous stuff go up as well?
After 4th level, a paladin gets extra uses of smite evil and of remove disease, and that's it for class abilities. Remove disease is an absolute joke; per week abilities are totally worthless when any decent cleric can cast it multiple times per day. As for smite evil, it only works on one attack, and you don't generally have time to spend the rounds detecting evil to make sure what you're hitting it actually a valid target.
This is an aboslutely bogus concern. The most important enemies are almost invariably Evil, and obviously so. Most non-Evil opponents are again obviously so (beasts, morally ambiguous NPCs). I've never seen a 3E paladin waste a smite by attempting it on a non-Evil target.
Yes, your warpony is awesome with charging damage. As long as your DM is nice and doesn't have the monsters eat it. And he will, after seeing you do that 3d8+40 damage once, because you're 'overpowered'.
So 3.5 paladins were weak because 3.5 paladins were overepowered and routinely got mercilessly nerfed by the DMs?
This line of reasoning borders on the surreal.
And the moment you have to go into the crypt of the devil-lich, your pokemon is going to hang out in Celestia waiting for you to leave and go somewhere you can get use out of it.Thanks, now I have coffee all over my monitor and keyboard... :)
Yeah, it's pretty laughable, considering that the whole point of the Pokemount effect, reviled as it was, is to allow you to summon the warhorse right into the devil-lich's tomb chamber, which is in D&D much more likely to be a huge pillared hall than a little 10 ft. x 10 ft. room.
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This is an aboslutely bogus concern. The most important enemies are almost invariably Evil, and obviously so. Most non-Evil opponents are again obviously so (beasts, morally ambiguous NPCs). I've never seen a 3E paladin waste a smite by attempting it on a non-Evil target.
Irrelevant to the point that when he is fighting non-evil creatures, he's not getting the smite anyway. So the complaint of the paladin getting hundreds of extra points of damage out of his smite is moot. Because he is not going to get to smite every time, and the hundreds of extra points he does get when he can will quickly bring down that one target. And then he must spend another smite to get it on a different target.
So 3.5 paladins were weak because 3.5 paladins were overepowered and routinely got mercilessly nerfed by the DMs?
This line of reasoning borders on the surreal.
3.5 paladins were weak because the one good shtick they had was denied them. And I said people claimed it was overpowered, not that it was.
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Right.
So let's assume that you end up in a biiiig hall of the BBEG (and let's be nice and assume that summoning the mount before was not an option due to space constrains.)
round 1: Summon mount = full round action.
round 2: Hop on a mount = standard action. Yay, you get to move.
round 3: Chaaaarge !
This is D&D. During your round, you either do something useful, or you are a waste of time. The BBEG has 2 rounds of you doing something NOT useful.
Yes, your warpony is awesome with charging damage. As long as your DM is nice and doesn't have the monsters eat it. And he will, after seeing you do that 3d8+40 damage once, because you're 'overpowered'.So 3.5 paladins were weak because 3.5 paladins were overepowered and routinely got mercilessly nerfed by the DMs?
This line of reasoning borders on the surreal.
I lol'd myself. Nicely done.
(Edit: I'm not saying that there's no validity to TriOmegaZero's case; if your character kicks serious ass at one tactic and that one tactic is easy for monsters to neutralize, that's probably not the best way to design a class.
But still.)
Oh, and the LG and code thing. Basically - what's the point of having to bear with Mr. By The Book if he can't really bring anything to the table ? In PFRPG Paladin is so good that you literally WANT to bend over and go nice and legit just to have that guy at your side. And I like it. I like that you can get a real kick out of playing a class so restricted in RP department.
I thought 2E taught us that balancing attack and damage bonuses with roleplaying "restrictions" doesn't work.
The alignment restriction should be absolutely irrelevant to this discussion. The druid is also restricted in alignment (not as tightly as the paladin, but still). So are the monk, cleric, barbarian... yet you never hear anyone say "the barbarian needs the extra +5 to damage... he must be non-Lawful, he should get something to make up for that!"
In first edition rangers got to do +1 damage per level against their 'favoured enemy' (giants & all evil huamnoids)(of course most games were 10th level or lower). As the editions roll on I see the Paladin has now stolen that ability and the poor old ranger doesnt even seem to get discussed in a comparison of melee classes.
