Rebuilding a Ranged Paladin

[Mindfever]

Hey folks, I just came back to Pathfinder and have started playing 2e for the first time.

I'm struggling with the system because, while I have been told I can build whatever I want, the mechanics are there to support some of the older character themes that I enjoyed with PF 1.

For example, I used to run a Halfing Divine Hunter Paladin that rode around on a War Dog and lobbed arrows augmented with Smite at the baddies whilst leaning heavily into the Luck style spells and traits that made Halfings so much fun.

However, I dont seem to be able to build something similar in PF 2.

Now I will stress that I am very new to this rules system and most of my knowledge comes from playing and reading through a few of the class descriptions that I have been interested in.

So can anyone give me some suggestions as to how I might build something like my old Paladin usnde4 5he current rules system?

[YuriP]

Mindfever wrote:

For example, I used to run a Halfing Divine Hunter Paladin that rode around on a War Dog and lobbed arrows augmented with Smite at the baddies whilst leaning heavily into the Luck style spells and traits that made Halfings so much fun.

We don't have anything like Smite in PF2 this mechanic was switched in favor of champion reactions that makes it more tanker. But the rest could be done:

Halfling luck is represented by many ancestry feats like Halfling Luck, Halfling Ingenuity, Shared Luck (Halfling), Guiding Luck and Incredible Luck (Halfling)

For some unknown reason Paizo still not release any dog-like mounts as companions. We currently have Beetles, Camels, Elephants, Horses (off-corse), Legchairs, Monitor Lizards, Oozeform Chairs, Rhinoceros, Riding Drakes, Rootball Chairs, Terror Birds, Skeletal Mounts and Zombie Mounts but no dog. So you can use one of these instead and even try to reskin to a dog like shape.

For ranged weapon you can make a Paladin + Ranged Reprisal to make it work with reactions but due the limited reaction range I recommend a thrown weapon (like Trident/Chakram or Spear/Javelin if is your deity weapon) + Returning rune (or weapon ally) instead. This allows you to keep a free-hand or a shield while do ranged attacks that includes your full str bonus into the dmg.

But my personal tip is PF2 is a different game so try to not keep your choices into archetypes from other games. Try something new using the PF2 options this probably will be way more fun.

[Mindfever]

Ok so absent Smite is there a better ranged option other than Paladin (or rather Champion) there will lay out heavy damage?

[YuriP]

Yes, we have Starlit Span Magus and Eldritch Archer both do a large amount of damage from afar.

But Magus is more arcane related while Eldritch Archer is more tradition free choice (so you can make a more divine themed for example). Investigator and Rogues also can do a good amount of damage from distance but it's not really their focus (investigator can do a good amount precision of damage but is more focused into exploration while rogue can do multiple attack with additional precision damage but requires that someone to put it's target into flat-foot condition (or frightened condition if have the Dread Striker feat).

[Red Griffyn]

Mindfever wrote:

...For example, I used to run a Halfing Divine Hunter Paladin that rode around on a War Dog and lobbed arrows augmented with Smite at the baddies whilst leaning heavily into the Luck style spells and traits that made Halfings so much fun.

However, I dont seem to be able to build something similar in PF2...

The Divine Hunter's claim to fame was getting additional feats/early access to key ranged bow feat chain feats necessary to get to the totally broken precise shot, point blank shot, rapid shot, many shot, deadly aim, cluster shot, etc. progression available to composite longbows on a full BAB martial. As someone who played that PC and a warpriest version with ramping up self buffs I can honestly say that PF1e archers were broken. I remember PFS1e Scenario #10-04: Reaver's Roar where in high tier we decided to just face the existential threat right in the scenario opening scene (you're supposed to run away and it harries you the whole scenario, but you get to weaken it in multiple ways to make it manageable). I think this was a CR18 vs. a party of 6 Level 10-11s and 3-4 rounds later (albeit 2 breath of lifes) the thing was dead (in no part thanks to my warpriest laying down 100-200 DPR for 4 rounds straight).

