Though this avoids the fact that you shouldn't treat this game as a competition, you shouldn't be trying to kill the players.
Exactly, which is why your suggestions about using golems to "deal" with the paladin are beside the point. I'm not trying to defeat the paladin, defeating the PCs is trivial for the DM, considering he can bring unlimited resources to bear.
What I am trying to do is avoid a situation where the paladin never feels threatened, or where the paladin is moderately threatened and the other PCs are dropping like flies, or where a player creating a new warrior-type character feels pressure to go with the paladin over a fighter or a barbarian not because they wish to play a paladin but because it's obviously the more survivable choice.
Firstly, how does he LoH himself if he's using a two-handed weapon? Let go, LoH, put hands back, and then attack? Even if allowed that seems a bit cheesy.Ever since we started playing 3E, we assumed that's how it works. After all, wizards typically use staffs and cast spells, and I have never heard anyone suggest that one interferes with the other.
Your concern seems to stem from all the players thinking that being the one who gets in the bad guys face, gets his attention, and vanquishes him personally is the only, or most important, way to shine.Well, yes, kicking ass is the most important way to shine for most people, and especially those who choose to play warriors.
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Frankly, you must be seeing something I am not about how powerful they are, especially after the 2pts per level nerf. They are much better than they used to be, but not necessarily the juggernauts you seem to perceive them as. What levels and fights are you using to evaluate their power vs the other classes?
I think of LoH as potential Hp. So yeah while a Pally is going to have 25 Hp less than the Fighter, he gets 63 "bonus" Hp. And that's fine. Honestly having played both Pallys and Fighters, I'd trade LoH for 10 bonus feats in a second. Heck I'd trade it for 5 bonus feats.
And they need that Hp. Pallys OWN against Evil, yeah, it's that thing they do. Fighters own against Everything. Against non-Evil foes a fighter will drop his 3 or more rounds before the Pally. That's 3 full attacks. For most Cr 6-8 monsters thats a lot more than 25 damage.
Most of the time, a Pally only gets 70-80% that hp anyway. Being able to un-frighten, -stagger, or -nauseate allies frequently takes precedent.
Also, don't forget a Pally has a HEAVY RP cost. If you really feel that a Pally is "Overpowered" (hint: it's not) don't be afraid to force your player to make a few tough decisions. If you play a Pally, don't be surprised if your DM does this, because HE SOULD. (Within reason, that is)
There are lots of reasons why this is not a problem. Just play the game.
I was playing the game when this issue came up as an apparent problem.
This condescendingly dismissive attitude towards any criticism of the rules is the single most off-putting thing about the whole Pathfinder brand. :(
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If it is any consolation I agree with you here Jas.
Paladins are balanced around only really excelling at one thing, it just so happens that that one thing is what you are going to be doing more often than not, fighting evil creatures.
In an urban game, or something less than a typical dungeon crawl, we are the good guys game I could see them fitting in just along side everyone else but in most case that isn't how things are. It is like playing a ranger and coincidentally 2/3rds of the enemies you come across are your favored enemies and you never leave you favored terrain.
Greetings, fellow travelers.
I GM a Kingmaker campaign with a Paladin and a Cleric in my group. I have the same concerns, Jasin, but than again, I do believe the whole mechanics have been play-tested and I don't think the 50,000+ players all have been pushing the Paladins to become "broken".
What I have done is, I talked to the player and told him that my concern was with him outshining the others, making them obsolete and feeling not wanted/needed.
I introduced some house rules dealing with SE (only for melee weapons and the Paladin cannot do other things than fighting the BBEG). LoH is not so much a concern - I second Quantum Steve in this issue and also rule, that even to heal himself, the Paladin needs a free hand (and yes, the player opted for the combination sword&board).
The player agreed to these things, because he could follow my concern.
Also, I make sure, that there are more than one encounter a day to let them decide when to use their precious class features.
After lvl 5 the paladin will have an aura of good, which is detectable - I make use of that: he will be the focus of attention.
Together with my observation of him following his code of honor (which he wrote himself), and the agreement of temporal punishment for not being chivalrous, lawful, good, honorable, what-not, we have had a lot of memorable fights, which were fun for everybody.
