NOTE: This is not a troll or fishing for arguments. Although I know debate will happen I am asking an honest question.
My friends and I debate this and I wanted to get a community perspective. some people love the pally and others hate them.
from both a player and GM perspective I find the Paladin to be overpowered.
there are 3 primary reasons for this.
Smite, Resists, Action Economy.
NOTE THESE ARE MY OPINIONS ON THE CLASS. I PRESENT THEM SO THAT YOU CAN COMMENT, AGREE OR EXPRESS YOUR DIFFERING OPINION I ASK THAT YOU NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY. IM NOT TROLLING OR FISHING FOR TROLLS
1) SMITE: Smite is pretty straight forward. Huge burst damage, bonus to hit, bypass DR, and extra bonus damage to undead, evil dragon and evil outsiders not to mention bonus to AC.
Smite is not a huge problem. its very powerful bordering on over overpowered when used and it can turn BBEG battles into 1 or 2 round slaughters. I don't believe its balanced by "the only works on evil targets" because the vast majority of what you face will be evil, and many are undead, dragons or evil outsiders. having said that every class needs its awesome sauce and smite certainly fills that role.
2) resists paladins are hugely resistant.
a: Divine grace is a huge bonus to paladin saves making each 2 point bonus to charisma more beneficial to paladins than almost any single stat to any single class.
b: paladins become flat out immune to disease, and Charm and eventually compulsion. so even if you were able to overcome the HUGE saving throw...
again these resists are pretty awesome sauce but great flavor for the incorruptible paladin. not overpowering in and of itself but...
3) Action Economy This one seems hardest to quantify but many of the paladins special abilities cost very little to use.
A: a paladin can self heal as a swift action... not even a cleric can do that under normal circumstances,
B: A paladin can activate smite as a swift action.
C: a paladin gets a line of Litany spells that are very powerful and cast as swift actions.
not to mention other highly useful swift and immediate action spells
D: A paladin can pinpoint detect evil as a move action, not super powerful and usually ignored but still applies to the point
The action economy of a paladin is (to the best of my knowledge) unmatched by any other class. they simply have way more things that can do that are both powerful and have little impact on their ability to apply full attacks or movement to a round.
Again as with the other abilities they are all very powerful and a class needs very powerful things to make them fun. but the paladin simply gets too many of them. (IMHO)
MY OPINION is that If the Paladin didn't get ALL of these abilities or if each ability were more reasonable I would feel better but I find that more than any other class the paladin just has too many answers and too many options making it skew party dynamics and too much of a show stealer.
How do you feel about the class in terms of balance?
EDIT: I would like to further add that my opinion is based on a group dynamic perspective not a solo or dualist perspective.
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It's a perfectly balanced class setting aside the arbitrary restrictions.
They have options, are situationally devastating, and defensively powerful in the meantime.
Much like the Barbarian, and to a lesser extent the Ranger, they're the cornerstone martial options should be balanced around.
Compared to pretty much any caster (even the 6th level ones), the Paladin has a very limited amount of options, so I'm not sure where you get the "too many options" bit.
What Rynjin said. The Paladin is where the bar should be set (outside of the arbitrary restrictions).
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Smite isn't overpowered. Lots of characters have 'burst' abilities, and it doesn't take much for there to be more villains than smites per day.
Action economy? That has a stronger possibility... but as you just pointed out, that is a LOT of swift actions going on there, and you can only use 1 per round. And Lay on hands needs a hand free, which for my sword and board becomes quite the issue. honestly I'd have rather more things become move actions, and free up some of those swifts...
Resistance? Honestly this is where i think the Paladin REALLY shines. If anything about the Paladin is OP it's this. my 10th level paladin is practicly immune to spells will saves and fort saves... it's just nuts.
However, here's an interesting counterpoint. What is your groups belief about the Martial vs Caster imbalance?
CAN a martial character EVER really be overpowered? My Paladin had 'extra' build points, and has still nearly been killed about 4 times now. He's powerful... but not invulnerable by any stretch.
Is 'killing something with a sword' in 2-3 rounds REALLY game breaking? Or should the other martial characters start to get stuff to bring them up to THIS level?
He can tear apart demons and dragons... but they are getting MANY more attacks than he is, Massive damage, breath weapons, spells etc. etc... and battles rarely last MUCH longer then 2 rounds anyway.
I've had MANY characters that got one shotted at 13+ levels... Why shouldn't the heroes be able to do that in two?
Seconding what was said before. It seems overpowered, because of what it's being compared to. Compared to the fighter, it's pretty good, but that's because the fighter doesn't really have much going for it besides Combat.
Compared to pretty much any caster (even the 6th level ones), the Paladin has a very limited amount of options, so I'm not sure where you get the "too many options" bit.
by too many options i mean that the paladin has the least need to actually be in a group and tends to schew encounter balance.
for example... as a GM i create a series of encounters
when building an encounter for a group I, as a GM, find the paladin the most consistantly difficult to work around. And the lease dependent on group support.
more often than not the encounter is either overwhelmed by paladin offense or ignored by paladin defense.
often making the encounter work for the paladin can make it overwhelming for the rest of the party.
NOTE: Its my personal belief that the game SHOULD be difficult. if every character was simply a god in every encounter it would be a little boring to me. in other words if every character in the group has all of the answers that a paladin has it would be boring OR one would just have to buff the encounters to make them more interesting. Thus a class that has too many answers to too many situations is not that much fun to me personally as a GM or as a player.