So the number one expectation you'll have to manage is that Melee > Ranged in PF2e. There is only one build that even gets close to closing that gap but Paizo has gone out of their way to impose a heavy DPR tax on ranged builds where they are likely to do ~2/3 the damage of a 2H melee build. You will see this throughout the design where ranged weapons have a volley trait (close combat penalty trait), are purposefully excluded from class features (arcane cascade for the magus, flurry of blows without additional feats on monk, ranged thaumaturgy not working on 1H+ weapons without jumping through hoops, etc.).

Similarly, animal companions have been equally nerfed. No more flying divine templated tiger pounces to blend up enemies with no action use. Animal companions typically are 2/3 a PC health and worth maybe 1 attack (typically as accurate as a martial's second attack) and can have lower armour class. They are typically much better for a mount to provide some mobility, a temporary flanking buddy (because they will be a hit point sink at best) or to get the 'support feature' from them, which sounds like what you want from it (as opposed to a DPR multi attack creature).

So how would you build this thing in 2e. Lets look at options for being an archer champion and options for having a mount separately.

Archer:

- Out the gate there are no feat chains needed in PF2e so you don't have to stress. You can just pick up a composite longbow, composite shortbow, Horngali Hornbow (with unconventional weaponry from the human ancestry), or the new monk bow (if you're looking to try a heavenseeker or flurry build) and fire away.

- Classes and archetypes that highly support archery are Fighter, Ranger, and Archer.

• x Fighter is mostly only good if you start as a fighter. Some folks might take it for Point Blank Stance (+2 damage per arrow if your bow doesn't have volley on it, or removes the volley trait), but this isn't always worth an action to enter the stance. It is helpful for enemies with high resistances.

• x Archer also will give you a good cross sample of supporting feats like parting shot to increase your abilities as well as give you point blank stance. Please keep in mind that double shot and triple shot feats are TRAPS! Don't use them please.

• x Ranger is actually really great. Hunt Prey lets you ignore your second ranged increment penalty, hunted shot lets you shoot twice for one action on your hunted prey, gravity weapon can add some status damage to your first strike each turn (eventually grab animal feature focus spell to get flight), and give you farshot to double your weapons range increments.
  

- Jalmeri Heavenseeker can support you if you use the monk bow with the heaven's thunder feat to add some static damage to shots. It takes a while to get going (even with free archetype) but you could after L10 be flurrying with this bow and bonus damage.

- Within the Champion class itself there is some support you can look at including:

• x you can go paladin and take the L1 ranged reprisal feat so you can get free 0 MAP strikes if your ally and enemy are engaged within ~15 or 20 ft of you.

• x You can get free damaging runes on your bow via the blade ally class feature and later upgrade the rune selection via the L10 feat radiant blade spirit and an extra 1D6 elemental damage is really acutally good in this system.

• x The L6 feat Smite Evil, gives you the PF2e version of smite. This is actually better for a ranged combatant because it takes an action to set up and continues if the enemy continues to attack your allies and not you. So this can easily extend if they refuse to disengage and run at you ~20 ft away.

• x L12 feat blade of justice (better for champions since it adds your L9 divine smite bonus damage), and L16 for Instrument of Zeal can bump your damage more.

• x The big downside to all the champion damage 'boosters' is that they are almost exclusively good damage. Which is only damaging to enemies with a LE/NE/CE alignment. So YMMV depending on your campaign (good for undead type campaigns, but awful for stopping the true neutral druid order that is trying to return golarion back to its natural wild state).

• x Champion also gets access to domain spells. Most of them are somewhat bleh, but there are some that boost damage I think. I mostly look at them for utility (e.g., the advanced travel domain focus spell will give you a flying option similar to the ranger focus spell option).

• x The L14 feat Divine Reflexes will give you another reaction per turn for your champion reaction (again as a paladin that is a free 0MAP attack with various rider damage and is great).

Animal Companion:

- This is a much easier recommendation because there is only one way for a non druid to get the best scaling animal companion. That is taking the beast master archetype. That will be your L2, L4, L8, and L14 feats to keep it in 'tip top fighting form'

- You want an animal with the "Mount" feature to avoid restrictions on its actions/support feature as documented in the Mount trait. Most support features require the companion to be in melee combat and the only one that doesn't is the beetle and before a recent errata the horse. I'd suggest just reflavouring those. If you want you and your companion to be in melee, then its a whole other story.

