D&D 3E/3.5 3.5e NG aligned Paladin-like class?

[Luka]

...Oh wow so much to reply to....

Rangers are only proficient with light armor. Making the Breast Plate out of Mithril makes it go from Medium to Light. I my experience when you start adding armor bonuses and get rings of protection etc, those 3 points difference disappear quickly. And since the Mithiril Breast Plate has a Max Dex bonus of 5 you can crank up your dex and get better benefit than from the full plate anyways.

Um...would giving bonuses and using rings of protection still make Full plate better? it's just that for me breastplates are not cool, full plates are extremely cool to me, it's just my preference on the most armor as possible. But couldn't also then it be a Mithril Full plate of speed? it gives more Dex AC as far I know, and haste.

Tower Shields are sketchy in my opinion, sure you get +2 to AC over the heavy shields, but you take a -2 penalty to hit, which at low levels is significant and the +2 to AC is insignificant at higher levels.

....Well, I'm planning on using this PrC, some people told me it was K even though of were it's from.

Fighter? Knight (PHB2)? Cleric?

Knight's only Lawful, but could think of using Fighter or Cleric..... Cleric still messes my head, not used to having a healer-named Class as a fighter...
I think Fighter would be good, don't know how could it be Paladin-Like though...

There are some prestige classes that you could head for depending on what you mean by Paladin-like: Consecrated Harrier, Divine Crusader, Holy Liberator, Hospitaler, Hunter of the Dead , Justicar, Knight Protector, Knight of the Chalice, Lion of Talisid, Pious Templar, Warpriest.

In general read Complete Divine and consider starting with fighter or knight or cleric and then multiclassing and/or taking a prc.

Check out this useful site for blurbs for most prestige classes.

Thanks! would check them out

[MENTION=6690697]TKDB[/MENTION]
Wait clerics can even Tank?????!
....
What the heck!????

I'm actually not that much into using a mount, it seems like it's gonna need armor too, and I think that would screw up if I charge into someone and get everyone on me, wouldn't it?

Crusader's actually my fav class since it's a tank (I've heard it's the "best" and "only" Tank) and hard and what do you mean it has worse saves? just pump CHA to 18 and CON to 18 too! and Zealous Surge! and I actually really like the maneuvers, it's just like using the Heroic Strike in WoW or a Power Strike in Lineage 2, pretty basic stuff warriors get there so I use them a lot.... That is my very favourite Class

.....But I'm in Core, so then should I get a Cleric? how could I make it work as a Tank? heal spamming?

 

[Dandu]

Divine Power + Righteous Might + Mace to the face

 

[Luka]

Mace? can't it be a longsword too? I like swords

 

[TKDB]

and what do you mean it has worse saves?

Worse than paladin, certainly not bad. The paladin gets his Cha bonus to all saves, whereas the crusader only gets the bonus to Will, plus the paladin has an added incentive to put a few extra points into Wis, which further boosts the Will save. But yeah, crusaders still have pretty good saves, and Zealous Surge and Mettle definitely help in that regard.

.....But I'm in Core, so then should I get a Cleric? how could I make it work as a Tank? heal spamming?

I imagine if your group's ok with you using a homebrew PrC you shouldn't have any issues with non-core classes like crusader, but if your group's policy is core classes only then yeah, cleric's the way to go. As for how to play it as a tank, Dandu basically has it right -- buff up and go to town. Doesn't have to be with a mace, of course
One thing to note is that "tanking" in the typical MMO sense -- get the enemies to focus on you and just soak the hits -- doesn't really tend to work as such in D&D 3.x. It's really hard to get AC to scale as much as attack bonuses do, and there are very, very few ways to "pull aggro". The knight class from PHB2 is about the only way I know of, but that would lock you into a lawful alignment. An AoO-tripper build with reach can more or less accomplish the goal of controlling enemy movements, but only for certain types of enemies; flyers and big enemies will just laugh at you. Stand Still (a feat from XPH) helps, but still only does so much.
Of course, there are plenty of ways to be tough, but that's about as far as "tanking" goes in 3.x. Ultimately, the best defense is a good offense, especially at high levels. Being able to avoid getting hit due to high AC and/or miss chance (a cloak of displacement is pretty much a must at higher levels) is good, but if you're really wanting to prevent damage to the party the best way to do it is to kill the enemy. The fewer turns it's alive, the fewer chances it has to hurt you, and the math generally favors the offensive approach rather than the defensive or healing-centered approach.
Especially the latter. Healing in-combat should generally be an emergency "stabilize the guy who's bleeding out" sort of thing; save the topping off for when you get a breather between fights to sit down with a wand of Lesser Vigor or CLW.

 

[Luka]

An AoO-tripper build with reach can more or less accomplish the goal of controlling enemy movements, but only for certain types of enemies; flyers and big enemies will just laugh at you. Stand Still (a feat from XPH) helps, but still only does so much.