The rangers get much the same bonuses as in 3.5: +2 against one (sub)type, a new type and another +2 to allocate at 5th, 10th &c.
So a ranger pouring everything into a single favoured enemy type ends up with +10 to damage against one type of creatures, and +2 against three others.
The paladin ends up with +40 to damage against three types of creatures, and +20 to damage against anything Evil.
Of course, the ranger gets other stuff too, but it's not like the paladin doesn't.
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In first edition rangers got to do +1 damage per level against their 'favoured enemy' (giants & all evil huamnoids)(of course most games were 10th level or lower). As the editions roll on I see the Paladin has now stolen that ability and the poor old ranger doesnt even seem to get discussed in a comparison of melee classes.The rangers get much the same bonuses as in 3.5: +2 against one (sub)type, a new type and another +2 to allocate at 5th, 10th &c.
So a ranger pouring everything into a single favoured enemy type ends up with +10 to damage against one type of creatures, and +2 against three others.
The paladin ends up with +40 to damage against three types of creatures, and +20 to damage against anything Evil.
Of course, the ranger gets other stuff too, but it's not like the paladin doesn't.
The ranger gets those bonuses all day every day. The paladin gets them against one creature seven times a day.
The ranger gets those bonuses all day every day. The paladin gets them against one creature seven times a day.
Praising with faint damns, eh?
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I lol'd myself. Nicely done.
(Edit: I'm not saying that there's no validity to TriOmegaZero's case; if your character kicks serious ass at one tactic and that one tactic is easy for monsters to neutralize, that's probably not the best way to design a class.
But still.)
I appreciate the nod. I was beginning to wonder if all of my points were being disregarded.
Jasin, I really don't understand your argument. It has been pointed out that the paladin does not get these bonuses all day long. Do you still find them overpowered?
The ranger can also select such a creature as a quarry, gaining a bonus of +14 on attack rolls against it. How many level 20 paladins have a charisma of 38?
Where is this +14 to attack coming from?
Quarry (Ex): At 11th level, a ranger can, as a standard action, denote one target within his line of sight as his quarry. Whenever he is following the tracks of his quarry, a ranger can take 10 on his Survival skill checks while moving at normal speed, without penalty. In addition, he receives a +2 insight bonus on attack rolls made against his quarry, and all critical threats are automatically confirmed. A ranger can have no more than one quarry at a time and the creature's type must correspond to one of his favored enemy types. He can dismiss this effect at any time as a free action, but he cannot select a new quarry for 24 hours. If the ranger sees proof that his quarry is dead, he can select a new quarry after waiting 1 hour.
Improved Quarry (Ex): At 19th level, the ranger's ability to hunt his quarry improves. He can now select a quarry as a free action, and can now take 20 while using Survival to track his quarry, while moving at normal speed without penalty. His insight bonus to attack his quarry increases to +4. If his quarry is killed or dismissed, he can select a new one after 10 minutes have passed.
Are you thinking +4?
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The ranger can also select such a creature as a quarry, gaining a bonus of +14 on attack rolls against it. How many level 20 paladins have a charisma of 38?Where is this +14 to attack coming from?
Quarry (Ex): At 11th level, a ranger can, as a standard action, denote one target within his line of sight as his quarry. Whenever he is following the tracks of his quarry, a ranger can take 10 on his Survival skill checks while moving at normal speed, without penalty. In addition, he receives a +2 insight bonus on attack rolls made against his quarry, and all critical threats are automatically confirmed. A ranger can have no more than one quarry at a time and the creature's type must correspond to one of his favored enemy types. He can dismiss this effect at any time as a free action, but he cannot select a new quarry for 24 hours. If the ranger sees proof that his quarry is dead, he can select a new quarry after waiting 1 hour.Improved Quarry (Ex): At 19th level, the ranger's ability to hunt his quarry improves. He can now select a quarry as a free action, and can now take 20 while using Survival to track his quarry, while moving at normal speed without penalty. His insight bonus to attack his quarry increases to +4. If his quarry is killed or dismissed, he can select a new one after 10 minutes have passed.Are you thinking +4?
