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View Full Version : Paladin, Revised (3.5 Paladin fix) (PEACH)



Alabenson
2013-01-09, 04:43 PM
I've been attempting to write an overhaul to the 3.5 Paladin class to bring it up to about tier 3, and here's what I have:

Class Skills: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str)
Skill Points per Level: 4 + Int modifier

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th

1st|+1|+2|+0|+2| Aura of Good, Detect Evil, Smite Evil |2|-|-|-|-|-

2nd|+2|+3|+0|+3| Divine Grace, Lay on Hands |3|2|-|-|-|-

3rd|+3|+3|+1|+3| Aura of Courage, Divine Health |3|3|-|-|-|-

4th|+4|+4|+1|+4| Turn Undead |4|3|-|-|-|-

5th|+5|+4|+1|+4| Special Mount |4|4|2|-|-|-

6th|+6|+5|+2|+5| Vigorous Smite |4|4|3|-|-|-

7th|+7|+5|+2|+5| Lay on Hands (remove conditions)|5|4|3|-|-|-

8th|+8|+6|+2|+6| Battle Blessing (B)|5|5|4|-|-|-

9th|+9|+6|+3|+6| Steadfast Beacon 1/day |5|5|4|2|-|-

10th|+10|+7|+3|+7| Corona of Righteousness |5|5|4|3|-|-

11th|+11|+7|+3|+7| Aura of Resolve |6|5|5|3|-|-

12th|+12|+8|+4|+8| Greater Turning 1/day |6|6|5|3|-|-

13th|+13|+8|+4|+8| Steadfast Beacon 2/day |6|6|5|4|2|-

14th|+14|+9|+4|+9| Censure Fiends |6|6|5|4|3|-

15th|+15|+9|+5|+9| Mass Smite Evil |6|6|6|4|3|-

16th|+16|+10|+5|+10| Greater Turning 2/day |6|6|6|4|3|-

17th|+17|+10|+5|+10| Steadfast Beacon 3/day |6|6|6|5|4|2

18th|+18|+11|+6|+11| Holy Spell Resistance |6|6|6|5|4|3

19th|+19|+11|+6|+11| Aura of Life |6|6|6|5|4|4

20th|+20|+12|+6|+12| Resilience of the Zealot, Greater Turning 3/day |6|6|6|5|5|5
[/table]

Smite Evil (Su): A Paladin may fill themselves with holy energy a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Cha modifier, smiting evil with increased fervor. As a swift action, a Paladin enters a state of holy fury, enabling him to add his Charisma modifier to all attack rolls and his Paladin level to all damage rolls against evil opponents for a number of rounds equal to 5 + one half his Paladin level, rounded up. Furthermore, any attacks the Paladin makes while under the effects of this ability automatically overcome evil creatures damage reduction.
However, should the Paladin intentionally make an attack against a good creature while under the effects of this ability, the effect immediately comes to an end and the Paladin loses all remaining Smite Evil uses for the rest of the day.

Spells: A paladin casts divine spells, which are drawn from the paladin spell list. A paladin must choose and prepare his spells in advance.
To prepare or cast a spell, a paladin must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a paladin’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the paladin’s Charisma modifier.
The paladin can only cast a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. The base daily allotment is given on the above table, and in addition a paladin receives bonus spells per day if they have a high Charisma score.

Lay on Hands (Su): At 2nd level, a Paladin can heal the wounds of living creatures (either his own or others) with a touch. Each day you can heal a number of points of damage equal to twice your class level x your Charisma bonus. For example, a 7th level Paladin with a Charisma of 16 would be able to heal 42 points of damage a day. You can choose to divide this healing among multiple recipients, and you don’t have to use it all at once. Using lay on hands is a standard action.
Alternatively, a paladin may use any or all of this healing power to deal damage to undead creatures. Using lay on hands in this way requires a successful melee touch attack and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. The paladin decides how much of his daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.
Beginning at 7th level, you can choose to spend some of the healing bestowed by lay on hands to remove other harmful conditions affecting the target.
For every 5 points of lay on hands you expend, you can cure 1 point of ability damage or remove the dazed, fatigued, or sickened condition from one individual.
For every 10 points of lay on hands you expend, you can remove the exhausted, nauseated, poisoned, or stunned condition from one individual.
For every 20 points of lay on hands you expend, you can remove a negative level or the blinded, deafened, or diseased condition from one individual.
You can remove multiple conditions and heal damage with the same touch, so long as you expend the required number of points.

