It's been three months or more since I played in a game session of Pathfinder, and the intervening time has been filled with Diablo 2, M:TG EDH, and more Diablo 2. Oh, and I played some Diablo 2 on the side, too. I've got a game session coming tomorrow night, and I have to reboot a character . . . .
I have no idea why I thought I could do this, but I had a level 7 paladin with Weapon Focus and the full Weapon of the Chosen feat tree in the initial build (this session is a resumption of a dungeon crawl). Which would be awesome, but only if paladins had spellcasting from level one, which would probably require ditching some of the better class features, which should never happen . . . .
So, anyway, I had a precursor Alzheimer's moment, or something, and made a great build that just can't happen.
I wanted to be the party's main frontliner, though I'm getting overshadowed by the tiger-formed natural spell druid oftentimes. Though I *did* turn a hangman tree from badaxx to splinters in about 4 rounds of smiting . . . with an illegal build. Sad face.
Anyhow, I'd like to reapproach the concept afresh and get some things straightened out, but I want to enlist y'all's help. First, is the notion of taking the Weapon of the Chosen feats at all good for the paladin? And if I'm going human from level one (gotta love that bonus feat!), what should I go with after Fey Foundling? Oh, yeah -- the Weapon of the Chosen feats were appealing to me because of how well they *might* dovetail with the Vital Strike tree . . . . I know, I know, it's a suboptimal series, but having the chance to swing for real, *meaningful* damage in a bad situation may spell the difference between a full attack response and no response at all . . . .
So, I think the stat array is 4d6x6, reroll 1s, drop lowest, and I'm going human. Fey Foundling, (feat), Weapon Focus (longsword) [?], Weapon of the Chosen [?], Vital Strike [?] . . . . Any recommendations would be welcomed. Thanks, people!!
Power Attack? When two-handing, even with a Longsword, it's a ton of extra damage. Less good if you're using a shield though, which you might be.
If you're using Fey Foundling for extra Lay on Hands healing, how about Greater Mercy to get yourself even more healing most of the time?
Weapon of the Chosen seems like a big investment for a middling return, especially for a Paladin. It's thematic, but a Weapon Bond (or even just an enchanted or special material weapon) +/- Smite will go through 95% of damage reduction already.
I'm pretty sure I'll be using one of the quick-draw shields, so two-handing on my turn should be pretty easy. But I'd need the Quick Draw feat to be able to use that *and* still have my swift action available, right?
So:
H: Fey Foundling
1: Quick Draw
3: Power Attack
5: Greater Mercy
7: ???
Extra Lay on Hands?
I like Unsanctioned Knowledge to add some extra cool spells to my spell list (mostly the swift/immediate action reroll spells from bards).
Your build looks good though, if you get Power Attack you don't need to worry too much afterwards.
I like Paladins that drop the hammer (literally, Earthbreakers are cool), but that build looks pretty good too.
What's your weapon?
I'm for Unsanctioned Knowledge as well.
If you get to higher levels, Rod of Quicken plus Bladed Dash equals pounce.
Unsanctioned is a fantastic feat if you need to be self sufficient.
It gives access to Haste/Displacement, or Dimension Door/Divine Power.
The ddoor opens up the Dimensional Dervish chain at later levels, which equals pounce.
If you are just going a 7th level, I recommend a pure bred BFS type.
Fey Foundling, Power Attack, Weapon Focus/Furious Focus (not both), Cornugon Smash, Greater Mercy, Unsanctioned Knowledge, and more depending on your stats.
Weapon of the chosen is redundant with the later paladin auras, plus you can bond your weapon to make it holy later on.
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Divine Protection... for a Paladin, this should be a Must.
For a Paladin it's not a must as it 'only' adds another +1 bonus on all three saving throws. For cleric/oracle/certain other classes now, it is definitely a must.
Divine Protection... for a Paladin, this should be a Must.
1. Paladins don't qualify for Divine Protection.
2. Paladins already receive it as a class feature (and due to typing, it would not stack). It only adds +1, but as I said, they don't qualify.
3. Even if they could benefit from it, feat is cheese.
Hmm. Variant Multiclass with a life Oracle to pick up the Life Link revelation? Leaves you pretty feat starved but makes you a pretty badass Healer replacement.
Just to let y'all know:
first, thanks for all the input -- it is most appreciated.
second, here's how it looks right now:
Human Paladin of Iomedae 7
Str 18
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 22
HP: 68
Feats -- Fey Foundling, Quick Draw, Power Attack, Greater Mercy, Weapon Focus (longsword)
Fort: +15
Ref: +10
Will: +14
Pretty self-explanatory. The remainder of details are just that -- details. For those curious about how stats and hp were generated: we're still a dice-rolling group, and we were on 4d6x6rr1s for stats, and we're allowed to reroll HD rolls of 1. Got the Str/Cha +2 items, the quick-draw shield, and a +1 keen longsword.
and third, here's how it went:
the "BBEG" *did* manage to teleport our wizard into a 15-foot-deep pool of water in a dungeon area we'd already cleared, but the paladin, cleric, and monk/oracle made the saves. Wizard survived and dimension-doored back, by the way. The cleric and zen archer monkacle whittled down on the minions quite well. My paladin, well, . . . he had a grand old time. Provoked two AoOs and took about 28 damage to move to toe-to-toe with the BBEG, cast bless weapon, hit the LoH button to go back up to 67 hp out of 68. Soak more damage, BBEG hit that teleport bit (sorry timeline's fuzzy), and I didn't get an AoO. No biggie. My turn, declare smite, full attack at +17/+12, auto-confirm a crit, smash for 66 damage. Dead bad guy (I think it took some damage from the celestial-template wolverine the wizard had summoned).
we fought a room of mosquito swarms and a super-skeeter -- it didn't go so well, really, but I made a desperate attempt to pull the two swarms and the super-skeeter onto me so that the fire domain cleric could fireball the lot of us FTW. As it happened, the wizard just used the wand of scorching ray to devastating effect; the paladin took little damage.
the most fun of it all? the attempt to set up camp for the night, where we got ambushed by a dire bear and two will-o'-wisps. the bear got a full attack on the prone sleeping cleric, and got the grapple (of course). Paladin wakes up, starts fight in boxers and sword, carves bear haunch while now-awakened cleric is screaming "Jeebus save me!!" as he channels positive to not die in the bear's maw. The will-o'-wisps are lighting everybody up, and the wizard and oracle/monk lose some spells. Eventually, the bear gets deadified, and the cleric has to spend two turns dragging himself out from under the corpse, at which point the pally eyeballs a wisp (detect evil), uses divine bond for flaming (standard), and declares his last smite. Next round, wisp dies. The last wisp decides survival is better than death, runs, and winks out; cleric drops his invisibility purge and pursues, just in range enough to give the party a target. Monkacle uses "forbid action" for movement, cleric drops a 5-foot-radius wall of fire focused inward, and the paladin performs a jumping charge attack (had to clear the prone wizard, and barely cleared him, and nat 20'd the save-or-prone the DM called for), chewing the fire wall damage, and takes the wisp to ONE HIT POINT. Wisp dies to wall of fire before it gets another action.
Great, great fun.