The Compleat Paladin
I’ve tried to put together the wisest strategies for playing a Paladin-style character. There are going to be lots of variations on this, of course.
The biggest challenge is not to create the strongest uber-character at the end. That would involve substantially different choices.
The challenge is to create a character that is the most effective as he goes along; to give an example, I select Cleave at the lowest level (even though it does not do any good for your eventual prestige classes) because Cleave works best when hit points of monsters are low. I didn’t choose Great Cleave, however (a GREAT feat at levels 3-7) because while at high levels the extra shot from Cleave becomes useful upon taking down a big enemy, your chances of continuing to do so are slim.
The Problem:
Paladins are great to play, but past 14th level (where you get Holy Sword) there is no real point in continuing to advance as a Paladin. We want to make effective feat selections, therefore, up to 14th level, allowing us to then take prestige classes that will round out the character.
Feat and Prestige Class Selection:
Level 1—Power Attack, Cleave
(reasoning—at low levels, cleave is the best feat out there; it multiplies your melee combat abilities exponentially when creatures have 4 hit points a piece).
Level 3—Divine Might
(reasoning—this is like a 3 or 4 time per day smite at low level; combined with the smite it can be deadly at low level; combined with cleave you can clear out a lot of enemies fast in melee combat).
Level 6—Mounted Combat
(reasoning—you’re now working toward Spirited Charge, which you HAVE TO HAVE. Mounted Combat also sets you up for the Hospitaler class you’ll need later).
Level 9—Ride-by-attack
(reasoning—same as mounted Combat)
Level 12—Spirited Charge
(This is a great feat. This will set you up to do the Holy Smackdown that can do upwards of 300+ points of damage).
Now, take Levels 13 and 14 in Paladin to get Holy Sword. At this point, you are set to do the complete Holy Smackdown.
Take Level 15 in Hospitaler. You have already taken Mounted Combat and Ride-by-attack, so you’re set. Take the War and Glory Domains (if you want to keep your turning abilities up) or War and Protection.
(reasoning—The War domain gets you the Weapon Focus feat for free, which you need for Templar at 16th level)
Level 15 feat—Endurance
(reasoning—a terrible feat, but necessary for Templar)
Level 16—Templar Level 1
(This gets you Mettle, which REALLY gets useful about now, what with Slay Living, Destruction, Horrid Wilting, etc. spells a-flyin’. It also gets you great bumps to saves, AND weapon specialization.)
Level 17—Templar Level 2
(This gets you an extra smite, which is great, plus Templar spells)
Level 18—Templar Level 3
Feat—Extra Smiting (now you’ve got three smites; with the Holy Smackdown, you’re cruising)
Level 19—Templar Level 4
Bonus Feat from Templar—Whatever you want, at this point. Greater Cleave works fine, or any number of others.
Variations:
Fast Break to Templar—
If you want Mettle and Weapon Specialization early, plus the save bumps from prestige classes earlier, you can go fast to the second level of Templar, again via Hospitaler. This approach works best in an outdoor campaign, where getting Spirited Charge at 3d level is going to be useful. The feat is really fantastic, but a lot of DMs don’t move the campaign outside until 7th level or so.
One advantage of this appraoch is that you are freed up to get an extra smite feat, since you don’t have to use one of your 3-level feats to get cleave.
The downside of this approach is twofold: first, you don’t have power attack / cleave / divine might at lower levels, which means you won’t kick nearly as much ass in close melee combat at levels 1-7 or so. You WILL rule the jousting field from 3d level on. You’ll have to gauge your DMs campaign. Asking your DM what he’s planning to do will go a long way.
Lastly, a second downside is that you will delay getting Holy Sword by two levels.
Levels:
Paladin to L5
Hospitaler 1 for 6
Templar 1,2 for L7,8
Paladin to L16 (to get H.Sword; with 13 levels of Paladin and 1 of Hospitaler, you get H. Sword.)
Templar for remainder to L20.
Feats Selection
L1: Mounted C, Ride-by-attack
L3: Spirited Charge
L6: Endurance (Weap Focus comes from War domain from Hospitaler)
L9: Power Attack
L12: Divine Might
L 15: xtra smiting
L18: xtra smiting; (bonus Templar feat—Cleave)
Magic Items:
Magic Items should be carefully selected. Not surprisingly, you should buy the best weapons and heavy armor / shield you can get at every opportunity. Other than that, you should get your hands on:
At low levels:
+1 sword, mighty cleaving (+1) if you have the cleave feat. This will simulate great cleave at low levels, which means orcs are going to be dropping like flies.
Masterwork Mighty Bow, +5. Get the best one you can, ASAP. You can get it enchanted later, or have a cleric buddy toss greater magic weapon on it. Remember, with a greater magic weaponed bow, greater magic weaponed arrows and the mighty bonus, you’ll be doing +15 points of damage per arrow.
Sacred Scabbard: this cheap item takes care of bless weapon, which is a spell you’d otherwise HAVE to carry. This frees up your 1st level spell slots for Divine Sacrifice, which can really tank up your damage for those devastating charges.
