As power attack drops my attack bonus too low for my liking.
At the moment sor1/pal2 and on the way to a vital strike build with enlarge person with a oversized bastard sword build.
If you don't take Power Attack in that build you're gimping yourself.
Power attack is in my build plan but at this time my attack bonus is pretty low so arcane strike might be more beneficial at 3rd level if it scales with my paladin caster level. Though furious focus might help more but paladin feats are kind of hard to get without dipping .
But aside from lay on hands i don't have any use for my swift actions.
Maybe extra lay on hands is a better choice as i have the oath of vengeance.
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But aside from lay on hands i don't have any use for my swift actions.
Maybe extra lay on hands is a better choice as i have the oath of vengeance.
In addition to LoH, pally has a lot of good swift action buffing spells that will be more useful than Arcane Strike, Litany of Righteousness being the most obvious one. It's also a swift action to activate Smite Evil.
rai is not in question.
raw is.
As a paladin you don't get much of a boost against generic foes for your to-hit like a fighter or barbarian. It's potentially better or worse then the rangers favored enemy, depending on often they show up. Really the main thing a paladin has going for him is boss killing. He's a beast at that. So for the generic foe you kinda need your team more.
But to boost your to-hit. There's flanking, there's increased STR, there's better items (masterwork and magic), and weapon focus.
Also, there are other ways to make yourself large then a level of sorcerer. I think the best would be to go growth domain with the Paladin archetype that gets some domain powers. Or have someone in your party cast it on you. This will let you have all paladin levels for the higher BAB for your hitting.
If you are going for a vital strike build, Arcane Strike isn't worth it. It's a small amount of static damage that competes with a swift action and will only be applying on one hit. Arcane Strike works best when you have multiple attacks per round.
As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.
By rights, it applies to all attacks made in a round. So Attacks of Opportunity get this benefit too, as well as iteratives he obtains from levels. It scales slower, but it doesn't give up attack bonus, which he only has at +2 BAB right now.
Even though Imbicatus made the point incorrectly, nonetheless it's there. Having to give up your Swift Action each round (which would be used for Lay On Hands, or later down the road, Quickened Spells perhaps) in most cases is not worth utilizing the Arcane Strike feat. Arcane Strike is really strong only if you have no reliable means to use Swift Actions; Paladins (and eventually Sorcerers) end up having abilities which require Swift Actions, meaning you might as well forgo it.
I will point out that RAW, CL type doesn't matter. RAI, it's fairly obvious that it's supposed to scale from your Caster Level from Arcane casting.
Just as well, it's not broken to allow it, since you could just as easily make a Divine Strike feat that functions exactly the same, except with Divine spells instead.
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If you are going for a vital strike build, Arcane Strike isn't worth it. It's a small amount of static damage that competes with a swift action and will only be applying on one hit. Arcane Strike works best when you have multiple attacks per round.
As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.By rights, it applies to all attacks made in a round. So Attacks of Opportunity get this benefit too, as well as iteratives he obtains from levels. It scales slower, but it doesn't give up attack bonus, which he only has at +2 BAB right now..
It is only one hit on a vital strike, as you are giving up your iterative attacks. Granted, it does apply on AoOs but unless you are using a reach weapon, it's not that often you can use one.
As a large sized creature i have a 10 foot reach.