Paladins; Will they finally get to shine in this edition?

[Shadeydm]

Hopefully the Crusader from Bo9S was a source of inspiration for the 4E Paladin. I really like the overall feel and direction that modeling after the Crusader would potentially give the new edition Paladin. Less of a poor man's cleric and more of a front line combatant would be my preference. Granted the Crusader needs some work, but still, in my mind the Crusader out Paladins the 3.5 Paladin.

 

[MaelStorm]

I was never a big fan of paladins in past editions. But I think with 4E changes things will get better.

• Alignments. There will be only good or evil paladins. Goodbye lawful alignment (and never come back!). This might not be a big deal, but the DM could remove your powers if there was an obscure detail that you didn't foresee and the DM thought it was violating the Law.
• Divine powers. They will access to more than just the laying hands and cure disease as daily rituals. Maybe some decent -at will and -per encounter prayers/powers that are useful. Maybe they'll retain their summon warhorse ability (could be useful sometimes, but I don't really care).
• Smites. It's been hinted in R&C that they will have a broad variety of smites that are available in every encounter (not just Smite Good/Evil). That is good news.
• Feats. With 3.5 there were some good feats for paladin. I don't see them going anywhere, and they could even come up with new and interesting ones.
• Trainings. I can see popular trainings for paladins. Fighter training for a better edge in his primary role. Cleric for buffing and take on part of some leader activities. Rogue will be attractive for evil paladins, with some sneaking attacks. Warlock could be interesting for both good and evil paladins. Warlord training, the paladin with a clarion call.

All that for saying that it doesn't seem to be as boring as previous incarnations of paladins!



PS: To the preceding poster: Fruit roll-ups! Yummy! Mmmmm! Pop tarts!

 

[Wolfwood2]

I will never understand those who say the mount isn't powerful.

I'm playing Age of Worms with a paladin, and I got a hippogriff mount (option straight out of the DMG). While the party fighter is clunking around with his pathetic 20 ft movement rate, my paladin zips around the battlefield on his mount. Mobility is so incredibly important in D&D.

I haven't noticed a lot of trouble even in a dungeon environment. Yes I have to do a fair amount of squeezing in narrow corridors, but it's doable. And when it comes to attacking enemies in the air, a mount that can't be dispelled feels a lot more secure than a potion of fly or magic item.

Being mounted also makes my PC virtually immune to trip attacks.

Toss in the One Mind spell from the Spell Compendium, and being mounted is an hour/caster level +2 attack bonus bonus that stacks with everything.

 

[hong]

I will never understand those who say the mount isn't powerful.

I'm playing Age of Worms with a paladin, and I got a hippogriff mount (option straight out of the DMG). While the party fighter is clunking around with his pathetic 20 ft movement rate, my paladin zips around the battlefield on his mount. Mobility is so incredibly important in D&D.

I haven't noticed a lot of trouble even in a dungeon environment. Yes I have to do a fair amount of squeezing in narrow corridors, but it's doable. And when it comes to attacking enemies in the air, a mount that can't be dispelled feels a lot more secure than a potion of fly or magic item.

Being mounted also makes my PC virtually immune to trip attacks.

Toss in the One Mind spell from the Spell Compendium, and being mounted is an hour/caster level +2 attack bonus bonus that stacks with everything.

I don't think it's the power thing, so much as it just seems incredibly cheesy to drag a horse into an underground dungeon (or even an aboveground dungeon). Yeah, in 3.5 it's "summoned" so you don't actually have to drag it in; but it feels much the same.

Heck, the player IMC who had a similar character felt the same way, to the point where he just left the horse at home after a while. And he was one of the two champion minmaxers in the group, and without peer at keeping his character alive.

 

[Sitara]

Well since the divine charge class variant has been given in the pHBII I don't know why anyone would still stick with mount, unless ofcourse, itsa roleplaying reason. but even then, you can always purchase a mount, you can't purchase the divine charge ability. A kind gm might allow a paladin to have both though.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I don't think it's the power thing, so much as it just seems incredibly cheesy to drag a horse into an underground dungeon (or even an aboveground dungeon). Yeah, in 3.5 it's "summoned" so you don't actually have to drag it in; but it feels much the same.