- Typically you want to pick dex boosting stuff only for animal advancement options so you can max out their AC when possible. Also there are some beastmaster feats that if you're both adjacent to an enemy you count as flanking, but that won't work for ranged weapons anymore (I think that was another recent errata?). Either way there are a few support features that your damaging strikes make a creature in their reach flatfooted to your attacks for 1-2 rounds which is pretty good in this system. A +1 is roughly a ~15% increase in DPR, so you can really benefit at range from a +2 to hit since this isn't usually available for ranged combatants.

Luck Feats and Re-rolls:

- Off the top of my head halfing and cat folk are the two ancestries that get a whole bunch of luck feats. I think the rerolls on attacks are typically once per day higher level feats (maybe L9?), but both can get various save or skill rerolls usually once per hour around L9-L13.

Build

- Going to assume free archetype because wanting an animal companion that isn't a resource sink/drain is quite difficult in PF2e. Be a champion and we're going to try for beast master + heavenseeker static damage bonuses with a very close to combat paladin archer.

Class Feats

1 - Ranged Reprisal (use ranged weapons for your champion reaction)
2 - Deities Domain (more focus points and another spell)
4 - Beastmaster - Heal Animal (1 more FP and now you have a
ranged AC heal -> you need this so you can take heavenseeker at L6)
6 - Jalmeri Heavenseeker - Heaven's Thunder
8 - Smite Evil
10 - Radiant Blade Spirit (grab free flaming rune)
12 - Blade of Justice
14 - Divine Reflexes
16 - Instrument of Zeal
18 - TBD (probably take the devoted focus feat to refocus to FPs each refocus)
20 - TBD

Free Archetype Feat
2 - Beastmaster - Dedication (get your AC)
4 - Beastmaster - Mature Beastmaster Companion (Upgrade 1 to AC)
6 - Jalmeri Heavenseeker - Dedication
8 - Beastmaster - Incredible Beastmaster Companion (Upgrade 2 to AC)
10 - Beastmaster Bond
12 - Additional Companion (Backup AC incase first one goes down)
14 - Specialized Beastmaster Companion (Upgrade 3 to AC)
16 - Specialized Beastmaster Companion (Upgrade 4 to AC)
18 - Specialized Beastmaster Companion (Upgrade 5 to AC)

[Red Griffyn]

Mindfever wrote:

Ok so absent Smite is there a better ranged option other than Paladin (or rather Champion) there will lay out heavy damage?

The most damaging ranged build metas right now are:

1 - Magus MC Psychic (L6 get the imaginary weapon cantrip to amp it on spell strikes) with the starlight span hybrid study.

2 - Fighter MC Psychic MC Eldritch Archer using the same above tactic but on a chassis with +2 to hit.

3 - Fighter MC Ranger (use horngali hornbow and hunt prey/hunted shot/far shot/point blank stance/gravity bow).

4 - Precision Ranger with bear animal companion using support feature.

5 - Flurry Ranger with bear animal companion using support feature.

6 - Fighter MC Student of Perfection MC Jalmeri Heavenseeker MC Monk MC Cleric

7 - Monk MC Student of Perfection MC Jalmeri Heavenseeker MC Cleric

In general the horngali hornbow is best (unless you need to use a monk weapon for heavenseeker). The biggest portion of damage from the bow that most people don't account for is the deadly trait. That is why fighters are typically the best bow users because a +2 to hit can really trigger the deadly trait and increase DPR calculations. Otherwise pumping out 4 shots a turn is more damaging then 2 or 3, but only the fighter really has a chance of landing a -10MAP attack so the DPR increase on other martial classes tends to be quite low (flurry ranger excluded because it the MAP progressively gets lower). Monk with ki strike can have some pretty awesome turns but you have to sit in monastic archer stance to flurry of blows with the monk bow. The precision ranger is weirdly slept on by everyone but optimizers and it really lets you achieve a better DPR than flurry without having to spend every available action shooting arrows. Its nice to just hunted shot once and have a 2nd or 3rd action to play with.

[Gortle]

Mindfever wrote:

So can anyone give me some suggestions as to how I might build something like my old Paladin usnde4 5he current rules system?

