I actually love all the classes, and as DM it's up to me to forge the story to accommodate my players enjoyment of the game within the confines of the rules, and since I can do anything I want in a campaign world I don't feel like I'm handcuffed really in doing so. But that being said, screw paladins. At least when you've got Fiends and Undead on the menu as the bad guys for your adventure.
Since most of the people I game with including myself have busy lives now that we are well into adulthood, it gets tough to get us all together for a session. So, I started running a side solo campaign for my twin brother. It's a lot of fun, and solo campaigns are nice in that you don't have to worry about the needs of 4-6 people at the same time, you can build a fantastic story around just one protagonist, make them the son of a god, the last of the Jedi, whatever. A lot of creative freedom in that. He plays a pretty well rounded bladelock with a strong mix of combat and non combat utility, charms, CHA based skills, stealth, give me ample opportunity make adventures happen.
But then his roommate wanted to play. Roommate is also an old friend, but never played DND, and I said sure because we all like bringing folks into the fold. He rolls his very first DND character, a paladin, and the gods of beginners luck on 4D6 dropping the lowest saw fit to give his first character some insane stats. With racial and level advancement(12th at the time to match my brothers Warlock), he ended up having a 20 in STR, CHA, AND CON. He's basically Dwayne Johnson. No problem, crazy high stats affect a lot, but I'm DM, I can always adjust for that to keep things interesting.
Of course, being the Dresden Files fanboi that I am, the current story arc was around a group of vampires in the city taking things over, with an evil mad scientist(Warlock of Old Ones) who makes dead things come to life, sort of a Victor Frankenstein, meaning lots of ghouls and such. Basically undead. Turns out without their charm ability, facing a guy who has radiant damage on his weapon all the time, who can do tons of bonus smite damage, who can also use Protection from Evil, vampires are pretty damn useless in a straight fight. Adding his saving throws to my brother's warlock is crazy huge too. We worked around it, all had fun and still are.
But I did throw in a section on one adventure where they end goal was guarded by a Death Knight. I figured they wouldn't do a straight up fight on it as they had a method to bypass it as a guarding and just wrap up the adventure, so even though they had just been through one deadly fight, they hatted up and decided to take out the death knight. They were 13 at the time, and I even let the death knight buff itself a bit before. Paladin opens up the fight with not one, but two crits with his flaming warhammer. Standard hit for him is 2D8 + 2D6(flaming) + bonuses. So (4D8 + 4d6 + Bonuses) x 2. Dropped it to half HP in the first round, sigh. They killed it. They got a bit lucky, but even without the crits they probably had it in the bag with the paladin there. In fact, he didn't even use his Divine Smite yet. Had he used his 4th level slots on those crits he might have just dropped it outright.
So yea, Paladins make having undead and fiends as your bad guys a lot tougher. So, this is not a claim to nerf any class, or a legit complaint about game balancing, I'm just saying. DM venting a little steam.
Since most of the people I game with including myself have busy lives now that we are well into adulthood, it gets tough to get us all together for a session. So, I started running a side solo campaign for my twin brother. It's a lot of fun, and solo campaigns are nice in that you don't have to worry about the needs of 4-6 people at the same time, you can build a fantastic story around just one protagonist, make them the son of a god, the last of the Jedi, whatever. A lot of creative freedom in that. He plays a pretty well rounded bladelock with a strong mix of combat and non combat utility, charms, CHA based skills, stealth, give me ample opportunity make adventures happen.
But then his roommate wanted to play. Roommate is also an old friend, but never played DND, and I said sure because we all like bringing folks into the fold. He rolls his very first DND character, a paladin, and the gods of beginners luck on 4D6 dropping the lowest saw fit to give his first character some insane stats. With racial and level advancement(12th at the time to match my brothers Warlock), he ended up having a 20 in STR, CHA, AND CON. He's basically Dwayne Johnson. No problem, crazy high stats affect a lot, but I'm DM, I can always adjust for that to keep things interesting.
Of course, being the Dresden Files fanboi that I am, the current story arc was around a group of vampires in the city taking things over, with an evil mad scientist(Warlock of Old Ones) who makes dead things come to life, sort of a Victor Frankenstein, meaning lots of ghouls and such. Basically undead. Turns out without their charm ability, facing a guy who has radiant damage on his weapon all the time, who can do tons of bonus smite damage, who can also use Protection from Evil, vampires are pretty damn useless in a straight fight. Adding his saving throws to my brother's warlock is crazy huge too. We worked around it, all had fun and still are.
But I did throw in a section on one adventure where they end goal was guarded by a Death Knight. I figured they wouldn't do a straight up fight on it as they had a method to bypass it as a guarding and just wrap up the adventure, so even though they had just been through one deadly fight, they hatted up and decided to take out the death knight. They were 13 at the time, and I even let the death knight buff itself a bit before. Paladin opens up the fight with not one, but two crits with his flaming warhammer. Standard hit for him is 2D8 + 2D6(flaming) + bonuses. So (4D8 + 4d6 + Bonuses) x 2. Dropped it to half HP in the first round, sigh. They killed it. They got a bit lucky, but even without the crits they probably had it in the bag with the paladin there. In fact, he didn't even use his Divine Smite yet. Had he used his 4th level slots on those crits he might have just dropped it outright.
So yea, Paladins make having undead and fiends as your bad guys a lot tougher. So, this is not a claim to nerf any class, or a legit complaint about game balancing, I'm just saying. DM venting a little steam.
