The party is level 13. They are Paladin 6/Wizard 5 (Diviner)/EK 2. But they are not feeling useful with the rest of the party. I try to explain to them that the build isn't supported very well by the game, and that if they determined to play it with the party that made more mechanically supported classes and combinations that their usefulness in comparison is always going to be less than the rest unless they could find some sort of niche with the class combination. So their feelings are quite contradictory and I want to help them out. As to how they are playing, well that seems to change like the wind. Mostly melee in the past.
First of all, if he wants to stick with this, it should even out as he continues to take levels in EK. The main thing is that he has to be really careful with spell selection, as others have covered more fully.
If you are to allow a rebuild, but he really wants to stick with this class combination, I would suggest he go Paladin 3, Wizard 5, EK 5. This gives you good starting paladin abilities like lay on hands and divine grace, but go ahead and sac divine bond and paladin spellcasting to focus on boosting Wizard spellcasting while keeping his BAB and hit dice high with EK levels. More EK levels also means more levels that qualify for Fighter feats. At the next level, EK 6, he can qualify to get Disruptive, which would be great for this build, as he would make a very good anti caster warrior.
It won't be optimized but I think he'd feel a little more effective and have better spellcasting. He will need to learn to work on buffing and field control before wading into melee and he should do fine. Well built EKs shine particularly at higher levels--if this campaign is to go on for a couple more levels, with a few tweaks he actually should be alright.
It's hard to comment further without knowing what feats or ability scores he has.
Forbidden schools are Necromancy and Illusion.
Remember all this means in Pathfinder is that memorizing such a spell occupies two slots instead of one. (And creating magic items is at a -4 penalty to the craft check.) So if he really wanted one of those illusion spells, like blur, he can use it. I think nothing is also stopping him from casting opposition spells from scrolls, wands, or staves.
However, there are also plenty of other spells not in the illusion school that are helpful. Heroism, for example, or any of the buffing transmutation spells (including blink and haste).
The party is level 13. They are Paladin 6/Wizard 5 (Diviner)/EK 2. But they are not feeling useful with the rest of the party. I try to explain to them that the build isn't supported very well by the game, and that if they determined to play it with the party that made more mechanically supported classes and combinations that their usefulness in comparison is always going to be less than the rest unless they could find some sort of niche with the class combination. So their feelings are quite contradictory and I want to help them out. As to how they are playing, well that seems to change like the wind. Mostly melee in the past.
First of all, if he wants to stick with this, it should even out as he continues to take levels in EK. The main thing is that he has to be really careful with spell selection, as others have covered more fully.
If you are to allow a rebuild, but he really wants to stick with this class combination, I would suggest he go Paladin 3, Wizard 5, EK 5. This gives you good starting paladin abilities like lay on hands and divine grace, but go ahead and sac divine bond and paladin spellcasting to focus on boosting Wizard spellcasting while keeping his BAB and hit dice high with EK levels. More EK levels also means more levels that qualify for Fighter feats. At the next level, EK 6, he can qualify to get Disruptive, which would be great for this build, as he would make a very good anti caster warrior.
It won't be optimized but I think he'd feel a little more effective and have better spellcasting. He will need to learn to work on buffing and field control before wading into melee and he should do fine. Well built EKs shine particularly at higher levels--if this campaign is to go on for a couple more levels, with a few tweaks he actually should be alright.
It's hard to comment further without knowing what feats or ability scores he has.
Remember all this means in Pathfinder is that memorizing such a spell occupies two slots instead of one. (And creating magic items is at a -4 penalty to the craft check.) So if he really wanted one of those illusion spells, like blur, he can use it. I think nothing is also stopping him from casting opposition spells from scrolls, wands, or staves.
However, there are also plenty of other spells not in the illusion school that are helpful. Heroism, for example, or any of the buffing transmutation spells (including blink and haste)
Thanks. I am not the GM here I am just a fellow player who they have talked to about how they feel. So I thought I would try and help any way I can. The GM is a bit open to player made content so as soon as the Arcane Templar is touched up a bit I will send him that link.
Any touch up suggestions are greatfully recived :) i'll change the BAB now :)
Edit: I've also plugged the dead space level with a bonus wizard feat although tempted to allow it's use for channeling and smite related feats too.
Any touch up suggestions are greatfully recived :) i'll change the BAB now :)
LOL I watched you change the BaB live!
Some of the power wording is a little off
Bonus Feat - At this level the Arcane Templar gains a bonus feat to be used as wizard bonus feats
A better way of phrasing this would be more like this.
Bonus Feat: At this level the Arcane Templar gains a bonus feat from the wizard bonus feat list.
A lot of little things.
I will give some more pointers later.
