Why are paladins so dumb?
- Thread starter The Souljourner
- Start date
Crothian
First Post
Jeremy said:
Usually everything gets a few post replied to it. Heck, my Healer has even had a few responses. The trick is to not make them to long, people are lazy and don't like reading a long post. And to have a few things that aren't rules clear, a few that are underpowered/over powered and one thing that just doesn't fit.
Henry
Autoexreginated
FIRST OF ALL: Some of the posters around here are getting a little too hot-headed for this. All that will do is get a thread closed.
Second, Concrete Buddha was making an on-topic point, which was this: He believes that Paladins as a class were balanced with the other classes with low ability scores, particularly INT and CHA, and therefore would be balanced with higher ability scores, therefore making the argument that "Paladins require more high ability scores" incorrect.
Third, so many arguments devolve into "this class sucks because" threads, and so many arguments become based on how a certain multiclassed is better than a character with straight levels. When this is done it becomes a totally unfair comparison, because the comparison should be between single-classed examples, not multi-classed ones, or example relying on the other members of a balanced party. In a balanced party, the argument becomes moot on ALL sides, since all equally benefit in a well-mixed party, so why should a person even take this tactic?
Fourth, Both paladins and monks I believe are weakened with low ability scores, because their abilities by very nature are split into multiple roles to fulfill, and with split priorities, anyone will be less effective.
Case in point: If a fighter, mage, cleric, or Rogue are hampered by mostly low ability scores, they can still fall back into the role for which they are best suited; Dumb Tank, Brainy pushover artillery, Defensive Healer, and Sneaky Bastard, respectively.
Paladins however, are a mix of roles between Tank and Defensive; Monks are a mix between Tank and Sneaky. One could make the point that Rangers are a mix between tank, sneaky and defensive, making them weakest of all three with low ability scores, making it difficult to concentrate on just one role, because their very abilities are spread between roles, not just because of ability scores. What rogue gets bucketloads of attacks? What Fighter gets abilities that boost defenses yet little offenses? In a world where every adventurer's abilities except one were no higher than 10, the narrow-roled participant will outperform all others in that one role.
Second, Concrete Buddha was making an on-topic point, which was this: He believes that Paladins as a class were balanced with the other classes with low ability scores, particularly INT and CHA, and therefore would be balanced with higher ability scores, therefore making the argument that "Paladins require more high ability scores" incorrect.
Third, so many arguments devolve into "this class sucks because" threads, and so many arguments become based on how a certain multiclassed is better than a character with straight levels. When this is done it becomes a totally unfair comparison, because the comparison should be between single-classed examples, not multi-classed ones, or example relying on the other members of a balanced party. In a balanced party, the argument becomes moot on ALL sides, since all equally benefit in a well-mixed party, so why should a person even take this tactic?
Fourth, Both paladins and monks I believe are weakened with low ability scores, because their abilities by very nature are split into multiple roles to fulfill, and with split priorities, anyone will be less effective.
Case in point: If a fighter, mage, cleric, or Rogue are hampered by mostly low ability scores, they can still fall back into the role for which they are best suited; Dumb Tank, Brainy pushover artillery, Defensive Healer, and Sneaky Bastard, respectively.
Paladins however, are a mix of roles between Tank and Defensive; Monks are a mix between Tank and Sneaky. One could make the point that Rangers are a mix between tank, sneaky and defensive, making them weakest of all three with low ability scores, making it difficult to concentrate on just one role, because their very abilities are spread between roles, not just because of ability scores. What rogue gets bucketloads of attacks? What Fighter gets abilities that boost defenses yet little offenses? In a world where every adventurer's abilities except one were no higher than 10, the narrow-roled participant will outperform all others in that one role.
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
Excellent post, Henry. I hope it helps keep some of these heated, rambling posts a little more focused.
The problem the Paladin faces is he is basicially a grunt who has some special abilities, but the better special abilities do not function usefully without a high Cha and decent Wis. And a grunt doesn't live long with a decent Str and Con.
My experience with Paladins is that those weirder abilities usually are powerful in special situations, but those special situations are rare.
Immunity to Disease and Cure Disease is a joke. The two abilities put together will save lives much less often than Toughness.
Detect Evil is not that big a deal. Once in a rare while it will save your butt from an ambush. But that is more often true about Alertness or Improved Initiative. At low levels it is a convenience for ferreting out undead. At high levels it can easily backfire. I can think of a long list of feats my Paladin would happily trade for it.
However, Immunity to Fear is quite good because it allows your own spellcasters to use Scare and Fear more aggressively.
The problem the Paladin faces is he is basicially a grunt who has some special abilities, but the better special abilities do not function usefully without a high Cha and decent Wis. And a grunt doesn't live long with a decent Str and Con.
My experience with Paladins is that those weirder abilities usually are powerful in special situations, but those special situations are rare.
Immunity to Disease and Cure Disease is a joke. The two abilities put together will save lives much less often than Toughness.
