D&D 4E [4e] Paladin (feat) advice needed

Hey all. I'm very happily back to gaming in 4e again, but I'm looking for some advice do to a slightly unusual situation.

My DM is a self-avowed grognard/old-school type who found some 4e books for dirt cheap, thought, "Hey, I wonder what all the fuss was about, and I can do a Let's Read of it as I do." Some issues of phrasing ("ignore the X, get to the FUN (where FUN = combat!!)" aside, he was rather pleased with what he found, and decided to run a campaign to put the system through its paces and such. But he has one big caveat for us (at least for the time being):

Only PHB1 and PHB2 resources. No *Power, no Dragon mag, no PHB3, no Eberron or Dark Sun or features pioneered/starting there (like Themes), no PHB Races stuff. This is of course a little awkward for me, playing a Dragonborn Paladin. Lots of the best Pally support was in DP, and lots of the best Dragonborn stuff is PHBR/Dragon material. I don't at all want to challenge the limit, he has perfectly valid reasons (that I can agree with, even) for it and I have no interest in being That Guy who whines because he can't get the superultrabest "official" content. (I'm already potentially pushing it as it is--DM has said he loves to see mounts used in his campaigns, so I'm trying to see if he'll let me steal the Call Celestial Steed power at level 6, should we make it that far. Here's hoping!)

But anyway, that also means that a lot of the best advice floating around out there--Litigation's guide, for example--is a little more difficult to use, particularly for feats. So as an opening question (since I've already made the character and thus all the basic choices are out of the way):

We just hit level 2, and I need Athletics training badly. Even if my Strength were the highest it could be, I'd still be scraping a 0 Athletics because of plate+shield armor check penalties, and due to the setting (soft sci-fi/sci-fantasy on an ocean planet) Athletics checks are bound to come up a lot. Is the standard (PHB) Fighter MC feat bad enough that I should look elsewhere? Perhaps Barbarian? We could use a little more offensive oomph, as our party is very support-heavy: Paladin (me), Wizard with Cleric multiclass feat, Bard, Shaman, Ranger.

Also: whether or not it's within the PHB 1/2 limit, does anyone know of anything that can reduce the check penalty of armor?

Student of the Sword (PH, multiclass Fighter) is... OK, not great. A free +1 is a free +1, and automatically marking a target is better than nothing. Unfortunately it's a generic mark, not a Divine Challenge, so it does nothing for you as a paladin.

Student of Battle (PH, multiclass Warlord) might be a little better. It gives you a skill training from the Warlord list, which includes Athletics. Also a 1/day inspiring word.

Berserker's Fury (PH2, multiclass Barbarian) also gives a skill training, but has higher prerequisites (Str 13 *and* Con 13... which you probably have anyway, heh). Its +2 damage for one encounter per day is pretty solid.

Armor Finesse is the feat to remove the armor check penalty, but unfortunately it's from the Heroes of... books.

Honestly, though, if you're the Cha-paladin? It's not your job to make Athletics checks. You suck 'em up when they happen.

I'd look at Warrior of the Wild for a few reasons:
It gets you Athletics as a class skill option.
It gives you Quarry, which is some reasonably easy to access damage. +7/14/21 front loaded damage over the course of a combat is good damage for PHB only. Divine Challenge your target, Quarry them, then charge.
Str 13 ought to be easy.
It opens up Disruptive Strike as a power swap via Novice Power - someone makes a melee attack against you, you get to try to smack them.

But, I'd also point out something here - as a Paladin, something you're going to want is the ability to make a melee basic attack. Charging is a great option for Paladins when they get option constrained because of Divine Challenge. So you're going to want to invest in Str/Cha and keep investing in them.

MwaO said:

But, I'd also point out something here - as a Paladin, something you're going to want is the ability to make a melee basic attack.

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That's a great point -- of course the PH/PH2 only paladin does not have Virtuous Strike which is the usual Cha-paladin MBA answer.

Thus you'll want to be Str/Cha anyway (which, of course, dragonborn is perfect for) instead of Cha/Con or whatever.

You can never have too many Healing powers. Just sayin'.

Actually you can. Those who run an optimized game will tell you that most combats should run in the range of 3 - 4 rounds and resources spent on boosting healing rather than taking down monsters quicker or preventing hits that require healing in the first place beyond those parameters are traps.

darkbard said:

Actually you can. Those who run an optimized game will tell you that most combats should run in the range of 3 - 4 rounds and resources spent on boosting healing rather than taking down monsters quicker or preventing hits that require healing in the first place beyond those parameters are traps.