I included the +10 bonus on attack rolls from favored enemy.
I included the +10 bonus on attack rolls from favored enemy.
Wow. I hadn't noticed that favoured enemy bonuses now apply to attack rolls too.
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As a GM, my major issue with the new paladin is that he's specialized in End-of-Level monsters. As I see it, the big bad guys should always put up a memorable fight, but that has become very difficult now. Almost no matter what I design for a group somewhere above lvl 10, If I put it at a lvl where the other players have a chance of hurting it, the Paladin will walk right through it. It might make for a memorable fight for the Paladin, but not for the rest of the group. He might be able to buff the rest of the party, but only if he wants to share his thunder.
Look at Rise of the Runelords. Players, keep out:
End of Fortress of the Stone Giants: Mokmurian, lvl 14 transmuter with AC 32 and 210 HP. Not only are most of his spells going to bounce off the Paladin, He's gonna cut right throug his DR 10/adamantine and end the encounter in 2 rounds.
The rest of the party is going to get a less epic experience from a potentially memorable encounter if the Paladin is there, and that sucks. My party is still talking about how they defeated Xanesha, because it was very close to a TPK, and everyone participated. That sort of experience is going to be a thing of the past.
Right, I could just make the encounters a bit tougher, but that will just leave the rest of the party even more helpless. Right, I could just design encounters with a lot of neutral or good enemies, but not if I want to play published scenarios and campaigns.
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After 4th level, a paladin gets extra uses of smite evil and of remove disease, and that's it for class abilities. Remove disease is an absolute joke; per week abilities are totally worthless when any decent cleric can cast it multiple times per day. As for smite evil, it only works on one attack, and you don't generally have time to spend the rounds detecting evil to make sure what you're hitting it actually a valid target.This is an aboslutely bogus concern. The most important enemies are almost invariably Evil, and obviously so. Most non-Evil opponents are again obviously so (beasts, morally ambiguous NPCs). I've never seen a 3E paladin waste a smite by attempting it on a non-Evil target.
Go fight people. If you're playing an adventure where the bad guy is a human or an elf or suchlike, and has base-race hired hands working for him, you don't have a clue if they're evil or not. They could just be mercenaries; they could be true believers. How would you know? Sure, it's easy with demons. But in adventures where your opposition is people, it gets very murky. But frankly, it's not a major concern either way; you suck too much for it to really matter whether you're attacking valid smite targets or not.
@Entropi: To be fair, having run Rise of the Runelords myself, I'd say the following.
Barl Breakbones: To be honest, Barl isn't actually that decent a boss. He lacks oomph when it comes right down to it. My party really didn't have any trouble with him; he simply couldn't kick out enough damage or powerful enough spells to seriously inconvenience them.
Mokmurian: Now Mokmurian is a *very* different story. I almost got a TPK with him. What I will say is that I think your concerns about your paladin steamrollering him are unfounded; Mokmurian shouldn't be letting the PCs get attacks on him at all, if he can help it. With reverse gravity, solid fog, and wall of force, the party shouldn't even get near him until he's ready for them. He's got incredible battlefield control abilities. My party got absolutely screwed by the reverse gravity field, and mostly dangled there helplessly while he pummeled them with spells. In the end, the wizard had to blow a teleport spell taking them all to the far-off locale of 'the other side of the room' to escape the effect. Seriously, the paladin will be lucky to get a hit on him, let alone a full attack. I'm not saying the paladin may not be worryingly powerful, just that Mokmurian shouldn't be that worried. No matter how strong smite evil is, he's still got to get attacks off with it.
The ranger and paladin CAN only become broken if you (the DM)let them.
Rangers meeting thier favored enemies EVERY encounter while flavor likely (as they no doubt frequent areas these enemies live) should not occur all the time or he will out damage the party.Likewise, paladin's (as much as we forget) should not encounter evil every fight.
COMPLETELY flawed comparison.
There are, IIRC, 15 creature types (not counting subtypes).
There are three moral alignments.
And if you're playing a paladin who is regularly trying to kill Neutral or Good creatures, you're probably playing the wrong class in the wrong game.
