Dragonborn Paladin "Pre-gen"

Because no one else seems to have done it yet....

I almost tried to mock up a Warlord instead, but I decided against it because we don't have enough info as of yet, and also I decided that I wanted to remake an old, beloved 3.5 character of mine (actually a Half-Dragon/Human and a Cleric/Fighter, but close enough!)

All info on Dragonborn (obviously) comes from the most recent scoop, and the Paladin stats are from the PHB Lite, version 1.3 of ENworld fame. I assume that everyone will be familiar with those

Please comment and critique! As we know (and the PHB Lite acknowledges) much of the info on how Powers and Skills and such work is reverse-engineering of the highest degree. So any help you can provide to refine this rough sketch is most appreciated!

So without further ado, I present my bold attempt at a 4e Dragonborn Paladin:

[sblock]Dragonborn Paladin(1)

Ability Scores (using 32 pt. buy and the 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 9 point array)
STR 16 (+3)
CON 14 (+2)
DEX 10 (0)
INT 9 (-1)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 18 (+4)

Hit Points = 33 (Bloodied 16)
Healing Surges = 8 HP - 12/day

Armor Class = 20
Fortitude = 14
Reflex = 12
(13? I'm not sure that Paladin really ought to get +1 Reflex as PHB Lite suggests, might be Halfling racial feature or size modifier instead)
Will = 15
Initiative: +0
Speed: 5 squares

Basic Attacks
Longsword - +5 vs. AC - 1d8+3 - Versatile
Throwing hammer - +5 vs. AC - 1d6+3 - as a melee attack
Throwing hammer - +2 vs. AC - 1d6+3 - 5/10 range
(assuming I still add Strength to damage when thrown)

Skills (*Trained)
Passive Insight 11
Passive Perception 11
-4 Acrobatics
-1 Athletics
+9 Diplomacy*
+7 Endurance*
+1 Heal
+6 History*
+1 Insight
+6 Intimidate
+1 Perception
+4 Religion*
-4 Stealth

Feats
Toughness: 3+level Bonus hit points. (Does this definitely alter Bloodied and Healing Surge HP as well? I have assumed so above)

Racial Abilities
Skill Bonuses: +2 History and Intimidate
Dragonborn Fury: When bloodied, you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls
Draconic Heritage (???)
Dragon Breath: Breath weapon as minor action, Encounter
Languages: Common and Draconic
Normal Vision

Class Features
Channel Divinity: Divine Mettle or Divine Strength; Encounter
Divine Challenge: see Prayers
Lay on Hands: see Prayers


Gear
Longsword, Heavy Shield, Plate armor, 2 throwing hammers, holy symbol, backpack, bedroll, flint and steel, belt pouch, 2 sunrods, 10 day's trail rations, 50 ft. of hempen rope, waterskin
(Just the Halfling Paladin's gear swapping Longsword for the Shortsword)
[/sblock]

At-Will/Encounter/Daily Powers in next post!

Prayers

At-Will
[sblock]Bolstering Strike - Paladin Attack 1
At-Will [] Divine, Weapon
Standard Action [] Melee Weapon
Target: One Creature
Attack: +6 (Cha) vs. AC
Hit: 1d8+4 damage, and you gain 4 (Guessing Cha mod?) temporary hit points.

Holy Strike - Paladin Attack 1
At-Will [] Divine, Radiant, Weapon
Standard Action [] Melee Weapon
Target: One Creature
Attack: +5 (Str) vs. AC
Hit: 1d8+3 radiant damage. If you marked the target you gain a +4 bonus to the damage roll.

Lay on Hands - Paladin Feature
At-Will(Special) [] Divine, Healing
Special: You can use this power 3 (or maybe Cha modifier, so 4?) times per day, but only once per round.
Minor Action [] Melee Touch
Target: One Creature
Effect: You spend a healing surge but gain no benefit. The target regains hit points as if it had spent a healing surge.

Divine Challenge - Paladin Feature
At-Will [] Divine, Radiant
Minor Action [] Close burst 5
Target: One creature in burst
Effect: You mark the target. The target remains
marked until you use this power against another
target. If you mark other creatures using other
powers, the target is still marked. A creature can be
subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark
supersedes a mark that was already in place.
If the target makes an attack that doesn’t include
you as a target, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls
and takes 8 (5 + Cha for 9 maybe?) radiant damage.

“You must be actively engaging or moving to engage the marked
creature in melee combat or the mark fades at the end
of your turn.” (PHB Lite, I don't think we know the new actual rule)[/sblock]

Encounter Powers
[sblock]Shielding Smite - Paladin Attack 1
Encounter [] Divine, Weapon
Standard Action [] Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: +6 (Cha) vs. AC
Hit: 2d8+4 damage.
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, one ally
within 5 squares of you gains a +4 power bonus
to AC.

Dragon Breath - Racial Power
Encounter [] Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning or Poison
Minor Action [] Area blast 3
Target: All creatures in blast
Attack: Strength +2 vs. Reflex
Hit: 1d8+2 damage of the selected type.

Channel Divinity: Divine Mettle - Paladin Feature
Encounter [] Divine
Special: You can use divine mettle or divine
strength once per encounter, but not two or more of
these in the same encounter.
Minor Action [] Close burst 10
Target: One creature in burst
Effect: The target makes a saving throw with a +4(?) bonus.