Aura of Courage (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 30 feet of him gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects. This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.

Turn Undead (Su): When a paladin reaches 4th level, he gains the supernatural ability to turn undead. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier. He turns undead as a cleric of his paladin class level would.

Vigorous Smite (Su): Beginning at 6th level, a paladin under the effects of his smite evil power gains the ability to move much faster than normal. This increased speed has two effects. First, the paladin gains a +10 ft. enhancement to his base land speed. Second, the paladin gains the ability to make one additional attack when he makes an attack or full attack action. This additional attack does not stack with other abilities that grant extra attacks, such as the haste spell or the speed weapon enchantment.

Battle Blessing: At 8th level, a paladin gains Battle Blessing (Complete Champion pg. 55) as a bonus feat.

Steadfast Beacon (Su): Beginning at 9th level, once per day a paladin can grant a bonus on one saving throw (either Fortitude, Reflex, or Will) equal to his Charisma modifier to all allies within 30 ft. for one round. At 13th level, the paladin can use this ability 2/day, and at 17th level a paladin can use this ability 3/day.

Corona of Righteousness (Su): Beginning at 10th level, a paladin under the effects of his smite evil power is wreathed in white flames of pure holy power. Any evil creature striking the paladin with its body or a handheld weapon while this effect is active takes holy damage equal to 2d6 + the paladin’s Charisma bonus (if any).

Aura of Resolve (Su): Beginning at 11th level, a paladin is immune to charm and compulsion effects. Each ally within 30 feet of him gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and compulsion effects. This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.

Greater Turning (Su): Beginning at 12th level, once per day a paladin can expend one of his turn undead uses to perform a greater turning, as the granted power of the Sun domain. At 16th level and 20th level, a paladin gains additional uses of greater turning per day.

Censure Fiends (Su): A paladin of 14th level or higher may expend one of his turn undead uses to censure evil outsiders instead. Treat this as a normal turning attempt that effects evil outsiders, except as follows; evil outsiders that would normally be turned by this are considered stunned for 1 round, and evil outsiders that would normally be destroyed are instead banished back to their plane of origin. If an evil outsider that would normally be banished by this effect cannot return to their plane of origin (because they are under the effects of a dimensional anchor spell, or are already on their plane of origin), then they are destroyed instead.
A paladin may not use Greater Turning in conjunction with this ability.

Mass Smite Evil (Su): Beginning at 15th level, when a paladin activates their smite evil ability, they may choose to also grant its bonuses, including Vigorous Smite and Corona of Righteousness, to any good-aligned allies within 30 ft., up to a maximum of 1/ally per class level.
Should an ally intentionally make an attack against a good-aligned creature while under the effects of a paladin’s smite evil, that ally immediately loses the benefits of smite evil and cannot benefit from this ability again for the rest of the day, however no other allies are affected. Should the paladin intentionally make an attack against a good-aligned creature, however, than the smite evil effect ends for all of his allies as well.

Holy Spell Resistance (Ex): At 18th level, a paladin develops spell resistance equal to his paladin level + twice his Charisma bonus against spells with the evil descriptor and spells cast by evil creatures.

Aura of Life (Su): Beginning at 19th level, a paladin is immune to death effects and energy drain. Each ally within 30 feet of him gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against death effects and energy drain. This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.

Resilience of the Zealot (Su): At 20th level, the intensity of the holy energies channeled by a paladin’s smite evil become so potent they become able to sustain his life in the face of otherwise lethal wounds. Whenever a level 20 paladin under the effects of his smite evil ability takes damage that would normally bring him to -10 hit points, he instead is brought to 1 hit point, however the effects of smite evil ability are immediately ended.

