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Paladin: Why Are They Often Considered Highly Powerful?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 7272627" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>A cleric who wants to do full damage with attacks has to invest in Strength, which is not otherwise very useful for a cleric; a wizard who wants a strong AC has to invest in Dexterity, which comes at the cost of investing in Constitution (probably the wizard's second most important stat after Int). And pity the poor bladelock.</p><p></p><p>Paladins are in the "martial club" of classes who get strong AC and full damage without having to pay a price outside their primary stat. Of course, the martial club has several other members; the point is that this is a strong baseline to start from.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is kind of missing the point. Of course you don't smite on every hit - you'd run out of spell slots very fast if you did. But when you're up against the Big Boss and you need to do <em>all the damage</em>, you can nova so hard it makes the wizard jealous. Furthermore, if you have a source of advantage, you're likely to crit at least once per fight, and you can choose to throw a top-level slot into that crit <em>after</em> you see the 20.</p><p></p><p>That does leave the question of how to reliably get advantage against a boss monster, though... oh, what's that you say? There's a paladin subclass that lets you give yourself advantage against one target for the entire fight? Well then.</p><p></p><p>And then you add the passive abilities - most especially the saving throw bonus, which is just nuts - and the assorted minor powers. It all adds up. What you end up with is a class that can stand nearly level with the fighter on an ongoing basis ("martial club" baseline plus save bonus, healing, assorted minor abilities), and then add the ability to Smite Nova. And your favored secondary stat is highly useful in noncombat situations.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 7272627, member: 58197"] A cleric who wants to do full damage with attacks has to invest in Strength, which is not otherwise very useful for a cleric; a wizard who wants a strong AC has to invest in Dexterity, which comes at the cost of investing in Constitution (probably the wizard's second most important stat after Int). And pity the poor bladelock. Paladins are in the "martial club" of classes who get strong AC and full damage without having to pay a price outside their primary stat. Of course, the martial club has several other members; the point is that this is a strong baseline to start from. This is kind of missing the point. Of course you don't smite on every hit - you'd run out of spell slots very fast if you did. But when you're up against the Big Boss and you need to do [I]all the damage[/I], you can nova so hard it makes the wizard jealous. Furthermore, if you have a source of advantage, you're likely to crit at least once per fight, and you can choose to throw a top-level slot into that crit [I]after[/I] you see the 20. That does leave the question of how to reliably get advantage against a boss monster, though... oh, what's that you say? There's a paladin subclass that lets you give yourself advantage against one target for the entire fight? Well then. And then you add the passive abilities - most especially the saving throw bonus, which is just nuts - and the assorted minor powers. It all adds up. What you end up with is a class that can stand nearly level with the fighter on an ongoing basis ("martial club" baseline plus save bonus, healing, assorted minor abilities), and then add the ability to Smite Nova. And your favored secondary stat is highly useful in noncombat situations. [/QUOTE]
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Paladin: Why Are They Often Considered Highly Powerful?
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