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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 3315945" data-attributes="member: 3146">There have been a number of suggestions here, some of which are ok, but a lot of which won't work in the Living Greyhawk environment.My recommendations:1. As for your class, consider remaining a paladin.Paladin has several attractions:A. 1/1 BAB. This is essential for your continuing role as a front-line damage dealer.B. Smite progression. The best offensive feature of the paladin class is smite evil and that feature is improved by getting more and better smites. Anything that does not increase your smite progression is going to nerf your best attack and one of your feats (extra smiting)C. Lay on Hands progression. At level 2, lay on hands is nothing great, but (especially with the Dol Arrah's sacrifice card that you can use in Living Greyhawk), by level 8 and above, it can be as good as your cleric's best in-combat healing spell and is an even better weapon against undead (esp incorporeal undead) because it doesn't have a save. (Your average cure critical wounds spell at clvl 8 will heal 26 points of damage; your lay on hands can heal 24 points and, if you use Dol Arrah's Sacrifice, will heal 48 points).C1. Dol Arrah's sacrifice is a pretty cheap sacrifice for a paladin. 2 points of strength damage (easily healed by the 1st level lesser restoration spell) for 6 points of charisma (only for the purpose of lay on hands and only for one round) is a great deal.D. Mount progression. Obviously, given your feats and equipment, your character is not a mounted combat focused character. However, a mount can still be very useful when circumstances allow for its use.E. Paladin spells. Especially if you get access to spell compendium spells like Knight's Move, Rhino's Rush, etc, this can be a big deal. Some classes like Pious Templar also give access to paladin spells, but this can be misleading at least in the short term. If you started as a Pious Templar, for instance, at 10th level (the earliest you could qualify), your spells per day would only become comparable to your spells as a paladin by level 15 or so, if then. By that time, an LG character is nearly retired so, multiclassing (at this point) is more likely to hurt your paladin spell advancement than help it.Now, back to the question: What feat/equipment/prestige class could you take in order to take less damage?Classes: I already talked about some of the principles about classes above. Now, it's time to examine your options:A. Pious Templar- This is the closest to what you're looking for. Unfortunately, Pholtus does not have a greatsword as his favored weapon and I don't think there's a paladin supporting Greyhawk god who does (Kord and Iuz come to mind but neither would have paladins). Also, you've passed the optimal entry point by a few levels and it would now result in reduced spell progression for most of your career rather than being a wash that turned into a slight gain in the last few levels).B. Hospitaler- no smite progression and slightly reduced spell progression does not an improved paladin make.C. Shadowbane Inquisitor- Not a bad class either, but the separate smites hurts you a bit more than it would hurt most paladins and the levels of rogue you would have to take to qualify would also hurt. Finally, it's limited in LG so you would need to get access (not hard for Pholtans, but it would probably involve a trip to the Pale and signing up with the Pholtan Knights Valorous).D. Sorcerer-This is a serious choice since you would nerf your BAB by multiclassing with sorcerer. Given your heavy armor, the synergy would also be mostly offensive initially (blades of fire, critical strike, true strike, etc and the Arcane Strike feat). By fourth level sorcerer, you could get some moderate defensive utility (false life, blur) and multiclass to Spellsword and Eldritch Knight, but you'd still be pretty much retired by the time you could cast Displacement.E. Fighter-Doesn't really do much for your defense since your dex and Int aren't high enough for the primary defensive feats. It also takes all of your paladin abilities off their progression.Based on this, I'd recommend sticking with paladin. (A caveat, however: sorcerer would be a decent choice if the new LGCS opens up Abjurant Champion).Feats:A. Divine Might. Adding 3 points of damage to your hits may help you take foes down more quickly and thus take less damage.B. Divine Vigor. Temporary hit points and speed are good. On the other hand, the standard action will often mean that you take an extra attack from the enemy so sometimes it could be worse than your current situation.C. Divine Shield. This would boost your AC which is good. However, there are three caveats.1. It takes a standard action. This is the same problem you have with Divine Vigor.2. It only boosts your AC by 3 at this point. That's enough to make your AC decent; not enough to make it good.3. It would also require using a shield which would render your +1 flaming greatsword and your Weapon Focus feat unusable.D. Improved Buckler Defense. Wear a buckler and get it magicked up. This has the disadvantage of imposing a -1 on your attack rolls and, again, only gets your AC to decent--not good.E. Improved Critical: Greatsword. The same logic as divine might only more dramatic and less reliable.F. Lightning Reflexes. Not the sexiest feat in the world, but you would end up taking less damage from things that give reflex saves.G. Cleric/favored soul. Essentially, you'd be giving up BAB, smite, and lay on hands, for a few domain abilities and more weak spells. Not a good trade.None of the feats really seem like they'll contribute much to your defense without entailing large sacrifices on your part. Feat selection seems more productive in increasing your offense.So, now we get to equipment and (party) tactics. This is probably the easiest place to improve your defenses.A. Adamantine full plate. If you can't have a good armor class, you can have DR. You haven't sunk so much money into your ordinary fullplate that selling it to buy adamantine fullplate would cause long-term hardship. Access could be an issue, but if you have it, I think it would be a good idea.B. Animated shield. A +1 animated heavy shield would boost your AC to a decent level and offer the possibility of boosting it further through the use of magic vestment, etc. 8000gp is pricey at level 8 but will soon become more affordable.C. An amulet of natural armor. Ordinarily, a paladin needs his neck slot for an amulet of health. I'm guessing you've managed to snag the vile belt of Turrosh Mak, however, so you don't need the amulet. You could wear a periapt of wisdom, but an ioun stone (if you can get access) will probably be sufficient. An amulet of natural armor, however, is a relatively affordable bump to your AC. 23 (gloves of dex, +2 fullplate, +1 amulet of natural armor, +1 ring of protection) isn't great, but it's better than 20 and is starting to become decent. More importantly, the amulet of natural armor grants a bonus that is otherwise hard for a paladin to aquire (unless he travels with a druid on a regular basis).D. Rose prism ioun stone. If you get access, buy one. It's not the cheapest +1 in the world, but it's pretty cheap once you've got +2 fullplate. That, the +2 fullplate, gloves of dex, and amulet of natural armor +1 would give you AC 24 for around 15,000gp. And, most importantly, it stacks with the buffs that should be available to you.E. Boots of speed. Primarily an offensive item, but the +1 to AC is not negligable. The price, however, will probably keep them out of reach until level 10 or so--even if you do get access.In all of this, consider your tactics. If your mystic theurge ally casts shield of faith on you, that will give you a 2-3 (depending upon his build) boost in AC. If he casts recitation, that will give you another 2-3 points (depending upon his god). If, later, he casts magic vestment upon your armor or animated shield, that could be good for 1 or 2 points of AC. It all can add up... as long as you don't already have bonuses of that kind. If he regularly casts magic circle vs evil or shield of faith, then a +2 ring would often do nothing for you. If he is going to cast magic vestment, then going to +3 armor is unnecessary. Etc.</blockquote>

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