So, while I know, a lot of issues work (only) for my group, maybe you can find some hooks for handling and seeing the Paladin in your game differently without dismantling him completely.
Ruyan.
If it is any consolation I agree with you here Jas.
Paladins are balanced around only really excelling at one thing, it just so happens that that one thing is what you are going to be doing more often than not, fighting evil creatures.
In an urban game, or something less than a typical dungeon crawl, we are the good guys game I could see them fitting in just along side everyone else but in most case that isn't how things are. It is like playing a ranger and coincidentally 2/3rds of the enemies you come across are your favored enemies and you never leave you favored terrain.
It's exactly like that. Except you only get your favored bonus's on one or two (maybe three if your high level) foes per day. So if you were saving it for the BBEG and it turned out to be the BBNG, you're hosed. If it turns to be 4 BEGs, you're 75% hosed.
And the rest of the time you're a Fighter with good saves and no feats.No matter how many evil foes you fight that day.
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A 6th-level paladin can lay on hands some 7 times per day for 3d6 hp. He can heal himself as a swift action.
This is precious little different from fast healing 10, for the whole of a fight or two, on a 6th level PC.
It seems to me that anything that can even remotely threaten a paladin will easily rip through any other PC.
Am I missing something? Is there some reason why this is not a problem?
It really bugs me when the OP straight-out lies.
This post asks: "Am I missing something? Is there some reason why this is not a problem?"
But the OPs response to every attempt to answer this is to look for ways to shoot down what other people say, to turn every comment into a competition, to react aggressively to anyone who disagrees. Then to call other people dismissive!
If you just wanted to tell us that the PF Paladin is flawed then you could have done that without pretending that you were asking for advice or ideas.
You must know that the rules on this are not going to change, you've put this is the 'rules questions' section but you seem to understand the rule perfectly well.
The only positive thing to do, if you remain convinced that LoH is spoiling your game is to houserule a change. If you ask for advice on that I am sure you will get it.
RuyanVe has made some good suggestions, maybe we'll see some more, hopefully Jasin won't just shoot them down.
But I suspect that the title of this thread would have been more accurate if it had been: "OMGzors! Paladin Broken WTF!"
It's exactly like that. Except you only get your favored bonus's on one or two (maybe three if your high level) foes per day.
"Maybe three if your high level"? The paladin gets smite 3/day at 7th level. That's hardly high level.
So if you were saving it for the BBEG and it turned out to be the BBNG, you're hosed.
So far, the memorable big bad guys in Kingmaker have been (mild spoilers!):
The Stag Lord - evil
The Dancing Lady - evil
the troll king - evil
Vesket, the lizardfolk king - evil
will-o'-the-wisp false god - evil
the giant owlbear - neutral
The last adventure path from Paizo I played was Age of Worms. I can't think of a single important enemy that wasn't evil, and I can think of a dozen that were.
The great majority of foes a party will be fighting in a typical game (say, a Paizo adventure path) will be evil, especially the big bad guys. That's why the heroes are fighting them, mostly.
And the rest of the time you're a Fighter with good saves and no feats.
And swift-action healing, and a better magic weapon, and immunity to fear and charm...
"Maybe three if your high level"? The paladin gets smite 3/day at 7th level. That's hardly high level.
Ok, I'll grant that. I don't play so often, or rather I play so many different campaigns and systems, that it takes a while for me to hit 8th Level. Still, you'll never get more than 5 unless you play past 15. That's still way fewer than a Ranger.
The Stag Lord - evil
The Dancing Lady - evil
the troll king - evil
Vesket, the lizardfolk king - evil
will-o'-the-wisp false god - evil
the giant owlbear - neutralThe last adventure path from Paizo I played was Age of Worms. I can't think of a single important enemy that wasn't evil, and I can think of a dozen that were.
Paizo is rotten with BBEGs, in non-piazo campaigns I see lots more neutral and multiple enemy bosses. Still more than half the baddies are evil, but you can't smite them all. A Paladin is a boss killer to be sure, but if he's saving smites, a non-evil boss, or just the evil wizard triumvirate instead of the evil archmage can ruin his day.
And swift-action healing, and a better magic weapon, and immunity to fear and charm...
I should have specified that if these abilities were decreed "Over-Powered" and nerfed, the rest of the time you're a Fighter with good saves and no feats
Yea, why IS this in Rules Questions?
