Is The Paladin Weak?

[Ridley's Cohort]

If your paladin needs CHa for the saves, then surely your barbarian or fighter needs WIS even more. Otherwise every enchantment is going to make them usefless.

This is like one of those arguments where players say "i need more skill points and feats" because there are more skills and feats than they can take. Sure, high abilities are nice, but not essential.

Spoken like someone who has never played a paladin in any edition.

My experience is that paladins get the snot beaten out of them regularly. A big part of the problem is that I have usually played with stat systems that tend to make all PCs comparable, e.g. point buy.

The Fighter's Will save is not necessary much different than a Paladin's: he can more easily have a 14 Wis under point buy and can spare a feat for Iron Will. Failing a Reflex save is not so bad if your Con is higher. Furthermore the Fighter has vastly more killing power unprepped; he can cause more havoc in two rounds than a paladin is likely to in four.

Pretty much the same story for the Barbarian. He might not have Iron Will but he gets a Will boost when Raging.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I would have to disagree with you. A high level paladin who can cast Holy Sword AND smite you 5 times will tear any evil character to pieces. Each smite is 20 extra points of damage before critical. Wait till you see a lance wielding paladin get his smite enhanced charge on you favorite BBEG and then score a crit. Only thing left is paste.

You are not going to get much traction with me if you must use high level characters. Yes, Paladins look attractive for smackdowns (on paper), but that does not prove anything. All high level characters are powerful, even Warriors and Experts. The opposition is powerful too.

What matters is relative power levels between classes.

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Spoken like someone who has never played a paladin in any edition.

My experience is that paladins get the snot beaten out of them regularly.

And I refute your ancedotal evidence with ancedotal evidence of my own. I've only been downed twice - once at first level (taking three critical hits in one session, luckily they rolled badly twice and I got healed before the third), and just last session, fighting what we think was a level 9+ Blackguard with a pole-sword (I am level 6 for comparison purposes). Only twice in 6 levels is pretty good, considering everyone else has been down and out at least once per level, if not per session.

- Ma'at

 

[JoeGKushner]

In one of the games I'm in, we didn't have any real fighters per say, just Paladins.

One thing that Paladins have going for them that Fighters do not, is holy swords and other special types of magic items that can only be used by them.

It adds a lot to the character and makes them on par with just about anything.

Not all campaigns however follow the same baseline so in those with low magic (in which case why is there a paladin at all) may suffer a bit.

 

[Endur]

My take on necessary vs. nice for Paladin point buy (note this is before racial adjustments).

Strength - NEED 13 NICE is 14+.
Dexterity - NEED 8. NICE is 12.
Constitution - NEED 10. NICE is 14+.
Intelligence - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.
Wisdom - NEED 12. NICE is 14+.
Charisma - NEED 14. NICE is 16+.

Totals:
NEED - 17
NICE - 34...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

My take on necessary vs. nice for Paladin point buy (note this is before racial adjustments).

Strength - NEED 13 NICE is 14+.
Dexterity - NEED 8. NICE is 12.
Constitution - NEED 10. NICE is 14+.
Intelligence - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.
Wisdom - NEED 12. NICE is 14+.
Charisma - NEED 14. NICE is 16+.

Totals:
NEED - 17
NICE - 34...

Shall we do the same for the Fighter?

Strength - NEED 13 NICE is 16+.
Dexterity - NEED 8. NICE is 13+
Constitution - NEED 12. NICE is 14+.
Intelligence - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.
Wisdom - NEED 8. NICE is 12+.
Charisma - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.

Totals:
NEED - 9
NICE - 29...

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Malcolm]

Comparing the 3.5e Paladin to the other classes who got *bumps* (Bard, Barb, Ranger) it is indeed now an unbalanced class.

Basic class abilities have been rolled back to higher levels, staggered abilities have been rolled back when they were not that useful to begin with (i.e. Remove Disease, when the DCs for most diseases are pitiful), and gave them abilities which are inane and not very useful (Summon mount every day in 1 round? Eh?..)

