Worthwhile Paladin Spells.

[Lord Pendragon]

Hrm. Well, the responses in this thread have certainly given me cause for reflection. I wrote the initial post out of annoyance with paladin spellcasting, but it seems that there are a lot of people who've gotten good use out of it.

For me, several issues combine give me a less-than-favorable impression of the class feature (these issues also apply to the ranger to a degree). The first is the 1/2 caster level paladins suffer. This severely weakens spells based on caster level. Divine Favor, Dispel Magic, Cure Wounds, and Greater Magic Weapon (which grants a +2 bonus....at 16th-level) are all examples of this.

Secondly, the rate at which the paladin gains new spell levels means that many spells are obsolete by the time the paladin gains access to them. Magic Weapon, Dispel Magic (again), Cure Wounds (again), Greater Magic Weapon (again), and Neutralize Poison fall into this category.

These two issues severely limit the usefulness of paladin spellcasting. Or so it's seems to me.

Being able to use a wand at all is what I think makes the Paladin and Ranger shine at low levels. With traditional wealth levels, 2nd level lets a paladin or ranger have a font of healing.

While eventually the party can certainly get a hold of wands which--if necessary--the paladin can use, at 2nd-level my paladin couldn't even afford full plate yet. I'm surprised that in your experience, the paladin will spend money on a wand of healing at that point.

Divine Sacrifice
Protection from Evil

(Those two make my must-have list. A fireball per round of damage and a +2 deflection bonus / save bonus + immunity to charms and possession is not to be missed).

I agree with you about Protection from Evil. This is one of those few gems on the paladin's list that has a duration long enough not to be hamstrung by the paladin's 1/2 caster level, and an effect that does not increase with level, meaning that by the time the paladin gets it, it's still useful, and remains useful for some time afterward.

With Divine Sacrifice, remember to use "share spell" (it has a You descriptor) to give your mount the ability to whoop up too.

I like the flavor of this, but that +5d6 damage is at the cost of 10hp. So you trade off an average of 15hp of damage to your foe for 10hp of damage to yourself. I'm not sure if I'm missing something about this spell, but it doesn't seem like a fantastic tradeoff...

Lesser Restoration I use a lot in "realistic" settings where the GM tracks fatigue. It's very useful for Paladins who are up all night watching over the party, but have to kick butt the next day.

I can see it being useful in the campaign you've described. My 6th-level paladin has it memorized now. Though I think it's usefulness vs. ability damage is fading fast. As the CRs rise, critters will do too much ability damage for Lesser Restoration to cure. Restoration will be needed, which the paladin doesn't get until far too late in his career for that to be useful most of the time.

Heal Mount (good for when you've done a couple of rounds of Divine Sacrifice)

In 3.0 this spell was fantastic. In 3.5, it's based on caster level again, which means that by the time you can cast it, it's not nearly as effective as you'd like it to be. I do wish the text had been changed so that it still fully healed your mount, but alas, it does not.

Shield Other (cast this on the Party cleric and have him do the same to you. This averages out damage totals on the both of you, making it much harder for a monster to kill someone with a sudden hit).

This is a neat trick. Once my pally gets 2nd-level spells, I may have to have a talk with the cleric.

Two of the most flavourful are from Relics and Rituals: Holy Beacon, and Holy Beacon's Answer.

I don't suppose you'd tell me a little about what they do? I don't have R&R, so I'd have to track it down. Are the spells balanced enough that I have a shot of getting it approved by my DM?

and of course, the cure spells are all fantastic and useful in my experience.

Really. I find that the bad caster level makes a paladin's Cure Wounds spell little better than a wand. And a wand is cheap, versatile, and doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity.

I still use Divine Favor for an extra +1 to hit and damage.

What level is your pally? I think a big part of the reason Divine Favor angers me is because it's another spell that's hit by the 1/2 caster level. A paladin's 1st-level spell should be as strong (or nearly as strong) as the cleric's. The fact that the cleric gets five more spell levels will always make him the better spellcaster. But the 1/2 caster level means even the spells the paladin does get are extremely weak. In the case of Divine Favor, I'd much rather spend the round attacking something. Over the course of a 7 round combat, I'll still have done much more damage by attacking than I would have gotten by casting Divine Favor for a +1.

most are useful because they free up the party cleric to prepare other - more powerful - ones

I suppose that is useful, in a way. I'm not sure I like the idea that paladin spellcasting is mostly about letting the cleric cast better spells, though.

 

[Li Shenron]

Bless is always a little help for the whole battle.
Bless Weapon for the Good property.
Protection from Evil basically the duration again just always one combat.
Lesser Restoration caster level-independent and definitely a handy spell.

Bull's Strength again always lasts one whole combat.
Resist Energy and Remove Paralysis are not always useful, but a scroll would be nice.
Zone of Truth top spell for investigation.