Just play a Champion Paladin with a composite Short Bow. The feats you want are

Lvl 1 Ranged Reprisal
Lvl 2 Cavalier Dedication
At level 3 your divine ally should be your weapon
Level 4 Impressive Mount then maybe Quick Mount
Level 6 Smite Evil
Level 10 Radiant Blade Spirit

Smite Evil has limits and is not as strong as you are used to as it only affects evil creatures. But it can still work well in many campaigns.

Yes it is worth while getting side tracked into a Rangers Gravity Weapon and some of the other suggestions here. But only if you have the feats for it.

What the other suggestions here have set aside, is that you are a Champion still and will be getting regular use out of Ranged Reprisal as a Reaction. This will often be an extra attack in a turn with no MAP penalty. So you will be better than them in damage output and you are still in your theme. Yes it is short range.

Halfling Luck is a free action so it is not clashing with your reaction use.

Note that Mounted Defenses apply to most attacks except from above, so you will have a more or less permanent +1 cricumstance bonus to AC

The simple Champion works straight away. At level 1 you will need to be riding a normal mount that you bought at the market.

For alternative actions to be done instead of making more attacks at a full MAP penalty. Take the Intimidation skill and Demoralise, also think about Lay on Hands and Battle Medicine.

Those other builds are still worth considering if you want to be more of an archer. Especially if you are OK with just being a Multiclass Champion, as you can pick up the champions reaction and the ranged reprisal feat reasonably.

[Claxon]

Something to keep in mind is mechanics changed drastically between PF1 and PF2. Asking for the same mechanics simply isn't possible.

But a mounted paladin type character using a bow is.

[breithauptclan]

Claxon wrote:

Something to keep in mind is mechanics changed drastically between PF1 and PF2.

Most notably in this case, Paladin in PF1 I have heard was a big damage dealer. In PF2 Good aligned Champions including Paladin are the kings of tanking and protection. They aren't the huge damage dealers that they were previously.

So you can convert with preference to character flavor and go with a mounted bow wielding Paladin.

Or convert with mechanics in mind and pick a higher damage ranged weapon class like Fighter, Magus, or Ranger. You can pick up archetypes in order to try and recapture some of that lost flavor.

[Claxon]

Mindfever wrote:

Hey folks, I just came back to Pathfinder and have started playing 2e for the first time.

I'm struggling with the system because, while I have been told I can build whatever I want, the mechanics are there to support some of the older character themes that I enjoyed with PF 1.

For example, I used to run a Halfing Divine Hunter Paladin that rode around on a War Dog and lobbed arrows augmented with Smite at the baddies whilst leaning heavily into the Luck style spells and traits that made Halfings so much fun.

However, I dont seem to be able to build something similar in PF 2.

Now I will stress that I am very new to this rules system and most of my knowledge comes from playing and reading through a few of the class descriptions that I have been interested in.

So can anyone give me some suggestions as to how I might build something like my old Paladin usnde4 5he current rules system?

So to expand on my earlier statement, getting the same kind of mechanics wont be possible, but it is possible to get similar flavor. Whether the mechanics of that flavor fits you liking is another question.

For instance, you can be a halfling and there is a whole chain of luck related ancestry feats. You have halfling luck, guiding lucl, halfling ingenuity, incredible luck, and shared luck.

So it doesn't come all at once, and takes up basically all your ancestry feats you will get but you can lean hard into the flavor of being a lucky halfling.

There are plenty of ways to get mounts. Champions (LG version is called paladin) can choose them as a class feature. Now when it comes to animal companions as mounts you can either have one with the mount feature (which is really just the horse, can't recall if there are others) or you can go with your thematic riding dog. The issue being that companions that are being ridden without the mount feature can't use their support ability (which is often better than attacking with them) in the same turn that the move, and they can't be ridden while using a move type other than land based movement. Many people find it....annoying but it's still feasible to ride your dog.

Lastly, champions don't get much that works with archery. You'll probably want to use some class feats to pick up the archer dedication and spec into archery.

Mechanically it's not going to be anything like your old character, but thematically you can get there.

[Mindfever]

Thanks for all of the input folks. There's a lot there to look at and delve into