"This forum is for questions and answers about the rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game."
It seems to me that lay on hands is problematic. Since it's situational, since other classes have gotten other boosts, since I haven't had as much experience with Pathfinder as I have with 3.5, I wanted to know what other people thought about it, and whether I was overlooking something in my thinking.
That seemed to me like a question about the rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I don't really need house rule suggestions, I have plenty of ideas how to weaken lay on hands should I decide to: I wanted to know if there's something in the rules as they are that I was missing.
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Yea, why IS this in Rules Questions?"This forum is for questions and answers about the rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game."
It seems to me that lay on hands is problematic. Since it's situational, since other classes have gotten other boosts, since I haven't had as much experience with Pathfinder as I have with 3.5, I wanted to know what other people thought about it, and whether I was overlooking something in my thinking.
That seemed to me like a question about the rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I don't really need house rule suggestions, I have plenty of ideas how to weaken lay on hands should I decide to: I wanted to know if there's something in the rules as they are that I was missing.
Sorry, may have read too much into the part that sounded like rules complaint rather than a check that you were interpreting it correctly.
A 6th-level paladin can lay on hands some 7 times per day for 3d6 hp. He can heal himself as a swift action.
This is precious little different from fast healing 10, for the whole of a fight or two, on a 6th level PC.
It seems to me that anything that can even remotely threaten a paladin will easily rip through any other PC.
Am I missing something? Is there some reason why this is not a problem?
IMO you are largely correct, it is a problem & for the reasons you identified. So is the powered up smite and the combination of all the paladins other fruit. These issues get brought up from time to time on these forums but Paladins appear to have a strong Pathfinder lobby group. In my group the player of the Paladin PC was embarrassed by the power difference and resultant spotlight hogging in major combats and kept asking for the class to be weakened- we dont play the Pathfinder Paladin rules anymore.
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As I deduct from this thread, paladin is good for what he does. He's not much more powerful then barbarian, so the only problem lies in fighter.
If you gave fighter that boost he's always been missing (specifically the "+1 to existing spellcaster class"), he'll finally be useful for his only real purpose
The problem is not that the paladin is overpowered.
The problem is that the OP is using APs.
APs are designed so that, it seems, almost ever boss is Evil. This is in no way a slam against APs, most of the classic fantasy stories are GvE.
However, what this does is skew the power curve on a Paladin, because he is MUCH better against Evil opponents than any other class. This is, of course, exactly as it should be. A paladin should always shine against Evil opponents.
Personally, this is one reason I avoid such game aids, they tend to be skewed towards certain classes.
One way of fixing it is to alter the bosses. Take some of the bosses and make them Neutral instead of Evil, if they can fit in as neutral and not evil. A necromancer who's going to take over the world using an army of undead isn't really a great fit for Neutral (although you could make a convincing background to make him such, I'm sure). However, some baron that wants to take over the country by killing the king could indeed be Neutral very easily.
People experience vary by large. In mine, paladins always sucked hard, and Pathfinder finally made them awesome.
@watashi: again, experience vary. When PF came out, people complained that barbarian were sucky compared to the new fighter. BTW, IMO, you are BOTH wrong. They just play different.
Seriously guys.. the paladin TOO POWERFUL? In a party with wizard and a cleric?
By level 12-13, what you do? Ban planar ally/planar binding, summons, dominates, save or suck..
Is more durable, so what? Good for the party. You don't challenge the paladin, challenge THE PARTY. Is he good at healing? He will use LoH to his friends if the cleric can keep up all the punishment.
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If you want characters to be mechanically balanced across levels and classes, then play 4E.
No, 4e has classes so similar that any difference in power is obvious and anyone playing a weaker class feels like an idiot. In 3e/pf, we can at least delude ourselves with "my class is better, but for something else"
The problem is that the OP is using APs.
How is that a problem? Paizo has the best pre-written adventures I ever played. Now you claim that it's badly supported by their own system? Hmm...
Seriously guys.. the paladin TOO POWERFUL? In a party with wizard and a cleric?
Nobody's comparing him to the casters. That's apples and pears. The problem is that our fighter dies on a regular basis and paladin just regenerates and smites for the whole combat (6-7 rounds)
Just a minor note...
