Making paladin feat choices is tough!

[Ridley's Cohort]

It was pretty nice to have at levels 1 and 2. Yeah, I could beg my DM to let me retrain or something, but I'm not sure it's worth the battle. It's not like Cleave stops being useful entirely, just less good.

Doesn't hurt to ask. IME DMs are more open to this kind of change if you make it clear that it is part of a long term plan that seems reasonable.

What you have is fine at your level. It becomes very desirable to change when you are 10th+. You have time to make your case while not annoying your DM too much.

I somewhat agree with all of these, but add them together and you're talking (with the Mounted Combat pre-req) six feats.

Currently I'd like to get: one feat that burns turn attempts, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, Battle Blessing. That uses all available feats out until 18th level.

I am not familiar with Battle Blessing.

Yeah, number of feats is a problem. That is the life of a Paladin. I feel your pain. Oh, yes, I do.

If you are excited about Spirited Charge, go for it. I am not excited by Ride By, but this will pay big dividends when you pick up Spirited Charge at 9th.

What do you think about Law Devotion? It's expensive in terms of turning attempts, but has some nice flexibility.

It is a very good feat.

I do like the flexibility. I would actually say it is cheap in terms of Turning Attempts. One minute is a long time when it is a Free Action that you can invoke at a time of your choosing. How many are you likely to use in a day? As for the Swift Action spells, are you going have many of those in a day?

In terms of raw offensive power, this is better for you at low levels than Divine Might if you use a two-handed weapon, as you can translate a -3 to hit mod into +6 damage. You are not likely to see better than +6 from Divine Might until 12th+ level, and Divine Might burns a Turning Attempt every round.

As your Cha is not particularly high, Law Devotion is going look better than Divine Might until you hit very high levels.

My mount is a hippogriff, so it already has a 15 Dex. Of course, it also lacks the Run feat that is a prerequisite for Fleet of Foot.

You could pick up Run when the mount gets its 6th HD. And Fleet of Foot when it gets its 9th HD. This will happen when you hit 12th level Paladin IIRC.

I am not saying this is necessarily superoptimal. But it could be fun if your DM allows a not too restrictive reading of the Charge rules. YMMV.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The mounted combat feats are incredibly useful some of the time.

The divine feats are fairly useful all of the time.

I prefer the latter as they can be used every day, in nearly every situation. Although I suppose with a backup Potion of Reduce Person and some sort of medium sized critter (perhaps a wardog or summoned critter) you can always use your mounted feats, even indoors.

This is an important point.

How useful a mounted charge depends a lot on the specifics of the campaign, the party tactics, and your Paladin's role within the party during combat.

I am playing a Paladin in one campaign. The party is large and the battleground tends to be spacious the majority of the time. I get a mounted charge in ~50% of the time when my mount is available. Now I could probably do better than that if I tried harder. But as I do have mounted feats I do not try as hard a possible. OTOH, I do not usually have space issues...other than my own teammates wandering into my line of charge.

(Furthermore I have Divine Might and Extra Smiting, so going toe-to-toe sooner so I can uncork the big iterative attack is very attractive to me.)

 

[Wolfwood2]

I am not familiar with Battle Blessing.

Battle Blessing allows you to cast all paladin spells as Swift Actions. (If they originally had a casting time of one standard action or less.) You get the accelerated casting time for free, no having to use higher level spell slots or anything.

Obviously it becomes much more useful once you have a lot of paladin spells to cast.

It is a very good feat.

I do like the flexibility. I would actually say it is cheap in terms of Turning Attempts. One minute is a long time when it is a Free Action that you can invoke at a time of your choosing. How many are you likely to use in a day? As for the Swift Action spells, are you going have many of those in a day?

In terms of raw offensive power, this is better for you at low levels than Divine Might if you use a two-handed weapon, as you can translate a -3 to hit mod into +6 damage. You are not likely to see better than +6 from Divine Might until 12th+ level, and Divine Might burns a Turning Attempt every round.

As your Cha is not particularly high, Law Devotion is going look better than Divine Might until you hit very high levels.

Taking into account all the advice on this thread, I think I am going to go ahead and get Law Devotion. That'll push Ride-By attack back to 9th and Spirited Charge back to 12th, but I'll grab them eventually.