He doesn't have too many answers to too many situations.
He has answers to exactly two situations.
1.) Murder it if it's evil.
2.) Heal if it hits me.
And that's about it for his options.
They're good options for combat. But hardly game breaking unless literally everything you fight is an evil outsider, dragon, or undead.
Phantom, I don't really have an opinion on caster vs martial balance. I think that both are necessary in a group and thats whats important to me. the GROUP dynamic.
I feel that the GROUP needs both casting and tanking. its like asking whats more important Infantry or artillery? they are both important to the war effort.
Tholomyes, i am not comparing the paladin to the fighter. I know that the fighter dishes out more damage than the paladin on an average round. but the paladin does not NEED like the fighter does, the pally does not need the fighter to defend him like the caster does, and the pally deals more damage than the healer does.
He doesn't have too many answers to too many situations.
He has answers to exactly two situations.
1.) Murder it if it's evil.
2.) Heal if it hits me.
And that's about it for his options.
They're good options for combat. But hardly game breaking unless literally everything you fight is an evil outsider, dragon, or undead.
but isn't that like 90 percent of the game? pally saves takes spells out of the equation so heal if it hits me is the healer job negated by the pally ability.
murder if its evil is basically the entire story of the game world... your normally playing a more or less good group of people taking on the forces of evil. the only time your not facing something evil is when its a plant or construct... usually created by some one evil.
when is the last time you played in a campaign that was an epic struggle against the overwhelming forces of neutrality?
Resists...the Paladin is supposed to be the best tank/defending class....he should be tough to hurt. Both physically and magically. Even then, I'd say a caster can match him if he devotes spells to it. Whether by casting the Spell Resistance spell, using Mirror Image or invisibility to outright not be targetable by enemy mages, casting emergency force sphere to instantly (as an immediate action) deny line of effect, and so forth.
Not a problem.
Action economy: Is this a joke? Many classes are better or equal action economy to the paladin's attack + self-heal schtick. Summoners have pets as strong as fighters plus full casting at the same time. Bards can eventually swift perform and cast spells. Magus can cast a spell and full attack. Any primary caster at higher levels can use quickened spells, and at level 15, can quicken for free (Spell Perfection).
Absolutely not a problem!
Smite: Ok, this one, I agree Paladin is VERY good at his job. Solo evil bosses are just speed bumps to a Paladin, and that definitely can make it tough to make challenging fights for the DM. But on the other hand, I've found Paladin is pathetically, incomprehensibly terrible vs. groups of evil foes. Even when he gets Aura of Justice, that's to let the whole party wail on one guy, not to let the paladin wail on the whole evil enemy party. Their offensive spells are likewise pretty much all single target. The best thing a Paladin can do vs. your bog standard horde of undead is to use Channel Energy....which costs him twice as much to use as it does the cleric and bites right into those swift heals you hate so much...and does pretty crummy damage (especially when it's will for half; undead are great at will saves).
Slight problem; requires some adjusting your encounter plans. I do not think Paladin actually being awesome against the things he's supposed to be awesome against is so bad, though.
I've never played a campaign where Neutral creatures were rare.
Many Aberrations and Magical Beasts, all Animals and Constructs, etc. are Neutral.
Phantom, I don't really have an opinion on caster vs martial balance. I think that both are necessary in a group and thats whats important to me. the GROUP dynamic.
I feel that the GROUP needs both casting and tanking. its like asking whats more important Infantry or artillery? they are both important to the war effort.
Well, that was kind of what i was getting at. Casters have some TRULY epic destruction spells that can also unbalance an encounter to no end. Toss in a couple fly, improved invisible, stoneskins... and Things get pretty crazy.
Paladins can end an encounter quick, but so can a lot of other classes. A ranger focusing on his main enemy can do INSANE amounts of damage. It's like you say the group needs a tank, but not that good of a tank...
In the games i've played in, the biggest trouble makers have been the mentioned ranger in Serpent Skull who did over 120+ in one round against a BBEG and annihalating it. and the Alchemist in the same game who between his healing and bombs, just walked most encounters.
In Kingmaker, I have a paladin (With extra build points), who always fights point and either kicks butt or gets it kicked. He's powerful no lie... but the big problem is our Magus/Monk/inquister halfling with his AC flucuating from 36-42 and crane wing if he's prepped and buffed. Blows my AC of 26 with Full plate + shield right out of the water.
it seems in most games one character will be slightly better built then others, and balance will be an illusion. It's not the class, it's the player.
but isn't that like 90 percent of the game? pally saves takes spells out of the equation so heal if it hits me is the healer job negated by the pally ability.He doesn't have too many answers to too many situations.
He has answers to exactly two situations.
1.) Murder it if it's evil.
2.) Heal if it hits me.
And that's about it for his options.
They're good options for combat. But hardly game breaking unless literally everything you fight is an evil outsider, dragon, or undead.
Actually in our game the Paladin IS the healer as well... Rogue, Sorcerer, Paladin, Magus/monk/Inquister/Something else....
I think one of the best ideas is to lose the idea of 'party roles.' with the wands being so plentiful, we no longer have the wizard/rogue/fighter/cleric mentality. We have 22 base classes now and more coming. There is a lot of overlap and a lot of unique groups being seen.