Cripes, open your DMG and look at a random encounter table or two. Or pickup a premade adventure for that matter. Just about the only time the paladin can't smite is against animals, constructs, and the odd elemental (though half of those are evil too).
D&D is a game about fighting evil.
Also, side-note, your attempts to optimize the ranger and fighter yield rangers and fighters who still don't hold a candle to a (non-optimized) paladin of the same level. The paladin gets +5-ish to attack (modest estimate) and +20 damage (or +40 against three very common creature types).
Your fighter doesn't outdo him in either respect; +7 is about one-third of +20 and one-sixth of +40. The ranger has a higher attack bonus (to the point of to-hit-overkill on most of his attacks), but even that is only against one creature type (again, out of 20-something major creature types), and only against a foe who has been marked as query using a standard action (once per hour).
If we consider the paladin's Divine Bond, we find that his weapon is going to be brilliant energy (as well as holy, for another +2d6 damage) for 20 minutes 4 times per day, in which case he outclasses the ranger even against his (single) favored enemy, and even with query in effect.
Pathfinder paladins are broken.
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If we consider the paladin's Divine Bond, we find that his weapon is going to be brilliant energy (as well as holy, for another +2d6 damage) for 20 minutes 4 times per day, in which case he outclasses the ranger even against his (single) favored enemy, and even with query in effect.
Pathfinder paladins are broken.
Just to point out, brilliant energy is a godawful enhancement to use against any of the opponents that you're getting double damage on. It doesn't avoid the natural armour bonus of your target, which means it's totally worthless against most evil outsiders and all dragons. It's even worse against undead, since it renders you unable to hurt them. Brilliant energy in general is a poor weapon enhancement for fighting monsters, rather than leveled opponents.
Quite true, my bad. But its worth noting that he DOES have it for when he's fighting an armored opponent, without having to put up with it the other six days of the week.
And he still has +6 worth of weapon enhancements to play with. The enhancements come from a short list, but if nothing else, his primary weapon can be +1 with a boatload of properties and he can use his Divine Bond to cap its base enhancement bonus off at +5.
It's still a game-breaking power (which I use as a term above and beyond "broken", which is in turn above and beyond merely "overpowered").
Pathfinder paladins are broken.
I'm glad to see they've been demoted.
To be more serious and less flippant, I agree that there's a problem. I may house-rule smite evil as affecting one attack per round (or maybe # of attacks allowed by BAB per round, if the goal is to avoid paladins whoring two-weapon fighting).
One other thing for GMs to consider is the fiendish template. Slapping this on a monster will give it attack and AC bonuses against the paladin (and only the paladin) in rough proportion to the paladin's attack and AC bonuses against it.
I was leaning towards making Smite work just like in 3.5 (especially considering how many other goodies paladins have gotten).
Restricting it to one attack per round (but still having it be a persistent effect) might be better though, in that it keeps them from really nova-ing but still increases their gross damage output over 3.5.
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A Council of Thieves game should be starting up in October, where I will be playing a Pathfinder paladin. Hopefully then I'll be able to offer my take on how paladins are now, with gameplay experience to support my opinions.
Currently, I'm unconvinced on the broken/unbroken possibilities of smite evil, but I'm already considering a change to aura of justice. Maybe something like:
Aura of Justice (Su) At 11th level, when a paladin activates smite evil, they may choose to grant the same bonuses against their target to any number of allies within 10 feet. If they target even one ally with this effect, the duration of the smite becomes rounds equal to 1/2 paladin level or until the target of the smite is killed, whichever occurs first. The paladin must expend one additional use of smite evil for each ally they wish to affect with this ability. The bonuses granted to the paladin's allies are immediately revoked if the paladin is knocked unconscious, killed, or forced to quit the battlefield.
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I think the extra power offered by the smite AND all of the other powers make it drastically overpowered. I mean really, just the weapons bond give him a +6 weapon by level 20. which is much more than the weapons training of the fighter. The fighter and Barbarian have DR 5 at level 20, the paladin is 10/evil which is almost balanced.
