Paladin will slice the cleric, or will the cleric bash the paladin?

[reapersaurus]

Darklone -
At level 1, Divine Might is a WINNER.
It will give the cleric at least a +3 to attack AND damage, if you only have a 16 CHA.
If you give the pally 16 STR, the cleric will just put his 14 to STR.
The best way to show this is to give us a number for point buy, put in the stats, and it will show conclusively that with 2 rounds prep, the cleric will have better attack and damage and AC than the paladin.
Therefore, it's a win.
And Divine Might IS a free action. It's official, the last FAQ I know of.

 

[LokiDR]

Re: Re: Paladin will slice the cleric, or will the cleric bash the paladin?

Loki - I see the roblem.
You are concentrating on the last paragraph of greyscale's initial post, while I and many others are concentrating on the first paragraph.

Further, you INTERPRET that "well-designed" characters means "fitting their role well."

That's a cheat.

Ok, lets debate what "well-designed" means. Putting a low stat in wisdom on a cleric is not well designed. Putting a low stat in strength for a paladin likewise is not good design.

Well designed seems to be mean fitting their role well. How else do you account for a cleric who focuses on stealth? If every cleric concept beside combat is not "well designed" I think it is you who are mis-interpreting "well designed".

This, by the way, is a debate. Interpreting information is part of debate. It is not "cheating" as you put it. I am start to feel like I should take this personally.

If YOU define the clerics role to not center on combat, and then compare said cleric to a paladin that's centered on combat, that is being disingenuous.If you artificially restrict the comparison to only core rules, than you are further being manipulative.
Since the core rules include the best feat-string that is advantageous to the paladin (Mounted Combat/Ride-By Attack/Spirited Charge), you change the parameters of the comparison in the paladin's favor.

I say the cleric can be anything he wants to, where the paladin only really shines as a holy warrior. Are you saying this isn't true?

The core rules were the most playtested component of D&D, and can be seen as a whole. The class books, and especially 3rd party materials, can not be evaluated against every other rule. The core rules are the rules that every D&D 3e game includes, so it seems the best for compareson. You can not say the same about R&R.

I just looked up your favorite word, disingenuous. "Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating" or "Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated".

I think have been very straightforward, and I can tell you I have not ignored factors or pretended I didn't know about them. You, however, have.

You have ignored or minmalized every clerical concept other than combat style clerics. You have minimized published material, the iconics. You imply that the core rules are not balanced, as they have a good feat chain for paladins. I think you are being disingenuous.

Originally posted by reapersaurus Further, the iconics are NOT a good comparison.
That is one person's character choices, not mine.
It's quaint and naive to limit the parameters of a argument to only use your inputs (i.e. "must use iconics").
There's nothing 'official' about their stats - just a sample build.

No, I said use published characters of the same level, free from our biases. The fact that you can build a better cleric than a paladin isn't relevant. The fact that a cleric can be min-maxed more than a paladin isn't relevant either.

Unless you want to explore every concept of paladin and cleric, we need some common reference. I am trying to evaluate the set of all paladins and the set of all clerics by looking at a sample. We can examine a different sample that is free of our bias, as I have often said. Or we can look at hundreds and hundreds of clerics and paladins and look for trends.

Personally, I would have thought that any cleric of any level would have trounced a paladin of the same level. The math doesn't support this. Hence I changed my opinion.

My same conclusions still hold: a cleric is more effective and more useful in most situations. Unless the cleric focuses on combat, the paladin should be more effective in combat. In the general case, the paladin has a good chance of winning a combat between the two, but it is not clear cut.

 

[reapersaurus]

you play it your way, i'll play it mine

Well designed seems to be mean fitting their role well. How else do you account for a cleric who focuses on stealth?

umm.. what are you talking about?
Why do you keep bringing up a cleric that is focused on stealth?
I must have missed the point of that.

I say the cleric can be anything he wants to, where the paladin only really shines as a holy warrior. Are you saying this isn't true?

1) Yes, I'm saying that's not true.
The cleric is lmited in what he can do, based on mainly his spells, his skills, and the # of feats & special abilities.
He can not find traps well, he can not cast wizard spells well, he can not be stealthy well, etc. His spells usually open up more flexibility over the paladin, but he is still limited.

