Is The Paladin Weak?

[Umbran]

Parzival is sort of a splice-in, not native to Arthurian myths.

Well, in a sense all myths are spliced together.

Sir Percivale has been a solid part of the Arthurian myth at least since Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur in 1485. So, he's been there for five centuries. "Native" or not, he's part of the mythos now.

 

[Darklone]

Re: Re: re

Why stop at paladins, barbarians and sorcerers? Why not give every character a feat at every odd-numbered level (3, 5, 7, 9, etc.) instead of the current feat progression (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.)? That way, every character can get more customised and we don't reduce the fighter's or the wizard's feat advantage.

Just remember to give the monsters feats at every odd HD too, or the PCs will soon outstrip them in power.

I did this since a long time. Works pretty fine, players take even more flavour feats now. (one extra flavour feat at lvl1, but no feats with other feats as prerequs may be chosen then).
As for the fighters... more feats seem to strengthen them even more than the other players. They can pick up two feat chains now instead of chosing only one. They like it and don't feel underpowered at all.


OTOH, I don't only give feats every odd level, I give them an attribute increase every even level. This is balanced though with low point buy rules.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I don't think the paladin is weak, but a lot of his powers are a little ho-hum.

In other words, he is weak.

A stylish grabbag of defenses generally does not stack up against a few choice offensive tactics when you spend most of your time on the battle line.

Slight digress: The 1e Monk or the 3e Monk are good examples. Both look extremely potent on paper, but the 1e monk is absurdly weak and the 3e monk is weak at low levels and just fine at higher levels.

Likewise the Paladin looks great on paper. Look at all those neat abilities! Surely each is worth about a feat, right? But they are not because they rarely save your butt when standing next to a Big Boss monster -- a Smite Evil or two doesn't cut it.

Yes, defensive stacking can work, but it is a lot tougher than offensive stacking. You can't throw three weird abilities at a class and assume it is just as good as 2 or 3 feats. Doesn't work that way.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Should a paladin be a good fighter? In my view, yes.
Should a paladin be the best person to oppose evil? In my view, yes.

...

Is the paladin supposed to outfight a fighter of the same level? There is an equally good argument that for balance reasons, a paladin should not outshine a fighter in his area of specialty.

[lots of good points deleted]

I agree.

But what IS the paladin's combat role supposed to be? Obviously the paladin should have a tough time when stacked up against equivalent level fighters.

IME, the paladin is noticeably less powerful than a fighter when fighting evil and a lot less powerful when fighting anything else.

 

[Valiantheart]

[lots of good points deleted]

I agree.

But what IS the paladin's combat role supposed to be? Obviously the paladin should have a tough time when stacked up against equivalent level fighters.

IME, the paladin is noticeably less powerful than a fighter when fighting evil and a lot less powerful when fighting anything else.

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.

 

[orangefruitbat]

The paladin's strength is that he keeps going

The paladin's key abilities I think are divine grace, aura of courage, divine health and lay on hands.

The paladin doesn't flee before the evil cleric's fear spell or cower when the dragon flies overhead.

The paladin endures flames and poisons that topple others.

The paladin is not seduced by the charms and suggestions of silver-tonged devils. The paladin is not frozen by the chill touch of the undead.

The paladin is the only fighting class with decent will saves (unless you count the monk). And generally big bads have all sorts of powers that will take out fighters. And spell-casters typically have poor fortitude saves and/or HP. So they can be taken out pretty easily as well.

In my experience as a DM, I found that paladins were always the most reliable character on the battle field. They didn't always dominate the game against most foes, but they were stalwart team members who could consistently save the paralyzed fighter's butt.

In other words, he is weak.

A stylish grabbag of defenses generally does not stack up against a few choice offensive tactics when you spend most of your time on the battle line.

Slight digress: The 1e Monk or the 3e Monk are good examples. Both look extremely potent on paper, but the 1e monk is absurdly weak and the 3e monk is weak at low levels and just fine at higher levels.

Likewise the Paladin looks great on paper. Look at all those neat abilities! Surely each is worth about a feat, right? But they are not because they rarely save your butt when standing next to a Big Boss monster -- a Smite Evil or two doesn't cut it.

Yes, defensive stacking can work, but it is a lot tougher than offensive stacking. You can't throw three weird abilities at a class and assume it is just as good as 2 or 3 feats. Doesn't work that way.

 

[Gargoyle]

I think that there is a little too much focus on the feats for a game like D&D.

What do I mean by that?

This isn't a point based system or a customization system.

It's D&D, levels and classes.

This has many limitations but many freedoms as well.

Those who want more than what D&D has or are expecting more out of it, might want to check out Big Eye Small Mouth, very simple, fun, fast, and now inexpensive, Hero 5th edition, or GURPS. All the feats you want to pay for via points.