But the paladin can remove most of the conditions with the lay on hand, is immune to fear, disease, mind compulsion etc, super saves...especially after factoring in the Cha bonus, spells to bump stuff up even more, and can channel.And yes I realize that the paladins are restricted by the alignment...oh no..I have to be lawful good! But no one ever says when playing a barbarian...oh no I have to be chaotic! (I saw this argument somewhere else on the boards, can't remember where)
On the whole I think I misnamed the overall post...The fighters and barbarians are pretty balanced with each other...I just think the paladin is waaaay overpowered.
Well, as I say, at the moment it's all opinion on either side. Hopefully in a few months I'll be able to offer an opinion backed up by actual play experience.
I did about 20+ hours of playtesting in various groups at Gen Con this weekend, levels 1-4, and I found that Fighters and especially Barbarians were the most powerful classes by far.
Don't feel bad for the Barbarian, I had a first level Barbarian do 24 damage on a normal hit. A level 4 Barbarian I was playing with had 50+ HP and AC 20+. Barbarians have superior damage, high mobility, armor was improved, and acrobatics makes them better than all melee classes. Those 8+ rounds of rage seem to last a long time in the scenarios I did, no Barbarian actually used them all up.
The most ineffective melee character in all of my scenarios was the Paladin. Low speed, no acrobatics, no movement skills (climb, acrobatics, swim), and lower damage compared to Fighters and Barbarians. Maybe they shine in later levels but I found them to only be "ok" when playtesting. Having said that, a lot of Pathfinder scenarios focus on skills, mobility, and multiple smaller/weaker creatures, which is not the Paladin's strength.
Aura of Justice (Su) At 11th level, when a paladin activates smite evil, they may choose to grant the same bonuses against their target to any number of allies within 10 feet. If they target even one ally with this effect, the duration of the smite becomes rounds equal to 1/2 paladin level or until the target of the smite is killed, whichever occurs first. The paladin must expend one additional use of smite evil for each ally they wish to affect with this ability. The bonuses granted to the paladin's allies are immediately revoked if the paladin is knocked unconscious, killed, or forced to quit the battlefield.
Not to nit-pick, but this wording seems to making a similar mistake as the current wording does, namely conflating an AURA with an effect which you TARGET. IMHO, the 10' Aura itself should be given a duration of until Smite Target is dead, and (using your concept) you must pay one usage for each ally affected by the Aura (you can choose to include specific allies or not. Allies re-entering the Aura after leaving it are 'already paid for')
but where you're going with that concept sounds reasonable:
if the paladin himelf smiting uses 1 usage, why shouldn't each ally also use 1 usage?
At the very least though, we need to see AoJ's wording changed to actually function like an Aura and not a 10' range spell with independent duration per target. I *think* that's a case of sloppy wording, and not intent.
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Not to nit-pick, but this wording seems to making a similar mistake as the current wording does, namely conflating an AURA with an effect which you TARGET. IMHO, the 10' Aura itself should be given a duration of until Smite Target is dead, and (using your concept) you must pay one usage for each ally affected by the Aura (you can choose to include specific allies or not. Allies re-entering the Aura after leaving it are 'already paid for')
but where you're going with that concept sounds reasonable:
if the paladin himelf smiting uses 1 usage, why shouldn't each ally also use 1 usage?At the very least though, we need to see AoJ's wording changed to actually function like an Aura and not a 10' range spell with independent duration per target. I *think* that's a case of sloppy wording, and not intent.
Well, the term 'aura' seems to be a bit wibbly anyway. I mean clerics and paladins have an 'aura of <relevant alignment(s)', which means a totally different thing to the aura of courage ability, and so on. The word 'aura' seems to have been already diluted by the places it's used in the core rules. But I agree that aura of justice should probably be renamed something else. No snappy names spring to mind, though. (Maybe 'Lynch Mob'? :P)
Sorry, but I really do think the smite lasting until the target is dead or the paladin rests is just plain overkill. This is, out and out, an encounter killer. Suddenly, evil bosses are no longer threats to a party with a paladin in it. It'll get worse if the blackguard class is like this too, suddenly mid-high level battles become rocket tag.
I think people underestimate just how common evil foes are in a typical dungeons and dragons game. For one thing, it's alot easier to justify having evil bandits, murderers, raiders, organisations etc attack the party simply because they're a threat or interferring with their plans than it is to do so with good (or even just neutral) groups.