Horseshoes of Speed: Doubles the charge rate of your horse. You’re mounted, make the best of it.
At medium levels:
Boots of Speed. No question, you have to have them.
Horseshoes of the Zephyr / Horseshoes of Speed: Cheap, effective, and now your horse can fly AND can move twice as far. That plus your bow will solve the airborne enemy problem.
Layered Armor: try to layer Rhino Hide on your Magic Plate. Your DM will charge you double the price, if he’s smart (b/c of layering rules), but it’s still worth it to get the doubled damage on the charge (which means x4 damage on a spirited charge, or x5 damage on a Spirited Charge with Holy Sword cast on the lance).
Ring of Evasion: Get one. Shut up. Don’t ask questions. Get one.
Cloak of Charisma: Get the best you can buy. Hopefully a buddy will make one.
Amulet of Wisdom: Again, buy the best, hopefully from a buddy. You’ll need to get that Wis up to 18 via one of these suckers by 14th level.
Ioun stones, Ioun stones, Ioun stones: buy as many ioun stones of spell storing as you can. Put shield in them. Put True Strike in them. Put Holy Swords in them, to store up. Put Spikes in there, to give your lance a +5 damage bonus.
Layer Scabbard of Keen Edges on top of your Sacred Scabbard. Although the two don’t work simultaneously, you have two effects that you don’t need to layer onto your sword, which is much more expensive.
At high levels:
Ring of Friend Shield: Get this, or have your cleric buddy cast Shield Other on you, and you on him. He can heal himself while your hitpoints are effectively doubled.
Belt of Giant Strength: Max it out.
Gloves of storing: Gives you a Quickdraw if you store your sword in there. Good for when you want to charge with a lance, drop it, quickdraw your sword and kick ass.
Oathbow: Double damage, with your +15 damage (gmw bow, gmw arrows)? Could it be +30 damage per arrow? Buy one, when you get high levels. You won’t use it much, but when you do, it’ll hurt like hell.
Paladin Spell Selection:
Fortunately for inexperienced Paladins, there are usually only a few spells at each level that are worth anything. Learn them, love them, use them.
1st Level—
Bless Weapon. For its level, the best spell out there. Cuts through damage reduction AND autoconfirms crits. But, get a sacred scabbard and you won’t have to take up your spell slots with these.
Divine Sacrifice: Use it, love it, become one with it. When combined with Divine Might, cleaves, and smiting, you become a damage MACHINE, even at low levels. When combined with shield other cast on you (so the party cleric is taking half the damage), you can keep this up all day. Better used at high levels, when you can seriously spare the hit points.
Divine Favor: Cool spell, gives you a little bit of an edge.
Protection from evil: Good stuff. +2 AC and saves goes a long way.
2d Level—whatever you want. Me? I use ‘em for first level spells. Get Divine Favors and Protection from Evils, or Divine Sacrifices and Bless Weapons.
3d Level—see Second level (use ‘em for firsts). Except for Heal Mount, which becomes an absolute necessity when you’re riding, or Dispel Magic.
4th Level—Holy Sword. There is no other. Death Ward is cool, but put it in an ioun stone against a rainy day. Get as many H. Swords as you can.
Holy Smackdown (also called Power Smackdown or Paladin Smack)
Most of you know this; I'm just restating very briefly to give people the idea.
Use Spirited Charge, Rhino Hide layered armor and Holy Sword to get a multiplier on a normal lance charge of x5. Note that a critical hit gets x7, but I'll leave that out for now.
Cast True Strike before charging, from an ioun stone or a buddy (or, if you're a Paladin / Divine Disciple, just cast it), and backload your full attack bonus to damage using power attack.
Charge on horseback.
Smite.
Use Divine Might.
Result: a 15th level Paladin with 20 str. and charisma will miss only on a 1, and the damage will be:
15 (smite) + 15 (power attack) + 5 (Divine Might) + 5 (Holy Sword) + 5 (strength) = 45 base.
45 x 5 = 225 points of damage in a single shot. Guaranteed.
There are many many ways to make this stronger. Weapon Specialization (from Templar), Divine Favor, Righteous Might, etc, etc. all will help. But you get the basic idea.
And, once a party mage gets mass haste, and you have Extra Smiting (either the feat, or from the Templar class), you can do this twice in a round (standard charge, ride-by-attack, turn around, partial charge), for 450 points of damage or so in a round.
Well, that's all I can do right now for Paladins. Feat selection, level selection, spells, Smacks, etc. You're now ready to get out there and kick Evil in the @#$%.
Enjoy!
Very best,
Carpe
“Tyr Aura, Melometh y’chwar iam velim trissaneth!”
“Tyr Aura, as I cry for you, so shall your enemies bleed!”
Battlecry of Her Grace, Free Baroness Dame Ayla Flamehair of Northmarch, WindLord of the Fallen Eldarin City of Tyr Aura, Knight of the Living Flame and of Mar Angor, Paladin of Ymris; the first of her line.