You have a point Joe, but playing other systems isn't a good option for many of us. My players don't want to learn a new system, but don't mind a few house rules, variants, and third party supplements.

As far as class systems vs skill systems, I feel that D&D is more of a hybrid class/skill system than it has ever been, and I think future editions will migrate even further to the skills/feats side.

Whether that's good or bad is subjective, but I think it's a good thing. I never want to see classes go away (although I believe there should be fewer of them), but making characters more customizeable with more feats doesn't seem to alter the game so much that it is no longer D&D.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I agree James.

However, almost all of the posts here are using feats as combat advantages as opposed to things that help characters do things ranging not only from leading the people through say Skill Focus on Diplomacy to unique feats that give characters more class skills.

I think that in many ways, D20 Modern solved a lot of the issues some people have here. The whole talent one level bonus feat another works well. Not to mention occupations. Good stuff there.

As far as Shark's original comments, he's got one hell of a campaign going but it's not close to baseline D&D. Paladins are merely a combination of weak clerics and okay fighters.

What about the paladin really ties it into knighthood? The lay on hands? The spells? The horse summoning ability? I'd say the Smite does but none of the other divine abilities are really about being a knight as much as they are being a divine champion.

 

[ForceUser]

I think people are too hung up on their own pseudo-fantastical ideas of what a knight was. A knight was simply this: a member of the aristocracy, usually the gentry, who was required to give military service to his lord 40-90 days out of the year. If he didn't want to serve in the military he could instead pay scutage (a fee). That's it.

Not very paladin-like, though a paladin could certainly be a knight. A single level in paladin, fighter, or warrior plus a level in aristocrat is all you really need to be a knight.

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Originally posted by Ridley's Cohort
In other words, he is weak.

Not really. I find the wizards, sorceror and fighter ho-hum in terms of class powers (more spells, more feats, big whoop).

A stylish grabbag of defenses generally does not stack up against a few choice offensive tactics when you spend most of your time on the battle line.

Paladins do not spend their lives on the battle line, at least not in the way fighters do. A paladin is not a rank-and-file soldier but moreso, they are champions. They deal with the major threats - the sort of things that the fighters can't.

Likewise the Paladin looks great on paper. Look at all those neat abilities! Surely each is worth about a feat, right? But they are not because they rarely save your butt when standing next to a Big Boss monster -- a Smite Evil or two doesn't cut it.

From this I am gathering you have not played a paladin lately. I am playing one, and there is quite a lot you can do. You are considered to be part of the church, and you are a martial warrior. In most generic fantasy worlds this places you a little bit behind actual landed nobility, giving you lots of leverage in asking for shelter, access to old records, etc. Most paladins have good Charisma scores, meaning they are often the spokespeople of the party to important people (like actual nobles, upper church officials, good or lawful outsiders, etc). My 6th level paladin has a +21 to his Diplomacy check - it's insane! Even taking into account the nature of battle he can reasnoably use an action to halt combat (-10 for in-combat use, DC 20 to change a hostile encounter to a unfriendly one, DC 30 to make them indifferent).

Then we get to the abilities themselves. Smite is an awesome ability, made moreso now that paladins get more uses per day. The spell list, while small, is very focused on powers useful to defeat evil and protect the innocent. You become the central point of any combat against big evil due to the aura of courage. Immunity to fear and disease means a willingness to go anywhere to fight, regardless of the threat. Divine Grace means a paladin with middling charisma is gong to have among the best saves in the whole party at low to even mid level. Sense evil is an incredible boost to a party - we've used it several times to help us navigate dungeons and chasing down opponents.

While my paladin doesn't use the mount or the remove diseases they are both good abilities representing the dual sides of the paladin's role - to acts as the shield and sword of law and goodness.

What you want is all the benefits of a fighter AND the benefits of the paladin - that's just cheesy. From the list of feats at the beginning of this thread I don't see any that are of real import. Weapon focus only nets you a single +1 to attack. Big whoop. Buying W.Focus 8 times for 8 different weapons seems very silly/unecessary to me, especially because by the time you pick up the last couple of feats that +1 is going to pale in comparison against other modifiers - why even bother?

The other problem with the "more mounted/weapon feats" is the fact that it only shows one type opf paladin - the one you want for your campaign. Fine enough to house rule, but it doesn't fit mine. So instead of being a class I can use with some tweaking you've made it more unreasonable.

I would like the paladin revised a bit - to get rid of a couple of dead levels and to loosen things up in terms of the focus of the class (I love that Hand of Mercy idea), but simply giving the paladin the fighter class' bonus feats seems, to me, the wrong way to go about it.

- Ma'at