Hundreds? methinks one exaggerates
Last time I did a character that was able to add twice his level to damage, it reached the hundreads easily, and will always do so when you factor in other damage boosters (such as just simply high strenght, enchantments, buffs, or even just other damage focused feats). It was also, coincidently, considered the most powerful character I ever played and the conceapt has banned from the table.
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Last time I did a character that was able to add twice his level to damage, it reached the hundreads easily, and will always do so when you factor in other damage boosters (such as just simply high strenght, enchantments, buffs, or even just other damage focused feats). It was also, coincidently, considered the most powerful character I ever played and the conceapt has banned from the table.
Hundreds? methinks one exaggerates
I'm curious - how often could the character you built add twice his level to damage, and how limited were the type of opponents he could do it against?
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Sorry, but I really do think the smite lasting until the target is dead or the paladin rests is just plain overkill. This is, out and out, an encounter killer. Suddenly, evil bosses are no longer threats to a party with a paladin in it. It'll get worse if the blackguard class is like this too, suddenly mid-high level battles become rocket tag.
I think people underestimate just how common evil foes are in a typical dungeons and dragons game. For one thing, it's alot easier to justify having evil bandits, murderers, raiders, organisations etc attack the party simply because they're a threat or interferring with their plans than it is to do so with good (or even just neutral) groups.
Last time I did a character that was able to add twice his level to damage, it reached the hundreads easily, and will always do so when you factor in other damage boosters (such as just simply high strenght, enchantments, buffs, or even just other damage focused feats). It was also, coincidently, considered the most powerful character I ever played and the conceapt has banned from the table.
Hundreds? methinks one exaggerates
Lets see Add twice his lvl to damage, Hit enemies on there touch armour, Run up walls, Stabilise using a skill check Instead of the % one. Im sure there were a few other things as well. Also it could be done against each and every character (not just of a specific alighment) and it could be done as many times per day as the character could enter psionic focus.
I'm curious - how often could the character you built add twice his level to damage, and how limited were the type of opponents he could do it against?
Well..it worked like this, he would hit on touhc armour and used this to power attack for his level (using the 3.5 power attack rules). Since most of the high level monsters we fought had low touch AC, he was able to hit easily (and critical often, considering he had improved critical and a falchion).
It required him to expend psionic focus. Though since he was a fighter (poor concentration) and already spent just about every single non-fighter feat to gain these abilities, he wasn't able to take the feats allowing him to enter the focus with less actions. So he never bothered trying to enter it in combat (since at high levels it was a full-round action, provoked attacks of oppertunity, and still only had a 50% chance of working). So effectivly, it was once per encounter for 1 round.
Also it could be done against each and every character (not just of a specific alighment) and it could be done as many times per day as the character could enter psionic focus.
There was more as well. His weapon also had the "holy" propery, which coincidently, affected every foe he fought (even the ones with which his tactics wouldn't work), so a paladin would be able to do the same (if not worse since a paladin can still power attack for an additional 18 damage on top, 36 if he/she just happens to critical) and use the ability for the entire encounter.
Edit: Actually..even worse, since my character needed a two-handed weapon to get twice his level to damage. A paladin using two weapons can gain twice his level to up to 7 attacks, which at 20th level 140 points of damage before strength, weapon damage, enchantments, buffs, and anything else.
With all due respect, I have a Paladin and Barbarian (both 12th level) in my party now. It's true that the Paladin rocks when facing his preferred opponents, but only than. Also, in terms of raw damage against multiple opponents, Barbarian fares much better (criticals plus higher strength score).
Key points one has to remember when building Barbarian:
- ability bonuses are of morale type now, feel free to use magic items
- use your great mobility to your advantage - Power Attack, Cleave, Vital Strike are your friends
- Strength Surge, Fearless Rage and Clear Mind are there to make sure you don't get eliminatedGiven these, it's no wonder that our Barbarian is like a small tornado, dishing between 40 and 120 points per single attack (depends on whether he gets to do a critical). Yes, Paladin can overtake him in a prolonged face-to-face showdown against BBEG, but while dealing with crowds or non-outsider targets, it's the Barbarian who steals the spotlight.