Basically, I have to take into account your point that I can't be guaranteed to be mounted all the time. Law Devotion will be useful every combat, mounted or not.

And heck, I can still get triple-damaging charging with a lance once or twice per day using Rhino's Rush, even if I don't have Spirited Charge. Buy a 1st level pearl of power or two and I can likely do it once a combat.

 

[bbarrington]

I'm playing a 5th lvl Human Paladin in a Ptolus campaign and I'm liking him a lot so far. I took the following feats:

H: Imp. Init.
1: Law Devotion (+3 attack or +3 AC for 1 minute) (ComChp)
3: Battle Blessing (Cast standard action spells as swift actions) (ComChp)

At 5th I took the "Charging Smite" alternative class feature since there is not much use for a mount in a city based campaign. (On a charge where you use a Smite Evil you get an extra +2 damage per Paladin lvl plus the normal smite damage).

At 6th I'm leaning towards Extra Smite. Two extra smites a day will really help if I can get the charge in. Glorious Weapons sounds like a great choice at 9th. I have no idea what to do after that...

 

[Wolfwood2]

I'm playing a 5th lvl Human Paladin in a Ptolus campaign and I'm liking him a lot so far. I took the following feats:

H: Imp. Init.
1: Law Devotion (+3 attack or +3 AC for 1 minute) (ComChp)
3: Battle Blessing (Cast standard action spells as swift actions) (ComChp)

At 5th I took the "Charging Smite" alternative class feature since there is not much use for a mount in a city based campaign. (On a charge where you use a Smite Evil you get an extra +2 damage per Paladin lvl plus the normal smite damage).

At 6th I'm leaning towards Extra Smite. Two extra smites a day will really help if I can get the charge in. Glorious Weapons sounds like a great choice at 9th. I have no idea what to do after that...

Get Power Attack. You have plenty of ways of getting a high attack bonus, so give yourself a way to translate it into damage.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Unless you're a fighter with lots of feats, I never recommend Cleave. IMO, it's just not worth a feat for something you're not going to be able to do every round. Especially when you're a paladin with a very limited number of feats.

I'd recommend either focusing on the mounted aspect (which a paladin excels at) or taking feats that let you use your turn attempts for something.

 

[Darklone]

Ohhh, Divine Favor as swift action. Like it.

Hmm, couldn´t a paladin take Practised Spellcaster to beef up his caster level to his class level ?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Hmm, couldn´t a paladin take Practised Spellcaster to beef up his caster level to his class level ?

That's my understanding of it.

Brad

 

[mvincent]

Ride-by attack without spirited charge is not a great idea IMO. When you get to pull it off you can easily end your action with your paladin on the far side of a slightly injured monster and a clear path for it to charge the softer and squishier members of your party.

Actually: ride-by allows you to set up for another lance charge and prevents the bad guy from getting a full attack on you. Sure, the opponent might choose to go for a less powerful target, but most enemies have the mobility to do that anyway, it won't be a full attack, and this should guarantee you yet another lance charge (which is likely to finish off just about any opponent). Even without spirited charge, the double damage from a lance is pretty impressive, especially if you smite and/or power-attack.

If you get a chance, get a minor ring of spell-storing and load it with true-strikes (for incredible, power-attacking lance charges that don't miss). Also, obtaining a flying mount should give you more ride-by opportunities.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Battle Blessing plus Practiced Spellcaster is quite pricey for a Paladin. If you pick up Practiced Spellcaster at 9th level, you would have a nice juicy +3/+3 Luck bonus for Divine Favor as a 10th level Paladin.

IMO, the top choices for Paladin feats in no particular order would be:
Mounted Combat, Ride By Attack, Spirited Charge
Power Attack, Divine Might
Divine Vigor
Law Devotion
Battle Blessing
Extra Smiting
Improved Critical

Obviously, no straight Paladin is going to end up getting all of these. Tough choices are required.

I put Improved Critical on this list because it has very strong synergies with Bless Weapon coupled with all/any damage pumping methods (Divine Might, Smite Evil, Power Attack, etc.)

These 4 deserve honorable mention status, but IMO they are luxuries that vanilla Paladins cannot usually justify:
Cleave
Extra Turning
Practiced Spellcaster
Divine Shield

Any others that should be mentioned?