Hmm,I think the base paladin can function decently as a tank and as an "off-healer" if there is another caster in the group with access to healing magic like a witch or a divine caster.The hospitaler is a somewhat better healer, but at the cost of damage via less smites. A Hospitaler of Shelyn with a glaive for zone control could be a pretty decent thematic pick. The fewer smites will hurt, but having a full mercy pool and channel energy can give you a surprising amoung of healing. I would still recommend having a secondary healer, though.
What do you think about prestige class? Would the Holy Vindicator work for you?
If you really want to go all out for healing with a paladin then go for a Hospitaler with an oath of charity. The hospitaler gives you a pool of channel energy that does not use lay on hand. The oath of charity gives you two advantages. First it allows you to heal 50% more with your lay on hand, when you target others. The downside is you only heal 50% of the damage you normally would when healing yourself with lay on hands. Second but more importantly you can change your mercies on a daily basis, but you lose divine bond.
Make sure you have wands of cure light wounds and a few scrolls with condition removal spells and you should be good. Paladins get lesser restoration as a first level spell so that will actually help a lot.
Paladins are one of the best tanks in the game so that is pretty well covered just by being a paladin.
I would suggest using your feats for combat and not to boost your healing. If you go with my suggestions you will have the healing covered, but getting fewer smites is going to weaken your combat. Go with the normal combat feats like power attack and such.
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I would also look at the channel surge and word of healing feats. Channel surge let's you burn an extra use of channel or loh to heal 50% more. Word of healing let's you use loh at range but you heal half as much. You could also look at quick channel (channel as a move by spending two uses) extra channel and selective channel.
And if you're okay giving up the Headband slot you could by a phalactary of positive channeling for +2d6 extra dice on channels.
If 3pp stuff is allowed, Mystical Healer is amazing.
Your skills at magical healing are without peer.
Benefit: You add additional dice to any form of healing you generate yourself (extraordinary abilities, spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities).
Caster Level Additional Healing Dice
1st-3rd +1d4
4th-6th +1d6
7th-9th +2d6
10th-12th +3d6
13th +4d6
Special: If you do not possess a caster level, use half your character level, rounded down to determine additional healing dice for supernatural or extraordinary abilities.
When channeling energy to harm an opponent, do not add additional dice. These apply only when healing.
I made a human paladin sword & board healer
1. Fey Foundling
1. Power Attack
3. Extra Lay on Hands
5. Mystical Healing
And would have taken:
7. Selective Channel
9. Quicken Channel (or whatever it's called)
Paladins don't need a lot of feats to be good at tanking.
Are you open to Variant Multiclassing? It'll cost you around half your feats, but otherwise you'd be able to be paladin20 at the end. Going VMC oracle and selecting the Life mystery will allow you, at 7th level, to get the Life Link revelation. Combined with swift-action lay-on-hands on yourself and you effectively give the rest of the party fast healing 5. If necessary you can end the life links as an immediate action to save yourself.
Healing HP is the easy part and does not require a lot of resources. First of all in combat healing is not the best strategy. It is far better to take down the target faster than try to keep every ones HP at full in combat. A few wands of cure light wounds to supplement the normal healing is about all you need. Taking an archetype that boost out of combat healing is fine, but don’t waste a lot of resources on in combat healing. In combat healing should be used only in emergencies. Don’t waste a turn healing the fighter who still has half his HP left.
What is going to be more important is condition removal. Being able to deal things like ability damage, ability drains, blindness, disease, negative levels and curses is more difficult. A paladin can use mercies and spells for this but those are limited resources. Scrolls and wands will probably be necessary for this. At higher level extra mercy would be useful. This is where the oath of charity can really help. Being able to choose your mercies every day will be more beneficial when you have access to the higher level mercies.
In my opinion one of the best ways to heal, in combat, as a paladin is to take the hits (so you can free action heal yourself). You can do this by getting the bad guys attention or by using shield other spells. Most of your in combat heals with be either channel (if you are a hospitaler) and lay on hands.
Lay on hands used on yourself is a free action. Because of this you do not want to use oath of charity. This is also what makes Fey Foundling so amazing. Any equipment you can find to redirect damage from your friends to you is similarly amazing.
Not a fan of Oath of Vengeance myself.
I don't think you need to focus all that much on damage dealing feats. Power attack is really all you need. I would avoid weapon focus, step up, vital strike, and improved critical. Cleave is a solid maybe.
Weapon focus vs quick channel- Weapon gives you a 5% better chance to hit. You are a full BAB char and have access to smite for high AC targets. Hitting things is not a problem. On the other hand quick channel will allow you to swing your sword the same turn that you find yourself needing to utilize a group heal.
Vital strike is not a feat I would take on a dedicated damage dealer. So, I'd avoid it on this character too. Most of your damage will come from other sources rather than the damage die on your weapon (str, power attack, smite, etc).
Step up- /shrug. It's useful to force an opponent to provoke attacks of opportunity. It's probably a play style choice. I don't think it would be useful in games I play.
Improved Critical- All this does is saves you from spending a +1 weapon enhancement on keen. I think there are better uses for a feat.
You definitely want selective channel if you will use channel at all in combat.
Healers are a clutch solution or an after party resource (which is replaced by wands).
Damage mitigation however is very strong in combat. I suggest looking at the Sacred Shield. It can also heal with Lay on Hands.
