D&D 5E Chaladin

[pemerton]

Even from first level, the 5e paladin seems to be both Lancelot and Galahad, both inspired by divinity (to hit things with swords) and infused with divine grace (to heal allies with a touch). And they have a lasersword by level 3.

If this all remains true, would this meet the needs for a Chaladin, or is there some specific process or result that this doesn't quite achieve?

Speaking just for myself, the contrast is lost. As I posted upthread, it wasn't something that had ever occurred to me before I read it, but once I read it I likd it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Speaking just for myself, the contrast is lost. As I posted upthread, it wasn't something that had ever occurred to me before I read it, but once I read it I likd it.

Ah, so you specifically enjoyed the division between a martial warrior inspired by the gods and a mystical charismatic using the gods' grace? Was this then mostly an issue of building a character rather than playing it at the table? (ie, the valuable distinction was in choices you made in character creation, and once the character was in play they were just another high-charisma-divine-spellcaster-who-likes-melee?)

Can I ask why an LG Fighter who is RP'd as particularly devout doesn't hit that first note? And why, say, a war cleric, or even a 5e paladin (as far as we know it now) doesn't hit that second?

While the distinction isn't at a mechanical level within the paladin class, it still strikes me that if that division is desirable, it is still achievable.

 

[Minigiant]

If the things in the Alpha remain true, a Devotion paladin will be adding Charisma to every attack roll she makes with her shiny sword in basically every encounter where she doesn't want to turn evil (like turn undead, but plus fiends) at 3rd level and beyond.

Would that be enough?

!

Maybe. 3rd level is tough to wait for a build to work. But that was not all that rare in 3e due to its setup and somewhat in 4e. The default Chaladin did have decent Strength too.

 

[surfarcher]

Pretty fair point, that blade does cut both ways. Though I wonder if it, in practice, won't be the difference between a 70% chance and a 75% chance or somesuch. Notable, but either way, you're probably going to hit most critters.

This is kind of a place where the monster and skill DC maths are going to let us know if this particular expression of the concept is viable. Which just continues to annoy me by not having a full game here to play, at least until @surfarcher can give us that stat analysis!

My truename... I hear it!

My analysis in the playtest showed that Bounded Accuracy has effectively decoupled accuracy from damage. In DPR calculations for PCs you'll still use it because hey a small improvement is still an improvement, right? But it's effectively decoupled and the charop peeps found the same thing independently (check this thread on the WotC forums).

Sure Bounded Accuracy has been tightened up a little more since the playtest, but my 5e analysis to date supports that it's still the case, at least from a monster design perspective. So monster accuracy and defenses will still scale somewhat otherwise higher level monsters are just going to flounder ineffectually at those AC 25 PCs. But we are probably talking average AC scaling from 13 for CR1 through to 17 at CR20, maybe through to 20 at a theoretical CR30. There should be a bigger variation with a given CR than between CRs, like +/- 10 or something!

The actual values are conjecture until we see some decent samples at higher CR (that's why my current articles only go to CR10). But the Monster Manual should shed some light on the matter.

 

[pemerton]

All of this really raised the question: Why even have ability scores? Unless you purposefully built your character to suck (or absolutely avoided the patch feats to make them work) you always used the same narrow build

<snip>

You could have built all that into the 1/2 level math and ignored SDCIWCh altogether!

Agreed. I think 4e would work better if stats were decoupled from attack bonus (you might still use them for damage), and became mainly the basis for non-combat (ie skill) resolution.

I don't agree that there was no flexibility in PC build, though, nor that the "V-shaped" classes were a problem. WotC wrote a lot of books with a lot of powers listed - they like selling them, and I don't mind buying them - so it was win/win! (Some niche classes like vampires obviously weren't so flexible, but how many people are going to want to build multiple versions of those niche classes? The flexibility there isn't within your class, but the fact that you're playing a vampire, or seeker, or runepriest at all - though runepriests probably should have been folded into clerics as a STR-cleric variant.)