Special Mount Additions (as PHB unless otherwise noted)
{table=head]Paladin Level|Speed Adj.|Special

5-7|+30 ft.| Ignore muddy terrain

8-10|+60 ft.| water walking

11-14|+90 ft.| air walk
15-20|+120 ft.| flight
[/table]

Speed Adj.: Add this to the mount’s base land speed. This replaces the Improved Speed special ability in the PHB.

Ignore muddy terrain: The mount can ride over sandy, muddy, or even swampy ground without difficulty or decrease in speed.

Water walking: The mount can use water walk at will (as the spell, no action required to activate this ability).

Air walk: The mount can use air walk at will (as the spell, no action required to activate this ability) for up to 1 round at a time, after which it falls to the ground.

Flight: The mount can fly at its land speed (good maneuverability)


Spell List Changes/Additions
Level 0 Spells
Create Water*, Cure Minor Wounds, Detect Poison*, Guidance, Light, Read Magic*, Resistance*, Virtue*

Level 5 Spells
Atonement, Banishment, Blade Barrier, Disrupting Weapon, Greater Disrupt Magic, Heal, Mass Bull’s Strength, Mass Eagle’s Splendor, Raise Dead, Righteous Might

*: Spell was previously Level 1 for Paladins


Change Log
Added "intentionally" to the "attack a good creature" warnings on Smite Evil and Mass Smite.

bobthe6th
2013-01-09, 04:58 PM
Well, I like a lot of it. I just wonder if you shouldn't hand out the Greater turning/censure fiends earlier...

genericwit
2013-01-09, 05:23 PM
Honestly, I think Smite this way seems really overpowered. Once you get vigorous smite, the offensive capabilities of smite are already better than a Barbarian's rage and can last nearly as long (granted, you don't get temporary experience, but you also don't get a penalty to AC). I'd lean towards keeping smite the same or using Pathfinder's smite version, or doing something like a Knight's mark ability--pick one enemy as a smite use, get Cha to attack and level to damage for a certain number of rounds.

And switching the Paladin over to Cha casting from Wis casting already does a huge step to improve the Paladin's versatility.

That said, this seems like a pretty good fix, gives them a lot of new abilities to boost their allies.

Alabenson
2013-01-09, 05:40 PM
Honestly, I think Smite this way seems really overpowered. Once you get vigorous smite, the offensive capabilities of smite are already better than a Barbarian's rage and can last nearly as long (granted, you don't get temporary experience, but you also don't get a penalty to AC). I'd lean towards keeping smite the same or using Pathfinder's smite version, or doing something like a Knight's mark ability--pick one enemy as a smite use, get Cha to attack and level to damage for a certain number of rounds.

And switching the Paladin over to Cha casting from Wis casting already does a huge step to improve the Paladin's versatility.

That said, this seems like a pretty good fix, gives them a lot of new abilities to boost their allies.

The thing to consider regarding Smite is that I was measuring it against the damage capabilities of the maneuver using classes of the ToB. Due to that, it should look overpowered compared to the standard PHB melee classes, because they happen to be grossly underpowered as written.
As for Vigorous Smite, it comes online at about the same time as the spellcasting classes are getting haste, and the two explictly do not stack.

nonsi
2013-01-10, 04:59 AM
This fix would be perfect if . . .
1. Smite also worked against what a paladin would describe as "Infidels" and anyone that stands in his way of carrying out instructions from his church.
2. Other extreme alignments were allowed, with Smite affecting any alignment opposite to either of the paladin's alignment components (e.g. a paladin of freedom could smite lawful opponents).

Other than that - great fix.

TopCheese
2013-01-10, 07:12 AM
At quick glance the only iffy thing I see is that Smite Evil not only ends but you lose all smite evil for the day if you hit a good creature.

I know waaay to many DMs that turn the fumble rules into "hit the closest ally". I've seen where you had to roll to see if your fumble is a crit on the new target.

Perhaps say "willingly attack" or "purposely attack" a good creature?

Vigorous Smite really doesn't need the +10 enhancement to speed, the Paladin has a mount afterall which will give a bonus to their speed. I could however see some wings show up somewhere though....