2) You have not addressed the weakness of your argument:
Your approach presumes that since a cleric can do more things than the paladin, than a "well-designed" cleric would use resources to be good at those things, while the paladin is free to concentrate solely on what he is good at: fighting.

This is an absurd, self-fulfilling argument.

Following this line of reasoning, than the best class in combat is the simply whatever class has the least out-of-combat options available to them.

THAT, Loki, is a textbook case of being disingenuous: (quoted from Mirraim-Webster online) ( www.m-w.com):
"lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness"

You appear to be breaking it down for us and showing us the way it is, but your simple frankness is covering up your flawed argument.

No, I said use published characters of the same level, free from our biases. The fact that you can build a better cleric than a paladin isn't relevant. The fact that a cleric can be min-maxed more than a paladin isn't relevant either.

Yes, it IS relevant.
In fact, it's the whole point of greyguy's question.

Thanks for proving my point: clerics can and will rock all over paladins in combat, because they can be built better and min-maxed so that they will win in combat.

You're just arguming semantics at this point, and I will not continue if that is all your point is.

P.S. Theres no such this as unbiased, nor is there a way to sample humdreds of paladins and clerics, finding some elusive "sample paladin" and "sample cleric" that we can properly compare here.

There is simply classes, and features of classes.

Bottom line: a cleric can be made to be much better in combat than a paladin.

Question answered.

 

[Artoomis]

Question:

Given two (and only two) rounds to prepare, who will do better, cleric or paladin in a direct confrontation between the two.

Answer: Very, very clearly, the answer is:
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Wait for it.....
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It depends!

 

[Hypersmurf]

At level 1, Divine Might is a WINNER.
It will give the cleric at least a +3 to attack AND damage...

Better read the feat again.

-Hyp.

 

[LokiDR]

Re: you play it your way, i'll play it mine

umm.. what are you talking about?
Why do you keep bringing up a cleric that is focused on stealth?
I must have missed the point of that.

Yes, you have missed the point. The point that clerics can focus their skills/feats/spells into areas other than combat and still be "well designed".

A cleric with trickery and travel domains can be an effective stealth character. Trickery grants Bluff, Disguise, and Hide as class skills, as well as invisiblity as a spell. Travel means fast movement or getaway. The character would use silence to prevent being heard. Cross class skills in search (or the cosmopolitan feat) plus the find traps spell means finding traps is possible. Another feat for disable device, or just use protection spells, and you can get past those traps. Locks in stone don't mean much when you remove the whole lock with a stone shape spell. He still has plenty of spells for healing.

This character is a well designed, but wouldn't fare well in combat with most any paladin.

1) Yes, I'm saying that's not true.
The cleric is lmited in what he can do, based on mainly his spells, his skills, and the # of feats & special abilities.
He can not find traps well, he can not cast wizard spells well, he can not be stealthy well, etc. His spells usually open up more flexibility over the paladin, but he is still limited.

Not as nearly as you seem to believe. I have clerics based on all manor of strange ideas, and many work quite well. All the effective paladin concepts I have seen center on fighting. Different weapons, different styles, but still combat.

2) You have not addressed the weakness of your argument:
Your approach presumes that since a cleric can do more things than the paladin, than a "well-designed" cleric would use resources to be good at those things, while the paladin is free to concentrate solely on what he is good at: fighting.

This is an absurd, self-fulfilling argument.

Given the number of domains, and how many focus on combat, I say there more options that any given well designed cleric will be focused on combat is far less than the chance that any given well designed paladin will focus on combat.

You are not looking at the range of characters built with these classes, only on your narrow fight. You are not evaluating the class, you are evaluating the class in this fight. That is not the entirety of the class the game of D&D, never will be.

Following this line of reasoning, than the best class in combat is the simply whatever class has the least out-of-combat options available to them.

In general, yes.

Who would a fighter to be more effective in combat than a wizard, since there is a good chance the wizard will focus on divination or other non-combat spells.

THAT, Loki, is a textbook case of being disingenuous: (quoted from Mirraim-Webster online) ( www.m-w.com):
"lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness"

You appear to be breaking it down for us and showing us the way it is, but your simple frankness is covering up your flawed argument.

Greyguy asked "and if battle ensued" which means he was NOT talking about these classes only in a battle. I don't think I have misinterpereted anything, and I know I haven't misrepresented what I think in any intentional way.