 

[pemerton]

My analysis in the playtest showed that Bounded Accuracy has effectively decoupled accuracy from damage. In DPR calculations for PCs you'll still use it because hey a small improvement is still an improvement, right? But it's effectively decoupled and the charop peeps found the same thing independently (check this thread on the WotC forums).

From reading that thread, it seems that the reason attack bonus doesn't factor significantly into DPR is because you already hit pretty reliably from mid-levels, especially with advantage.

But that conclusion was reached on the assumption of stat-bumping to 20 - so I'm not sure that it shows that it makes no difference whether your attack stat is 16 or 20. Furthermore, those stat-bumps add to damage too, which does matter to DPR. So I didn't come off that thread with the impression that bounded accuracy means that there is little at stake between a 16 and a 20 attack stat.

Ah, so you specifically enjoyed the division between a martial warrior inspired by the gods and a mystical charismatic using the gods' grace? Was this then mostly an issue of building a character rather than playing it at the table? (ie, the valuable distinction was in choices you made in character creation, and once the character was in play they were just another high-charisma-divine-spellcaster-who-likes-melee?)

Well, I think it matters to play. In at least two ways.

First, the CHA paladin doesn't have a high STR, and so doesn't perform feats of STR (contrast with a fighter, say). But does perform feats of intimidation or diplomacy (still conrasts with a fighter).

In a system which emphasises the mechanical input into action resolution - and I don't think anyone disputes that 4e was such a system - these differences in mechanical build matter at the table. They shape the fiction that builds up around, and is associated with the two characters.

Second, I tend to find that build influences play in more indirect ways. If the flavour of the character - read from stats + the rest of build - presents the character a certain way (eg the Lancelot/Galahad contrast that I have drawn upthread), then this will infuence the way that the character is played by his/her player. This is also likely to interact with the outputs of point one above, the two combining to create a certain impression of the character being one thing rather than another.

I would be surprised if at least some people don't see the difference between STR and DEX fighters/rogues in the same way. (Ie not just that finesse lets you drop one combat stat, but that it also shapes the way the character is played, both via mechanical outputs and also helping to direct the player's inputs.)

Can I ask why an LG Fighter who is RP'd as particularly devout doesn't hit that first note? And why, say, a war cleric, or even a 5e paladin (as far as we know it now) doesn't hit that second?

A devout fighter will tend not to have access to Lay on Hands - the quintessential paladin ability - nor to buffs vs demons and undead. Nor other divine/inspiration stuff.

In the 4e PHB there are actually 4 builds that allows for a STR-based, non-skirmishing warrior: fighter, cleric, paladin and warlord. STR cleric and STR paladin obviously overlap quite a bit, and both overlap with the warlord. (The STR paladin I built for [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s online game was actually warlord multi-class and a Knight Commander, which is a warlord paragon path.) The fighter, at least in traditional D&D form, has the least overlap with the rest because of the lack of inspirational mechanics of any sort.

The scope for an inspirational fighter in 5e is yet to emerge, but I'm not holding my breath - especially as the reversion to pre-4e style hit point generation mechanics makes CON so important for a fighter, making it much harder to sustain CHA as a strong stat.

As for whether a 5e war cleric or paladin fills the "divine grace" niche - perhaps, but those characters are also likely to fill the "physically strong" niche, which means the contrast that I enjoyed in 4e still won't be there.

I should add - I wouldn't expect this to really move anyone else. And of all the reasons that bear upon my overall likelihood of playing 5, this is one of the least significance. But someone asked upthread what was the point of the CHA paladin, and so I explained what I liked about it.

 

[surfarcher]

From reading that thread, it seems that the reason attack bonus doesn't factor significantly into DPR is because you already hit pretty reliably from mid-levels, especially with advantage.

But that conclusion was reached on the assumption of stat-bumping to 20 - so I'm not sure that it shows that it makes no difference whether your attack stat is 16 or 20. Furthermore, those stat-bumps add to damage too, which does matter to DPR. So I didn't come off that thread with the impression that bounded accuracy means that there is little at stake between a 16 and a 20 attack stat.

