It really depends on where your starting from. If your concept is a dex paladin then its a clear downgrade. Mercies and spell casting is a huge loss. However if your concept start from a swashbuckler it a big upgrade (at least to me it is). Divine grace is better the the absolute garbage that is charmed life. And you get smite evil on top of precise strike so twice your level to damage on smite evil targets. Also you get yourself some sweet immunities. So to me it is swashbuckler+ and paladin-.
It looks to me like a great 2-level dip and a poor single-classed character. Opportune parry at 1st along with smite, divine grace at 2nd is good but it falls off after then. All those ideas in the OP want more feats than a paladin gets IMO.
Edit: the parry comes in at 4th so it's worse as a dip than I thought at first.
Yeah, it's a downgrade for the Paladin but almost a strict upgrade to the Swashbuckler (assuming your 'buckler concept is consistent with following a Paladin code.) Really the only thing that you'll miss from the Swasbuckler is early access to improved critical, "ability to take signature deed", "possibly a swashbuckler archetype or two", and some bonus feats.
Divine Grace is so much better than Charmed Life it makes me sad for the poor 'buckler.
You get deeds at 4th for the archtype not 1st do dipping as this archtype is not worth it.
Maybe VB 4 / Thug rogue 1 / Weapon Master fighter X would work. Thug lets you get some use out of menacing swordplay, fighter gives you the feats and AWT options - and heavy armor proficiency so you could go strength based if you need to save another feat.
Or perhaps VB 4 / Guiding Blade swashbuckler 1 / Devoted Muse 10. The guiding blade gives you another way to regain panache, and DM stacks levels for precise strike while giving better abilities than a stripped-down paladin IMO.
I've looked at the Devoted Muse a lot (I'm playing a Swashbuckler now) and the one thing I keep coming back to is that I don't really get why a full BAB Martial who wants a large critical threat range with no class features that key on making opponents flat-footed would want to spend a move action to feint. It seems like either you have to move to get in range to attack, or you want to full attack since your iterative attacks might just hit purely by virtue of being critical threats.
AFAIK, there's no easy way to get swift action feinting is there? It's not like you don't already have enough to do with swift/immediate actions, but it'd be there at least.
Moonlight stalker feint or wave strike both allow swift action feints, and feinting flurry or two-weapon feint allow you to sacrifice the first attack of a full attack to feint. I'm sure I remember reading a way to combine a normal move with a feint, and there's probably more - there are a lot of feint-related feats and a few archetypes which use them too.
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i play a female paladin, and using STR as main ability just feels....not right for my style.
Why not?
^Who says you can't play a female Shoanti Paladin?
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Maybe VB 4 / Thug rogue 1 / Weapon Master fighter X would work. Thug lets you get some use out of menacing swordplay, fighter gives you the feats and AWT options - and heavy armor proficiency so you could go strength based if you need to save another feat.
Or perhaps VB 4 / Guiding Blade swashbuckler 1 / Devoted Muse 10. The guiding blade gives you another way to regain panache, and DM stacks levels for precise strike while giving better abilities than a stripped-down paladin IMO.
no paladin will EVER take a thug dip.
they RP wise opposites.
Even if you refuse to refluff - the thug dip could come first, and the bravo would then be an attempt to atone, using their skills for good.
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i play a female paladin, and using STR as main ability just feels....not right for my style.Why not?
cause at high levels you reach STR of 20.... and a female with STR of 20 is a body builder of irom man contests.
if i wanted to play a muscle monster - i would go Shoanti..
The iconic Paladin is a woman though. As is the iconic barbarian. Clearly Golarion gender norms are different than what you envision.
cause at high levels you reach STR of 20.... and a female with STR of 20 is a body builder of irom man contests.
Or, you know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer since this is fantasy.
I dunno. I play my STR characters as men. I think for me it's partly because I'm a ~110kg man (~240lb) and I don't think I've ever met a woman as strong as me.
I know they exist, and I know in a fantasy you don't even have to match the stats to the look (hell strength mostly just means accuracy and damage, so it doesn't even have to mean "strength" if you don't want it to). I totally love the fluff around Amiri ... but I still find it hard to make my own amazon.
I don't have a problem with other people doing it, it's just that none of my characters get past the planning stage as super-strong women (I wonder what this says about me really ...?)
Anyone else want to take a shot at building an oradin with this archetype? If it works out, it could end up a lot more interesting to play (and to play alongside) than those builds usually tend to be. I'll likely give it a try myself when I get some alone time with my PF books.
The oradin idea is interesting, since this is definitely a Paladin who wants to mix it up. The worry I have is that you've inherited the Swashbuckler's problem of "you have a million things to do with swift actions" and "lay on hands" is adding one more to the pile.
The oradin idea is interesting, since this is definitely a Paladin who wants to mix it up. The worry I have is that you've inherited the Swashbuckler's problem of "you have a million things to do with swift actions" and "lay on hands" is adding one more to the pile.
To be honest, most healbot builds could use a little complexity in my experience if only just to keep the player awake.