Paladin Feats / Living Greyhawk

[Longbow]

Hi all,
I´m playing a 9th level Human Paladin in Living Greyhawk and have the chanche to re-chose my feats. I´m pretty sure about what I want but I´m a little unsure about 3rd level. He´s wielding a Longsword and a Shield and wears Full Plate.

Abilitites: STR 16, DEX 12, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 14, CHA 18; good Ride and Diplomacy skills

1 = Weapon Focus Longsword, Power Attack
3 = Improved Toughness or Mounted Combat or Alertness or...
6 = Divine Might
9 = Improved Critical Longsword

Any Suggestions? I don´t want to take a second Divine Feat because most of them require an action to activate. IMHO the best feats are the ones that are always active (like Weapon Focus and Improved Critcal).
Most of the turning attempts will be used for Divine Might. I´m also not a fan of Exotic Weapons like the Bastard Sword (had that before, didn´t seem to be worth a feat).

 

[Christian]

That's easy. You took Power Attack, but you didn't take Cleave? Good grief!

3 = Cleave. Extra attacks are your friends.

 

[the Jester]

I support Cleave as a great feat.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I have a similar build for a Paladin and I took Close Quarter Fighting instead of Cleave.

In my party, with my good HPs, AC, and saves, my role is to hold the line against the biggest nasties and not go down no matter what they throw at me. Mook control is someone else's job. Cleave would be fun, but it does not really help do my job better.

Your best feat choice really depends on the make up of the party.b

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Something to think about: Extra Smiting. Two extra smites per day will take your total smites to 5 at 10th level. With 5 smites, you no longer need to think "I don't want to blow through all my smites this combat" unless you're getting down on the rest of your resources as well.

I took it with my (now 10th level) paladin in a home game and I haven't looked back. Being able to say, "I charge, I power attack for ten, activate divine might, and smite evil so that's an attack at +14 for..." 1d10+41 points of damage (non-mounted) or 2d8+82 damage mounted is worth the price of entry. Not having the ridiculous stats that my home game character has or a two-handed weapon, you'd be doing a little less, but smites would still rack up the damage for you between the attack bonus (power attack for more) and the damage bonus (which goes up each time you level).

 

[Endur]

I have a retired Paladin in LG.

My recommendation is extra smiting.

Extra to hit and damage two times a day. Can save your life.

And you can use it no matter whether you are riding on a horse, fighting in a dungeon, or grappling.

Close Quarters Fighting and Mounted Combat and Improved Toughness are nice feats, but they are not always useful. Cleave is nice, but as a one-handed weapon wielding Paladin, you probably don't have the offensive firepower to get lots of cleave opportunities. Also, Cleave is useless if you like to fight the Big Bad Evil Guy, Cleave only works on minions.

Extra Smiting is useful in every adventure (since every LG adventure has evil enemies).

 

[Longbow]

I had Cleave and sometimes it was good to have but IMHO I don´t do enough damage for it. And you´re not always fighting multiple enemies who are next to you. A great Feat for Fighters or Barbarians, though.

Close Quarter Fighting is nice, will have to consider it. On the other hand most Clerics at my level have prepared Freedom of Movement to counter Grapple.

Extra Smiting is very nice, but to get it I have to ditch Divine Might (not an option ) or Improved Critical (which is great with Bless Weapon and doesn´t have limited uses). Hmm, Extra Smiting...

Since I have a campaign card which allows to reroll a failed saving throw (once per adventure) if I take Alertness that´s also very tempting.

Are there any additional good choices in Complete Adventurer or the Races of ... book (I have Complete Warrior and Complete Divine) for a single class Paladin?

 

[Endur]

Complete Divine: Improved Smiting

Complete Divine: Improved Smiting feat is a nice choice for 3rd level.

+1d6 damage when you Smite evil and whatever weapon you use is considered Good for purposes of bypassing DR. Now you probably already have a "holy" weapon for bypassing DR, but an extra d6 of damage is always nice.

 

[Carpe DM]

This is an old thread, and I'm sure your choices are made. However, I can't resist getting my oar in on the subject of paladin feats.

