Help me understand the paladin.

[FrozenChrono]

I'm really tired of this misconception of fighters being "better" defenders. They each do their job differently, get over it. Fighters are more "sticky" but Paladins make up for it in plenty of other areas.

In response to divine challenge vs. combat challenge let's take a look.

Here's the punishment side of things. If someone attacks your buddy this is what happens

Paladin
3-8 damage

Fighter
Assuming an average level 1 AC of 14
(a few feats/race combo's might be able to optimize the high end of this a bit more but I'm assuming not everyone has a +2 str and a racial feat that gives a +2 feat bonus to weapon damage as well as superior weapon training at level 1)
+6 (65%) 1d8+4= 8.5*.65= 5.525 damage
+9 (80%) 2d6+6= 13*.80= 10.4 damage

Adding in crits that's around
5.4 - 10.65 damage on average

At first glance this seems completely in the fighters favor, but that's very deceiving. Here are a few little bonuses only to the Paladin side.

-Paladin punishment works at a distance. (if a guy gets away from you, or was only marked from a ranged attack, you don't get to hit him)

-Paladin punishment is radiant so you get bonus damage against certain monsters. There are very few (none?) monsters with resistance against radiant damage.

Fighters do get there attacks when enemies move away, but to be fair most enemies are going to move away to attack an ally of yours, so your damage just kicks in a little later as a pali.

Now think about these

-Paladins get 1 more healing surge than fighters
-Paladins have naturally higher armor and better all around defenses than fighters
-When there allies do get attacked, you can just give them hp out of your hp pool
-you have healing that is not healing surge dependent in the recipient
-Cha Paladins have an at will that reduces an enemies to hit by -2. That means they have a -4 against your allies.
-Str Paladins have better OA's to make up for their lackluster Divine Challange damage.
-Paladins don't have to attack their mark. They can stay adjacent to them then focus fire on another target making your party more effective.

 

[Carpe DM]

I agree.

If Combat Challenge can only be used to generate a basic melee attack once per turn, I'm good. Although with the advent of magical weapons (+1d6 per plus? Yowch.) I suspect that the curves will further diverge the higher level one becomes, since Divine Challenge is not (I think?) buffable by items or implements.

Combat Superiority is pretty awesome. But perhaps it's counterbalanced by Paladin's ability to ranged challenge the target.

Lay on Hands is indeed hilarious for a tank -- if you are getting attacked, the ability to self-heal is pretty ferocious. And the Channel powers, especially the Feat ones (Raven Queen's Blessing for my Viking) are pretty awesome.

best,

Carpe

 

[monboesen]

+1d6 per plus? Yowch.

You do understand that is only on critical hits, not regular attacks.

 

[-Avalon-]

I was looking more at the philosophical standpoint of aggro management:

Fighter can build up a certain amount of "taunt" through damage and all, and also has the "sticky" abilities...

But Paladins really peeve the mobs bad because they not only get to damage things that ignore them, but can heal their allies that are attacked, make the things attacking less capable at attacking, and buff up their friends to make them stronger...

Normal thought process has always been: Kill the cleric, then kill the wizard, then kill the rest. Always take out healers first. In the Paladin's case, you get to take out a pretty decent healer AS WELL AS one of the prime tanks... this is pretty effective in my opinion...

 

[Mengu]

I think what makes the paladin a feasible option as a defender is their leader-like abilities. Take a power like Righteous Smite. You give the party an extra 30-40 (depending on party size) hit points for the monsters to chew through. You can do this every encounter.

Take a power like Martyr's Blessing. You might not have been able to mark that enemy who will be attacking the rogue next to you, but you can take the hit for him.

Take a power like Divine Bodyguard. You are perhaps not marking as many targets as a fighter, but you are still being a defender by taking half their damage for them.

Say you aren't able to mark an important threat because you're busy with another, and that threat goes and chews up your wizard. Not too big a deal if you can give up your healing surges to heal up the wizard.

For a mid-size to large (5-6 man) party, I don't think paladin would be the best choice if there is going to be only one defender. But rather than having 2 fighters, I'd certainly prefer to have a fighter and a paladin, if there will be 2 defenders.

 

[cmbarona]

I will chime in that I'm disappointed the Paladin is so MAD. Any ideas on tweaking this? Like letting Divine Challenge benefit from Strength OR Charisma?

 

[DracoSuave]

Paladins have the same MAD as any other dual-primary class. Warlocks aren't MAD with Cha/Con/Int, Clerics aren't MAD with Wis/Str/Cha. Paladins are just the same way, and you need to make some choices.

Anyways.

Another hidden 'feature' of the Paladin is that their punishment does extra damage to swarms, but a fighter's does -less- damage. Something to consider.

 

[Mengu]

I will chime in that I'm disappointed the Paladin is so MAD. Any ideas on tweaking this?

If you must have a 20 stat, don't play a paladin. Otherwise, I don't see the problem. 16/16/12/12/10/8 or 16/14/14/13/10/8 work quite nicely for Dragonborn, Half-elf, or Tiefling. 18/13/13/10/10/8 works nicely for a Dwarf.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I will chime in that I'm disappointed the Paladin is so MAD. Any ideas on tweaking this?

I wouldn't call it tweaking, but my solution is to make paladins Cha primary, Str secondary if they are attack-oriented pallies and Wis secondary if they are defense-oriented pallies. One build for the defense-oriented pally basically lets them use Enfeebling Strike as an OA.

So far, all of the new classes (and half of the PH classes) exhibit this kind of design. The paladin, ranger, cleric, and warlock all split their time between two primary stats.

 

[Cadfan]

An 18 charism paladin automatically does 7 damage when an enemy incurs their challenge damage. An 18 strength fighter with a longsword has to roll to deal 1d8+4 damage. Advantage: Paladin.

Now, the Fighter can improve that. He can upgrade to a bastard sword, and take weapon focus. Then he can deal 1d10+5. The paladin can't upgrade his damage. But, 10.5+5 averages 10.5 per roll, and unless the Fighter is hitting on about a 7+, the paladin's 7 damage is still better. Magic weapons don't exactly factor into it, since at each tier the paladin's damage amounts adjust to match.

Meanwhile, the paladin should have an advantage of 1 point of AC, and he still has two feats.

The fighter can pull ahead by wielding a two handed weapon like a maul. A fighter with a mordenkrad (2d6, brutal 1) and weapon focus will average 13 damage per hit. This beats 7 as long as he hits on around a 9, which is plausible. Of course, in the meantime he's now behind by 3 points of AC.

Our group has a two handed weapon fighter and a sword and shield charisma based paladin. We've found it mostly a wash between the two. The fighter takes a lot more damage, but generally deals more damage. The paladin takes a lot less damage, but can't do much about opportunity attacks. For a while we thought that the Fighter was unbalanced because of his level 5 power that lets him deal weapon damage to all adjacent enemies (2d6+3, brutal 1, at this point) every round, but then the Paladin got a utility power that lets him add his charisma modifier (+5 at this point) to the damage rolls of everyone in the party if they start the fight near him. Having the whole party operate at +5 damage seems to outstrip dealing 2d6+3, brutal 1, to adjacent foes. Its now our biggest, scariest daily power.