Will the Real Holy Warrior Please Stand Up? [Class fix+1 PrC, 3.5, PEACH]

[Godless_Paladin]

Prob'y a good idea. I think the useful parts were that it's a little heavy on damage and turning, and doesn't give many options.

Those would be the key bits, yes, along with noting that things like "I have a bunch of my abilities on all day" isn't actually very fun because players like to have a sizable chunk of their usefulness stem from a choice of actions in the actual game itself (in addition to just picking things in the course of building). If you take all those defensive special abilities, for example, a lot of the paladin's contribution to the party comes from him just standing in their general vicinity.

Even if you want most of your role to be "I hit that guy with a sword in order to deal damage," there are all kinds of ways you can diversify on that concept. Tome of Battle is a fine example. You can trip and hit people with a sword, you can bull rush and hit people with a sword, you can pick up your enemy's sword for a round and dual attack with your other sword then throw the enemy sword at a guy, you can charge over difficult terrain and hit people with a sword, you can jump really high and hit people with a sword, you can countercharge and hit people with a sword, you can lure an enemy into a flanking trap and hit them with a sword, you can distract your enemy and hit them with a sword, you can ignore DR and hit them with a sword, you can raise your defenses and hit them with a sword, you can risk vulnerability to hit them with a sword harder... and so on and so forth. And this is me listing off options from level 1 maneuvers!

You'll notice none of those are "Just Deal Moar Damage." They all have some kind of tactical versatility and there's choices that would be better or worse than each other in different situations.

The reason the Paladin is a poorly designed class isn't because it can't deal any damage. The very first game I ever played the actual Paladin class in a game (and I was kinda new to D&D at the time) I wasn't really trying to optimize or anything and I found myself doing some 100+ damage on a charge at level 6 with Rhino Rush (level 1 spell in Spell Compendium), and a rather random selection of feats like... I don't remember, Awesome Smite or some nonsense.

And I still wasn't really that good, because charging in a straight unhindered line on the ground and smiting some guy with a sword was basically all I could do that was relevant to the party in any way (well, that and I carried around a cure wand) and it was kinda boring. Not at all like when I played a Crusader, or a Clericadin. I actually felt a lot more like a paragon of Good divine hero knight when I played a melee cleric build than I did when I played the same character as a Paladin (yes, I once rerolled my same character as a different class in a different campaign, so sue me), and (and this is the important part) no amount of extra damage will change that. You need new options that let you do new cool things. Extra damage is just the cool thing you always could do (charge and hit the evil guy with your sword), except more.