Virtuous Paladin, Divine Power Excerpt

[Cadfan]

In my experience, the two paladin builds work fine, but you can't merge them. Doing so is awkward, and generates very little gain except a wider breadth of choosable powers. And with books like Divine Power, the breadth of choosable powers is expected to expand anyways. The strength paladin works just fine, other than the lack of power choices at 9, and a general scarcity of options, something that will hopefully change this month. Its on structural disadvantage is a lower damage divine challenge (starting at 3 or so damage instead of 7 or so), but I feel that this is made up for by far superior charges and opportunity attacks.

Just don't try to mix the two. No point to it.

 

[Minigiant]

Funny how Virtue's Touch is probably better for Straladins since their WIS tend to be low and Virtue's Touch doesn'tactually favor high WIS like LOH.

 

[Inyssius]

The state where someone is affected by Divine Challenge.

Oh, really? I don't suppose you'd like to cite any sources on that?

 

[Rechan]

If anything, 4e paladins are less MAD than older paladins. You could focus on either str or cha and use wis as the secondary.

I think this is what the designers EXPECTED people to do. Go Str or Cha, not straddle the two. Same as the Cleric, and the Warlock. Considering that every other class is "Pump your primary skill as high as you can get it; put your second highest skill in your second score", it should have bled over.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Its on structural disadvantage is a lower damage divine challenge (starting at 3 or so damage instead of 7 or so), but I feel that this is made up for by far superior charges and opportunity attacks.

Melee Training put an end to that. Straladins really are in bad shape right now.

I think the Ardent build they alluded to is probably STR-based, though, so that should help.

 

[Rechan]

The state where someone is affected by Divine Challenge.

Or it could be something new.

 

[Rechan]

Straladins really are in bad shape right now.

Isn't the point of the splatbooks to add more powers to builds that are lacking in support?

Also, Straladins don't have to pay the feat tax to get their base attacks to function well.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I think this is what the designers EXPECTED people to do. Go Str or Cha, not straddle the two. Same as the Cleric, and the Warlock.

I'm not so sure about that. I recall in both the Paladin and Cleric build descriptions from the PHB1 they said take one stat the highest, and then take the other attack stat second highest since "you'll still want some powers" from the other build.

Of course, then 4e was released to the public, we've figured out since that any stat less than 16 to start (and 18 is FAR more preferable) and boosted every time simply is not good for attacking. And no one was building Paladins according to "script" because that would lead to a weak character.

Plus having no STR-powers at Lv. 9, and a paucity of either STR or CHA powers at any given level ... yeah.

Hopefully in Divine Power WOTC learned its lesson and adjusted to how people build workable Paladins in 4e.

 

[Wepwawet]

I'd risk saying that divine sanction is a paladdin class feature, and you can choose between Divine Chalenge, and a new one published on DP. Maybe Strength based? I sure hope so.

About WotC expecting people to build Clerics or Paladins based on only one stat, I really don't think so. The pregen Half-Elf Cleric on the QuickStartRules (from the "test-drive" module) has Wis powers and one Str power (Healing Strike)
And the Dragonborn Paladin has 18 Str and 16 Cha. edit: But all the powers are Str based.

 

[Leatherhead]

I was hoping that divine power would have a suitably defenderesque build for paladins, or at least something that made the paladins mark more than just damage and -2 penalty to attack rolls. They are a bit lackluster in comparison to the other defenders when it comes to marking. Virtues Touch seems more like a leader power than a defender one, but Name of Awe is awesome.

And offensive paladins seem redundant, now that we have the avenger class.