Remove Blindness/Deafness and Remove Curse, a scroll each.

Break Enchantment is the most versatile of the list.

Holy Sword and Restoration are quite no-brainer.
Dispel Evil is very good for the dispelling ability.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Break Enchantment is the most versatile of the list.

From the SRD:

...for each effect, you make a caster level check (1d20 +caster level, maximum +15)

The paladin isn't going to be breaking any enchantments any time soon. At 15th-level, the earliest he'll get this spell unless he has an 18 Wisdom (and what paladin does, when he also needs strength, con, and charisma?) his caster-level is 7. So he rolls 1d20+7, against a DC of 26 (for a spellcaster of equal level).

I think this illustrates one of the biggest problems with paladin spellcasting. A lot of his spells look useful. But in reality, they're so weak as to be negligible.

 

[Li Shenron]

Yes they should have made it at least of lesser level.

 

[Liquidsabre]

I'm curious, what happens when a paladin selects the feat: Practiced Spellcaster? Do they gain +4 caster level then (max CL = HD of course)? Sure looks like they do, thatm ight help those Pali spells out a bit. Not that the Ol' Pali has a bunch of feats or anything though.

 

[shilsen]

I'm curious, what happens when a paladin selects the feat: Practiced Spellcaster? Do they gain +4 caster level then (max CL = HD of course)? Sure looks like they do, thatm ight help those Pali spells out a bit. Not that the Ol' Pali has a bunch of feats or anything though.

As written, I think Practiced Spellcaster works just fine with a single-classed paladin. Nice catch.

 

[ForceUser]

If you're that bothered by the paladin's spellcasting (I'm not, btw, he's a warrior primarily, not a spellcaster) I recommend using the paladin PrC variant from Unearthed Arcana. I let one of my players do this, so now he's a Clr 4/Ftr1/Prestige Paladin 7, with a cleric caster level of 8, or 3/4 level vice 1/2 level, if you prefer. He does just fine.

One whopping advantage of the prestige paladin is that he can get holy sword much earlier if he goes 4 Clr/1 Ftr instead of 4 Ftr/1 Clr. My player had the capability of casting 4th-level spells by 10th level, and thus had holy sword by 10th level, vice 15th or 16th when a paladin would normally get it.

 

[Darklone]

What level is your pally? I think a big part of the reason Divine Favor angers me is because it's another spell that's hit by the 1/2 caster level. A paladin's 1st-level spell should be as strong (or nearly as strong) as the cleric's. The fact that the cleric gets five more spell levels will always make him the better spellcaster. But the 1/2 caster level means even the spells the paladin does get are extremely weak. In the case of Divine Favor, I'd much rather spend the round attacking something. Over the course of a 7 round combat, I'll still have done much more damage by attacking than I would have gotten by casting Divine Favor for a +1.

I played that pally till level 10. When I DM I houserule paladins/rangers as many others here to have a spellcasterlevel of class level -3... which was not the case for this one.

Sure, it's not too useful for normal encounters, but in the combat scenarios where there was time to prepare (and that group was good at infiltration, e.g. pretty often we fought on our home turf) it rocked. That group was good at team work and that extra +1 stacking with most other buffs saved my day more than once.

Of course, he was a rather untypical paladin with good dex, scout skills and TWF.

 

[Liquidsabre]

I played that pally till level 10. When I DM I houserule paladins/rangers as many others here to have a spellcasterlevel of class level -3.

Hmmm, I rather like that! *snag*

 

[Carpe DM]

Lord Pendragon:

Well, don't let me talk you out of being frustrated with Paladin spellcasting abilities. I think the problem comes from a specific philosophical disconnect about the role those spells are meant to play.

Camp one (I'll call this the Monte Cook camp) designed Paladin and Bard spells as class-specific add-ons that gave effective, short-term assistance to the character. These spells usually have a duration that lasts a fight even with the Paladin's half-level casting.

Spells that reflect camp one: Bless Weapon, Protection from Evil, Divine Sacrifice, Heal Mount, Deafening Clang, Strategic Charge, Resurgence, Holy Sword (before it was destroyed).

Camp two (I'll call this the "Wish we were Clerics" camp) re-wrote paladin spells as cleric variants. Unfortunately this had the result of underpowering Paladins' spellcasting. To balance the spells for clerics, the spells became necessarily useless for Paladins.

Spells that reflect camp two: Divine Favor (now), Dispel Magic, Bull's Strength, Greater Magic Weapon, Break Enchantment, all the healing spells. These are good spells -- just useless for Paladins.

3.5 reflects camp two, I believe. Which is why people keep telling you to become a Prestige Paladin. Cleric spellcasting matched to Paladin BAB and saves turns out to really work well.

That's unfortunate.

The -3 caster level houserule is quite good, IMO. My problem is that I don't *use* houserules unless the problem is destroying the game. But it might be a solution in your game.

very best,

Carpe