The best way to stop a paladin... at least MY paladin is Touch attacks, CMB attacks Spells that do damage (half is better then none) and MULTIPLe enemies.
When the paladin IS the healer, those Lay on hands can go pretty quick and need to be conserved. When you only 2-3 Smites in a dungeon... I rarely even use them for fear of something BIGGER aroudn the corner...
Even if the big battle revolves around 4-5 minions and a BBEG... the Paladin taking the fight to BBEG has nothing to do with the rest of the monsters that are killing his allies.
All enemies in an encounter are not an equal threat to all PCs in the encounter. It's why the saves are so varied... some are weak against will... some are weak against the fort.
Paladins are fine the way they are.
I can see how a Paladin can suck the air out of the room for other players particularly at low to mid level play. Players like to have big moments. The biggest moments occur when fighting the BBEG and roleplaying in critical social situations. Paladins are quite strong in both these scenarios. A Paladin character paired with a player that has a dominant-type personality can have the effect of crowding out the rest of the group which is not good for the group dynamic, however it has more to do with the group than the mechanics of the Paladin class IMO.
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Paladins do what paladins are supposed to do very well. I like the fact that paladins scare evil beings. If a group of paladins show up on Mr. Evil's doorstep, they should make him quake in his boots.
They are hard to run as a DM. They do have some weaknesses depending on build.
Melee Build:
1. Mobility: They aren't very mobile. Even with fly, they are slower than other classes with fly in heavy armor.
2. Low Touch AC: Generally they have a low touch AC. Without death ward level drain can mess them up.
I haven't run an archer build paladin. Seems like they might mitigate some of the weaknesses of a melee heavy armor build.
Paladins are a nasty class. Hard to stop. A lot of the time I have evil enemies run immediately when a paladin shows with a group if they can. They have a chance solo against a paladin. A paladin in a party is a nightmare, especially once they get the group smite ability.
Even though they make life tough as a DM, I wouldn't change them at all. Holy knights in service to the powers of good should frighten and destroy evil. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Compared to pretty much any caster (even the 6th level ones), the Paladin has a very limited amount of options, so I'm not sure where you get the "too many options" bit.by too many options i mean that the paladin has the least need to actually be in a group and tends to schew encounter balance.
for example... as a GM i create a series of encounters
when building an encounter for a group I, as a GM, find the paladin the most consistantly difficult to work around. And the lease dependent on group support.
more often than not the encounter is either overwhelmed by paladin offense or ignored by paladin defense.
often making the encounter work for the paladin can make it overwhelming for the rest of the party.
NOTE: Its my personal belief that the game SHOULD be difficult. if every character was simply a god in every encounter it would be a little boring to me. in other words if every character in the group has all of the answers that a paladin has it would be boring OR one would just have to buff the encounters to make them more interesting. Thus a class that has too many answers to too many situations is not that much fun to me personally as a GM or as a player.
Why are you having so much trouble with the paladin? Give examples.
He can't smite in every battle so it can't be smite. He can't heal and fight at the same time. I don't get "has too many answers....". Give more examples. Yes I said that twice. :)| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Blue, I can with almost certainty tell that your problem is running solo monsters against the party. The game balances very poorly around solo encounters. Enemies who are strong enough to survive against multiple characters are usually also strong enough to take down said characters in very few rounds. Thus, 2-3 rounds is completely standard for such an encounter: by this point either the boss enemy is dead, or the players are out of resources/HP.
Paladins especially shine against solo evil monsters, because their abilities allow for sustained damage and survivability vs single targets. Paladins SHOULD be spotlighting in these moments, because it is what they are built to deal with. However, they struggle against larger groups or non-evil enemies, giving other classes an opportunity to take that spotlight.
My advice to you is to build your encounters with a basic strategy: the enemies should always have approximately the same amount of actions available to them as the party. Too many and the game gets bogged down, too few and the encounters are too short. If you need a powerful, single enemy for some reason either give him several actions per round and max HP or put in a few 'mooks' of only moderate danger to tie-up PC actions.
You may also be running into trouble because your paladin player is optimising his character, whilst your other players (especially wizards) are not. That's a whole nother issue.
More generally speaking, paladins are considered tier 3 which is the optimal balancing point in pathfinder. They are overshadowed by virtually every 6th and 9th level caster and are usually very easy to design encounters around (give them a big shining EVIL button to whack when you want them to have some spotlight!)
WEll, i may be in the minority but i also think that pally get a bit too much goodyes. With the amount of killing potential needed to threat a pally you can kill the entire rest of the party. it would be well and good if it was his personal shtick, but when you add up also that his damage is incredibly high when it matters the most, that seems a bit too much.
Aside from personal experience, I'm generally an optimizer and one of my group is made by full time optimizer, and we all agree that among martial paladins are the best if not for the fact that we like to play CN games instead of LG games.
When discussing balance it's best to compare the class to the monsters they'll be facing.
At levels 1-6 Paladins pull their weight, but at higher levels you're running into more and more monsters that can fly, teleport, attack at range, disable you with spells that hit your FORT/REF/WIL, and so on.
If Paladins had a high level ability to sprought angel wings that would be thematic and useful.
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Really? People complaining about PALADINS being unbalanced???
Have people not played with a well made wizard? I LAUGH AT YOUR ATTEMPT TO PUSH THINGS LIKE REALITY ON ME!!!!!
