I want to play a paladin of Talos.

[Kae'Yoss]

I want paladins for every god man. That'd be cool!

Well, not every god wants paladins. Corellon Larethian, for example, wouldn't want his followers to torture themselves like that. Despite, he has divine champions and bladesingers.

I think the paladin, as he's usually portrayed, isn't suitable for every deity. Champions, sure, but not necessary paladin-like.

 

[SuperFlyTNT]

Well, not every god wants paladins. Corellon Larethian, for example, wouldn't want his followers to torture themselves like that. Despite, he has divine champions and bladesingers.

I think the paladin, as he's usually portrayed, isn't suitable for every deity. Champions, sure, but not necessary paladin-like.

Ok, so what would a Divine Champion of Talos be like? Extremeley destructive of course... but what else? Help me out here.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Ok, so what would a Divine Champion of Talos be like? Extremeley destructive of course... but what else? Help me out here.

He'd be a human, or one of the races known for their brutality (orcs and the like). He'd be very strong, and tough to boot. Maybe ruggedly handsome and charismatic to boot. He'd be a fighter or barbarian. He might also be a sorcerer or evoker to cast all those destruction spells (talos himsel fis barbarian/evoker). He either uses a spear/longspear (as it is the favoured weapon of talos) or a really big hitter with a massive crit multiplyer. Greataxe, scythe, or mercurial greatsword. Power Attack and related feats are a must (sunder, cleave, if you have complete warrior, get combat brute. He could work for the blackguard PrC, or maybe for frenzied berserker. Another possibility is levels of cleric and stormlord.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Do you mean a paladin for every god or a divine champion of some sort (like clerics) for every god?

Clerics are paladins with more spells and a little weaker non-buffed combat. So the niche is there in the core to play a divine champion of Talos.

There was an issue of Dragon magazine (I forget the Issue #) that had a paladin class for all alignments. There was one issue for good-aligned characters and the following issue dealt with the evil-aligned ones. So, if you want to use that as a source, there's a paladin for Talos out there.

There's a PrC called "Divine Champion" in the FR Campaign book. It's basically a watered down paladin class that goes for 5 levels and gives a few of the benefits of the paladin class without the alignment restriction and code restriction.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Yeah exactly. Clerics are priests. Think about a paladin and a cleric of the same god. Now compare and contrast. I want paladins for every god man. That'd be cool!

Clerics have a d8 HD (as good as most soldiers in the world), familiarity with a number of weapons and all armors, a fairly good attack progression, and a strong resistance to magical attacks. As has been said before, the Cleric class is inspired by orders of "holy knights" such as the Templars. They clearly are the holy warriors of most faiths.

Why does LG get a second class that does much the same thing? I don't know. Does that mean every other alignment should have a second near-totally-redundant class, especially given how well F/C works as a multiclass? I wouldn't say so.

If you want to make clerics more clearly "Holy Warriors," say that "priests" are generally Experts or Aristocrat/Experts, and "clerics" are one small sub-set devoted to using force of arms and divine power to defend the faithful.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If you want to make clerics more clearly "Holy Warriors," say that "priests" are generally Experts or Aristocrat/Experts, and "clerics" are one small sub-set devoted to using force of arms and divine power to defend the faithful.

Or use scholarly (or was it cloistered?) priests from UA or healers from Miniatures Handbook as priests, and clerics as the holy warrior-type war clerics.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the idea is fine, but it's easy to go too far. Talos is a sort of deity of destruction, and a player may think it's ok to just randomly destroy things around. But if you try to play it within an organized church of Talos, with missions and duties (of course, with chaos as ultimate goals) it's possible to make it work. Obviously it shouldn't be expected for Talos to have an very structured church, but what I mean is that CE doesn't necessarily mean outright crazy.

IIRC in the second Baldur's Gate there was at some point the chance for the characters to join or work for the church of Talos, for example.

Game-wise I think there is nothing wrong with (un)holy warriors of any alignment (although I have some doubts about True Neutral) with classes similar to that of a Paladin. The PHB Cleric is indeed very much a war-priest already, but the Paladin class is more fully combat-oriented, and has supernatural features that the straight Fighters and Barbarians don't have, therefore it is still the best class as a devoted combatant-servant of a deity.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

You would not want to directly mirror the Paladin's powers I think.

As presented the Paladin's inherent powers are defensive in nature, then he gets a boost in mobility via the mount, his spells provide combat benefits and minor clerical support, finally his smite gives a little direct offensive power.

This formula/flavour won't work with specific deity's. For example: the mount may be inappropriate; the defensive nature might look wierd; spells might be out.

I think it will take a lot of hard work to make this happen.

 

[Li Shenron]

This formula/flavour won't work with specific deity's.

I think it will take a lot of hard work to make this happen.

I complete agree that is needs adjustment, but not that it is going to be that hard. Let's see how long it takes for a draft...

What to change on the fly:
- alignment -> obviously CE
- class skills -> Intimidate replaces Diplomacy, Knowledge (Nature) replaces Knowledge (Nobility); optionally Spot replaces Heal
- aura of good / detect evil / smite evil -> change to aura of chaos / detect law / smite law
- remove disease -> cause disease
- lay on hands -> let it cause damage instead of healing

I would probably keep Divine Grace and Divine Health, they aren't very off IMHO.

Then we're left with the 3 most difficult changes: Turn Undead, Spells and the Mount.

Turn Undead:
It could be changed to Rebuke Undead, but AFAIK Talos isn't a deity interested in undead much. It may be too good, but I would replace it with Rage as a Barbarian of 3 levels less (starting at level 4).

Spells ("swap" means works the same but against good):
(I)
Bless -> Bane
Bless Water -> Curse Water
Bless Weapon -> swap
Cure X Wounds -> Inflict X Wounds
Detect Poison (drop)
Detect Undead (drop)
Prot./M.c./Dispel Chaos/Evil -> Prot./M.c./Dispel Law/Good
Lesser Restoration -> Ray of enfeeblement
(II)
Delay Poison (drop)
Eagle's Splendor -> Bear's Endurance
Remove Paralysis -> Hold Person
Shield Other (drop)
Zone of Truth (drop)
(III)
Daylight -> Darkness (II)
Discern Lies (drop)
Remove Blindness/Deafness -> Blindness/Deafness
Remove Curse -> Bestow Curse
(IV)
Holy Sword -> swap
Neutralize Poison -> Poison
Restoration -> Enervation

You can make up for the lost spells with the following: Entropic Shield (I), Produce Flame (I), Blight (II), Call Lightning (II), Wind Wall (II), Air Walk (III).

Special Mount:
This is the most difficult... I admit it's taken already almost 20 minutes so far, and I'm going to pass the task of replacing the mount A flying mount would be IMHO the best solution, but then it has to be delayed, because at level 5 it's a bit too early. In DotF there were guidlines about some flying mounts for regular paladins, so I guess these could be the guidelines for this character as well.

 

[Wolf72]

as much as Skills and Powers was kinda sucky, I did like the Champion class that was introduced ... a fighter/cleric crossbreed.