I've been playing as an Hospitaler with an oath of loyalty for a few games now (currently level 4) and I'm looking for a more straightforward in your face kind of paladin since things I gain from both are unused most of the time.
I was thinking of dropping my oath and leaving the archetype by spending 10 days retraining into a vanilla Paladin then taking the Holy Vindicator from level 6 onward.
Now that you know everything about where the character come from and where it's going I can get into the details about my incertitudes about the PrC.
"Using this ability consumes two uses of her lay on hands ability. A paladin uses her level as her effective cleric level when channeling positive energy."
"The vindicator’s class level stacks with levels in any other class that grants the channel energy ability."
If we look at those 2 text we can see that the HV level stack with other classes that have energy channel but since the channel of my paladin us tied to his LoH ability is it fair to assume that it stack with this in order to gain more channel?
Am I interpretting this right or did I missed the point of that HV ability ?
I think it would be fair since the P/HV is at a disadvantage compared to a cleric/HV with versatile channel who can use bloodfire and bloodrain against pretty anything and can still channel positive energy.
Anyway enough talk, let me know what you think :D
No it only stacks for the channel energy part. You still do not gain more lay on hands as that is a different class feature, but you do gain the extra dice. If you want to go holy vindicator it would actually be best to keep the hospitaler archetype as they get a separate pool of channel energy.
When you take a class or archetype you get what it says you get no more, no less. The fact that you may be at a disadvantage compared to another class does not matter.
Fair enough.
Thanks for you quick answer.
The only problem I see with keeping the Hospitaler is that the seperated LoH/channel pool screw me over if I want to take Ultimate Mercy while the vanilla class doesn't.
Here's the build I'm going for.
Bonus: Improved Init
1/ Saving Shield
3/ Greater Mercy
5/ Alignement Channel
7/ Extra Channel
9/ Reward of Life
11/ Ultimate mercy
13/ Fearless Aura
15/ Word of Healing
17/ Divine Interference
19/ Toughness
In that situation would you keep hospitaler or just ditch UM ?
I see why having a seperate pool would be adventageous since I keep the LoH to heal while keeping the subpar channels to use on my abilities but it's still a tough choice, for me at least ^^
Ultimate mercy requires you to use 10 lay on hands. A 6th level paladin with a 19 CHA only has 7 lay on hands. Extra channel energy gives you 4 extra lay on hand but only to channel energy you cannot use them for lay on hands which you need to use for ultimate mercy. Even if you don’t take the hospitaler archetype you could not use the extra lay on hand gained from extra channel energy for ultimate mercy.
Thanks again, I will stay Hospitaler and pick up a Cleric/HV if I die.
Have a good day.
o/