You keep insulting me, say I have misrepresented myself. I have maintained that I trying evaluate the classes in all situation that may come up. If you have not noticed this, is your misinterpretation. If you are ignoring my criteria for evaluation to bolster your arguement, you are being petulent and off-topic. If you want to debate what the original poster wanted, we can. If you want to debate what is easier or better to powergame, we should have settle that point long ago.

Yes, it IS relevant.
In fact, it's the whole point of greyguy's question.

I have been talking about general members of a party this whole time. I have stated as such in my third post in this thread

Both Alhandra and Jozan were designed to be general members of a party.

Since we seem to be debating what was originally asked, I will put this to you a different way: If greyguy wanted to know who could be tricked out for combat better, why didn't he ask that? Since he didn't, I have to assume he wanted a more general answer.

You persist in calling me names, and twisting this whole debate. I have been as straightforward as I can this whole time. Perhaps you should calm down a bit.

Thanks for proving my point: clerics can and will rock all over paladins in combat, because they can be built better and min-maxed so that they will win in combat.

You're just arguming semantics at this point, and I will not continue if that is all your point is.

The original question was not "who can be min-maxed better for combat". There would have been next to no debate in that case, at least from me. The question was who would be more effective, usefull and if it came to battle, who would win. That, to the best of my abilities, is the question I have been trying to answer looking at all the limits that were placed on the question: the entire game. In the game, there are clerics who don't focus on combat, and this give the paladin an edge. You seem hung up connecting "well designed" with battle. I think you have misunderstood the semantics.

If can't agree on what question we are trying to debate, there can be no useful debate. If you don't care figure out the question, or don't accept what I believe the question is, we either debate the meaning of the question, ask for a clarification, or stop attempting to debate. All else is wasted time.

Since you will not continue trying to determine what the question is, I will leave it up to you about asking clarification or not discussing this any further.

P.S. Theres no such this as unbiased, nor is there a way to sample humdreds of paladins and clerics, finding some elusive "sample paladin" and "sample cleric" that we can properly compare here.

There is simply classes, and features of classes.

Bottom line: a cleric can be made to be much better in combat than a paladin.

Question answered.

You are right, there is no such thing as unbiased. But asking member of this board to make characters is much more biased. The iconics are general examples. You are wrong when you say there is no way to evaluated hundreds of paladins and clerics. I just don't want to go throught the work. Sampling a variety clerics and paladins would allow us to answer the general question of combat prowess between cleric and paladin in general.

Who can powergame more: cleric, hands down. In general, the paladin is better in combat, by a close margin. I think the latter answers the original question better than the former.

 

[reapersaurus]

Loki - I haven't called you names.

I don't agree with your interpretation of what greycastle intended (it's not greyguy - I just used that quickly), and I believe you are completely working on semantics right now, since you agreed that a cleric can be made more powerful in combat than a paladin.

That's my point.

So you are free to disagree and/or debate whatever you like, but I'm done.

 

[LokiDR]

Loki - I haven't called you names.

I don't agree with your interpretation of what greycastle intended (it's not greyguy - I just used that quickly), and I believe you are completely working on semantics right now, since you agreed that a cleric can be made more powerful in combat than a paladin.

That's my point.

So you are free to disagree and/or debate whatever you like, but I'm done.

If you did not intend to insult me, I will take your word for it.

Sorry to greycastle for getting the name wrong. I should be less lazy and look these things up

As for semantics, I thought I was clear when I posted

If we ask members of this board to make a paladin and a cleric, we would make far more powerful characters, I'm sure. If I asked some one who had never played D&D to make a cleric and a paladin, I'm sure they would be worse.

but appearently not. I will try to restate the question ealier next time.

 

[Darklone]

2 rounds preparation? Hahaha. Sorry. No, I don't think that would be fair.

If you give a 1st level cleric time to cast Bless, Divine Favour and perhaps Protection from good and he may activate Divine Might (only bonus to damage, see Hyps post) as free action (which I do not allow, the FAQ wording to me was silly, referred to something else and the divine feat descriptions was pretty clear) while the paladin may twiddle thumbs...

Now let the cleric cast these spells after combat started. IMC, combat usually starts without preparation. Different campaigns may be different though.