Also I'm now really hungry for bacon... I saw "Steadfast Beacon" and read it as "Steadfast Bacon"... I won't lie, I was really curious about that class feature (burning evil enemies into a crisp is paladin-ish...).

Alabenson
2013-01-10, 01:26 PM
At quick glance the only iffy thing I see is that Smite Evil not only ends but you lose all smite evil for the day if you hit a good creature.

I know waaay to many DMs that turn the fumble rules into "hit the closest ally". I've seen where you had to roll to see if your fumble is a crit on the new target.

Perhaps say "willingly attack" or "purposely attack" a good creature?

The reason I added the "lose all smite uses for the day if you hit a good creature" condition was that I wanted to put in a penalty for misusing smite that was significant enough to make the player take notice, but not so crippling that it rendered the paladin irrelevant.

That said, I hadn't considered situations where the action was either accidental or involuntary (I've never played with a DM who used fumble rules, so it never occured to me that that would be a problem).


Vigorous Smite really doesn't need the +10 enhancement to speed, the Paladin has a mount afterall which will give a bonus to their speed. I could however see some wings show up somewhere though....

Also I'm now really hungry for bacon... I saw "Steadfast Beacon" and read it as "Steadfast Bacon"... I won't lie, I was really curious about that class feature (burning evil enemies into a crisp is paladin-ish...).

While the paladin's mount does signifcantly increase their mobility (especially with the changes I've made), its been frequently noted that there are many situations where mounted combat really isn't feasible, so I'm reluctant to drop the +10 speed increase on Vigorous Smite.

Popertop
2013-01-31, 10:44 PM
I like it.

I kinda like way you took smite evil and made it closer to a Barbarian's Rage in function, I always thought Paladins never got enough smites per day. 3 + CHA is pretty fitting.
I also like how it lasts a number of rounds + half level, really gives it the staying power it needs.
I feel you either do that, or juice up the individual smites ala T.G. Oskar's fix.

I also like how you put their casting off CHA, but I think they should cast spontaneously, as CHA is the spontaneous casting stat.

I think censure demons is kind of a narrow ability, although paladins of all people would be demon hunters. I'm only saying this because I love the Order of the Chalice, and I feel like that is their big schtick.

Also, my deal with the paladin is that he encompasses so many things, you can't really embody him with a single class fix. Maybe I'm just looking for a pathfinder treatment where you can play all different kinds of paladins with the archetypes. :/ (unbreakable, angelic avenger, mounted fury, etc.)

edit: yeah about the mount thing,
some players don't even want a mount, and would like to trade it away for another feature (wings, different abilities) or just prefer to fight on their own two feet.

Actually I feel like the paladin is weakest with regards to his customization within the class. Someday I might do a write-up that centers around this concept.

Rakoa
2013-02-01, 11:02 AM
This is probably my favourite Paladin fix, out of those that I have seen. It still has the feel of the core class, whereas most paladin fixes are a mishmash of holy type abilities with absolutely no resemblance to the class being fixed.

The Lay on Hands fix is excellent, making it useful for more than just hitpoints. Smite being more similar to Barbarian Rage is also handy. One thing I would suggest on the smite is to allow the Paladin to concentrate his holy energy into a single strike, using up all the rounds remaining on his smite to do a "super" attack. It would give him some more options based on his circumstances, if he needs some nova damage or if he wants to keep up a sustained battle.

Magnificent job with the mount. With environmental movement and huge speed boosts, it actually becomes useful to the Paladin for more than just looking pretty.

Another suggestion I would make is regarding the Vancian system. I think the Paladin would be more suited as a spontaneous spellcaster than a Vancian one.

I also noticed that you have no proficiencies listed. I assume they are the same as the base Paladin? As well, Battle Blessing is listed on the table as an 8th level ability, but I can't locate it in the text.

Great job on this Paladin fix. Keep up the good work, my friend.

Miraqariftsky
2013-02-01, 11:31 AM
Excellently done, methinks.

Seconding Rakoa's suggestions there--- of allowing the option of a period of sustained smiting or blowing everything in one fell blow of wrath and converting the casting to spontaneous instead of prepared.

On the mount, based on what you'd put up, I assume it is still hampered by rocky terrain?