The changes to the Ranger = great. Bard = wonderful. Paladin = why?
Playing in Living City and Living Greyhawk, and knowing that both systems have masses who cried out at the abusive folks who took 1 level of Paladin for the saving throw bonus, I know why it was changed. It was changed to appeal to the 12,000+ paying members these campaigns who complained; customers make change. I was one of those who asked for changes, I play a Paladin in both campaigns and I play them well; I have a stack of winner certs an inch-thick after 1 year of playing that says those at my tables agreed.
But to take a front-loaded class and simply hack-spread it without adding equally balancing abilties to encourage taking further levels...

It would have been fine if they would have spread it out in a playable manner like the new Ranger.
As far as the Paladin stands now it should have been left as it was written in 3.0.

 

[Lamoni]

It seems like very few people really play much with a Paladin's mount. In my opinion, the mount almost makes up for the lack of fighting ability. However, in our campaign, the DM had me get the mount late so that I now have a Celestial Dire Wolf. It doesn't compare to the Paladin himself or the fighter when dealing out damage, but with free trip attacks when it bites and having damage reduction, it is a very nice addition (it usually fights on its own without a rider). Currently we are involved in a dungeon crawl though. That makes the mount unavailable... at least in 3.0 edition rules. Now in 3.5, I'll have the opportunity to summon him if we are in a large room. Not much help, but it's better than nothing.

The Paladin does have many other abilities that are very nice, but the two that it gets that helps in fighting are the mount, and smiting evil. When you give up one of those the paladin doesn't live up to its potential (in most campaigns).

Also, I agree very much about the stat problem. I was fortunate enough to have very good rolls. My average was 15.17. I doubt I'll be able to roll that high again for a long time.

My current Paladin is awesome. It has the highest saving throws of anyone in the party, he is great at cleaning up and putting everyone back to full health after the Cleric heals them most of the way. He wields a +1 greataxe with icy burst and averages 15-20 damage on a normal attack, but has done up to 116 damage in one attack (using power attack with smite evil and getting a critical) Not bad for a 9th level Paladin IMO. His immunity to disease has come into play, he was able to cure the cleric of disease, and has helped the party against fear. He is not the best in the party at any single task, but he is the most dependable in staying out of trouble. This allows him to help the other party members that fail the saves and are cought in a net or fall down a pit, etc. His biggest weaknesses lie in the very skills that the rogue excels at, but without the rogue, it would always be the Paladin going first to set off the traps, break through locked doors, etc.

 

[Olive]

My take on necessary vs. nice for Paladin point buy (note this is before racial adjustments).

Strength - NEED 13 NICE is 14+.
Dexterity - NEED 8. NICE is 12.
Constitution - NEED 10. NICE is 14+.
Intelligence - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.
Wisdom - NEED 12. NICE is 14+.
Charisma - NEED 14. NICE is 16+.

Totals:
NEED - 17
NICE - 34...

Thi is how I see it too.

Ridley's Cohort, what's your point? Of course paladins need higher stats than a Fighter. A wizard probably really only NEEDs one 16 in INT and 8s in everything else. This doesn't make a paladin weak, it means that you need good stats to play one, and if that's a surprise to anyone i'd be amazed!

 

[Celtavian]

re

My take on necessary vs. nice for Paladin point buy (note this is before racial adjustments).

Strength - NEED 13 NICE is 14+.
Dexterity - NEED 8. NICE is 12.
Constitution - NEED 10. NICE is 14+.
Intelligence - NEED 8. NICE is 10+.
Wisdom - NEED 12. NICE is 14+.
Charisma - NEED 14. NICE is 16+.

Totals:
NEED - 17
NICE - 34...

My Need's and Nice's are very different from yours. I wouldn't want to play a male Paladin with less than the following stats:

Str 16
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 16

That is 36 points. That is my minimum heroic Paladin, and I am talking bare, playable minimum unless the DM is Gary Gygax and I am dying to play in their game.

I'm kind of glad they dropped the point buy from the Revised PHB. It was a worthless and boring system of character generation.

I would never play a character with a below average stat like an 8 unless I was playing a particular concept that called for it, nor would I ever require another player to play a character with a below average stat like an 8 unless it was their desire.

Here is one line from the PHB where I 100% utterly agree with Andy Collins, pg 7 Revised PHB "(That's right, the average player character is above average.)"

Thank you Andy Collins for stating a belief that I have always held.