A PF Paladin has a shared pool of uses between his Lay of Hands ability and Channeling ability.
In 3.5, he has Level x Charisma hitpoints healed AND 3 + Charisma turn attempts.
In Pathfinder he has 1/2 Level uses of lay hands to heal, or use two to channel.
The same Paladin with 14 Cha at.. what was it? 7th level? in 3.5 has 14 hitpoints healed and 5 channels per day, combined.
5 Channels is 10 uses of lay on hands for the Pathfinder Paladin, so impossible with the stats given (3 + 2 from cha = 5 uses).
It's like the Monk's self healing vs empty body, dimension door, etc. Less overall uses if you add up all the things the old monk used to have in his bag of tricks, but you can focus all your points into one thing if needed.
A Paladin who focuses all his lay of hands into healing loses out on being able to channel at all. That is a factor here.
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Nobody's comparing him to the casters. That's apples and pears. The problem is that our fighter dies on a regular basis and paladin just regenerates and smites for the whole combat (6-7 rounds)
The fighter should fight smarter not harder. I like playing a fighter and I only rarely get in serious trouble, and those are usually because the GM was trying to net a PK or two, and I still haven't lost a character in years. I've even played with some pretty murderous GMs. This is probably due to my first experience in roleplaying was as a wizard, d4 HD and everything. This is because I play smart, when I get to about 1/2 hp I start fighting more defensively, even falling back if I have to.
Lay on Hands overpowered ... what next, Tongue of the Sun and Moon blowing up the game in half ?
Perhaps.
I'm increasingly convinced that "overpowered" and "broken" are mostly just DM buzz words for "messed with my game by not letting the encounter go the way I planned".
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
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I'm increasingly convinced that "overpowered" and "broken" are mostly just DM buzz words for "messed with my game by not letting the encounter go the way I planned".
Seeing how any DM can pull monsters out of his donkey mid-combat, I don't think that's an issue. I'm increasingly convinced that "overpowered" and "broken" are mostly just player buzzwords for "This class has the same purpose as mine has, but does it much better"
The problem is not that the paladin is overpowered.
The problem is that the OP is using APs.
That's a rather unfortunate analysis, considering that one of the primary goals of the Pathfinder RPG is to be a vehicle for the Pathfinder adventures. :)
But I'd argue that this is not some idiosyncrasy of the adventure paths; most of D&D assumes a party of heroes fighting evil. It's possible to deviate, significantly, from that baseline, but it is the baseline, and I think that's what default design should aim for (i.e. the paladin should be designed with the assumption that most opponents will be evil, because that assumption will be true for most games).
The problem is not that the paladin is overpowered.
The problem is that the OP is using APs.
That's a rather unfortunate analysis, considering that one of the primary goals of the Pathfinder RPG is to be a vehicle for the Pathfinder adventures. :)
But I'd argue that this is not some idiosyncrasy of the adventure paths; most of D&D assumes a party of heroes fighting evil. It's possible to deviate, significantly, from that baseline, but it is the baseline, and I think that's what default design should aim for (i.e. the paladin should be designed with the assumption that most opponents will be evil, because that assumption will be true for most games).
Actually, if you look at the core rules and bestiary, you'll find that only about 1/3rd of the monsters are evil. Most of the bestiary monsters are Neutral. A lot of the giant types are neutral, golems, homonculi, animals, etc.
The problem I've found with adventure stories is, the writers get caught up in the 'good vs evil' and forget to throw some neutral stuff in. This is great for a story, but lousy for an adventure path where a specific class get's uber bonuses vs evil.
I disagree that the paladin should be designed with the idea that most enemies are evil. Instead, I think stories should be designed with an eye that most parties are likely to include a paladin. There's no reason why the big evil bad can't have golems instead of mooks surrounding him. Sure, he'd have less golems than mooks, but those golems don't eat, don't sleep, don't get scared, don't stab him in the back, etc. And if the paladin has to fight his way through 3 or 4 neutral golems to get to the big bad evil, then he's burning through his resources prior to that (and the fighter and everyone else is doing more damage to the golems in all likelyhood).
A Paladin has limited resources. Once he runs out of those, he's just a gimped Fighter with better saves.
That wasn't a very good balancing method for 3E wizards and cleric, and it's still not a very good balancing method now.