Or a witch? Oh? You think your big and tough? Ok... how about an Evil Eye... Oh! And lets jsut effectively make that permenant. No save. (Cackle FTW). Oh! and to make it funnier, roll your saves twice. Take the worst. Oh! And that is permenant too. Ok, now lets cast a quickened Ill Omen, just for lulz sake, then lets drop any of my SoS/SoD spells (of which I have PLENTY)/ Slumber Hex/Ice Tomb. Oh! and the best part is? I can do this for... pretty much forever. xD
Or a Magus? Hm... Scimitar? Check. Dervish dance? check. Agile? Check. Keen? Check. Intensified+Empowered Shocking Grasp? Check! (oh and if you wanna go EXTREMELY corny you can easily stack on a Maximized by abusing Meta-magic reducers).
Oath of Vengeance paladin can smite quite a bit.
Really? People complaining about PALADINS being unbalanced???
Have people not played with a well made wizard? I LAUGH AT YOUR ATTEMPT TO PUSH THINGS LIKE REALITY ON ME!!!!!
Or a witch? Oh? You think your big and tough? Ok... how about an Evil Eye... Oh! And lets jsut effectively make that permenant. No save. (Cackle FTW). Oh! and to make it funnier, roll your saves twice. Take the worst. Oh! And that is permenant too. Ok, now lets cast a quickened Ill Omen, just for lulz sake, then lets drop any of my SoS/SoD spells (of which I have PLENTY)/ Slumber Hex/Ice Tomb. Oh! and the best part is? I can do this for... pretty much forever. xD
Or a Magus? Hm... Scimitar? Check. Dervish dance? check. Agile? Check. Keen? Check. Intensified+Empowered Shocking Grasp? Check! (oh and if you wanna go EXTREMELY corny you can easily stack on a Maximized by abusing Meta-magic reducers).
A person was complaining. Paladins can be hard to deal with in many situations, even moreso than a well-made wizard at lower levels.
I think everyone knows a high level well made wizard is quite a nightmare if they know what they're doing. Not invincible god like some make them out to be, but extremely tough.
I'm running a Magus right now. They are quite tough against all opponents. They can be had if they're not careful.
A witch's lack of range on hexes can put them in danger. They have to be careful not to draw agro while cackling. They don't have the best defensive capabilities. They are quite powerful with as part of a party with meat shields in taking the agro. Not so much if they get focus fired.
The paladin is fine unless you compare him to those classes who are lacking in some department. But compared to casters (all kinds) and barbarians they are ok.
i do consider paladin a bit to powerfull.
I dislike that the smite abillity bypasses all DR, some i would be fine with but not all.
Divine grace is to powerfull in my opinion most classes get powers that scales with lvls but paladin gets the bonus flat out instantly.
The healing im fine with and the imunities a very good but not game breaking.
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The paladin only looks overpowered when you compare it to the rogue, monk, and fighter. It looks about equal to the ranger and barbarian (personally I place it somewhere firmly between the two but thats my personal opinion).
So the first group is the much maligned underpowered group that we get umpteen million threads about being weak and askign how we can fix them and then we get threads about nerfing the martials that can actually succeed. Meanwhile the 9th level casters are laughing at us and just keep repeating "because magic".
P.S., divine grace isn't that powerful. At least not when you get it. Any paladin is likely to have a 14 charisma. Not that the stat isn't important, but if you want more you're going to have to sacrifice too much of your other stats. A paladin needs high strength, high con, medium dex/cha. Depending on the exact character you would probably prioritize it as str>con>cha>dex. When you pick up the ability it is certainly good, but not really overpowered. It's 3 times as good the feats that add to your saves since Divine Grace adds to all your saves and not just one. Those feats which almost no one save the fightrer takes because feats are too precious to spend shoring up saves.
1) Smite is easy to avoid so it is not really all the powerful. A 2nd level spell on the Clerics list that can be in potion for called Corruption Resistance nullifies smite for 10 minutes per level. Any evil cleric would should have this prepared with Paladin's hunting them down all the time. Combined with the fact that no all bad guys need to be evil this suddenly becomes a pretty weak ability. In fact it's so bad you as GM should avoid negating this class feature on the bosses and give the Paladin someone to smite.
2) Saves are good. Chr bonus to save is all fine but unless you have high stats this really shouldn't be an issue. Thing is let the Paladin shine here because of what you can do with Smite Evil.
3) Action economy is not an issue. That's pretty minor compared so of the other classes. Thinking Magus and Inquisitor.
Then consider that Paladin has Alignment and Code issues they have to deal with or they lose all these class features until they can atone. There are so many ways a GM can mess with Paladin's abilities that I find they are no where near over powered.
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Action economy: Is this a joke? Many classes are better or equal action economy to the paladin's attack + self-heal schtick. Summoners have pets as strong as fighters plus full casting at the same time. Bards can eventually swift perform and cast spells. Magus can cast a spell and full attack. Any primary caster at higher levels can use quickened spells, and at level 15, can quicken for free (Spell Perfection).
Absolutely not a problem!
Entirely correct, the classes you listed all have options for a much more efficient action economy. To further echo a point that has already been brought up, comparing them to other martials is the problem. Although this is more attributable to the fact that some of the martial classes are just plain not as useful, so I wouldn't wag my finger at the Paladin.