Changed it :)
Hmm. Wizard and Paladin, my two favorite classes.
I fear this is a case of Ice Cream and Tuna. Sure, a good, fresh made tuna sandwich is awesome. So, too, is a good scoop of ice (or iced, if you prefer, Mr. Burns) cream. But that definitely doesn't mean you should ever put tuna in your ice cream - or a dollop of ice cream on your tuna sandwich.
But the player insists - so your job is to nod and smile and go forth.
The problems are manifold and have been explained by the previous posters, so I'll only reiterate a few.
Problem One: His Forbidden Schools
It's clear that as he was building this character, your player had no real idea of what he was doing. I don't see if you specified his specialized school, but you mentioned that Necromancy and Illusion are his forbidden schools. Edit: I see it now - Diviner; not a bad choice.
Necromancy is fine as a forbidden school. Most of the spells are save-or-fail, and because of MAD (an acronym I hate, by the way, as it reminds me too much of cold war era politics - google if you've no idea what I'm talking about) your DCs will be low. So it's good to get rid of Necromancy.
But Illusion?! One of the best schools for meleeists? Leaving aside invisibility, which your player might have some misbegotten notion that it isn't "paladinly" enough, there's displace, blur, mirror image and at the higher levels all of the nice decoy illusion spells. Way, way too useful to be gotten rid of.
The better choices would have been either Enchantment or Evocation. Evocation because you can't do what you're cool at - smiting - with area effect spells, and enchantment, again, because of the Save-or-fail effect of most Enchantment spells. (And also, since your caster level is going to suck, you're not going to be doing much evocation wise anyway.)
Problem the Second: No clear idea where he's going
It's pretty clear from his "build" that he's got no clear idea what he wants out of his character. Paladin6/Diviner5/Eldritch Knight2: Does he want to be a meleeist? A spellcaster? With those combinations, he's never going to be good at either of those. He'll be a poor spellcaster (those 6 levels of Paladin will always be an insurmountable drain on that front) and a middling fighter. (13th level and a Base Attack of +10... barely as good as a rogue!)
The smarter play would have been to do Paladin1-Diviner5, then max up on Eldritch Knight. Would get all of the Eldritch Knight abilities faster, wouldn't have hurt his caster level as much (2 levels behind the rest of the party... that means he's basically as good a cohort wizard, which is still competitive), and he would have had the same base attack bonus. Afterwards, he could've taken those six levels of Paladin (although to get what? Mercy? 2/day smite?).
So short of the DMing allowing a full rebuild, there's no way that this character can be made useful, really. He's either going to have to suck that up, or retire the character.
(Note that I'm not saying that this character is unplayable. I think it's a cool concept - I've played Sorcerer/Paladins before, and had my own PRC for them, the Arcane Archon, back in 3.5. But a cool concept does not often translate into a useful one.)
Perhaps, if that player wants to explore the concept of a Wizard/Paladin fully, you can in the future attempt a gestalt campaign, where such a combination wouldn't be entirely detrimental (if not the most synergistic).
I've had a player like this at the table, completely unable to compromise his position when he makes a character that is crap (Monk/Wizard claiming he will be the front-line combatant), but still ranted and raved when I made a cleric which gave up 2 levels of casting for prestige-class abilities, neglecting my "JOB" as a healer.
His character died, as it should. And nothing of value was lost that day. His next character was some manner of two-handed Fighter/Psychic Warrior that thought he was the inspiring knight. Cha 10. DM pitied him so much that people respected/paid more attention to him than the Cha22 party face.
Seriously, let him/her keep the poorly crafted character, and when said character buys the farm, hope that the next creature crafted will be more useful for party balance.
Cool concepts can be really fun, even if they aren't optimized. Sometimes, playing a flawed character can be really fun. Overcoming obstacles while handicapped in some way makes beating the challenge even more rewarding.
I played in a party with an aristocrat/bard, a truenamer/wizard, and my scout (as tank). We eventually added a gnome cleric/rogue cohort and an uber-doober paladin, but we still triumphed over our enemies while un-optimized.
I also DMed for a party lead by a 3.5 half-orc wizard (conjurer) X/barbarian 1. It was a point buy campaign, so he had to overcome a lot of challenges, but did so with ingenuity.
Cool concepts can be really fun, even if they aren't optimized. Sometimes, playing a flawed character can be really fun. Overcoming obstacles while handicapped in some way makes beating the challenge even more rewarding.
I played in a party with an aristocrat/bard, a truenamer/wizard, and my scout (as tank). We eventually added a gnome cleric/rogue cohort and an uber-doober paladin, but we still triumphed over our enemies while un-optimized.
