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[GUIDE] My Word Is My Sword: The Paladin Guide
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<blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 7553395" data-attributes="member: 6795602"><p>I recommend HAM. I know a thing or two about optimization. I'm the guy that actually sit out and quantified for everyone the real impact of precision attack. The thing nearly every optimization analysis does wrong is that it forgets you have a party. It forgets that combat optimization has a goal and that goal is to not lose a party member (whether yourself or someone else). If you do that the game may go on but that's a failure.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There's so many qualifications on that. In a campaign where your melee paladin is taking nearly every enemy attack then you better hope that you brought along a shield and HAM. Heck you probably want to forgo divine smite at that point for shield of faith as well. </p><p></p><p>Even in a campaign where your melee paladin is only taking 50% of all the attacks it's probably more wise to focus more on defense than offense no matter how much faster you think having a lot more damage should be killing enemies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sounds good so far. In an individual combat an ability that halves goblin damage like HAM does will have the same impact as an ability that doubles damage (except smites actually favor the less offensive character in this situation as they increase damage by a flat amount regardless of what you are already doing) the absolute damage difference changes but the relative damage difference adjust due to that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>3 2 1 goblin attacks vs 3 3 2 2 1 1 goblin attacks. That's 6 goblin attacks vs 12 goblin attacks. If HAM halves that damage as expected then it doesn't matter. But more importantly fights aren't 1v1. You have allies that are also doing damage and so even if the paladin is doing twice as much damage as the other. So it's not like the party with the PAM paladin is actually killing twice as many goblins per turn as the other HAM paladin's party. Neither is the HAM paladin lowering the damage of all the goblins by effectively half, instead some goblins are attacking other party members. That said HAM is likely reducing a good number of the goblins damages because enemies tend to focus more on melee pc's that run at them than on the backline party members.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm sorry but a +2 or +3 bonus to concentration saving throughs doesn't make concentration that much easier or harder to maintain. resilient con is a terrible feat to take early. IMO. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But more importantly, paladins can usually get nearly just as much of a benefit from using a smite as from buffing. So why would a paladin want to use a buff spell that might end when he can just use that spell to smite? In this perspective resilient con is mostly a waste. </p><p></p><p>If you think you can prebuff a bunch then go for resilient con but if your games are like mine then good luck getting up prebuffs before most encounters.</p><p></p><p> Resilient con is next to useless at level 4. A +2 or +3 con save at a level when there's not even really a buff spell worth using except in the most extreme situations isn't my idea of a good use of resources.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FrogReaver, post: 7553395, member: 6795602"] I recommend HAM. I know a thing or two about optimization. I'm the guy that actually sit out and quantified for everyone the real impact of precision attack. The thing nearly every optimization analysis does wrong is that it forgets you have a party. It forgets that combat optimization has a goal and that goal is to not lose a party member (whether yourself or someone else). If you do that the game may go on but that's a failure. There's so many qualifications on that. In a campaign where your melee paladin is taking nearly every enemy attack then you better hope that you brought along a shield and HAM. Heck you probably want to forgo divine smite at that point for shield of faith as well. Even in a campaign where your melee paladin is only taking 50% of all the attacks it's probably more wise to focus more on defense than offense no matter how much faster you think having a lot more damage should be killing enemies. Sounds good so far. In an individual combat an ability that halves goblin damage like HAM does will have the same impact as an ability that doubles damage (except smites actually favor the less offensive character in this situation as they increase damage by a flat amount regardless of what you are already doing) the absolute damage difference changes but the relative damage difference adjust due to that. 3 2 1 goblin attacks vs 3 3 2 2 1 1 goblin attacks. That's 6 goblin attacks vs 12 goblin attacks. If HAM halves that damage as expected then it doesn't matter. But more importantly fights aren't 1v1. You have allies that are also doing damage and so even if the paladin is doing twice as much damage as the other. So it's not like the party with the PAM paladin is actually killing twice as many goblins per turn as the other HAM paladin's party. Neither is the HAM paladin lowering the damage of all the goblins by effectively half, instead some goblins are attacking other party members. That said HAM is likely reducing a good number of the goblins damages because enemies tend to focus more on melee pc's that run at them than on the backline party members. I'm sorry but a +2 or +3 bonus to concentration saving throughs doesn't make concentration that much easier or harder to maintain. resilient con is a terrible feat to take early. IMO. But more importantly, paladins can usually get nearly just as much of a benefit from using a smite as from buffing. So why would a paladin want to use a buff spell that might end when he can just use that spell to smite? In this perspective resilient con is mostly a waste. If you think you can prebuff a bunch then go for resilient con but if your games are like mine then good luck getting up prebuffs before most encounters. Resilient con is next to useless at level 4. A +2 or +3 con save at a level when there's not even really a buff spell worth using except in the most extreme situations isn't my idea of a good use of resources. [/QUOTE]
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