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Right. For a Paladin in a core-only game, they have a couple of issues:
Divine Challenge isn't particularly spectacular. It is a mark that for the most part, DMs should ignore once they get to high heroic unless something else is going on - 7-8 points of damage isn't that great when the expectation is about 20-30 hp of damage a round. Divine Sanction is really good because there are a couple of 'close burst 3 Divine Challenge everyone until end of next turn' powers that are obvious choices. Doing 7-8 damage to one target isn't a big deal. Doing 7-8 damage to half the encounter really shortens the length of an encounter.

Given it isn't spectacular, monsters have two ways of getting to do what they want - shift/charge or use ranged attack or move/do whatever they want. On a melee monster, they probably want to use move/big encounter power. If you have a good MBA, you make them want to instead do shift/charge for melee basic. Or you punish them for using their best option, shortening the combat.

i.e. you want to establish a catch-22 - attack me or have bad things happen. The stronger both sides are of the equation, the less choices the target has and the less healing the party will need as a whole.

darkbard said:

Actually you can. Those who run an optimized game will tell you that most combats should run in the range of 3 - 4 rounds and resources spent on boosting healing rather than taking down monsters quicker or preventing hits that require healing in the first place beyond those parameters are traps.

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Yeah, as long as our Wizard keeps out of trouble, we've got plenty of healing going around right now (2/day Lay on Hands, 1/day Healing Word, 2/enc Healing Spirit, 2/enc Majestic Word.) Going for anything heavier support focus than I am naturally as a Paladin seems unwise.

The bigger issue, at least as I foresee it, is that we've only got the one striker, and IIRC he's all about the ranged combat. Having a Valor Bard certainly helps, but I worry fights may drag especially as we gain levels. Hunter's Quarry for two rounds per encounter could be good...though beyond that it seems a little wan, as most melee Ranger powers are meant for dual-wielders (which I'm not.) Barbarian has some nice powers sprinkled over many levels, and +2 damage to every damage roll for a single encounter seems like it could be on par with the Ranger feat (especially since, at least with the few sessions we've had thus far, there haven't been too many encounters per day yet). Both get me the skill training I'm looking for, so it's mostly a matter of what the per-day and long-run benefits would be. Fighter makes me a better tank, of course, and potentially opens the option of juicy paragon paths later down the line--there's the possibility that restrictions on non-PHB1/2 options will be relaxed once we get to higher levels (since things get a little gonzo in Paragon and Epic anyway ).

Anyway, useful food for thought thus far, so thanks for that!

Also, on the subject of pushing both sides, I'm definitely doing that. It's left me with some slightly low prime stats at first level (16) because I value my secondary stats, but with Valiant Strike buoying my hit chance and strict adherence to +Str/Cha as I level it should work out just fine.

Disruptive Strike is weapon-independent, doesn't conflict with Divine Challenge or Opportunity Attacks and tends to do both damage and negate an attack. It is awesome. Melee monster swings at you and you hit him before he gets a chance to hit you - if you hit him, you just reduced his attack roll by 3+wis...great catch-22 for a core-only Paladin - attack me and take damage or don't attack me and take damage...

MwaO said:

Disruptive Strike is weapon-independent, doesn't conflict with Divine Challenge or Opportunity Attacks and tends to do both damage and negate an attack. It is awesome. Melee monster swings at you and you hit him before he gets a chance to hit you - if you hit him, you just reduced his attack roll by 3+wis...great catch-22 for a core-only Paladin - attack me and take damage or don't attack me and take damage...

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Yes, that's definitely a keeper--and mentioned in Litigation's guide for those reasons. That said, such concerns are for at least a couple levels down the line at present. I'm still leaning toward Barbarian, but some of the options opened up by Fighter, even PHB-only, are tempting. Has anyone tried any of the three themselves? That is, MC Fighter/Barb/Ranger--even without the source restriction, I'd be interested to hear how others have made use of it.

Also, my DM was cool with me sort of winging it for this session, taking the skill training and just holding off on whatever MC feat benefits I'd get (probably because that's equivalent to just taking a Skill Training feat anyway)--and boy howdy was that Athletics training useful! We had two skill challenges tonight and I used Athletics twice in both, to great effect.