Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="David Argall" data-source="post: 903124" data-attributes="member: 4481">go with the book featsPower attack and cleve are not for paladins, or for much of anyone else for that matter.&nbsp; The extra chance of missing more than balances the extra damage from power attack unless you have a tremendous chance of hitting, and your low level is going to miss a lot anyway.&nbsp; Cleve is useful only when you have lots of minor opponents.&nbsp; If you can't put them down in one swing, cleve is not going to do much.&nbsp; &nbsp; By contrast, weapon focus is +1 all the time.&nbsp; Big foe or little foe, you hit him more often.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &amp; Improved initiative is more important the lower your dex, not higher.&nbsp; With high dex, there are just so many cases where you are 1st even with a bad roll.&nbsp; My calculations find that going from +0 to +4 gives an advantage on 80 of the 400 possible roll offs.By contrast, going from +4 to +8 gives you the pull only on an additional 68 rolls.&nbsp; For our dex 8 paladin, he will win the initiative vs normal dex 171/400 times, but with Improved initiative, he gets the edge 284/400 times, a gain 103 times.&nbsp; &nbsp; Now we might ask if the paladin really needs the faster initiative at all of course.&nbsp; Our spellcaster may well need the speed to get that defensive spell up before the enemy is close enough to make casting fatal, but our paladin is not going to be doing anything that will be vitally different just because the monsters are close now.&nbsp; Better initiative nearly always helps, but the paladin does not seem one it is most helped by.&nbsp; &nbsp; But the alternative seems more like mounted combat.&nbsp; This assumes the DM is going to have a fair amount of mounted combat in the game, but if he is not and the paladin's warhorse is going to spend the game in the stables, you might as well play a different class anyway.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="David Argall, post: 903124, member: 4481"] [b]go with the book feats[/b] Power attack and cleve are not for paladins, or for much of anyone else for that matter. The extra chance of missing more than balances the extra damage from power attack unless you have a tremendous chance of hitting, and your low level is going to miss a lot anyway. Cleve is useful only when you have lots of minor opponents. If you can't put them down in one swing, cleve is not going to do much. By contrast, weapon focus is +1 all the time. Big foe or little foe, you hit him more often. & Improved initiative is more important the lower your dex, not higher. With high dex, there are just so many cases where you are 1st even with a bad roll. My calculations find that going from +0 to +4 gives an advantage on 80 of the 400 possible roll offs. By contrast, going from +4 to +8 gives you the pull only on an additional 68 rolls. For our dex 8 paladin, he will win the initiative vs normal dex 171/400 times, but with Improved initiative, he gets the edge 284/400 times, a gain 103 times. Now we might ask if the paladin really needs the faster initiative at all of course. Our spellcaster may well need the speed to get that defensive spell up before the enemy is close enough to make casting fatal, but our paladin is not going to be doing anything that will be vitally different just because the monsters are close now. Better initiative nearly always helps, but the paladin does not seem one it is most helped by. But the alternative seems more like mounted combat. This assumes the DM is going to have a fair amount of mounted combat in the game, but if he is not and the paladin's warhorse is going to spend the game in the stables, you might as well play a different class anyway. [/QUOTE]

Verification