Channel Divinity: Divine Strength - Paladin Feature
Encounter [] Divine
Special: You can use divine mettle or divine
strength once per encounter, but not two or more of
these in the same encounter.
Minor Action [] Personal
Effect: Gain +2 to damage on your next attack this
turn.[/sblock]

Daily Powers
[sblock]On Pain of Death - Paladin Attack 1
Daily [] Divine, Implement
Standard Action [] Ranged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: +4 (Cha) vs. Will
Hit: 3d8+4 damage. Once per round, the
target takes 1d8 damage after making any attacks
on its turn (save ends).
Miss: Half damage. Once per round, the target
takes 1d4 damage after making any attacks on its
turn (save ends).
[/sblock]

So... anybody know of any good 4e Play by Posts about to start up?

I think the throwing hammer is +5 attack as melee and +2 ranged since it seems to a Proficient 2 weapon.

Lurker59 said:

I think the throwing hammer is +5 attack as melee and +2 ranged since it seems to a Proficient 2 weapon.

Click to expand...

Ah, thank you! I must not have been paying very good attention when I got to that part, looks like I just took a -1 hit to what it was from the Halfling without realizing it should be different in Melee and Ranged. It's changed in the sheet.

Shielding Smite is probably the renamed Safeguard Smite from the Paladin Smites article, so it should grant your Wisdom bonus to AC (+1 in this instance).

Safeguard Smite
Paladin 1
Encounter • Weapon
Standard Action
Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. AC
Hit: 2x[W] + Cha.
Hit or Miss: An ally within 5 squares gains a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn.

Click to expand...

The following are just guesses on my part:

I'm guessing that Divine Challenge deals 5 + Charisma bonus radiant damage to a marked opponent who makes an attack that does not include you as a target, so it should deal 9 damage in this instance.

I'm also guessing that you can use Lay on Hands a number of times per day equal to your Charisma bonus, or 4 times in this instance.

FireLance said:

Shielding Smite is probably the renamed Safeguard Smite from the Paladin Smites article, so it should grant your Wisdom bonus to AC (+1 in this instance).

Click to expand...

Very nice catch Firelance, I didn't notice the name-change and just copied what I saw from the PHB Lite. Thanks for the notice

The following are just guesses on my part:

I'm guessing that Divine Challenge deals 5 + Charisma bonus radiant damage to a marked opponent who makes an attack that does not include you as a target, so it should deal 9 damage in this instance.

I'm also guessing that you can use Lay on Hands a number of times per day equal to your Charisma bonus, or 4 times in this instance.

Click to expand...

Weee good intuition all around. I've noted the possible variants for these abilities by bolding and italicizing them above, not sure how we can approach these questions until we see the actual Class write-up though... I'm tempted to put my money on Lay on Hands being a set number of times a day (3) simply for balance. I could well be wrong.

Hey, somebody should keep track of all the stuff we've been finding about the Paladin class and let the PHB Lite fellas know!

Didn't someone official say that the real version of the paladin's ability didn't deal damage?

Nytmare said:

Didn't someone official say that the real version of the paladin's ability didn't deal damage?

Click to expand...

If so I would definitely love to see the scoop because that is definitely news to me. The last I'd heard there had been some kind of modification to the power. That link goes to the ENworld discussion of Keith Baker's blog post re: his Dragonborn Paladin in a Rob Heinsoo-run campaign. Go to the 3rd-ish page for in-depth discussion (as well as KB's additional remarks) concerning Paladin Challenges. His latest post on the ENworld thread is dated April 1st.

As the Challenge is worded now on the char sheet, I'm using the "guesstimation" text from the PHB Lite.

Pretty sure the paladin gets +1 to all three defenses, and I'm pretty sure the heavy armor would make your speed 5, to answer your unsure questions.

Also, as you;ve selected strangth for the Dragon breath, you also have to select a TYPE. It's not up to the dragon to select his breath weapon per encounter, it's up to the player to select what type of breath weapon the character has. I'm also of the mind that the draconic heritage would give the dragon resist that type equal to it's constitution bonus.

Fitz

FitzTheRuke said:

Pretty sure the paladin gets +1 to all three defenses, and I'm pretty sure the heavy armor would make your speed 5, to answer your unsure questions.

Fitz

Click to expand...

For the question about Defenses, why is that necessarily so? Every other class receives a total of base +2 to their Defenses (either two +1s or a single +2). The exception is the Ranger who has been reverse-engineered to have an extra point to Will, which IMO is probably more an Eladrin racial bonus than anything. Since we haven't seen either Halfling or Eladrin racial write-ups (or know what Small size modifier means in 4e for that matter) I don't think we have any real info on this aside from the reverse-engineers who have contributed PHB Lite, and so I'm merely suggesting that it may be racial or some kind of size modifier instead. I just think that makes much more sense for a system that is showing every sign of having (nearly) unified class progressions/abilities.

The trend of "balancing" classes by use of Better or Worse save/BAB/other arbitrary mathematical differences is, it seems to me, going away in 4e.


I've "fixed" the Movement speed at 5 though, that seems like a pretty sure bet overall.

Thanks for all the replies so far!