Charismatic dwarves

[wargear]

Regular Dwarves suffer a substantial handicap to becomming Paladins, the -2 Charisma affecting most of their abilities. For my campaign, with a high incidence of undead, I felt that a Dwarven subrace better inclined to Paladinhood was warranted. These dwarves are largely a surface race, focused on the war against the undead and their Necromantic masters.

+2 Con -2 Wis
medium size
base land speed 20 ft. (even when wearing medium or heavy armour or carrying medium or heavy load)
Darkvision 60 ft.
Weapon Proficiency (dwarven waraxe, warhammer, light hammer, hand axe)
Stability (+4 vs bullrush or trip)
+2 save vs poison
+2 save vs spells and spell-like effects
+1 bonus to attack rolls vs undead
+1 bonus to reflex saves
+2 Appraise
+2 Craft (any 2 crafts)
Automatic Languages: Common, Dwarven.
 - Bonus Languages: Draconic, Giant, Goblin, Orc, Undercommon.
Favoured Class: Fighter.

 

[Nifft]

One very common fix is to change the Charisma penalty to a Dexterity penalty.

+2 Con, -2 Dex is pretty well balanced for all classes, since Dexterity is such a fundamentally awesome stat. Also, it makes them exactly opposite of Elves, which is amusing.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Arkhandus]

Considering the overpowering of dwarves in 3.5 (and the rather strong but maybe not overpowered dwarves of 3.0), making a dwarven paladin really isn't all that disadvantageous. Put a base 18 into Charisma so it becomes a 16, and you've still got good paladin stuff and all your dwarven awesomeness, trudging around in full plate and chopping up critters with yer dwarven war-axe.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Considering the overpowering of dwarves in 3.5 (and the rather strong but maybe not overpowered dwarves of 3.0), making a dwarven paladin really isn't all that disadvantageous. Put a base 18 into Charisma so it becomes a 16, and you've still got good paladin stuff and all your dwarven awesomeness, trudging around in full plate and chopping up critters with yer dwarven war-axe.

Though an 18 is a huge investment, prohibitively so with most character generation. Heck, if your DM is lazy and says "use the elite array" then an 18 in any stat is impossible.

Regular Dwarves suffer a substantial handicap to becomming Paladins, the -2 Charisma affecting most of their abilities. For my campaign, with a high incidence of undead, I felt that a Dwarven subrace better inclined to Paladinhood was warranted. These dwarves are largely a surface race, focused on the war against the undead and their Necromantic masters.

The penalty to Wisdom will be about as crippling. It won't affect their turning, but it seems odd that a bunch of undead slayers wouldn't emphasize training as Clerics and Rangers, both classes that benefit greatly from Wisdom.

I think Nifft's suggestion gets you closer to what you really want. +2 Con, -2 Dex is certainly balanced, and should be quite fun.

 

[Arkhandus]

Yeah, the Wisdom penalty is wierd.

As for the 18 score thing: Well, if you're playing a Paladin, you're probably screwed anyway if you're forced to use a cruddy point-buy. Paladins and Monks need at least a few good ability scores to really be effective. I've played Monks with mediocre point-buy, and they sucked horribly. Though a Paladin would be marginally less sucky in those situations. Paladins and Monks are made for higher ability score campaigns.

A Paladin with 11 Wis, 12 Cha, and decent physical stats is just a Fighter without the bonus feats and no Weapon Specialization. Instead he can heal a measly 1 HP per level each day, and gets +1 on saves. Whoop-dee-doo. Sure, after a while he'll at least get a steed that has half a chance of not dying from one or two hits in any challenging fight. And eventually, if he focuses his ability increases on Wisdom, he'll get a few piddly spells of low-level, slowly. And suck more in melee compared to a Fighter of similar level.

 

[smootrk]

Dwarven Paladins are a neat idea, but given their particular strengths, Dwarven Fighter/Clerics are probably a stronger Undead Fighter.

If elimination of the Charisma penalty is really what you are after, then remove it, but give the Dwarves substantial penalties to Skills such as Diplomacy, Bluff, etc. attributed to the stereotypical Dwarven gruffiness and ill-manners (to non-dwarves anyhow).

I think Wisdom penalty is not a good choice, but I agree that Dex would be appropriate, given their stature and the typical descriptions of the race. The combination of certain skill penalties coupled with Dexterity (all the more appropriate given their love for Extra Heavy Styles of Armor) would be all the modification I would care to make to the race.

 

[jasin]

As for the 18 score thing: Well, if you're playing a Paladin, you're probably screwed anyway if you're forced to use a cruddy point-buy.

[...]

A Paladin with 11 Wis, 12 Cha, and decent physical stats is just a Fighter without the bonus feats and no Weapon Specialization.

That's some really cruddy point buy. Even 25 points (and I've never heard of anyone play with less) can get you something like 15 Cha, 13 Wis.

 

[GreatLemur]

One very common fix is to change the Charisma penalty to a Dexterity penalty.

+2 Con, -2 Dex is pretty well balanced for all classes, since Dexterity is such a fundamentally awesome stat. Also, it makes them exactly opposite of Elves, which is amusing.

Also, it makes so God-damned much more sense than +2 Con, -2 Cha. Racial Charisma penalties always seemed like kind of a weird idea, to me, while Dexterity penalties fit dwarves extremely well.