Essentials Paladin (Sentinel) is up

[Ahrimon]

Did anyone else notice that the at-wills are "Paladin At-Will 1"? Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like they can be taken by other paladins and/or trained out for traditional at-wills.

 

[Nikosandros]

Did anyone else notice that the at-wills are "Paladin At-Will 1"? Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like they can be taken by other paladins and/or trained out for traditional at-wills.

The warpriest attack powers in HotFL also have a level. In this thread I started, DracoSuave put forward a convincing argument that a "normal" cleric can indeed take those powers, but a warpriest gets them as a class feature and therefore can't swap them. It seems that a cavalier also gains his attack powers (or at least his at will attack powers) as a class feature and thus the same argument would apply.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Very nice. Here's my thoughts:

Name "Paladin Cavalier" = cool. My first proper Paladin was one of these for a while, until we agreed the powers were too much and dropped the cavalier part.

Str & Cha, at last how it should be. Dropping wis cures the mechanical MAD, but lack of wisdom (as emphasized in virtue of valor text) is one source by which a Paladin Cavalier loses their virtue & falls from grace.

Divine defender. Despite their appearance, the paladin's powers & theme are all attached to their higher calling. The martial is there, in proficiencies. but it's not enough to tip any balance. I can buy this.

The emphasis on a Paladin's virtue as the source of their divine backing is well done. A Paladin was always marked by their attempts to live by their lofty ideals, and this codifies it. With a list of virtues we now have a spread of Paladin types. The presence of vices & blackguards pays homage to paladins falling from grace and emphasise how being virtuous is a constant journey.

Overall good flavour text.

Paladins now have martial missile training - bows! Dex... Well with the MAD under control you could bump dex a bit on the way to say shield spec & heavy weapon mastery. Then again wis for skills, and say, wisdom.

Skills have been expanded by athletics (key stat too) and religion is now optional. We've got a couple of int & wis skills here, so a pal/cav can be pretty well rounded if you choose.

No write-up for the virtue of justice... :-(

Ah well, we've got an easy to remember defender aura that doesn't need tokens, and a whole lot of powers without descriptions. No doubt the smite adds a +(W) per enc, righteous radiance puts a smack on a foe within the defender aura, and the righteous shield protects a nearby ally from harm. A bit of healing at lvl2 and a mount at lvl4. I think we've ticked all the boxes?

Nup, we've also got ye olde spell casting perhaps at level 5 (fingers crossed).

Virtues give a base benefit, decide the 2nd at-will (methinks valiant strike can be interchanged with holy strike etc?), and has an alignment prereq. Going back on what I said, I think the dailies/utilities may be virtue based, although perhaps still spell-like. Otherwise the strong virtue start will weaken through level progression.

Alignment. Good to see it's back in a codified way. Valor & sacrifice contrast quite well. Valor has a more open prereq and indeed, to get the strongest value from the at-will you want an ally to be bloodied. "Vengeful" is a dicy term too. The LG only sacrifice power has better effect when an ally is bloodied too, although there's not quite such a desire to see them so.

Overall I'm pretty keen to get my hands on this class when it comes out.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Was anybody else surprised to see his class features not including a mount by default (even if it popped up at a later level)? The word "cavalier" kind of implies cavalry, no?

I suspect that Pace of the Virtuous Charger at lvl 4 and Spirit of the Virtuous Charger at 8 have something to do with it.

I'll be very surprised to see if they do have an actual mount-type companion, simply due to the inconvenience of the large-size horses in tunnels and other dungeons.

Brad

 

[Klaus]

Paladins now have martial missile training - bows! Dex... Well with the MAD under control you could bump dex a bit on the way to say shield spec & heavy weapon mastery. Then again wis for skills, and say, wisdom.

If your Paladin worships Sehanine, he can take Serene Archery and use Wisdom for ranged basic attacks.

 

[yesnomu]

A little irritated that this build also has pre-chosen powers. I'd like Essentials a lot more if there were more classes that kept the full range of power choices.

Not happy about the disallowing of evil paladins, either--I thought that was one of the PHB pally's more brilliant ideas. Don't evil concepts and vices have divine champions, too?

Still, this is at least one of the more palatable E-classes so far. Hoping the Hexblade gets as cool a treatment as the Mage did.

 

[Klaus]

The Paladin powers are listed as "Paladin Attack 1". That makes them available to any Paladin. And the Paladin is free to choose his other at will from any source (either another virtue or another book).

As for disallowing evil paladins, it goes hand-in-hand with the PH1 discouraging evil characters. That's why the PH and HotFL list only the Unaligned/Good gods and the DMG and Rules COmpendium list all gods.

 

[Nikosandros]

The Paladin powers are listed as "Paladin Attack 1". That makes them available to any Paladin. And the Paladin is free to choose his other at will from any source (either another virtue or another book).

I don't think that it is so clear cut. As for the essential warpriest, the at will attacks are granted as part of a class feature and thus it is not obvious that they can be swapped for other powers of the same level.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I quite like the idea that evil paladins are blackguards. I don't think it's desirable to grant open access to all classes regardless of a characters temperament. I for one accept that my divine champion sworn to justice for all is blocked from becoming a blackguard of tyranny, for now... ;-)

 

[yesnomu]

The Paladin powers are listed as "Paladin Attack 1". That makes them available to any Paladin. And the Paladin is free to choose his other at will from any source (either another virtue or another book).

As for disallowing evil paladins, it goes hand-in-hand with the PH1 discouraging evil characters. That's why the PH and HotFL list only the Unaligned/Good gods and the DMG and Rules COmpendium list all gods.

I meant how this build doesn't get choices for encounter powers and at least one daily. It'd be nice to see another E-class besides the mage with as many options as a typical 4e class.

And PHB1 may have been made with the idea that most pallys would be good or unaligned, but you can absolutely make an Evil Paladin of Asmodeus right out of the box. I don't see a good reason to take that away in Essentials, besides pandering to the older-editions crowd.