Two brief examples assuming melee:
The rogue is constantly going to be eating move actions to get flanks or toss out feints so he can grab his sneak attacks. He's rarely going to get full attack actions with flanks. Ninja fairs a bit better against most targets, being able to vanish as a swift. (And both aren't getting full BAB either)
The monk; with Flurry of Blows and (the always hilarious to read) Wholeness of Body, comparing him to the paladin the action economy argument is more relevant to the claim of being OP. (Ditto with the rogue, and AoMF is lame)
I consider the paladin where martial characters should be. In that sense it is perfectly balanced. It is stronger then MOST other martial characters (excpeting certain specialized fighter and barbarian builds), but the out of the box paladin can contribute in most situations, and has a variety of options of what to do each turn in combat/intiative situations. Thats what every character should have.
In terms of your specific issues:
1. Smite - I think it is right where it should be. It is powerful, but its also very limited use, and only functions best against single big bads. This is the paladins wheelhouse. That is what paladins do, go mono a mono with the bigest baddast dude around. His primary ability SHOULD be really good at the thing he is supposed to be the best at. Paladins are not particularly exceptional at fighting lost of enemies, and they are golified warriors (offensively) against neutral enemies. So given its limitations, it is just right.
Keep in mind different classes are good at different things. The thing the paladin is best at, is often the focus of many adventures. That needs to be considered the same way a social expert bard would need to be considered in a social campaign, or ninja in a stealth/infiltration campaign. If the theme of your campaign means lots of single (or mostly single) evil bad guys, your paladin will excel because thats what its designed to do.
2. Resists. Again the paladin is designed to take on the big bad. He is supposed to be durable. If he wasnt, then he couldnt do his job. Given his offensive options are limited duration and restricted use this seems like a good trade off for say a barbarian's all around useful rage.
3. Action economy - Um, he isnt the most beneficial from the action economy. That is the druid and the summoner. They both get 2 sets of actions. That is WAAAAY more potent an action economy bonus then the paladin gets. Magi also have an action economy advantage with both swift action buffs (the magus arcana base use) and spell combat (fight and cast a spell in one turn). Inquisitors have powerful swift action buffs as well with judgment and bane.
But really, the druid alone makes the paladins action economy bonus seem mild, and the druid gets WAY more in terms of powerful abilities then a paladin gets. The wizard gets an action economy bonus in the sense that much of what he can do is likely to have a far more dramatic impact on an encounter then anything the paladin can do. Sure he gets 1 spell a turn (without metamagic) but often that one spell can literally change the scope of an encounter, if not outright end it. With that in mind, the ability to stay in the fight (swift action heals and solid saves/resistances) dont seem all that overpowered to me.
Honestly if you have a problem with Paladin Action Economy, I can only imagine how you will react with the Warpriest (assuming it stays the same as it was in the second playtest).
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Seconding what was said before. It seems overpowered, because of what it's being compared to. Compared to the fighter, it's pretty good, but that's because the fighter doesn't really have much going for it besides Combat.For games that run longer than 15 minute days, the Paladins endurance runs into a pretty important wall, his limit on Smites. At 7th level my Paladin has 3 smites a day for her. Period. Which means in the demon infested campaign that is Wrath of the Righteous, she actually has to be conservative about when she uses them. When a Paladin isn't smiting, he's considerably inferior in damage output to just about everyone.
Keep also in mind that Smite is a one target per smite proposition. If a Paladin's party runs into a room full of Demons, she'll run out of smites long before the room runs out of demons.
Except that Paladins also have MUCH better saves, they can put holy on their weapon pretty much when they want it, they have decent spells, and they are straight up immune to many things.
So, even without having to resort to smite, the Pally would be better off against a room of demons than a fighter.
Hey I really appreciate all of the comments. As I respond to them I want to remind everyone that my personal focus here is group dynamics. I am not comparing level X paladin to level X (insert class here) I am speaking to the balance of the class in a group dynamic, how much do i have to modify the world to balance for any specific class, in this case the paladin.
Im going to try and collect a lot of points here pointing out why paladin is NOT overpowered.
Smite: Most people say something to the effect of
smite is highly limited to evil targets and is easily over come by spells and abilities which mitigate smite
what that argument means is that as a GM I should buff out most bad guys to counter the smite, I think if I find myself doing that its a sign that something is wrong.
Resists: this one few people comment on but when they do its something like
Paladin has to have SOME form of awesome ability and/or its not that powerful
True, resists are not devastating but from a GM perspective they do skew the balance. as mentioned above the majority of the time things that bother the group are "fail on a 1" for the paladin or in order to make it interesting for the paladin I have to make it too dangerous for the rest of the group.
Action Economy the gist is
class X has action economy also
I think that many people are misunderstanding or underestimating the power of paladin action economy.
swift actions for other classes are a trade off, For the magus its their class defining skill, they dont get much else (but it makes them very powerful). casters give up spell slots and a feat. on the other side of the equation almost every form of healing takes up someones standard action... except for the paladins. and other burst abilities like Ranger 'smite' requires a standard action and/or a spell slot to initiate. Paladin has no such restriction.
I have no problem with action economy where there is a trade off. in many cases the paladin makes no such trade off.
