A caveat before I begin--I've already made my decision based on the balance of the game and personalities of the players in my group, so this is just to see what other GMs think of what I considered an interesting situation that came up last week:
A character in my Rise of the Runelords game has been playing a defense-minded Paladin for a while. When he leveled up to 9, he surprised everyone by suddenly taking a level in the Stalwart Defender PrC from the APG--for those not familiar, it's basically an updated Dwarven Defender. So anyway, he has a defensive stance that gives him large benefits when he stands in place to defend a spot--the book doesn't state what kind of action it is to enter this stance, so I ruled that since the mechanic was handled otherwise identically to Rage, it must be a free action.
Here's what happened--
The party got into a scrape with four ogres, and the Paladin set up a defensive stance in front of the group, with the usual "Be it four or twenty or one thousand ogres, I shall not move from this spot. You shall not pass!" shtick. He managed to block off most of the ogres and only got hit once. One of the ogres went around and attacked some of the other PCs. So on his next turn, he ended his stance and ran after the other ogre. Like Rage, you are fatigued after the end of these stances, but that didn't concern him, as the moment he planted himself in his new position, he Swift-action Layed on Hands with the Remove Fatigue Mercy and then entered the stance again. On the next round after that, he ended his stance as well, removing Fatigue once again. In fact, he has so far never stayed in one place for even a single turn once he puts up that stance.
Some important things to note: 1) It's not like this is unbalancing--Paladin itself is rather close to granting him the most unbalanced ability I've ever seen in a core combat class (Aura of Justice), and he's delayed himself a level in all his Paladin stuff including AoJ for each level he takes in Stalwart Defender. Frankly, if he had to stop taking levels in Paladin now until he finished Stalwart Defender, even giving him the Stalwart Defender's stance bonuses continually all day long would be less powerful than what he gave up. 2) At least one player is kind of uneasy by the way the flavour of not moving is violated by this combo, but admits that he would be fine with the whole thing if the PrC just didn't have the no moving restriction, as it isn't as if it would be too strong even without it.
So I've probably put down too many clarifications--what would you do?
Personally i don't see any problem with that. He encountered a problem and worked around it - do have in mind tho that if you don't have barbarian he probably planned on doing this, except if you didn't change spell list's to have loads of ray's of fatigue, etc.
Not moving is never violated, side effect of ending a stance on other hand is.
On totally unrelated topic: I have banned paladin's from all of my games till further notice, simply cause after level 10 they don't have to worry about smite, they don't have to worry about effects such as fatigue, etc. I like that Paizo boosted all of the martial and semi martial classes, but Paladin got too much love imho.
Edit: Oh completely forgot to mention this. Without this work around, stalwart defender is not worth it, cause most of the time monsters will just bypass him (especially in RoTR cause even in dungeons there is enough room). That said, i would give him an option of switching PrC level for whatever if you've decided on not allowing this little trick to work.
I have a Dwarven Fighter/Paladin who is in the position to do basically the same thing, but I decided against it. My build uses Dazzling Display as a "taunt/mark(4E)/debuff" of sorts, but even that didn't warrant standing in place IMO. Lay on Hands are more important to me as swift healing because we don't have a cleric, just myself, a bard and a warlock using UMD. I also have the Mercy - Remove Fatigue, but took it for a different purpose, sleeping in heavy armor, Endurance only fixes sleeping in medium armor.
Not sure posting this serves any purpose, but I 'spoilered' it for that reason.
1 Fighter - Weapon Focus(waraxe), Dazzling Display
2 Paladin -
3 Paladin - Endurance
4 Paladin -
5 Paladin - Die Hard
6 Paladin -
7 Fighter - Dodge, Mobility
Future feats: Heroic Defiance, Saving Shield, Shield Focus
Note: Fighter is APG variant, Phalanx Soldier. I took it primarily for the feats, but Phalanx Soldier provides some interesting abilities that add to my design. I plan on taking at least 1 more Fighter level for the one-handed polearm ability.
Let him do it, he's burning LOH to do it and as you say, it's kinda a backward step over the raw power paladin's get.
+1
Let him do it, he's burning LOH to do it and as you say, it's kinda a backward step over the raw power paladin's get.
Agreed, he could be doing all kinds of things to become immune to fatigue all the time naturally to step around this, this is nothing to worry about.
In fact I thought this was going to be a thread about how to improve the defender and i was going to suggest mobile defense at level 2-3, as having played one to level 18, the class can be extremely frustrating until you obtain this feature, and then only mildly frustrating.
Better this then the Zen Turret of Doom.
To take a more fluffy approach...
So he's using his divine strength to supplement his martial arms, ensuring that, even as his own maneuvers sap away at his power, he has the gods-given fortitude to ignore such concerns for the greater good?
;p
Better this then the Zen Turret of Doom.
Completely off topic: ... Is a lie .. Fighter with crossbow is 1 DPR behind monk at level 11 ... fighter with a bow is 8-9 DPR ahead. And i didn't cheese items (i could, believe me). Gave all Boots of Haste and gave monk Monk's Robe, so even with 13k ahead of rest, monk is still lagging behind practically.
