Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 4695472" data-attributes="member: 3424">There's been a lot of back and forth on this issue, so I think it would be useful to compare how a fighter, a Strength-based paladin and a Charisma-based paladin will fare across a variety of situations:1. Against An Adjacent Shifting OpponentThe fighter is the clear winner here. If he has already marked the opponent, he gets an immediate Combat Challenge attack against it. Note that this is not an opportunity attack, however, so he does not get to add his Wisdom bonus to the attack roll, he does not stop the shift, and he can only do this once per round, which means that any other opponents he may have marked are free to shift without provoking an attack from the fighter. Nonetheless, neither variety of paladin can do much to counter shifting opponents.2. Against An Opponent Who Provokes An Opportunity AttackAgain, the fighter has the advantage. He gets to add his Wisdom bonus and possibly a bonus from his weapon talent to the attack roll, and he stops the opponent's movement if the opportunity attack was provoked by movement. Of the two types of paladin, Strength-based paladins tend to fare better than Charisma-based paladins because their melee basic attacks tend to be better.3. Against A Marked Opponent Who Makes An Attack That Does Not Include The DefenderHere, the paladins have the advantage of reliability, with the Charisma-based paladin edging out the Strength-based paladin because of higher divine challenge damage. The paladin need not remain adjacent to the opponent, and need not make an attack roll. Assuming a 50% chance to hit on the part of the fighter (again, this is not an opportunity attack, so he does not get to add his Wisdom bonus to the attack roll) the Charisma-based paladin is also likely to do more damage on average with his divine challenge. Even a Strength-based paladin with a Charisma of 14 deals 5 points of damage a round, which is comparable to the expected damage of a Strength 18 fighter with a one-handed weapon such as a longsword.4. Maintaining A Mark Against An Opponent Who Moves Away From The DefenderThe fighter and the paladins have roughly similar options. They could choose to maintain the mark by making a ranged attack, or by pursuing the opponent and making a melee attack. The paladins actually have a bit more flexibility here because they could also maintain their mark by moving adjacent to their marked target and attacking another opponent. Charisma-based paladins have a further potential edge in that there are a few Charisma-based ranged encounter and daily powers, so they may be more effective at attacking a marked opponent at range.5. Enfeebling StikeOne other point I should mention is the paladin at-will attack enfeebling strike. It's a Charisma attack that imposes a -2 penalty to attack rolls on a target marked by the paladin until the end of the paladin's next turn. This effectively allows the paladin to double the effectiveness of his mark (and, in relative terms, further boost his already impressive defences) if he hits. So, in the final analysis, I'd say that Varis is partly right. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Both the fighter and the Charisma-based paladin seem to be better defenders than the Strength-based paladin. However, it doesn't seem to me that the Charisma-based paladin is a worse defender than the fighter: with his better opportunity attacks and ability to attack shifting opponents, the fighter seems to be better at controlling his opponents' movements, but with his higher average damage from divine challenge, better ability to maintain a mark on an opponent, and an at-will power that further penalizes a marked opponent's attacks, I'd say the Charisma-based paladin is better at influencing a marked opponent's attacks.Finally, just because a Strength-based paladin isn't as good a defender as a fighter or a Charisma-based paladin, it doesn't mean that he can't function as a defender at all. As long as he can still defend (and his opportunity attacks and divine challenge are still decent, even if they aren't as good as those of a fighter and a Charisma-based paladin respectively) I wouldn't consider him a failure.</blockquote>

Verification