Am I missing something? Is there some reason why this is not a problem?There are lots of reasons why this is not a problem. Just play the game.
I am sorely tempted to FAQ that.
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A 6th-level paladin can lay on hands some 7 times per day for 3d6 hp. He can heal himself as a swift action.
This is precious little different from fast healing 10, for the whole of a fight or two, on a 6th level PC.
It seems to me that anything that can even remotely threaten a paladin will easily rip through any other PC.
Am I missing something? Is there some reason why this is not a problem?
That hasn’t been my experience, but I think there are too many variables to say definitively that the paladin is or isn’t over-powered. For those who like to do the math, as this thread has already demonstrated you can get the math to prove either argument depending on what your assumptions are. Likewise, if you want to go with anecdotal evidence, you’ll get as many people arguing either side of the coin from their experiences.
For what its worth, I think the PF paladin is a great class, but I don’t think it outshines the other classes – and I have the anecdotal evidence to prove my claim!
More seriously, the paladin has two particularly good class features for a combatant; smite evil and lay on hands. Now smite evil is obviously only useful against evil opponents, but as others have pointed out most published adventures tend to be skewed towards dangerous opponents being evil (golems, most other constructs, dinosaurs, dire animals, most plant monsters, most oozes, elementals, giant vermin, phase spiders, otyughs, purple worms, froghemoths, mimics, owlbears, bulletes, cloakers, most swarms etc). However, if you have more than a couple of fights a day, or a few big fights, or fights featuring several tough and evil opponents, a paladin’s smite evil ability is going to be pretty quickly used up or conserved for emergency’s – and when the paladin is unable or unwilling to use smite evil, their deficiency against a well made fighter of the same level quickly shows up.
Lay on hands is also great, but unlike fast healing, which is has been compared to, it does take an action to use; yes, only a swift action to use it on yourself, but that does prevent using another swift (or immediate) action in the round (such as choosing a smite evil target) – not a big deal most of the time, but something to keep in mind. More importantly, (as my anecdotal ‘proof’ shows) a paladin does not always have uses of their LoH available to keep them going in a fight. This may be because the party healer is focusing on keeping the rest of the party standing, letting the ‘self healing’ paladin fend for himself, or, more likely the well role played paladin has selflessly used up a lot of his uses of LoH making sure that his companions and various innocents met along the way are in good health. Yes, I know, to many people such roleplay is a foreign concept, but it really is a factor that should be considered beyond the simple mathematical comparison.
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A Paladin has limited resources. Once he runs out of those, he's just a gimped Fighter with better saves.That wasn't a very good balancing method for 3E wizards and cleric, and it's still not a very good balancing method now.
We're comparing Fighters/Barbs/Rangers to Paladins here. Full casters are a whole different ball game.
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We're comparing Fighters/Barbs/Rangers to Paladins here. Full casters are a whole different ball game.A Paladin has limited resources. Once he runs out of those, he's just a gimped Fighter with better saves.That wasn't a very good balancing method for 3E wizards and cleric, and it's still not a very good balancing method now.
Yeah, I'm curious as to why you (jasin) would think that a paladin's limited resources in relation to smite evil and lay on hands is not a good balancing method? If you have more than a couple of fights per adventuring day (scales with level) you will quickly see the paladins weaknesses in comparison to a fighter etc.
Yeah, I'm curious as to why you (jasin) would think that a paladin's limited resources in relation to smite evil and lay on hands is not a good balancing method? If you have more than a couple of fights per adventuring day (scales with level) you will quickly see the paladins weaknesses in comparison to a fighter etc.
IOW, as if often the case when people whinge on about balance, the real issue is pacing. Get rid of the 15-Minute Adventuring Day, and all sorts of problems diminish or fade away entirely. OTOH, if the DM permits the sort of pacing that lets characters with limited uses per day abilities to go into most encounters at full or nearly full strength, then things get out of whack.
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Yeah, I'm curious as to why you (jasin) would think that a paladin's limited resources in relation to smite evil and lay on hands is not a good balancing method? If you have more than a couple of fights per adventuring day (scales with level) you will quickly see the paladins weaknesses in comparison to a fighter etc.IOW, as if often the case when people whinge on about balance, the real issue is pacing. Get rid of the 15-Minute Adventuring Day, and all sorts of problems diminish or fade away entirely. OTOH, if the DM permits the sort of pacing that lets characters with limited uses per day abilities to go into most encounters at full or nearly full strength, then things get out of whack.
