Cha-Based Paladin

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Actually, it works rather nice when combined with Martyr's Blessing .You get to make the big bad try to attack a friend, take a -2, and 3+cha damage, and if they miss, horray, and if they hit, you get hit instead. They still take the damage.

It's not quite as great a tactic as you're claiming, but I'll concede it's not too bad. Just because you go invisible doesn't mean that the target of your Eyebite will automatically attack someone else. The target of your Eyebite has two opportunities to detect you: at the end of your turn, you make a Stealth check (Paladin means untrained in Stealth and low Dex, so this isn't starting well) opposed by the target's passive Perception check. A success by the target means it knows your general location, a success by 10+ means he knows the square in which you're located. At the beginning of its turn, the target makes an active Perception check against your last Stealth check as a minor action, with the same rules regarding pinpointing your location. A success by 10 on either of these rolls means the target can attack you with a ranged or melee attack to avoid the Divine Challenge damage... at -5 to hit, due to total concealment. So that's good. However, if the target has a close or area attack, it can drop its attack without the total concealment penalty. A success on either of the two Perception checks (very likely) makes it virtually a lock to be able to target you with its attack. Also remember that you are only invisible to the target, so the target's allies (if any) can point you out to the target. As well, you can't stray too far from your target, since you have to close with it on your next turn or lose your Divine Challenge mark (or target it with a ranged basic attack, which is a bad choice given the Paladin's ranged weapon selection and poor Dex).

Summary: you spend one turn dealing suboptimal damage (d6 + Cha) to get a potential and situational defensive bonus from your target on its next turn. Not horrible, but not fantastic either. I'd rather have the ability to do higher damage at extremely long range, so I'd take Eldritch Blast instead, but I can understand the other choice.

heh, of course you could also put the pally challenge mark on them, eyebite and watch them hurt themselves not attacking you. Heck, you could Divine Challenge (minor action), Eyebite for the attack and stay invisible to him until your next turn. He knows he needs to attack you but can't see you. Keep eyebiting him and he takes damage from not attacking you each round. Sick and twisted

Except the Paladin can only use Eyebite once per encounter. Also, see my comment above.

 

[fuindordm]

Does anyone else find it distasteful that a Str 10 character can adventure in full plate with a heavy shield all day with no penalties?

I know encumbrance isn't "fun", but eeeewww.

Other than that, nice build. I do like the fact that Paladins can dump Str or Cha if they want to, at the price of severely restricting their power selection. It opens up some nice multiclassing options for a class that traditionally suffers from serious MAD.

Imagine a paladin champion of freedom: Strong Cha, Dex, Wis multiclassed into thief (Artful Dodger). Or a paladin champion of magic with strong Str, Int, Wis.

 

[med stud]

Does anyone else find it distasteful that a Str 10 character can adventure in full plate with a heavy shield all day with no penalties?

I know encumbrance isn't "fun", but eeeewww.

Other than that, nice build. I do like the fact that Paladins can dump Str or Cha if they want to, at the price of severely restricting their power selection. It opens up some nice multiclassing options for a class that traditionally suffers from serious MAD.

Imagine a paladin champion of freedom: Strong Cha, Dex, Wis multiclassed into thief (Artful Dodger). Or a paladin champion of magic with strong Str, Int, Wis.

I'd say strength has little to do with how long you can adventure in full plate. If there should be any limiting factor it would be Con since there are few ways to cool down in an armour like that, especially when walking around and exerting yourself.

Modern soldiers carry more weight than what a plate mail weighs and they aren't all Arnold Schwarzeneggers.

---Off topic aside---

The Cha-build for paladins is one of the more intriguing aspects of 4e IMO. I like the image of a smaller holy warrior, getting by with faith and willpower. The multiclassing possibilities also makes me think that this will be a build that will see many discoveries in the time to come .

 

[generalhenry]

I'd assume so. I don't see why not.

PHB pg. 27 "You can take each power only once"

 

[Jack99]

I have seen discussion in other threads about this, when you already have the skill you get by multi-classing. I think the consensus there was you should get a skill focus in that skill.

but your game might find another solution better of course

That is another fine solution

 

[SSquirrel]

Except the Paladin can only use Eyebite once per encounter. Also, see my comment above.

What I get for posting instead of going to bed

 

[AkaKageWarrior]

and you got more hitpoints, dude! defender is 15 base, +6/level.

 

[Ibixat]

As someone mentioned above about cleric paragon paths, I think the paladin warlock is pretty cool but I'm just too much in love wtih radiant servant PP for my paladin to consider going warlock at this point =(

Maybe if I had seen this post earlier.

 

[erik_the_guy]

It's a great build. High con and cha make str unnecessary since they give you a good fort defense and good attacks. I notice one weakness in your low dex/int, but you make up the reflex defense with your shield. Nice build.

Edit: You added your fort save wrong, its actually 16.

 

[MwaO]

I did almost the same build here:

I think eyebite is essential as an at-will - you get psychic lock as a feat choice and do the following:
Mark your target with Divine Challenge
Eyebite them

If you hit them, you move up to them, which gives them a number of uncomfortable choices:
Attack you at a -7
Attack someone other than you at a -4, take an opportunity attack, and take Divine Challenge Radiance for about 12-13 points of damage in Paragon Tier.

The opportunity attack part is making me play around with the idea of qualifying for Heavy Blade Opportunity at 11th, though.