Heck, the player IMC who had a similar character felt the same way, to the point where he just left the horse at home after a while. And he was one of the two champion minmaxers in the group, and without peer at keeping his character alive.

Huh.

I suppose I don't think of it as a "horse" so much as a celestial cohort in the shape of a horse. It starts off with an intelligence of 6 and only gets smarter from there, so it's not like you're dragging a non-sapient animal around indoors.

Funny, last session we were in some big underground caves and wanted to use the hioppogriff to ferry party members back and forth across a crevasse, One of the other players was asking me, "Can you get him (the mount) to do that?'

I was like, "Dude, he's got a 7 intelligence. He already heard you talking about it and is nodding his head to say he can do that."

 

[satori01]

I'm not trying to be snarky here, but so often I find the "early adopters" of 4E try make these wide sweeping comparisons between editions, but do not seem to be familiar with the prior edition. A 1e paladin out of the PHB was way more powerful than a fighter. Same HD, Same Thaco, mount, Detect Evil, etc. 1E Paladin had the same goodies as the fighter only more so. Now if you factor in for 1E Unearthed Arcana where the Paladin became a Subclass of Cavalier....I still think it came out ahead....(Paladin on his mount was nigh unstopable).

2E you might make the case that Weapon specialization outweighed the Paladin abilities, though eventually it seemed everyone and their brother got access the Weapon Specialization.

As a whole the concept of what powers should constitute a Paladin have changed in details from the Imput of games like Diablo, World of Warcraft, and others. The Paladin in 3.5 is a poor healer, HP have increased so much from previous editions, and Lay on Hands has not keep pace, I would like to see the Paladin be a viable healer.

 

[moritheil]

I want 4e Paladins to shine. I mean literally shine, like a holy, radiant nimbus kind of effect, as an at-will power.

They already can if you use the BoED.

Anyhow, I thought the paladins were OK in 3E. Not the best, not the worst. I suppose it's hard to pin a value on the alignment and RP restrictions.

 

[Victim]

Huh.

I suppose I don't think of it as a "horse" so much as a celestial cohort in the shape of a horse. It starts off with an intelligence of 6 and only gets smarter from there, so it's not like you're dragging a non-sapient animal around indoors.

Funny, last session we were in some big underground caves and wanted to use the hioppogriff to ferry party members back and forth across a crevasse, One of the other players was asking me, "Can you get him (the mount) to do that?'

I was like, "Dude, he's got a 7 intelligence. He already heard you talking about it and is nodding his head to say he can do that."

Yeah, our half orc paladin Thrak had a mount, War Emblem, just as smart as he was. War Emblem also fought on his own instead of acting as a mount; we were low enough level that his hoof/hoof/bite routine could be pretty effective, especially when boosted by bard song.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Uh, Paladins in 1e and 2e were HARDLY subpar Fighters. All they were missing was Weapon Specialization, which wasn't that big a deal. Especially if you played the Cavalier sub-class variant from 1e Unearthed Arcana (now THERE was a Paladin!).

1e/2e Paladins were more like 99% Fighter with a lot of extra. That made them highly effective, if not a bit uneven.

3e, despite the addition of smites that were very limited in use and scope, was where the Paladin faltered. The difference between him and the Fighter was no longer just Weapon Specialization, but a crapload of feats. Thus making the 3e Paladin literally half-Fighter and half-Cleric ... and all useless. Being half-Fighter is really lame considering the Fighter in 3.x isn't very good, either. Plus it was 3e that started the whole MAD syndrome for the Paladin.

The Paladin was in the basement in 3.5 pretty much all alone, once the Ranger became competent in the transition from 3.0 to 3.5.

The 4e Paladin looks to be drawing inspiration from the Crusader, which brings a smile to my face.