If you want to sponge damage, I would say this is absolutely the best. If you want to go overkill, grab a Tower Shield and pick Bulwark Style.
Yeah- I've played a healer/tank paladin in a party with no other healers before. Don't worry too much about extra healing from things like hospitaler. Your best strategy is to take as many of the hits as you can and use swift action lay hands to keep yourself going (shield other can help with this too). Use cure wands on yourself and others after combat. Use scrolls for status removal. Take dangerously curious and make UMD one of your two skills for more flexibility with scrolls.
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Haven't read the whole thread, but thought I'd tell you about my paladin in Pathfinder Society. I took the Chosen One archetype from Familiar Folio, which grants a familiar instead of mount or bonded weapon. Other than that, it rearranges what levels you get the various low level paladin stuff, but by level 4, you have it all like any other pally.
My first three feats were Fey Foundling, Greater Mercy, and Power Attack. I use a two handed weapon, and just focus on healing myself like crazy with swift Lay on Hands, rather than AC, to keep me standing in battle. Those first two feats add plenty to my Lay on Hands healing. If you want to save your LOH uses for your teammates, get a shield and one handed weapon instead, so you don't get hit as much, but it'll cut into your damage output. It's all about balancing your priorities.
The best part is that the familiar can zip around the battlefield separately, casting Guidance on people at will, and using "Lay on Paws" when absolutely necessary. It costs twice as many of my daily uses of LOH as when I do it with the actual pally, but it's great for emergencies. This lets me heal an ally and make attacks in the same round. I no longer have to choose between eliminating the threat or saving the wounded comrade, since I can do both. As I said, it's expensive, but the action economy of doing that even once or twice per day is a game changer.
This is also why I'm seriously considering Extra Lay on Hands as my level 7 feat (currently only level 6). And probably Ultimate Mercy at level 9, to be able to raise the dead for free on non-adventuring days.
The other nice thing about chosen one is that at 7th level you get an improved familiar and iirc there's at least 1-2 options that could use wands (with your UMD ranks), so it could heal while you attack and it wouldn't eat up your lay hands or standard actions.
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The other nice thing about chosen one is that at 7th level you get an improved familiar and iirc there's at least 1-2 options that could use wands (with your UMD ranks), so it could heal while you attack and it wouldn't eat up your lay hands or standard actions.
Do you know of any lawful good improved familiars that can use wands? The improved familiar has to match your god's alignment, and the only LG option I could find was the Harbinger Archon. It can cast Cure Light Wounds three times per day as a spell-like ability, but it can't use wands.
Of course, being a paladin of a NG or LN aligned deity opens up other options, but my own chosen one gets her power from Shizuru, the LG empress of the Tien gods.
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Liberal use of the spells Shield Other and Paladins Sacrifice, using LoH on yourself is far more efficient than using it on your allies.
For 100 gold you can't go wrong with a handful of meditation crystals
Are you going sword & board, reach, or just regular 2-handed weapon?
EDIT:
You sound like the 3 Musketeers! 3 martials, barely no spells, but lots of neat special effects.
The other nice thing about chosen one is that at 7th level you get an improved familiar and iirc there's at least 1-2 options that could use wands (with your UMD ranks), so it could heal while you attack and it wouldn't eat up your lay hands or standard actions.Do you know of any lawful good improved familiars that can use wands? The improved familiar has to match your god's alignment, and the only LG option I could find was the Harbinger Archon. It can cast Cure Light Wounds three times per day as a spell-like ability, but it can't use wands.
Of course, being a paladin of a NG or LN aligned deity opens up other options, but my own chosen one gets her power from Shizuru, the LG empress of the Tien gods.
Cassassian's get change shape into a cherub.
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Cassassian's get change shape into a cherub.The other nice thing about chosen one is that at 7th level you get an improved familiar and iirc there's at least 1-2 options that could use wands (with your UMD ranks), so it could heal while you attack and it wouldn't eat up your lay hands or standard actions.Do you know of any lawful good improved familiars that can use wands? The improved familiar has to match your god's alignment, and the only LG option I could find was the Harbinger Archon. It can cast Cure Light Wounds three times per day as a spell-like ability, but it can't use wands.
Of course, being a paladin of a NG or LN aligned deity opens up other options, but my own chosen one gets her power from Shizuru, the LG empress of the Tien gods.
Good catch. I missed Cassisians while searching for possible LG improved familiars.
Sacred Servant paladin is another good option. Their channel can get pretty strong. The planar ally can be rather powerful. I suppose you can go VMC OOTS cavalier too if you really want, plus channel surge. I doubt that's necessary though!
Sacred Servant paladin is another good option. Their channel can get pretty strong. The planar ally can be rather powerful. I suppose you can go VMC OOTS cavalier too if you really want, plus channel surge. I doubt that's necessary though!
There's an Order Of The Stick cavalier?
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I'd skip Selective Channel as well then too. It should be a RARE event when you need to channel in combat (instead of attacking) that can't be covered by a simple Lay On Hands to another and swift to yourself.
I disagree strongly about selective channel. Given it's range it can often save a party member when you cant get to them with a LoH.
Sorry for the delayed response. Cassian is, in fact, the option I had in mind- in "small human-like angel" form they have hands and can speak so using your UMD skill would be no problem.