"Cleaner" post-DP Paladin?

[Garthanos]

Interestingly I have good storylines and character concepts for paladins (Defender Agents of the gods for Whom Laying on hands doesnt work - there secondary tends towards strikerish like the Avenging paladin was supposed to be)... and the Straladin (Strength Wisdom paladin now works!!!) -- Baladin can be an Awesome Challenger too... so we are looking at lots of builds and character concepts that were enabled.

Overtly complex / hard to track duo or even treble marking mechanics are my primary concern and criticism....

 

[keterys]

You can make some of the PHB paladin at-wills into basics with domain feats, if you're really looking for that.

At a certain point, WotC isn't going to want to completely revise existing material, and instead move forward. I think they did a very good job on the paladin in Divine Power, all told.

Personally, I'd have rather made the paladin single stat entirely and made some other tweaks, but I was able to play a paladin post-DP and wasn't pre-DP so yay?

 

[CapnZapp]

Because Divine Sanction is meant to be in addition to Divine Challenge. You're not supposed to concentrate on handling lots of enemies at once; you're supposed to concentrate on one enemy (your DC target), and have the ability to temporarily mark another enemy, when you really need to. You're still a one-on-one defender, you just have the option to handle a few more when things get really hairy.


Because being used as a basic attack is a useful ability. Just adding new things onto old things is generally a bad idea; it's a major part of power creep. You have to balance powers, especially at-wills. If you allow all Paladin at-wills to be used as basics, it drastically increases the usefulness of those powers, which makes them better than other people's at-wills.


Again, you can't just add on new things to an old thing without increasing its power level. Letting you use Ardent Vow, Virtue's Touch AND Lay on Hands would give you a huge set of abilities for no extra cost. And changing/mixing them together is even more of a "kludge" than just tossing in some new options for your players.

Sorry, I didn't make it clear my questions were rhetorical.

But now that you've replied, let me set you straight.

#1. Your first answer is a circle argument. Divine Sanction is okay because it was designed that way? And how does the ability to sanction others fix the fact that challenge isn't sticky enough?

#2. You're correct. Except that the new paladin at wills aren't that different from the old ones. Assuming you agree the new at-wills are balanced visavi other classes; adding basic attacks to the old ones won't change that balance much. However, both approaches will make Chaladins far more viable!

#3. I disagree it is a "kludge" to fix what's there instead of just abandoning old stuff and replacing it with new shiny (expensive) books. And I wasn't suggesting you just add Ardent Strike and Virtuous Touch to the PHB Paladin. I was expecting WotC to rebalance Lay on Hands in a way that allowed the new features to be additions, not replacements. (One idea is to make Lay on Hands into an encounter power instead of several dailies. The way you no longer can spam all your Lay on Hands in the first encounter should register as a nerf - possibly enough of a nerf to add in Virtuous Touch? And if you say you can do EITHER Lay on Hands OR Ardent Strike once per encounter perhaps that takes care of including that one too)


But generally, all of this is beside the issue. This thread isn't about discussing whether WotC's approach is right or wrong; it's about coming up with alternatives that doesn't require a constant stream of new book purchases. (Specifically for the PHB Paladin, I might add)

 

[Nytmare]

But generally, all of this is beside the issue. This thread isn't about discussing whether WotC's approach is right or wrong; it's about coming up with alternatives that doesn't require a constant stream of new book purchases. (Specifically for the PHB Paladin, I might add)

Wasn't a 4E design goal to not have character creation traps? I remember some kind of conversation about system mastery and how in 3rd Ed taking toughness was supposed to be a punishment for not knowing how to play the game correctly.

That's more of the problem I have with fixing things by making new, different abilities instead of old, errata'd abilities. It creates pitfalls for players who don't know any better.

 

[CapnZapp]

Amen.

It's apparent that WotC wants the universal solution to all character woes to be "buy another book". Not all gamers subscribe to that kind of errata process, however.

Nevertheless; this thread is supposed to be about adding enough DP-inspired features to the PHB Paladin to not make the class a trap.

 

[silverwhisper]

capnzapp quoth:
i believe we're having a misunderstanding. i'm not dissatisfied with the end results; i'm dissatisfied with the path taken to get there!

uh, oops? obviously, i misread. :>

i like your revisions re: divine challenge and lay on hands. those both seem sensible.

i continue to believe that virtue's touch may tread too close to cleric/leader than defender. i know, it's a secondary role for paladins, but that's the only explanation i can think of.