Hmm, no one with the other opinion? Well, looks like you all agree with me, then. That is what I did. However, I thought the other player who thought it was questionable was being fair to say so as well.
A caveat before I begin--I've already made my decision based on the balance of the game and personalities of the players in my group, so this is just to see what other GMs think of what I considered an interesting situation that came up last week:
A character in my Rise of the Runelords game has been playing a defense-minded Paladin for a while. When he leveled up to 9, he surprised everyone by suddenly taking a level in the Stalwart Defender PrC from the APG--for those not familiar, it's basically an updated Dwarven Defender. So anyway, he has a defensive stance that gives him large benefits when he stands in place to defend a spot--the book doesn't state what kind of action it is to enter this stance, so I ruled that since the mechanic was handled otherwise identically to Rage, it must be a free action.
Here's what happened--
The party got into a scrape with four ogres, and the Paladin set up a defensive stance in front of the group, with the usual "Be it four or twenty or one thousand ogres, I shall not move from this spot. You shall not pass!" shtick. He managed to block off most of the ogres and only got hit once. One of the ogres went around and attacked some of the other PCs. So on his next turn, he ended his stance and ran after the other ogre. Like Rage, you are fatigued after the end of these stances, but that didn't concern him, as the moment he planted himself in his new position, he Swift-action Layed on Hands with the Remove Fatigue Mercy and then entered the stance again. On the next round after that, he ended his stance as well, removing Fatigue once again. In fact, he has so far never stayed in one place for even a single turn once he puts up that stance.
Some important things to note: 1) It's not like this is unbalancing--Paladin itself is rather close to granting him the most unbalanced ability I've ever seen in a core combat class (Aura of Justice), and he's delayed himself a level in all his Paladin stuff including AoJ for each level he takes in Stalwart Defender....
So the problem is... what? He is using his abilities to make a bad class usable. What is it with DMs and people using their own creativity to be effective?
Better this then the Zen Turret of Doom.Completely off topic: ... Is a lie .. Fighter with crossbow is 1 DPR behind monk at level 11 ... fighter with a bow is 8-9 DPR ahead. And i didn't cheese items (i could, believe me). Gave all Boots of Haste and gave monk Monk's Robe, so even with 13k ahead of rest, monk is still lagging behind practically.
At level 11 being behind 8~9 DPR isn't a bad thing for the monk. Did you account for him spending a Ki point to get an extra attack too? At level 11 the fighter will have 4 attacks (5 with haste) with the bow (multishot on the first) but with bigger bonuses. The monk will have have five attacks (6 with haste, 7 with Ki and haste) but with less of a bonus on damage.
But the monk will have other things going for him: He'll have good AC, Great Saves, several special abilities the fighter can not readily match, and more skills.
BTW: Did you take into account the perfect strike feat? That can make a huge difference for the monk.
I can't find any flaw in this plan. The only thing I'm curious about is how your Pal/Defender is equipped. I just had to remind my Paladin that he couldn't lay on hands with a heavy shield and weapon equipped.
Unless I am mistaken, he spent two uses of DS and one LoH to allow himself to change positioning during his DS. This sounds perfectly reasonable and not at all a cause for punishment.
DS is round-based, so he would have spent two rounds regardless, and he was beaten on enough that he wanted to LoH anyway (that's his MO now, he uses DS if he has enough damage to LoH anyway and then does so to move each round). His AC and saves are high enough that if this is enough to make him run out of LoH, other people have usually run low on their resources first.
That said, I agree with you TOZ, as I said in my second post. When this came up in session, I listened to the second player's POV, and then I quickly and firmly ruled on behalf of the Paladin player. However, I thought it might generate an interesting discussion here where I could hear more support for the second player's POV. Looks like everyone agrees with me instead (I would have mentioned my own bias in the first post but I wanted to leave it open to both perspectives at first).
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Ah, didn't have my APG on hand to look up the new rules. So it is basically just spending a LoH to allow a reposition during the stance.
I understand the other player being uncertain, but I think it is perfectly reasonable interaction of powers, and I don't think the fluff means 'this character never ever budges until the battle is over'. There is a cost involved, and he can't keep it up forever.
Ah, didn't have my APG on hand to look up the new rules. So it is basically just spending a LoH to allow a reposition during the stance.
I understand the other player being uncertain, but I think it is perfectly reasonable interaction of powers, and I don't think the fluff means 'this character never ever budges until the battle is over'. There is a cost involved, and he can't keep it up forever.
Having seen the character in play before he took the PrC, there isn't too much of a cost for him, since he was definitely going to use a LoH in that round whether or not he took Stalwart Defender. I think the main place it's really going to bite him is when he gets low enough in HP that ending the stance would knock him out because of the lost Con--now he would have to LoH before ending the stance (to avoid going under) and deal with the fatigue. Hopefully as the game continues, the other player will see the combo as flavourful rather than cheesy.