Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
A dwarf paladin is not actually the worst pick.
You will be tough and the only thing that actually gets better with charisma is saves, the boost to attack rolls to smite and the hit points healed by lay on hands.
Having a smaller lay on hands pool is not a really big problem, the save penalty is in part compensated by the +2 to all the saves against spells that dwarves gets and the +2 to saves against poisons means that most of the stuff of the game will be not so hard to save against and the lower smite attack rolls is not a that big problem either.
On the other hand playing an half orc paladin is worse because you lose charisma and intelligence and do not get a ton of cool things like a dwarf(some people consider +2 to strength is worth a lot but at that point you are better off taking human and having a bonus feat since both of those are comparably valuable for a class as feat starved as paladin).
Eh, as long as you're reasonably competent at what you do (relative to your other party members), there's no reason not to pick a particular race/class combo. Now, that's a broad statement that can mean different things in different groups, but a half-orc paladin isn't automatically toxic trash. For starters, intelligence is often already dumped by paladins, and losing a bit more doesn't really hurt that much. Also, you can just optimize a bit more than you otherwise would as (for example) a human paladin, and make up the power difference that way. You're not condemning your character just by not picking the most mechanically advantageous race for their particular class. Want your next bard to be a half-orc? Sure, go for it. I'm sure it'll be a memorable character to play.