As you might have guessed DPR matters very little to me If you spend the time to break down monster and PC progression in a spreadsheet (I have sunk hundreds of hours into this) you'll see that the decoupling is pretty effective from a monster perspective. All you really need to do is balance defense against accuracy (and vice versa). Then HP against damage (and vice versa). It aligns very neatly TBH I don't think that alignment is by accident. I truly don't think "monster DPR" has been used when building the dependent monster subsystem.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, I think it matters to play. In at least two ways.

First, the CHA paladin doesn't have a high STR, and so doesn't perform feats of STR (contrast with a fighter, say). But does perform feats of intimidation or diplomacy (still contrasts with a fighter).

In a system which emphasises the mechanical input into action resolution - and I don't think anyone disputes that 4e was such a system - these differences in mechanical build matter at the table. They shape the fiction that builds up around, and is associated with the two characters.

How high is "high" though? I mean, a 15 Str and 17 Cha makes you a good diplomancer who can still fight decently (and wear heavy armor without speed penalty) while an 17 str and 15 cha makes you a good melee combatant with some decent ability with spells and skills. Do you NEED a +5 to Cha powers to be a good paladin? Should you get rewarded for that +5 in combat as well?

See, here was the problem I saw with 4e's method: I got my cake and I ate it too. In 5e, if I prioritize Cha over Str, I prioritize social skills, spells, and special abilities (lay hands) over raw combat. In 4e, I didn't have to; I got it both. I was a good diplomat, had awesome healing/smiting/defending powers, and my combat ability suffered NOTHING. (I didn't even suffer for basic attacks: thanks Melee Training!) This lead to very unbalanced characters where I sank everything into Cha (and why would I, except some Wis for riders and maybe Con for Fort and HP) and my Dex/Int/Str could be 8's for all it mattered. (The only pain is on reflex defense).

 

[pemerton]

here was the problem I saw with 4e's method: I got my cake and I ate it too. In 5e, if I prioritize Cha over Str, I prioritize social skills, spells, and special abilities (lay hands) over raw combat. In 4e, I didn't have to; I got it both. I was a good diplomat, had awesome healing/smiting/defending powers, and my combat ability suffered NOTHING. (I didn't even suffer for basic attacks: thanks Melee Training!) This lead to very unbalanced characters where I sank everything into Cha (and why would I, except some Wis for riders and maybe Con for Fort and HP) and my Dex/Int/Str could be 8's for all it mattered. (The only pain is on reflex defense).

I guess I don't see the 4e characters as unbalanced. The design of 4e takes it for granted that the character's main stat will be boosted, and tertiary stats won't be (except for the slight gain at each tier).

If Athlectics and STR checks are a very small part of your game, then I can see that you might think the CHA paladin gets a better deal than the STR paladin.

But the CHA paladin does have one disadvantage relative to some other PCs: if s/he boosts CHA and WIS, which is the best way to boost class abilities, s/he has two lagging NADs rather than one.

 

[Remathilis]

I guess I don't see the 4e characters as unbalanced. The design of 4e takes it for granted that the character's main stat will be boosted, and tertiary stats won't be (except for the slight gain at each tier).

If Athlectics and STR checks are a very small part of your game, then I can see that you might think the CHA paladin gets a better deal than the STR paladin.

But the CHA paladin does have one disadvantage relative to some other PCs: if s/he boosts CHA and WIS, which is the best way to boost class abilities, s/he has two lagging NADs rather than one.

I misspoke somewhat. I didn't mean "unbalanced" in the mechanical sense, I meant you were so rewarded for raising cha that there was never a point not to, creating a character with a superhuman scores (in the 30s near the end) while his other scores barely reached the mid- teens. Which to me created images of godlike-intellect wizards who had strength, dexterity, and charisma below most commoners.

That's what I meant by imbalance.