Fantastic first adventure for the Age of Worms campaign.
My Paladin of Sarenrae worked a treat, almost flawless performance!
I'm really liking my character, I love the 'fluff' for Sarenrae and am using a Scimitar. Now to the question:
I'm really tempted to stop Paladin after second level and multiclass Bard - Dervish Dancer archetype. It seems to make sense to me?
Pros: +1/+1 hit and damage which will scale
Arcane spells
Many more skills
Perma haste on Full attacks from Bard 6th
+1 Attack rolls, AC and reflex saves from 6th
Con: Lose lots of sweet Paladin abilities
Lose AC from having to wear Light Armour
Inspire Courage wouldn't benefit the party
Lose smite damage
It makes sense to me in terms of the character, but on paper I'm not sure if it adds up.
We already have two Sword and Board characters. Our cleric's AC is already 20, we also have a barbarian in the party.
What do you think? I'd certainly become more of a 'Striker' than a bruiser.
I was thinking of taking feats like Intimidating Prowess and Cornugan Smash, perhaps if I multi classed DD I'd have to look at things like Dodge and Mobility to help keep me up?
Lose AC from having to wear Light ArmourYou can wear heavy armour just fine; all that's impacted is your Bardic spell-casting. Considering you have plenty of other things to do in combat, I'd hang on to your iron skivvies.
Inspire Courage wouldn't benefit the partyThat's bad, but are they missing it now?
It makes sense to me in terms of the character, but on paper I'm not sure if it adds up.
There's nothing stopping you from adding the flavour without adding the class. Power-wise, there's not much synergy between the classes. It's a flavourful combination though.
You can wear heavy armour just fine; all that's impacted is your Bardic spell-casting. Considering you have plenty of other things to do in combat, I'd hang on to your iron skivvies.
Unfortunately the Dervish Dancer's battle dance requires light or no armour.
Hypothetically if I took dodge at 3rd level, It'd help minimise the gap Ac wise.
Considering the lose of abilities, it sounds like multi-classing wouldn't help your character be even keel. However, if you are brave and choose what makes sense for the character that you have established in role play over the statistics on paper, then you are pretty cool dude.
On the big HOWEVER, I've got good news! Under the script of ex-paladin in the core book, it mentions the loss of Paladin's abilities and the ability to progress in the class itself if you break the code of being a paladin, or willfully commit an evil act, or cease to be lawful good.
Nowhere does it mention leaving the paladin class to pursue another class as something you can't do. And just because you took a level in another class, doesn't inherently mean you break all bounds, ties, and oaths for righteousness and with your deity and changed your alignment. Under bards it list that you can be any alignment and be a bard.
Ergo= you shouldn't actually lose any of your abilities should you multi-class and you can always go back to paladin so long as you meet the standards in you behavior from your paladin class. So problem solved I guess. Rock on you holy-roller!
Have you considered one of the paladin archetypes?
I'd look closely at these two:
Holy Tactician - Battlefield Commander and really cool abilities to help out your party.
Divine Hunter - Ranged Paladin, basically a paladin archer who can still use a lot of the paladin goodies.