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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1789040" data-attributes="member: 707">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.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.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.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...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.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.This is a neat trick.  Once my pally gets 2nd-level spells, I may have to have a talk with the cleric.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? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />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.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 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.</blockquote>

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