I also DMed for a party lead by a 3.5 half-orc wizard (conjurer) X/barbarian 1. It was a point buy campaign, so he had to overcome a lot of challenges, but did so with ingenuity.
Yes, but the player isn't having fun as they feel like they are not being useful at all.
Yes, but the player isn't having fun as they feel like they are not being useful at all.
And that is the issue. If the DM is wuilling to allow a rebuild, then the player should take it! As is, his feelings of "not being useful at all" are probably pretty accurate.
Rearrange the levels to maximize Eldritch Knight
Swap Wizard for Sorc (and rearrange Stats as appropriate; sic, dump INT to ten)
If the player is unwilling to compromise then he is saying, in no uncertain terms, "I want to complain and don't try to help me!" If that is so, tell him to hush and play! :D
GNOME
Yeah, sometimes a re-build is necessary to increase the fun. We play with a relative newby, and she was playing a ranger/swashbuckler, but always had a hard time deciding to melee or use ranged combat, or 1-weapon or 2-weapon, etc. etc. She got rebuilt as an archer ranger, and is much happier.
That reminds me, I gotta re-Pathfinderize my dragon shaman for the next session!
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I actually agree with the last few posters. He wants to both not min-max and play a terrible combination; then refuses to compromise on his build. No need to rewrite rules just to make him "feel useful", it's a hard build concept and if he wants to stick with it "for flavor" he'll be downgraded to an occasionally healing mostly buffing guy for the rest of the party. At least he can cast haste or bull's strength and make others more useful. But making prestige classes that overenhance him is not the solution. Tell him the concept doesn't work, he can make it work but he needs to flex. Introduce the Magus, and tell him while it is not a Paladin he can play it with the Paladin code and remain a member of the Paladin order, maybe even let him take a pool ability that let's him burn Pool for d6 lay on hands per pool point to help the concept.
I actually agree with the last few posters. He wants to both not min-max and play a terrible combination; then refuses to compromise on his build. No need to rewrite rules just to make him "feel useful", it's a hard build concept and if he wants to stick with it "for flavor" he'll be downgraded to an occasionally healing mostly buffing guy for the rest of the party. At least he can cast haste or bull's strength and make others more useful. But making prestige classes that overenhance him is not the solution. Tell him the concept doesn't work, he can make it work but he needs to flex. Introduce the Magus, and tell him while it is not a Paladin he can play it with the Paladin code and remain a member of the Paladin order, maybe even let him take a pool ability that let's him burn Pool for d6 lay on hands per pool point to help the concept.
I am in 100% agreement with this post, I would ammend it to include a mention of the Chevalier PrC. Have his character play a Magus 10/ Chevalier 3/ Magus [the rest] and he can be an arcane paladin...complete with aura of courage and smite evil.
While I understand the points made in the last few posts, and I agree with you to a degree, but that the game needs to be modified to support the primary part of the game, role playing. While combat is a big part, it should not restrict the higher purpose of playing a role, and thus is the perfect reason for adding in new PrCs, classes, races and the like, however difficult it maybe.
Well, paizo is very slow to release prestige class content because the pathfinder game is very much against PrCs. They want you to stick with a base class all the way through. Almost anytime you multiclass, you become a bit less optimum than if you had remained "pure" (there are a few exceptions).
Well, if the character has his heart set on not making any modifications to his character classes, or the levels of those classes, and he does not want to entertain the thought of classes with non-full BAB progression, then the best question becomes...
What they heck is this character suppossed to do? It sounds like he wants to do everything, and is upset that he can't, and so has become stalwart with the idea that he is going to prove something. So ask him what he envisions when he sees his character, and maybe he will stop looking at his statistics, and everyone else's performance and start to enjoy his character for being his character.
As regards to the Role playing aspect of the game, it doesn't matter what classes you have, when it comes to role playing its all about how you envision your character, which I don't think this player has done. So I am going to disagree with you that pathfinder needs to come out with better role playing rules.
If you meant that pathfinder doesn't have good options to merge most of the classes together, you are absolutely correct. I agreed with that in my first paragraph. But you play with what they have if you can only play core. If your GM is allowing Player created, he might as well allow 3.5 material, since player stuff is usually more out of control than the old 3.5 stuff. If we can use 3.5 stuff, then some pretty good options open up for this character....
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I am looking at a Paladin 2 / Wizard X with the Magical Knack feat. I lose on spells-but not casting level and gain Detect Evil (SP), Divine Grace, Smite Evil (only 1 time but it's Cool), Lay on hands, and the ability to use healing wands up to the 4th level. Also I gain some great weapon and armor feats, and a bunch of extra HP.
I am looking to make a Gandalfi type character who hangs back and buffs the party for the most part. I think it will be fun.