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Hey everyone,
Just wanted to ask a quick question. Essentially, I'm wondering if there is a better way to deal damage as a (multiclassed) Paladin main using pathfinder society legal resources. The build I currently have is this:
Level 3 Human oath of vengeance paladin/level 1 Id rager (anger)
Stats: 18 str (20 soon with belt), 12 dex, 14 con, 10 int, 7 wis, 16 cha.
Feats: feywild foundling, weapon focus greatsword, extra rage. During rage (12 rounds/day), anger Id rager gives access to Power attack for free.
Equip: Greatsword+1, fullplate +1, ring of resistance+1, amulet of natural armor +1.
I think I deal fairly good damage per hit with the rage+power attack route (2d6+17 per hit at level 4), but now that I'm grouped with level 6 or 7 characters I noticed that I'm failling drastically behind due to the amount of attacks others are making compared to me. For instance, the level 6 bloodrager I was recently paired up with had 3 attacks per turn for 3d6+20-ish each using his claws, and the swashbuckler had 2 +/- 1d6+20 attacks per turn with a parry and reposte additional attack (so 3 acutally) in between each of his turns. Even if I were to be level 6 and get a second attack from BAB myself, I feel like I'd still fall behind quite a bit due to being a lot less mobile than the others and having at least 1 less attack per round.
Is there a fairly easy way someone knows of to get extra attacks per turn as a paladin main? I am hoping to stay mostly paladin x for the defensive features of the class but I'd be open to dipping into a third class if needed. Or, if that's not possible, is there some other way of increasing the damage per hit further?
(The only ways I'm currently aware of to get additional attacks are:
-combat reflexes + reach weapon, would require more dex plus limited by +1 dex mod max in fullplate.
-Two weapon fighting: can't because feat starved.
-Multiclass into swashbuckler for parry/reposte: can't because class prohibits heavy armor and seems to prohibit 2h weapons
-Level up paladin to 11 to get the haste buff from bonded weapon, but only works at character level 12, at retirement...
Damage per hit buffs:
-Keen Falchion somewhere in the near future?
-Vital strike?)
Any help would be greatly appreciated as always!
Get a mount, fight with your mount using Ride.
Don't sweat it.
Everything else being equal you will naturally be less able than characters 2-3 levels higher than you. This is normal and should not be the trigger for an arms race.
A paladin isn't designed to win the DPR olympics. Although with rage, smite and bonded weapon you will find you can nova quite well especially against evil foes. You will find you have a lot of survivability, what with really good saves and lay on hands, that compensates for slightly lower DPR.
Also Nodachi is strictly better than falchion and Vital strike won't help.
If you're not Smiting, Paladins are the weakest martial class in terms of dealing damage. Arguably, they even fall behind a lot of the 6th level progression classes at causing damage (because those 6th level caster can really buff themselves into causing a lot of damage). Paladins depend on Smite to keep their damage up, which is one reason why I've never been a huge fan unless I know the campaign is going to feature evil prominently.
Don't worry about that though, the paladin has a lot of other stuff going for it that those other classes don't have. And when you do fight an evil opponent and have Smites available you will wreck their faces harder than any of the others.
Yeah, being 3 levels under is a HUGE difference.
Plus reach works without combat reflexes cause you'd still potentially get the 1 AoO.
Getting haste from the party.
There's no simple easy fix for combat. If there were everyone good at combat would take those and be better at combat.
For a different character or lots of rebuilding, scaled fist monk is CHA focused and gets 1 extra attack on a full attack.
And note, I have a lv10 PFS character that is Your build, Paladin 9 id rager bloodrager 1.
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I love Hurtful. I call it adding injury to insult.
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I play paladins in PFS and love them. As mentioned by dragonhunterq, when you really need it you can nova to outshine most anyone. divine bond starts at level 5 and allows you to situationally enhance your weapon and it just keeps getting better, on top of what you have purchased. Smite Evil makes you better than anyone at killing a powerful evil opponent, both with extra to-hit and damage, but also ignoring enemy DR. You chose Oath of Vengeance which allows for more smites (and, IMO, better roleplay in PFS).
However, that said, Paladins are incomparable tanks. They have decent armor class, great saves, and with lay-on-hands can stay in the fray. A barbarian at 6th level can have about 108 hit points (12 per HD and raging CON of 22) but a 6th level paladin with with charisma 18, Greater Mercy and extra Lay On Hands can heal for 4d6 damage each round for 9 rounds, on average for 136 points of healing. Add Fey Foundling for another 72 on top of that. You can fight for a looong time.
It does take feats to do this, but a two-handed fighting character doesn't need much more than power attack as a feat to do damage.
There was advice a few years ago in a paladin thread suggesting that extra Lay On Hands was the only feat a paladin needed, but that -might- be excessive.
Abyssal to get claws that deal 1d6+1d6fire at lv4, rageshaper archetype bumping that to 1d8+1d6fire at lv4 and then to 2d6+1d6 fire for going large size.
str of 20 start gets us 5/20. Rage 7/20. furious AoMF 9/20. enlarged str 10/20. Power attack 14/20. Swift action arcane strike at lv5+ 16/20. str belt +2 17/20. That's pretty close to 20, and martial focus would take us to 18/20.
all doable by lv5.
You're right about the flaming from class. I miss-calculated. 1d8-> 2d6 for large and then going up another step is 3d6 base for claws. It's the rageshaper archetype that gets the claw damage so high.
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All right, thanks for the advice everyone. Maybe I'll try a reach weapon without any further investments and just see how that works out. On the exact damage from the abyssal bloodrager, that was the rough number of damage he did per hit. As a relative noob to pathfinder, I try not to ask too many questions that disrupt the flow of a session for the exact details of damage bonusses. So I'm afraid I can't offer more information than this. If anyone is really interested I suppose I could ask him after a new session one day.
I wouldn't try swapping to a reach weapon now. You already have a magic greatsword and weapon focus greatsword. SO unless you want to take a GP hit and lose a feat/retrain it, you're probably best staying with greatsword.