Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="doggywoggy" data-source="post: 4875204" data-attributes="member: 83752">Hello forum! Well well, it's been a while. I wanted to ask this of you, specifically what you thought of the relative advantages / tradeoffs of switching/retraining/rerolling my character to a Hybrid Paladin/melee TWF Ranger from a Str Paladin, now that Divine Power is out.Specifically, does it make sense to share 1/2 the powers from Ranger and 1/2 from Str-aladin? Is it really that sub-optimal to hybrid, or are there some definite advantages/combos that are worthwhile for a 4-5 person party to have additional striker-like features over an Ardent Paladin.Assumptions : 1) Str-based paladin build considering re-training into a Pally - Ranger hybrid, whether it's worth it2) Using only Paladin - Ranger friendly races, such as Longtooth Shifter or Dragonborn (my current race)3) Having Twin Strike is a "must-have" at lvl 1 for a melee striker, but is not worth PMC-ing for, given the tradeoff of prestige classes. Correct?4) Want to be both good at durability (i.e. AC) + marking to fill the defender role, and good a killing stuff reliably (which Paladins aren't, really). The new level 1 4W + Str Paladin powers from DP look good, until you compare them with Ranger 2x (2W + Str) double attack encounters. Picking and choosing between them...are you much, much more likely to pick a ranger power than a paladin one, at all levels and even for Utility powers? I'm not so sure any more...some of the new DP powers seem quite good. But nothing like Rrot so far. (AFAIK)5) You are in a striker-heavy party already, with no other defenders. (e.g. in my case, 2 rogues, 1 warlock, a warlord currently on vacation, and myself, a str-aladin that hasn't yet picked anything from DP)There are some specific questions I have for this forum, if you would indulge me (or by all means, pose your own):1) Does anyone but me like the flavour of Paladin + Ranger? But worry it's not worth the effort to build a hybrid striker-defender or will it make the party worse off than straight paladin+defender? What was your final tally?2) Does anyone else think that the DP feats are cool yet still wouldn't take them over staples such as Armor proficiencies or Weapon Focus/Expertise/whatever core feats already exist? So far, for me there are only 1 or 2 serious considerations, but nothing really jumps out at me as being really juicy and a must-have from DP3) Now to the crux of it : How much less DPR for an optimized Ardent Paladin vs an optimized Twin-striking melee Ranger vs a hybrid? Is a hybrid close to 1/2 way between striker and defender, or is "the whole less than the sum of it's parts" so to speak?4) Is Lay on Hands, even for a Str-aladin, less useful than Ardent Vow? I have a hard time believing it. Having extra emergency healing saved our butts big time, several times recently. Finishing the enemies off 1-2 rounds quicker wouldn't always have helped, whereas that extra surge here and there really kept it from going very, very badly for us all.5) The ultimate trade-off going hybrid : Losing LoH to gain Twin-Strike via Hybrid Talent. Assuming I will be getting scale or plate eventually thru normal featsI really like both classes now, but I worry that my party wouldn't agree. Given the "defender" would now as a hybrid defender-striker have to juggle both responsibilities. Extra marking is no longer an issue, with Divine Censure. In the end, the group as a whole is what does damage, and I worry about less survivability by being a hybrid and losing on class features such as LoH. NB : I would be retraining shortly, but want to be absolutely sure I am making a sound decision.Any thoughts?</blockquote>

Verification