Again my focus is this: individually the paladins signature abilities are great but not overpowered. but the paladin gets SO MANY signature abilities all of which are very powerful. They dont need any one in the party to heal or buff them. They have high resists AND high AC, AND high damage when it matters AND can be the "Face" during role play.
thus as a GM I find myself working most often to work around the paladin in order to give other players a chance to shine.
Having said all of that
I am willing to concede that my view on the matter is clearly in the minority. I think there are a few simple things that I can do at the start of a game to mitigate for the paladin.
You want to mitigate the paladin? Lots of non-evil enemies. Sure he still has great defenses, but you don't need to counter that. Ignore his defenses and attack other players instead. In a world where paladins exist it would be common knowledge that anyone that is obviously a paladin would have certain immunities and powers that bolster their defenses.
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Seconding what was said before. It seems overpowered, because of what it's being compared to. Compared to the fighter, it's pretty good, but that's because the fighter doesn't really have much going for it besides Combat.For games that run longer than 15 minute days, the Paladins endurance runs into a pretty important wall, his limit on Smites. At 7th level my Paladin has 3 smites a day for her. Period. Which means in the demon infested campaign that is Wrath of the Righteous, she actually has to be conservative about when she uses them. When a Paladin isn't smiting, he's considerably inferior in damage output to just about everyone.
Keep also in mind that Smite is a one target per smite proposition. If a Paladin's party runs into a room full of Demons, she'll run out of smites long before the room runs out of demons.
Except that Paladins also have MUCH better saves, they can put holy on their weapon pretty much when they want it, they have decent spells, and they are straight up immune to many things.
So, even without having to resort to smite, the Pally would be better off against a room of demons than a fighter.
At 7th level, I can't yet put Holy on my weapon as I'm limited to a +1 effect for my divine bond. I have a total of 2 first level spells slots that I can cram with bless weapon, and one second for maybe Inheritor's smite. My divine bond is limited to ONCE per day for a +1 or equivalent effect for 7 minutes. (Holy it should be noted is a +2 effect)
The Fighter on the other hand has more combat feats which he can make unlimited use of. The Inquisitor has Bane of which he can use on as many demons as he likes as the bane effect is not single target only.
The Paladin is a powerful character, but it's not really that hard for other characters to be at the very least competitive even in a scenario full of target rich opportunities.
The Fighter is a drain on resources. The Paladin brings them.
Furthermore, Oath of Vengeance will give you so many more smites.
And Combat feats aren't exactly spectacular.
In this case, I'd say the Paladin lengthens the adventuring day. A Cleric who is continuing to burn resources to heal your Fighter hasn't the need to for the Paladin.
They have high damage when it matters, IF the thing they're fighting is of Evil Alignment. If they are LN, N, or CN, and the Paladin tries to Smite, they'll watch *fizzle pop*. So of the major points they really have High AC and Saves. Fighters also have high AC, minus the saves. And you don't have to buff them past the paladin's abilities, the first time. After that, it makes perfect sense that their foe would be ready for a Paladin. Especially if the paladin starts to gain notoriety.
Throw the group up against a few neutral baddies, and the Paladin will still shine, but not as much as some of the others. Also, if you add other mobs to the fights that go after other group members, it'll give them their chance to shine.
It's the challenge of the GM to find those moments and those areas where each person can shine. Whether it's in combat, or out of it.
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I think the Paladin is fine as is. I don't see his action economy as being any better (in some cases worse) than an Inquisitor, Magus, Bard, Cavalier, or Ranger, let alone a Summoner, some Oracles, etc.
He does approach things from a pretty specific angle though, and that can affect perception of power. If your party is a pretty traditional "Tell us where we're supposed to go next so we can kill it" kind of group, the Paladin (generally) really shines. He gets to go forth smiting and healing and smiling as he shrugs off effects that would cripple lesser men (see- the Fighter). But he lacks a lot of facility with anything resembling stealth, and his big damage bursts are usually equalized or exceeded by the more consistent damage of most other classes (even the Cavalier, who is often viewed as Paladin-lite can usually outperform the Paladin in what he contributes damage-wise).
He makes a really, really good tank. And he's supposed to. But I'd really hesitate to call him overpowered.
Maybe it'd be better to say that he's got a really solid chassis? It's pretty easy to make a mechanically sound Paladin, certainly more so than a Fighter, Rogue, Monk, probably even easier than most full casters, so the lower the average system mastery of a group, the more the paladin is going to stand out.
NOTE: This is not a troll or fishing for arguments. Although I know debate will happen I am asking an honest question.
My friends and I debate this and I wanted to get a community perspective. some people love the pally and others hate them.
from both a player and GM perspective I find the Paladin to be overpowered.
there are 3 primary reasons for this.
Smite, Resists, Action Economy.
1) SMITE
2) RESISTS
3) ACTION ECONOMY
1) In my opinion Favored Enemy (+ Instant Enemy) is significantly more powerful than Smite.
2) An Invulnerable Rager with Superstition can match and exceed Paladin 'resistances'.
3) This is the only place where you have an argument as swift action self-heals/condition removal are pretty great, as are the spells like Heroic Defiance and the Litanies... but I don't see it as unbalancing.
On the flip side Paladins are incredibly feat-starved. In our home game we got rid of the 'double damage' aspect of Smite and made 'Detect Evil' only work against creatures of the Evil sub-type. Minor changes, but its worked out pretty well.
