Victim
First Post
So I've been considering the matter of STR primary paladins. Most members of the class I've seen have been CHA based paladins. Often, they tank STR, or only take enough for weapon related feats. So let's take a look at the opposite path: high STR, low CHA.
In theory, this seems like a great idea. First of all, you avoid the problem of running around in Plate (often with a heavy shield too) with no STR. Our tiefling paladin can't climb at all, for instance. And your OA don't require an extra paragon feat to avoid sucking. A heroic STR paladin can better perfom his defender role since his OAs have bite.
There's a few problems with this set up: often, STR pallies get screwed on power selection. There's the obvious lack of any STR based power at level 9. But even at most other levels, there are 2 CHA dailies and only 1 STR. At levels 7 and 17, there's only one STR encounter power. Yeah, because it's great not to have choices.
Fortunately, there's multiclassing. Since clerics, fighters, warlords, and rangers all use STR as an attack stat too - although I think that we can reasonably discount rangers because of the 2 weapon requirement on most of their melee powers. For level 9 powers, the obvious choice from cleric is Divine Power - it's weapon based, uses STR, and provides great benefits for a defender. From fighter, Rain of Steel or Thicket of Blades would both be decent picks for a level 9 power - I would probably go with Thicket, since without a fighter's anti-shift ability people would have too much of an incentive to avoid the defender. From Warlord, the levels 5s Villain's Nightmare and Stand the Fallen seem particularly useful. Villain's Nightmare really helps keeping enemies near the paladin.
In terms of paragon paths, there's the 2 paladin basic paths that use STR. Astral Weapon seems adequate without using Demigod+Vorpal+Pray for More lameness. Champion of Order has the stand out Certain Justice - a great way to deal with elites and solos. On the other hand, abilities that only work against demons and elementals seem extremely situational. But since our paladin is probably going to multiclass anyway... Pit Fighter seems like good choice on fighter, offering more AC and the ability to use WIS for damage. Holy Strike could then do W + STR +WIS x2 on an at will. This creates a pretty hard hitting defender, although paladins don't have all that many multi-hit effects to take extra advantage of Pit Fighter Dirty Fighting and AP features. And the other powers aren't bad. War Priest only has WIS powers, but it still can work pretty well, and offers other melee related features. Warpriest's Challenge offers a nice mark that lasts. Knight Commander is probably the only good option on the Warlord, and it still has an unfortunate CHA dependence. In my opinion, Pit Fighter and Champion of Order are probably the better choices.
So what are other people's thoughts on dealing with paladins that don't run CHA?
In theory, this seems like a great idea. First of all, you avoid the problem of running around in Plate (often with a heavy shield too) with no STR. Our tiefling paladin can't climb at all, for instance. And your OA don't require an extra paragon feat to avoid sucking. A heroic STR paladin can better perfom his defender role since his OAs have bite.
There's a few problems with this set up: often, STR pallies get screwed on power selection. There's the obvious lack of any STR based power at level 9. But even at most other levels, there are 2 CHA dailies and only 1 STR. At levels 7 and 17, there's only one STR encounter power. Yeah, because it's great not to have choices.
Fortunately, there's multiclassing. Since clerics, fighters, warlords, and rangers all use STR as an attack stat too - although I think that we can reasonably discount rangers because of the 2 weapon requirement on most of their melee powers. For level 9 powers, the obvious choice from cleric is Divine Power - it's weapon based, uses STR, and provides great benefits for a defender. From fighter, Rain of Steel or Thicket of Blades would both be decent picks for a level 9 power - I would probably go with Thicket, since without a fighter's anti-shift ability people would have too much of an incentive to avoid the defender. From Warlord, the levels 5s Villain's Nightmare and Stand the Fallen seem particularly useful. Villain's Nightmare really helps keeping enemies near the paladin.
In terms of paragon paths, there's the 2 paladin basic paths that use STR. Astral Weapon seems adequate without using Demigod+Vorpal+Pray for More lameness. Champion of Order has the stand out Certain Justice - a great way to deal with elites and solos. On the other hand, abilities that only work against demons and elementals seem extremely situational. But since our paladin is probably going to multiclass anyway... Pit Fighter seems like good choice on fighter, offering more AC and the ability to use WIS for damage. Holy Strike could then do W + STR +WIS x2 on an at will. This creates a pretty hard hitting defender, although paladins don't have all that many multi-hit effects to take extra advantage of Pit Fighter Dirty Fighting and AP features. And the other powers aren't bad. War Priest only has WIS powers, but it still can work pretty well, and offers other melee related features. Warpriest's Challenge offers a nice mark that lasts. Knight Commander is probably the only good option on the Warlord, and it still has an unfortunate CHA dependence. In my opinion, Pit Fighter and Champion of Order are probably the better choices.
So what are other people's thoughts on dealing with paladins that don't run CHA?