Regards,
Ruemere
Thanks for this report, it shows the issues that paizos website suffers from at the moment, no one is playing the game enough yet to really comment on the changes. Its nice to see the people (above) actual use the rules instead of crying about changes.
To be honest I found the fighter overpowered in beta and the minor tweaks along with the changes to other melee classes balance it out.The maths behind running a barbarian made my hurt and I like the simiplar version we now how, as for the rage powers, they to fall into 2 catagorys, increased mobility or surviabilty; both of which are pretty good and you can of course mix and match them.
Finally yes Paladins now rock, would have like to see a blackguard but I can live without, after all Dragon did a great archile on 'paladins' of different alignments which I can adapt if needed.
At least this is isnt the Cleric forum post, those guys can whine. What is funny to me is the amount of people who a) havernt got the new rulebook yet feel they know enough to comment & b) havernt played the new ruleset yet.
Thanks for this report, it shows the issues that paizos website suffers from at the moment, no one is playing the game enough yet to really comment on the changes.
Actually people are. A few had said during the Beta that the paladin being able to gain such bonuses with two weapons was overkill. But rather than change that, they made smite last even longer.
Its nice to see the people (above) actual use the rules instead of crying about changes.
Crying? Heaven forefend someone might actually think certain changes aren't that great.
At least this is isnt the Cleric forum post, those guys can whine. What is funny to me is the amount of people who a) havernt got the new rulebook yet feel they know enough to comment & b) havernt played the new ruleset yet.
How many players on this forum "whined" when 4th Edition was announced, long before any rule changes were publically announced? Not all changes requiring playtesting to see their effects. If I house-ruled that fighters gain a +20 bonus to their damage rolls every level, I could easily just say "play test it" to anyone willing to argue as well. While the smite isn't as extreme as my example, you get the picture, it is possible to see problems with rules before playing, so don't act like it isn't.
Sorry, but I really do think the smite lasting until the target is dead or the paladin rests is just plain overkill. This is, out and out, an encounter killer. Suddenly, evil bosses are no longer threats to a party with a paladin in it. It'll get worse if the blackguard class is like this too, suddenly mid-high level battles become rocket tag.
I had a different experience last weekend. We converted from beta to the new rules in a RotRL game, and my players are currently in the Skinsaw Murders.
The group's Paladin was trounced by
He was indeed expecting to breeze through all major encounters with the new abilities of the Paladin, but he was in for a surprise. They made the Paladin great instead of sucky, but not broken.
Actually people are. A few had said during the Beta that the paladin being able to gain such bonuses with two weapons was overkill. But rather than change that, they made smite last even longer.
How many players on this forum "whined" when 4th Edition was announced, long before any rule changes were publically announced? Not all changes requiring playtesting to see their effects. If I house-ruled that fighters gain a +20 bonus to their damage rolls every level, I could easily just say "play test it" to anyone willing to argue as well. While the smite isn't as extreme as my example, you get the picture, it is possible to see problems with rules before playing, so don't act like it isn't.
Thanks for taking part in the Beta, thanks to people like you we have a nice rounded game, sadly your observation that Smite was overpowered was sadly drowned out by the hundreds of people who compared the ability to mass-feats(fighters) or rage(barbarians) and found the rule lacking. Now we have an ability that allows paladins to go toe to toe with the big bads of the Pathfinder/D&D world. Something they couldnt do as well as others until now.
Sadly your +20 damage fighter/playtest example misses the point, we ACTUALLY did the play test, what we hold in our hands is the product of input from some of the best games writers in the business backed up by thousands of suggestions and reports from players around the world. Does that mean that your paladin was overpowered in your game, maybe? But the reason why playtest have to be more than one group is to see how different GM and players approch the same rules set.
Granted there is a certain amount of being able to predict how a rule will react with the rest of the game (thats how Beta was written) but again your example shows the errors of extremes. We saw some classes get massive improvements and now they have been toned down to bring them in line with other classes, the paladin in beta was hardly changed from 3.5 and suffered because of it, the extra damage is welcome at my table and it seems piazos writing staff agree.
To conclude, if you dont like it, house rule it. That keeps the more creative people happy. The rules arent going to change anymore any time soon.