We also made Paladins primal avatars of the cardinal alignments rather than devotees of specific Gods... so there are Paladins of Good, Evil, Chaos and Order (Law) though all work essentially the same. That's gone over VERY well.
They have high damage when it matters, IF the thing they're fighting is of Evil Alignment. If they are LN, N, or CN, and the Paladin tries to Smite, they'll watch *fizzle pop*. So of the major points they really have High AC and Saves. Fighters also have high AC, minus the saves. And you don't have to buff them past the paladin's abilities, the first time. After that, it makes perfect sense that their foe would be ready for a Paladin. Especially if the paladin starts to gain notoriety.
Throw the group up against a few neutral baddies, and the Paladin will still shine, but not as much as some of the others. Also, if you add other mobs to the fights that go after other group members, it'll give them their chance to shine.
It's the challenge of the GM to find those moments and those areas where each person can shine. Whether it's in combat, or out of it.
Except how often will a Paladin be going up against Neutral opponents? I here this argument a lot (oh just throw non-evil things up against the party) but the problem is, there is not many neutral things to throw at a party that would make much sense (at least vs a party with a paladin). The best things would be a Tarrasque maybe (but at that level things are just stupid anyway) or animals/dinosaurs (but those creatures are barely a threat). At mid to late levels, most of the iconic enemies are Evil (Demons? Check. Undead? Check. Dragons? Check.). The only real thing that you would logically face that is neutral that is remotely a threat is a Construct (mostly golems).
Again, or Aberrations, or Magical Beasts, or Monstrous Humanoids who are opposing you but not Evil...
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Hey I really appreciate all of the comments. As I respond to them I want to remind everyone that my personal focus here is group dynamics. I am not comparing level X paladin to level X (insert class here) I am speaking to the balance of the class in a group dynamic, how much do i have to modify the world to balance for any specific class, in this case the paladin.
Im going to try and collect a lot of points here pointing out why paladin is NOT overpowered.
Smite: Most people say something to the effect of
smite is highly limited to evil targets and is easily over come by spells and abilities which mitigate smitewhat that argument means is that as a GM I should buff out most bad guys to counter the smite, I think if I find myself doing that its a sign that something is wrong.
The point you miss is that smite represents what the paladin is supposed to be good at. Yes you have to account for the primary abilities of your character. Its not that you have to mitigate it. You just need to be aware of it. The same way the bard dominates social encounters, the paladin is the hands down best at taking down a single big bad guy. The easiest way to mitigate this is to not have a single big badguy, which is a bad idea in general anyway regardless of what an adventure path says.
Resists: this one few people comment on but when they do its something like
Paladin has to have SOME form of awesome ability and/or its not that powerfulTrue, resists are not devastating but from a GM perspective they do skew the balance. as mentioned above the majority of the time things that bother the group are "fail on a 1" for the paladin or in order to make it interesting for the paladin I have to make it too dangerous for the rest of the group.
That is only if you have to attack his strength. His saves are really good, his ac is really good. His touch is aweful if he's in full plate, and he's a friggan paladin, the easiest way to attack him is to dangle a damsel off a cliff. Different classes have different strengths and weaknesses. You should be looking at that if you want to provide an even challenge, rather then trying to challenge each character the same way.
Action Economy the gist is
class X has action economy alsoI think that many people are misunderstanding or underestimating the power of paladin action economy.
swift actions for other classes are a trade off, For the magus its their class defining skill, they dont get much else (but it makes them very powerful). casters give up spell slots and a feat. on the other side of the equation almost every form of healing takes up someones standard action... except for the paladins. and other burst abilities like Ranger 'smite' requires a standard action and/or a spell slot to initiate. Paladin has no such restriction.I have no problem with action economy where there is a trade off. in many cases the paladin makes no such trade off.
Please explain to me a druid's trade off in having a full caster worth of actions including healing, and having a powerful martial character that in many cases can out damage dedicated martial characters worth of trade offs.
Not to mention you can completely ignore metamagic as a trade off. A wizards highest level spell is its own action economy bonus, because that action is so much more potent (potentially) then that of the paladin. Sure the paladin can heal himself and then attack. The wizard can cast black tentacles and end the fight.
Again you are comparing the paladin to the weaker side of the spectrum and not the stronger. Which is the whole problem with balance arguments most of the time. The paladin should have his action economy bonuses, and other martial characters should have more then they do. That is the balance problem, not the paladin having too much.
Again my focus is this: individually the paladins signature abilities are great but not overpowered. but the paladin gets SO MANY signature abilities all of which are very powerful. They dont need any one in the party to heal or buff them. They have high resists AND high AC, AND high damage when it matters AND can be the "Face" during role play.
thus as a GM I find myself working most often to work around the paladin in order to give other players a chance to shine.
The question is why is this necessary? Other then 'face' duties which is an issue all the time, why is the paladins abilities outshining others? Do you have more then one primary martial character in your party? Does the divine caster get upset that he gets to use his spells on cool stuff (you know all those awesome spells on the cleric list) instead of having to heal the paladin? Whats the issue here?
Unless you have both a paladin and a fighter in the party, or a paladin and a combat focused ranger in the party there shouldnt be a problem. And if you do have that, thats a party composition problem more then an issue with the paladin. The fighter would be equally outshined by a well built barbarian, or a summoner with a monster eidolon, or a druid who wild shapes and fights with his animal companion, the problem isnt the paladin, its with the fighter/ranger/rogue/monk.
