4th Edition made a great Paladin...

[Ahglock]

Because the evil Cleric's party needs healed too?

I have no problem with evil gods providing healing, but the exact same healing the exact same destructive spells etc. seems weird. I assume good gods need there faithful to kick butt, I assume evil gods want there faithful to live on to spread some more evil. Evil gods would like be better at the spreading of destruction and not as good at the healing.

 

[Kzach]

Intelligence and Dexterity are throw away abilities. You'll have a poor Reflex, but you're gonna have an Achilles heel for any character. That leaves only four, so you could have 14 (or greater) in all four of the remaining abilities with just the standard point buy.

14's in your main stats is pretty much the poster-child definition of gimped.

Ive played a human paladin through 6 levels so far, and I have to say, I've found your assessments to be completely wrong. My stats are (the DM used 25 point buy):

Your main stats don't have to be 18s for you to be effective.

Lol.

 

[Jhaelen]

The paladin is a melee class with a good quarter of his powers being ranged.

The paladin requires decent Constitution to fulfil his role but has to split his ability points between three other stats.

At every step of designing a paladin character, you have to make compromising choices which gimp the character. It requires you to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

It is badly designed, period.

I've always thought of the Paladin as a hybrid class. In 4E it's a defender with a strong secondary leader aspect. I didn't have the impression that a Paladin has considerably more MAD than other classes.

Isn't it quite similar to, say, a Star-Pact Warlock? Or do you think that's another badly designed class/build?

I'm not saying you're wrong. I guess, you've spent more time analyzing the class than I did. I'm just curious since your stance seems pretty aggressive.

If I wanted to play a (pure) defender I'd always play a fighter but that has nothing to do with MAD. It's just that the powers seem to be more useful for the defender role. Depending on the group I could still see myself playing a paladin if it seems to be weak on either the defender or the leader 'front'.

 

[SSquirrel]

14's in your main stats is pretty much the poster-child definition of gimped.

His only 14 is Wisdom. Wisdom is neither the primary or secondary stat of a Paladin. Calling it a main stat is kind of a joke. We're sorry the facts don't support your hypothesis.

 

[Gothmog]

Lol.

You do realize a snide remark doesn't refute an arguement? Also, the one 18 I do have is due to the +2 bonus humans receive to any stat of their choice, and two stats were increased by +1 at 4th level, so the initial spread looked like:

Str 16(+2 for human) Dex 10 Con 12 Int 10 Wis 13(+1 at 4th) Cha 15(+1 at 4th)

I put the 18 into Strength because we don't have another defender/fighter in the group, but even with a 16, it wouldn't have been any problem. Also, because we began play with 4 players, the DM allowed 25 point buy, but if you total up my beginning stats cost, they total 23 points (the other 2 points went towards getting a trained cross-class skill- a DM houserule). Not that much above the 22 suggested in the book.

I also listed the stats so you'd see my defenses were not suffering at all, and are in fact the overall highest in the group. My power attack bonuses are not "gimped" either, and while the damage output isn't huge, its not supposed to be either- thats the job of the ranger and rogue in the group.

Wisdom is not a main stat for the paladin- Str and Cha are. Wisdom is nice to have since it gives you more uses per day of Lay on Hands, but thats pretty much it. In fact, NONE of the paladin powers are based on Wisdom. So again, your arguement doesn't hold water, and several posters have shown exactly why, AND provided the stats to prove it.

Have you actually played a paladin in 4th edition, or are you just going off a read-through of the rules? As has been said ad nauseum, 4e plays a LOT different than it reads. You do seem pretty aggressive in your dislike of the paladin- any reason for this?

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Made myself a Half-Elf Raven Queen Paladin for an upcoming KotS campaign starting in september (even repainted a Karsite Fighter mini for him) and I can't wait to play him. I took Pact Initiate (Warlock Multiclass) so I could Divine Challenge + Eyebite at the beginning of the encouter. Hope it'll work!

AR

 

[GnomeWorks]

The paladin's powers seem alright, sure, but they seem to lack tanking ability.

They really need consecrate to make them viable tanks. Consecrate would fit the flavor of 4e pallies, and help out with their lack of tanking power.

As it is, they just don't seem to generate enough threat. Divine Challenge just doesn't have the damage output to keep dudes on you, and tanking by virtue of damage output is a race you're going to lose against any DPS - not that I'm saying that the pally's damage output in 4e should be increased, it shouldn't be higher than that of DPS classes. But as it stands, their tanking is reliant pretty solely upon dudes not wanting to take the piddly damage from DC, which is a pretty poor tanking method.

Also, they have no AoE threat generation. So again, consecrate would do wonders to solve that problem.

For those who don't play WoW, consecrate is a pally spell that deals relatively holy damage over time to everything around you for eight seconds. It is key to pally tanking; without it, they really can't tank.

 

[Ximenes088]

Divine Challenge damage is small, yes- but at what point does a fighter's OA against a marked enemy start doing the same amount of damage on average? They both have the same "-2 to hit anybody but me" effect to discourage enemies from swinging elsewhere, and radiant damage resistance isn't nearly as common as radiant vulnerability.

In addition, it's inescapable damage. A DC'd minion either goes for the paladin or does nothing, because attacking anybody else is literal suicide. The paladin might not be able to lock down a lot of enemies at once with any particular ease, but he can ensure that any one minion never, ever attacks anybody but him.

I don't see much to worry about in terms of MAD. The paladin needs either Strength or Charisma, and then Wisdom. Dex and Intelligence are useless aside from Reflex defenses- which are boosted by a paladin's shield- and Constitution is something I'd cheerfully leave at 10. There's a reason a paladin starts with more base healing surges than anyone else.

 

[pemerton]

Wisdom is not a main stat for the paladin- Str and Cha are. Wisdom is nice to have since it gives you more uses per day of Lay on Hands, but thats pretty much it. In fact, NONE of the paladin powers are based on Wisdom.

WIS does affect how far you can fly using Radiant Charge (13th Paladin Encounter).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I'm not sure if paladins were intentionally made excrutiatingly MAD as it was Wizards trying to make all the stats useful, to try and get rid of the "dump stat" mentality.