Agreed, although it can depend on the type of campaign you play too. I believe the OP said he is running Kingmaker. The early stages of that campaign include a lot of wilderness exploration, where you might be getting one random encounter a day, or stumbling across planned encounter areas that include one or two potential battles (and that’s all you do for the day). So for this sort of campaign, the paladin (and other ‘limited resource’ type characters) might indeed look unbalanced; not so for many other types of games (assuming the 15 minute adventuring day is put firmly away in the closet where it belongs).
Speaking of unbalanced and broken, is someone going to fix my rocker?
Fighter: Hey let's tunnel under the fortress wall. Sure it'll take a couple weeks but with the right spells from our friends and a little luck we'll be able to sneak inside and take them fully unaware of our...hey where'd Tybalt (party paladin) go?
Wizard: *casts clairvoyance* ah geeze he's at the main gate yelling up something and shaking his fist in the air...*casts clairaudience* and he's telling them to surrender or we'll have to tunnel under their walls..
Fighter: Oh FFS
*que the front door assault at Jorgenfist*
If actually played correctly, the rules support the paladin doing the rediculous and not ending up as just another melee unit to trod under giant boots, or draining the party healers for their daring and brash tactics. Unfortunately there aren't any rules to make this a game that awards roleplaying and when taken into a vacuum statistical analysis computer it is very easy to have a situation (or even a host of situations) where the paladin is going to look like superman reading the paper in a shooting range.
I am sorely tempted to FAQ that.
That's a terrible, terrible mindset for a rules questions board.
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I just looked at the PF barbarian and wow, he really is good. I still don't know why they kept the fighter as a base class with more then 2 levels. It misleads people into thinking that it's playable on it's own
The Fighter outdamages every other class. Nothing gets close.Please don't go hyperboling all over the place without the evidence to back that up.
I just looked at the PF barbarian and wow, he really is good. I still don't know why they kept the fighter as a base class with more then 2 levels. It misleads people into thinking that it's playable on it's ownThe Fighter outdamages every other class. Nothing gets close.Please don't go hyperboling all over the place without the evidence to back that up.
+1
Fighter does just fine in our game.
Yeah, I'm curious as to why you (jasin) would think that a paladin's limited resources in relation to smite evil and lay on hands is not a good balancing method? If you have more than a couple of fights per adventuring day (scales with level) you will quickly see the paladins weaknesses in comparison to a fighter etc.
Because extensive experience has shown that when the PCs have significantly depleted their resources, they rest.
That's why clerics, wizards, and druids dominated 3E so thoroughly. They could only keep going at godlike levels of power for minutes, or at best a few hours each day. But when that time is up, the smart thing to do is rest. Even if there's time pressure (unless it's specifically contrived to counter particular classes, which I as a DM don't want to be required to do, and which Paizo's adventure writers don't do either), it's almost always quicker to deal with things at peak power, rather than push on while weakened and risk significant time and resource setbacks (like death).
I am sorely tempted to FAQ that.That's a terrible, terrible mindset for a rules questions board.
Is it?
I've imagined lots of "design" problems in the game, then found my way out of them just by playing instead of questioning the intention of the design. In fact, I think questioning the intention of the design is inappropriate for a rules questions board, which should mainly provide answers. This thread already has provided an answer. Debating the balance of the design provides no answers.
IOW, as if often the case when people whinge on about balance, the real issue is pacing. Get rid of the 15-Minute Adventuring Day, and all sorts of problems diminish or fade away entirely. OTOH, if the DM permits the sort of pacing that lets characters with limited uses per day abilities to go into most encounters at full or nearly full strength, then things get out of whack.
Well, I am using a Pathfinder adventure, so I would have expected it to work in the Pathfinder RPG out of the box, rather than requiring me to, y'know, rework the basic framework of the game.
Well, I am using a Pathfinder adventure, so I would have expected it to work in the Pathfinder RPG out of the box, rather than requiring me to, y'know, rework the basic framework of the game.
No RPG works out of the box. They all require a GM.