Again, or Aberrations, or Magical Beasts, or Monstrous Humanoids who are opposing you but not Evil...
^This. You've trespassed on sacred tribal Lizardfolk lands! They attack with the intention to kill! But apparently their leader is almost always evil. Which continues to be very odd whenever I read adventures from Paizo.
Also, not making all encounters single monster fights which is just generally a good idea for encounter design.
Again, or Aberrations, or Magical Beasts, or Monstrous Humanoids who are opposing you but not Evil...
Most aberrations are evil actually. Atleast the ones that a Pally would logically fight.
A lot fo the monstrous humanoids that a pally would fight are, again, evil.
The funny thing about the Pallies is that, they naturally tend to only fight evi creatures. You know, with the whole code of conduct thing and whatever, makes it hard to justify randomly killing non-evil things.
Except how often will a Paladin be going up against Neutral opponents? I here this argument a lot (oh just throw non-evil things up against the party) but the problem is, there is not many neutral things to throw at a party that would make much sense (at least vs a party with a paladin). The best things would be a Tarrasque maybe (but at that level things are just stupid anyway) or animals/dinosaurs (but those creatures are barely a threat). At mid to late levels, most of the iconic enemies are Evil (Demons? Check. Undead? Check. Dragons? Check.). The only real thing that you would logically face that is neutral that is remotely a threat is a Construct (mostly golems).They have high damage when it matters, IF the thing they're fighting is of Evil Alignment. If they are LN, N, or CN, and the Paladin tries to Smite, they'll watch *fizzle pop*. So of the major points they really have High AC and Saves. Fighters also have high AC, minus the saves. And you don't have to buff them past the paladin's abilities, the first time. After that, it makes perfect sense that their foe would be ready for a Paladin. Especially if the paladin starts to gain notoriety.
Throw the group up against a few neutral baddies, and the Paladin will still shine, but not as much as some of the others. Also, if you add other mobs to the fights that go after other group members, it'll give them their chance to shine.
It's the challenge of the GM to find those moments and those areas where each person can shine. Whether it's in combat, or out of it.
Um abberations are often neutral, rust monsters, mimics, and alot of magical beasts are also neutral, hydras, and basilisks for instance. Its not just netural humanoids/monstrous humanoids, its a big chunk of the bestiary including alot of classic monsters.
A Paladin with 15-20 pt buy or equivalent rolled stats means you don't need modify anything for the Paladin in an adventure. Higher stats just means a higher APL for the party so the party can take on tougher things. You run into problems though when you have stats that vary drastically in party. In this case if you up the CR for the paladin with high stats the players with low stats will find things very deadly.
While I agree that the pally has lots of decent abilities, nearly all of them are situational though. As mentioned by only one poster so far, the pally comes with his Lawful Good and Code of Conduct baggage, which I tend to think as a balancing factor for having so many differing abilities.
While it was kind of specialized, I've played in campaigns where no truly evil monsters were ever placed in front of the party, ever. The BBEG, and his staff of powerful lieutenants and army of minions were all neutral alignments (not one of them was evil). Even though that situation is kind of situational in itself, in a standard game running into evil monsters might only happen 25+% of the encounters, perhaps more, but there should be no expectation that your opponent is evil in any fight.
Of course if you're playing in a campaign of dragons, nether planar beings or undead, then your paladin can shine, but campaigns like that are situational as well, and not the expectation of the typical game.
In those examples of a pally in a horde of demons - a ranger with evil outsider as Favored Enemy will have more consistent damage to foes than the pally who is limited to number of times per day for most activities. Even, if the pally is only applying Holy, and not depending on his primary abilities to deal the damage.
In our group running into a single opponent in combat is so rare, I don't think we've done that this campaign, perhaps over a year since the last such encounter.
If your GM creates only situational opponents, single enemies, always evil, then certainly a pally will seem to outshine the rest of the party, but this isn't the fault of the pally (or the paladin class), nor weaknesses of other class choices, rather this is only because of the kind of game the GM is running.
If your paladin is too strong in the game, its the GMs fault only - he's deliberately skewing the encounters in favor of the paladin, and it the only way the situation would ever exist.
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Again, or Aberrations, or Magical Beasts, or Monstrous Humanoids who are opposing you but not Evil...
Or even just regular humanoids. It's crazy how often groups of humans who are otherwise pretty decent sorts can go to war over philosophical or political reasons. I remember being in a campaign where one of the highlights of the adventure was when a party member playing a paladin ended up in a duel to the death against an NPC paladin, in a situation where both sides of the conflict were 100% certain they were doing the right thing.
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Again, or Aberrations, or Magical Beasts, or Monstrous Humanoids who are opposing you but not Evil...
Constructs, Elementals, and animals all spring to mind as well. Oozes are almost always neutral-aligned as well.
One of my favorite recurring villains I ever GMed was a Lawful Neutral Sorcerer-For-Hire. He was generally a pretty nice, friendly guy who would buy the PCs a drink if he ran into them in a bar. However, if he was under contract to fight the party, he wouldn't hesitate to drop a chain lightning on them. Nothing personal, it was just part of the job.
It actually led to a really fun dynamic, since after a while the PCs started throwing nonlethal damage at him, and he only hit them with merciful spells. Unsurprisingly, the party eventually saved up enough cash to hire him for themselves.