I guess there magic could help too? don't know of a good build for it, would get Stand Still and dunno if it can have Combat Reflexes for tripping with a Reach Weapon, like a Kusari-gama.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to be tough, but that's about as far as "tanking" goes in 3.x. Ultimately, the best defense is a good offense, especially at high levels. Being able to avoid getting hit due to high AC and/or miss chance (a cloak of displacement is pretty much a must at higher levels) is good, but if you're really wanting to prevent damage to the party the best way to do it is to kill the enemy. The fewer turns it's alive, the fewer chances it has to hurt you, and the math generally favors the offensive approach rather than the defensive or healing-centered approach.

I completely disagree with "the best defence is a good offense", I believe in the complete opposite XD
but I've heard actually being a threat is how you get stuff on you, isn't it? I think being a debuff kind of tank could help, like slowing down and tripping and using Stand Still, right? but yeah, the norm is being extremely hard to kill, I don't care about damage, heck STR is my dump stat and my main stat is CON when playing Crusader

 

[TKDB]

I guess there magic could help too? don't know of a good build for it, would get Stand Still and dunno if it can have Combat Reflexes for tripping with a Reach Weapon, like a Kusari-gama.

Yeah, that's pretty much how tripper lockdown builds go. Combat Reflexes + Improved Trip + spiked chain for reach tripping. Add size increases to boost your reach and help you trip more effectively, get Stand Still to help with those foes you can't trip, and that's more or less the core of it.

I completely disagree with "the best defence is a good offense", I believe in the complete opposite XD
but I've heard actually being a threat is how you get stuff on you, isn't it? I think being a debuff kind of tank could help, like slowing down and tripping and using Stand Still, right? but yeah, the norm is being extremely hard to kill, I don't care about damage, heck STR is my dump stat and my main stat is CON when playing Crusader

I actually agree with you in terms of preferred playstyle, but sadly the math favors the aggressive in 3.x. You negate more damage by killing things quicker than you do by pumping your ability to avoid/soak hits.
As for drawing aggro, you can of course assume that the DM will portray the monsters more or less realistically and have them focus on you if you present yourself as a threat worth taking out, but my point is that there's not much you can do to force the issue if the monsters get other ideas. If a monster decides, for whatever reason, to ignore you and focus on another party member, then you don't have many options to prevent that. There's the knight's challenge ability, trip/Stand Still lockdown with AoO, and that's pretty much it. I think there might be some sort of a taunt feat out there somewhere, but IIRC it's pretty wimpy.

Fortunately, 3.x doesn't have all that much need for aggro-pulling tanks, because most classes are reasonably capable of dealing with enemy attention. Rogue-types tend to be mobile and good at running away safely, and a well-prepared arcane caster can have all sorts of tricks up his sleeve to keep out of a monster's clutches.

At the end of the day, high-end optimization is pretty overrated anyway. If what's fun for you is to be the toughest, most unkillable dude there is, then who cares if that's not the most "optimal" way to play the character? Gaming would be pretty boring if everyone only ever played fully optimized characters.

 

[orion90000]

Um...would giving bonuses and using rings of protection still make Full plate better? it's just that for me breastplates are not cool, full plates are extremely cool to me, it's just my preference on the most armor as possible. But couldn't also then it be a Mithril Full plate of speed? it gives more Dex AC as far I know, and haste.

NO, making the Full Plate out of Mithril would only make it Medium Armor, which a ranger isn't proficient with. Granted he could take the Medium Armor Feat and use it. Plus it only makes the Max Dex on the Full Plate to +3. Just buy you some boots of haste or enchant your armor with it.

 

[Luka]

NO, making the Full Plate out of Mithril would only make it Medium Armor, which a ranger isn't proficient with. Granted he could take the Medium Armor Feat and use it. Plus it only makes the Max Dex on the Full Plate to +3. Just buy you some boots of haste or enchant your armor with it.

Well that feat would be worth just for using Full Plate and not Breastplate then XD
Haven't seen how does the Mithril Full plate of speed completely work anyways, but wouldn't enchants still make it give more armor AC than breastplate besides the max DEX? Also as far I know, DEX AC only works when not Flat-Footed, so less than Full plate for me is not worth it given that possibility, even less as a Tank, besides the fact that is not full plate XD
If that doesn't work I'd just get a Cleric like TKDB said then , but can Clerics carry Tower Shields or need a feat for that?

 

[dragonfriend7738]

... can Clerics carry Tower Shields or need a feat for that?

Unless your cleric followed a homebrew diety that granted Tower Shield Proficiency, you'd have to sack a feat to get it. If you did that, you could probably throw it in with the War domain and get a free martial weapon out of it as well. (Clerics of the war domain using their diety's favored weapon gain proficiency with that weapon.)