Considering replacing paladin with generic holy knight type class

[uv23]

Hong, there are a bunch in DoTF. I haven't had a lot of time lately and will be away for the weekend but when I get back, I'll make my paladin mods and post them.

 

[hong]

Hong, there are a bunch in DoTF. I haven't had a lot of time lately and will be away for the weekend but when I get back, I'll make my paladin mods and post them.

There are _no_ PrCs in DotF that require paladinhood. Some of them are _aimed_ at paladin characters, but none of them _require_ you to be a paladin. Even if there were, it should be a trivial task to tweak the entry requirements to fit any "knight" class that you create.

 

[uv23]

True enough. All that aside however, context and story have pushed me in this direction more than mechanics. Then again I'm pretty fickle so we'll see what it all ends up as.

 

[Mordax]

Truly, the easiest thing to do would be to simply change the paladin class to allow any lawful alignment, with slight modifications to his abilities - i.e. either infidels (clerics/paladins of other gods) or chaos as the target of his abilities and protections. Maybe I'll just do that since it would have the least impact while maintaining my original goals.

Thoughts?

I've been down this road. Led to a cool, cool NPC or two. Unfortunately, I got a real idiot player who thought that being a NG Champion was a free license to lie and run away on the job, so I dropped the class.

Here are my thoughts:
- The Paladin makes good sense as a PrC.
However, this *will* lead to people multiclassing the Paladin a lot. Frankly, that got on my nerves. (Just shows a lack of dedication, IMO.)

- It would be interesting to make each alignment a little different, in terms of ability. If I ever introduce homebrew Paladins again, that's how they'll work.

For example, LN Paladins will have Detect Lies and Mark of Justice, instead of Lay on Hands and Remove Disease.

LE guys will get Bestow Curse, instead of being able to Inflict wounds by touch.

YMMV.

 

[Artoomis]

Here is my suggestion.

Use the paladin class, less Spells and Lay on Hands.

In their place, boost up the mount. Allow a celestial or fiendish mount (the "neutral" Crusader could choose either?), and be sure to use full benefits of it being a Magical Beast (give it d10 and feats and skills as a magical beast).

This kind of forces the neutrals to lean towards good or evil, but clerics need to do that already anyway with spontaneous cure/inflict and turn undead, so maybe it's not so bad.

Change Smite Evil to Smite Infidel:

If LG can smite any evil or CN.
If LN can smite good or evil (choose at character generation - it must line up with turn undead and mount choice) and CN.
If LE can smite any good and CN.

You might also consider allowing an additional smite every 4 levels or so, to amek up for no spells.

There. This is the simplest way I could think of to get where you want to go.

Another possibility is to set up a new class, sort of. Make them start as a fighter and switch to a prestige class (of your choice, not theirs) at a certain level - the pre-defined path pretty much makes it a new class. You could even type this up as a new class - while it would look a bit odd, it would follow the rules pretty well and, presumably, already be balanced for you..

 

[mmadsen]

A very different option is to make all "paladins" Fighters with the choice of a few holy-warrior Bonus Feats: Aura of Courage, Divine Grace, Divine Health, etc. (I can't remember the name of the FR Feat for favored enemies, but you could obviously allow that too, against Outsiders, Clerics, and "paladins" of the opposite alignment.)

 

[Mordax]

Oh, right. You wanted a nonspellcasting version. Sorry.

I recommend giving them bonus Turning Feats, to make up for the lost spells. (Like, Extra Turning at 3rd level, and every 3-4 levels after that, just pick one.)

 

[uv23]

Having choices would be cool. My alt ranger has a feat selection list and as you say, the fighter does. But I'll probably have it more set in stone than that. I think there will be two main paths that a paladin can go down - either a warrior against chaos or a warrior against other religions. Its going to be a fairly context sensitive class as I don't believe in making things overly generic at the expense of flavor.

Deciding what to apply as special abilities to the different alignments will be challenging as the evil knights should still be noble. Succesively more powerful smite abilities was something I had planned from the start so it may follow a rogue's sneak attack type formula in some manner. Good will saves might also make it in. Removing spellcasting opens up a good chunk of possibilities.

As an aside, I have removed arbitrary spellcasting from all of my non magic user core classes. Rangers do not cast spells, assassins do not cast spells, etc. And I will probably ditch the bard altogether. Its not a low fantasy campaign per say but magic is prety restricted... anyways, saying too much.

Edit: there will be no turning involved. As it stands right now, I believe the paladin is too much like a cleric. Spell casting, healing, turning.. bleah. Redundancy! I'm going to keep the religious flavor and some abilities, while refocusing the rest to non magical abilities. I believe I will make the paladin a more desirable class by finally giving it some uniqueness. In my campaign anyway..