Dwarf Paladin Seeks Fall From Grace

[VonGraiphon]

Hey ya'll.

I'm currently running Mummy's Mask for my group.

Background Info:

Early in Book 1, the party ran afoul of a Doru Div. Rather than have the party simply kill him, I had him latch on to the Paladin, first claiming to be a ghost looking for friends, later an angel testing his faith (the Paladin is being played as very gullible). Other characters, realizing something was amiss, discovered the Div, exposed it, and killed it. Heartbroken, the Paladin began using the mumia they found in the Necropolis.

Now, the player of the Paladin wants to have his Paladin lose his Paladin powers, and become a somewhat darker and anti-hero-ier character. When asked what he wanted, he shrugged and said, whatever, just something darker.

Obvious choice. Antipaladin. I trust this player with an evil character, but I don't want him to become useless in a game where very few of the enemies are going to be good-aligned.

What I need from you are some ideas/suggestions for where to go. Deal with the devil? Something similar to 3.5's Grey Guard? Something else entirely?

Thanks for your help!

[SanKeshun]

There's always the devilbound creature template. You could have him take that in place of a level. Here's a link.
Alternatively, I would pick a new, more suitable alignment and 'rotate' his class abilities. For example, if he were to become a champion of chaos, change detect evil to detect law, smite evil to smite law, and other abilities as appropriate.
My last suggestion would be the most difficult, and it is to rewrite the antipaladin class to serve your needs. I don't know if this fixes everything, but here are some of the obvious changes:

• Swap smite evil with the cavalier's challenge ability. It serves the same role, but is not alignment-specific.
  
• Remove detect good, and replace it with something suitable to his particular nature of fall. Perhaps blindsense 60 ft. vs evil outsiders?
  
• He might lose aura of sin (at 14th level), but make sure to replace it with something else. Maybe ignore half of alignment-based DR? So DR 10/good is treated as DR 10/-, and the same with DR 10/evil.
  
• Unless he is evil, he should not gain DR/good (see aura of depravity and unholy champion). Again, it will need to be replaced.

[Rynjin]

Make him an Inquisitor.

[Hogeyhead]

There is an archetype of magus that is charisma based, you could do that, or you could turn him into a melee sorcerer. However a melee sorcerer is very difficult to do, and should not be attempted unless you are very familiar with the system, and if this guy is asking for help I don't think he qualifies. I'd go with the cha based magus. It's quite good imo.

[VonGraiphon]

Awesome, thank you!

These are all pretty great ideas. I have a lot to play with now.

[Melkiador]

You could reflavor Stonelord to be a Lawful Neutral archetype. A heart of stone.

[SanKeshun]

SanKeshun wrote:

He might lose aura of sin (at 14th level), but make sure to replace it with something else. Maybe ignore half of alignment-based DR? So DR 10/good is treated as DR 10/-, and the same with DR 10/evil.

Sorry for the typo, those should be replaced to DR 5/-

[Kazaan]

Normally, the discussion is, "Should the Paladin fall?" which is usually met with very polarized views of "No, don't screw over your player" vs "yes, make him fall and make him fall hard for the slightest transgression". So it's a bit ironic for the discussion to now be, "my player wants his Paladin to fall" and I fully expect to see equally polarized positions of "Yes, let him change to <suggested class>/reflavor a Paladin archetype to be not L/G" and "No, thwart his efforts to fall at every turn, make everything he intends to do wrong backfire and turn out to be correct and justified."

[Dave Justus]

I would probably offer retraining into bloodrager. Stats wise a bloodrager and a paladin are pretty similar and mechanically they fulfill the same roles and use somewhat similar in concept mechanics (bloodrage for smite, both have some spells, rage powers instead of lay on hands and other misc paladin abilities.)

[Alexander S. Modeus]

I might also suggest a retooled Anti-Paladin, but a Lawful Evil version of the class. Instead of Smite-Good, Smite Chaos could work, while some of the other abilities could be somewhat similar to the Paladin (an Aura of Courage could still work).

[Melkiador]

Kazaan wrote:

"No, thwart his efforts to fall at every turn, make everything he intends to do wrong backfire and turn out to be correct and justified."

I'd never actually do that, but it sounds hilarious.

[Ascalaphus]

I second bloodrager. It uses roughly the same ability scores so the conversion isn't mechanically painful. But it has no alignment requirements so you don't have to go pitch black (antipaladin), you can be a much darker shade of white if you like.

A possible spin could be a tendency to be too brutal against bad guys, leading you away from the exalted state of mind needed for a paladin. But with for example the celestial bloodline you can make a point of using your remaining traces of divine power, you just have to really want it.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

He can find her in the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts, Clerk's Ward. Just watch out for the perverted armoire.