Class conjuring - an appropriate tradeoff for a paladin?

[Plane Sailing]

I love the rules in the PHB and DMG for creating classes which are a blend of two existing classes.

I'm toying with the idea of a Paladin who is even better at exhorting his allies, but gives up something else instead.

Class feature wise, I'd like this paladin to have the "inspire courage" ability as per a bard (growing with his level), and the question is - what is appropriate for him to give up in order to have this?

Some of the key paladin class features that I think could be considered:

1. Spells
2. Turning
3. Mount

these are the three class abilities that seem to be the most significant benefits outside of what I'd consider "core" (e.g. lay on hands, divine grace, divine courage). Other abilities such as Smite Evil, Detect Evil and Remove Disease don't seem to be in the same ballpark.

Perhaps you would like to participate in the poll, suggesting what you think is the most 'balanced' option to swap?

Regards

 

[daTim]

I would think loss of spells would be sufficient... then again, I dont have much love for the Inspirational line of abilities.

 

[Darmanicus]

I voted for the spells.

I have a paladin and as far as I'm concerned they're awful and detract from what the paladin should be doing.......

SMITING!!!

Losing your turn abilities is a big no no as those divine feats are a must.

Special mounts are a must for a paladin also, (I'd never trade in me big cuddly tiger...........................he'd bite me 'ead off!).

D.

 

[RigaMortus]

Have you taken a look at the Marshal (base class, not Prestige) from the Mini-HB? They may fit with your concept very well. They have "aura's", very similiar to a Bard's singing abilities. One of them mimic's Inspire Courage I beleive (or is very similiar to it). I think you can even have 2 or 3 auras running at once (unlike the Bard, they can only sing one effect at a time).

The schtick behind the Marshal is that, instead of sining, he is shouting orders to his allies. Same effect as singing, just different semantics. They also have to be Lawful. You could take a few levels of Marshal before Paladin. Seems like it would fit in very well...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I personally think Inspire Courage is a bit weak compared to those listed abilities. Inspire Courage would make a reasonable special Divine Feat in the hands of the Paladin. I can see though that a paladin has such few precious feats, it might be better to "cash in" a special ability.

 

[Scion]

I'll put another vote in for the marshal or perhaps you could give up your spells to count 1/3 of your paladin levels as marshal levels for his auras? Maybe mount and spells for 1/2 or something like that?

Or just multi with marshal (if your dm will allow going back and forth). I also have a prc for the marshal which you could fit into such a class if you are interested.

As for just simply getting the inspire courage ability, I would say that simply delaying your spell and turning progression by 1 or 2 levels each would probably be sufficient.

 

[Plane Sailing]

From what I've seen of the marshal class I just don't like it (I'm pretty opposed to new base classes in general).

My personal feeling was that swapping with the mount would be the preferred change (the mount can be a powerful ally once it appears, but even with the new "summoning" ability it is difficult to use unless the campaign has a lot of non-dungeon/adverse terrain stuff). I like the prayers(spells) and channelling divine energy as part of the whole Paladin Schtick.

The downside of chooseing the mount to swap is that arguably the character is getting something at 1st level and not having to give anything up until 6th level, which might not seem fair.

One obvious alternative would be to have a Bard who converts to become a paladin but you are limited with only a few uses of inspire courage +1, and I'd like to see it grow with the character as per the Bard class feature.

Cheers

 

[Darklone]

I think the paladin needs to lose more than just one of the abovementioned class abilities... inspire courage is pretty strong, even for only one guy.

Plane, do you have "Buy the Numbers"? If you want, I can check it later and give an estimate of relative "costs" for the mentioned class abilities...

Personally, I'd simply remove turning (to avoid Divine Might abuse), the mount, the smite evil and other stuff (remove disease), give the paladin the bards spells and spell list... and give him inspire courage at level 3.

So he'd keep Lay on Hands, Divine Grace and detect Evil, divine health and aura of courage...

 

[Li Shenron]

It's hard to say... Inspire Courage with a number of times per day per level basically after a few levels mean that you are going to use it at every combat, and extra times per day don't give an improvement. On the other hand the bonus granted improves by 1 every 6 levels.

Dropping spells would be too much IMHO, because although they are few per day, on the long run they are quite versatile so that it's not very appropriate to swap an ability which is very limited in uses/day but otherwise flexible with something which is instead basically a constant bonus.

Probably Turn Undead is the best choice, with the only caveat that before level 4 you wouldn't have had TU at all but that is quite ok (after all, before level 4 you also - on the average - don't get to use inspire courage all the combats).

 

[Darklone]

Paladin with Divine Might, Divine Favor and singing... yihaa. Guess there will be a feat that allows a bard to start his Inspire Courage as a ME action in the next splatbook?