Detect Evil is not that big a deal. Once in a rare while it will save your butt from an ambush. But that is more often true about Alertness or Improved Initiative. At low levels it is a convenience for ferreting out undead. At high levels it can easily backfire. I can think of a long list of feats my Paladin would happily trade for it.
However, Immunity to Fear is quite good because it allows your own spellcasters to use Scare and Fear more aggressively.
reapersaurus
Explorer
Your concept of a paladin doesn't include a paladin that can actually climb something?Lord Pendragon said:
Or swim?
Or Listen?
Or Spot?
Or for god's sake Sense Motive?
How about the variety of Knowledge skills that are pretty much the paladin's bread-and-butter? (Religion, Nobility, War, etc)
Ride and Diplomacy max a paladin out.
My concept of a paladin does not equate to a one-trick pony.
And that trick - Smiting Evil - sucks, cause it's Once a day.
I think that many people are coming to the conclusion that a paladins special abilities are way overestimated by Wizards.
But that's no surprise:
Based on WotC's track-record, if you gave a class a special ability that let them pick their nose with a +10 bonus during the green-cheese phase of the moon, they would find a way to rationalize that as equal to any feat you could choose on your own.
Or dock you spell-casting levels because of it.
P.S. Ridley-s Cohort : the undead you'd find at low levels (skeleton and zombies) will make the Paladin's 'uber'-Detect Evil virtual-feat useless, since they're neutral.
So we've pretty effectively demonstarted that most of the paladins special abilities are either highly-specialized, or near to useless.
The ones that seem most effective are Lay on Hands and Smite.
Lay on Hands can easily be surpassed by a Cure Light Wounds item, 5 times per day. (1,800 gp?)
And Smite MAY be equatable to a forced-purchase feat at about one feat per 6 to 8 class levels.
Maybe.
Spellcasting is so hard to estimate - since they get half caster-level, and get so few, and must be single-classed to benefit (and have high enough Wisdom), I really wouldn't rate it that high.
One feat per 6 to 8 class levels, probably.
Lord Pendragon
First Post
reapersaurus said:
The paladin as written can do all these things. They're untrained skills, which means that any PC can do them. Do I think a paladin can climb as well as a monk? No.
Or swim as well as a barbarian? No.
Or spot like a ranger? No.
Or for god's sake Sense Motive like a rogue? No.
These skills are part of the training and way of life of other classes. That's why those classes are better at them than the average joe (represented by skill ranks above and beyond an untrained check.) The paladin doesn't receive training to climb better, swim stronger, spot more keenly, or sense someone's hidden motives any more than his innate wisdom allows him.
And knowledge skill ranks are acquired (IMO) through study. That includes religion, nobility, and war. I don't see the archtypical paladin of any sort being bookish. He's been called to join a holy war, not a book club.
My concept of a paladin does not equate to a one-trick pony.
And that trick - Smiting Evil - sucks, cause it's Once a day.
Interesting that you infer my idea of a paladin is a one-trick pony, while your own version seems quite narrow. Whyever does a paladin need to have ranks in Knowledge(Religion), (Nobility), and (War)? Not every paladin is a well-read member of the Church Militant from a noble family. Many, as I see it, begin under very humble circumstances.
And Smiting Evil, while a limited ability to be sure, is an excellent one when you do use it. Combined with immunity to fear and disease, lay-on-hands, sensing the presense of evil, a bonded mount, Divine Grace, and Holy Sword I'd say that makes the paladin exactly what he's meant to be. A butt-kicking warrior for goodness. Of course, YMM (and obviously does) V.
Savage Wombat
Hero
Lord Pendragon said:
I find that Smite, in any form, performs best when combined with Power Attack. As a rule, your BAB is just high enough to let you seriously threaten the AC of your regular opponents - lowering that for extra damage risks missing entirely. The ability to add +4 to your to hit roll means you can more easily shift that BAB into damage instead.
And for paladins (staying on topic), Power Attack is nice both in and of itself, and as the prerequisite for the possibly-broken Divine Might.
I mourn the death of role-playing.
Let me see if I have this right.
1) Divine Health is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
2) Cure disease is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
3) Detect Evil is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
Does no one role-play any more?
There are no plagues that cross the land, allowing the paladin to bring comfort to others while himself being immune to the plague?
There's never an intrigue surrounding the paladin where knowing good from evil is a good thing?
Just because you say (and it's only assertion) that an ability is useless in combat doesn't actually make it useless.
Let me see if I have this right.
1) Divine Health is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
2) Cure disease is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
3) Detect Evil is useless because you seldom need it in a fight.
Does no one role-play any more?
There are no plagues that cross the land, allowing the paladin to bring comfort to others while himself being immune to the plague?
There's never an intrigue surrounding the paladin where knowing good from evil is a good thing?
Just because you say (and it's only assertion) that an ability is useless in combat doesn't actually make it useless.
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