There are two paths. The first is sword and board on the ground. There, I would suggest power attack, cleave, divine might, extra smiting. Really hard to go wrong with that.

The other path I am finding very rewarding: power attack, mounted combat, ride-by-attack, spirited charge.

With the new, largely un-noticed changes to the ride skill, this combo makes a mounted shield-using paladin darn near impossible to resist. On a 15 ride check you get +4 to armor class as a free action. You get a +1 to hit while mounted. You get another +2 to hit if you use the handle animal skill to train your mount to assist your attack (far more effective than having it attack itself, at high levels).

Plus, with maximized ride skill (and a battle bridle from Magic of Faerun if you can get it), your mount is effectively untouchable in combat from the mounted combat feat.

What I like about the mounted combo is that it's a good shield-using build (which is hard to come by) that does just fine on the ground. Your AC, by 9th level, will be easily 30+ (+1 ring of prot, +2 shield, +2 plate, +1 dex bonus, +4 for horse-drop trick), and the triple damage on a charge is immense, especially if you smite. And if you really get punchy, use the "assist defense" trick from handle animal to raise it to 32 in a pinch.

Just some thoughts. I've found the ride / handle animal changes in 3.5 a real boon to paladins, and one that "traditionalists" who like to play lance / sword and shield paladins should look into.

best,

Carpe

 

[Lord Pendragon]

My 10th-level paladin is currently taking a middle route. I really wanted him to take advantage of the Special Mount (I love the mounted knight archtype) but was somewhat wary of putting all my eggs in one basket, expecially since our game has a fair share of dungeon crawls and 7 PCs.

So I went with:

1: Power Attack, Divine Might (human)
3: Mounted Combat
6: Divine Shield
9: Ride-By Attack

I've picked up a Battle Bridle as mentioned up-thread, 'specially crafted to provide Spirited Charge if you already have Ride-By Attack (instead of providing Ride-By Attack if you have Mounted Combat).

Here are my thoughts:

1. On my mount (a griffon) I'm Devastation Incarnate. A lance-charge (even without Spirited Charge, which I haven't had a chance to actually perform...yet. ) is an amazing thing to behold. Especially combined with a Smite. The downside to mounted combat is that you need space. If you're a Medium-sized humanoid, your mount is going to be Large, which can be an issue depending on your campaign.

2. I might miss having specialized feats such as Weapon Focus and Improved Crit, but I've also found it can be advantageous. There are a lot of times when a longsword isn't the best weapon for the job. I've found myself using bludgeoning weapons vs. undead, a dagger in an enclosed gnomish dungeon, a guisarme to attack past the fighter in a narrow doorway...and my effectiveness never goes down with any of these. Indeed, Divine Might is effective with all of them. I suppose this is also contingent on the campaign, though. If your longsword is almost always the best tool for the job, then a slight loss of effectiveness occasionally is a fair tradeoff.

3. Divine Shield is a very situational power. You're right about the standard action being an issue with its use. At the same time, the higher your Charisma, the more powerful this feat becomes. Currently my pally has a +2 Cloak of Charisma which gives him a Charisma of 20. Even at 10th-level, a +5 AC bonus for 5 rounds is nothing to sneeze at. Note also that using Divine Shield is a supernatural ability, so you don't provoke an AoO by activating it.

I find myself often trying to guage my enemies in the first round of a combat. If I'm up against something that looks like it's going to hit hard, I'll move up to it (but not next to it,) and activate Divine Shield. I've given up one attack, but I now have +5 AC, and it will only get 1 attack coming to me. Next round we can start exchanging blows, or if it chose to close with the fighter, I'll charge it (and still be at a net +3 to AC). And as I get access to a higher Charisma, Divine Shield only gets better.

4. I do believe that the posters who've already suggested Extra Smiting may be on to something as well. Even three Smites per day at 10th-level is limiting. I'm seriously considering Extra Smiting at 12th. I've been eyeing Close-Quarters Fighting as well, although up to 10th we have yet to encounter a single grappling foe, so I'm not certain it'd be a great choice in our campaign...