Paladins: Why are they balanced?

[Andor]

The Paladin is a balanced class. Not shabby, not too powerful, rarely a source of contention from a balance perspective.

Why?

This is a God's chosen agent in the mortal realm. An inspiration to others, a divinely touched beacon of holiness and martial might to bring hope to his allies and terror to his enemies. He wields the blade and holy symbol with equal efficacy. He is accompanied by a celestial companion. He is the only core class capable of losing his class features without a GM screwjob...

Or maybe he's just a slightly tougher ranger with fewer skill points.

If you were a deity empowering your front line in the battle against evil, would you try to keep him from overshadowing Joe Six-pack the fighter?

Shouldn't the Paladin be the most powerful of the core classes rather than merely being that guy who doesn't suck as much as the monk?

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Although I consider your complains to be legitimate, the 3E way is to balance classes with fairness, and don't let flavor influence that.

As a fan of Dark Sun, I cannot say I support this way of thinking; I’m pretty fine with role-play or prerequisite restrictions supporting an above-average class, such as the 2E paladin or defiler wizard.

I believe paladins, for instance, could be pushed in power level to justify their roles in the campaign world and their harsh code of conduct, but I don’t believe that would work very well under 3E rules. That’s just not the way they do things nowadays.

Cheers,

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Check out a Sultans of Smack or Character Optimization paladin charger sometime. It'll open your eyes

 

[Thunderfoot]

They used to be (not counting the Uber-buff 2E Unearthed Arcana Cavalier/Paladins) but they were also very hard to qualify for. In the new 'more PC' way of making PCs, letting everyone play what they want to and not affect game balance, they had to sacrifice buff for qualifications. Most 3.XE paladins don't have a 17 Charisma, which was the killer qualification back in the olden days.

On top of that you needed a 12 Strength, a 9 Intelligence, a 13 Wisdom and a 9 Constitution and all of these had to be rolled on 3d6 (and in order in 1E). To hit that perfect combination was like finding the magic bean under the princess' matress, the goose that laid the golden eggs, the holy grail or back-to-back multi million dollar lotto numbers. So back them, they were ultra cool and really tough. Now, they aren't much better than a glorified fighter with some heavy restrictions and a pretty good benefits package if they check out prematurely...but they are still one of my favorite classes.

Yes, there is a bit of 'nerfing' of their skills, but overall, they can still be played as the bastions of purity and come out kickin' major tail.

 

[WayneLigon]

You could certainly play a variant D&D where the Paladin was vastly more powerful than everyone one, but just don't expect everyone else to have much fun. They'll either get steamrollered by challenges the paladin doesn't deal with or sit on the sidelines while he does deal with them. Also, the PHB Paladin doesn't have to be the direct chosen of a god.

Now, in my game they are. In fact, Paladins are the only group of people that can say they have indeed seen a god; that god personally chooses his paladins. They have a tremendous amount of credit with most people of their faith, which is a fairly good advantage in and of itself. If there wasn't the whole 'I also acquire a huge number of enemies, including a branch of my own church' disad, it would be worth at least 1 feat.

 

[Hussar]

Another idea would be to move paladin up to a PrC and not a base class. While I don't mind the pally being a base class, I can certainly see the reasons for doing so.

On a side note Andor - why only paladins though? Sure, Pally's are the chosen of their diety (or force or philosophy or whatever), but, then again, so are clerics, druids and rangers. Heck, why should a paladin be higher up the food chain than a cleric? The paly's just a foot soldier, the cleric is the one running the faith. Wouldn't that mean that clerics should get a big ol' dose of power?

 

[Meloncov]

All of the core classes are remarkable. A paladin might not be much better than a ranger, but it sure as hell is better than a warrior.

 

[FireLance]

First and foremost, D&D is a collaborative game, and if each class is more or less balanced, it helps ensure that each player's character is able to make a contribution to the party, and that nobody's character gets overshadowed. This generally means that each player feels good about his character, which helps each player to enjoy the game. This is a metagame reason, however.

In-game, while some players and DMs see paladins as specially chosen or anointed, others take the view that being a paladin is no more special than any other class. Any person can be a paladin (just like any person can be a cleric, or a fighter, or a ranger, or a wizard), given the right combination of interest, ability and training. Under such a system, a paladin may be empowered by his deity, but an "ordinary" low-level paladin wouldn't be considered a particularly important agent. A good analogy would be that of a police force - even a low-ranking police officer has been invested with some powers and authority, but there may be hundreds or thousands like him.

That said, some DMs do feel that the higher standards of behavior that a paladin must adhere to warrant some additional advantage, whether mechanical or social. I'd say that if a DM wants to make paladins feel special, it would up to him to decide how to do it without making it seem unfair to his players.

 

[S'mon]

I think they are a bit weak; it's too easy for them to be outfought by a Cleric, which I think is where the comparison should be. WoTC talk about balance, but every game I've seen, Clerics & Druids are far more powerful than Paladins. Pals shouldn't dominate the game but I think they ought to be mechanically one of the stronger classes, not currently the case. Their spell use is weak; one thing I've done is replace it with Spell Resistance, which seems to work well.

 

[Grog]

On top of that you needed a 12 Strength, a 9 Intelligence, a 13 Wisdom and a 9 Constitution and all of these had to be rolled on 3d6 (and in order in 1E).

Actually, I think the 1E DMG provided alternate methods for rolling stats.

And paladins were definitely better than fighters in 1E, but I don't think they were a huge amount better. And they needed more XP to level.

I do recall that the 1E holy avenger was pretty awesome, though. (Didn't it have a 50% chance to dispel any spell cast at the paladin, or something similar?)