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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
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    Default Need help with Defender Paladin feats.

    Hey everyone, I'm looking for some help concerning feats for my new Human defender paladin. I'm not very good at choosing feats (I haven't been playing D&D all that long) and this is my first time ever playing pathfinder. The main idea for the char was for him to handle healing from levels 1-3, and fall into a tank role from then on. He uses the equivalent of Cloud's buster sword, what we calculated to be a gargantuan butcher's cleaver.

    Concerning his stats and skills, I was advised to pump all my skill points into intimidate.
    Stats are as follows (feel free to make suggestions on these as well)

    STR: 16
    DEX: 12
    CON:14
    INT:10
    WIS:8
    CHA:14

    Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, thanks everyone!

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Troll in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Need help with Defender Paladin feats.

    Here's as good a place to start as any:
    Oradin Guide
    Plenty of single-class Paladin goodness covered there.
    [/shameless plug]
    [retired]

    Horribly out of date guide goes here:
    Oradin Guide

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2009
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    Male

    Default Re: Need help with Defender Paladin feats.

    A good question is: what is the reach of your weapon? You mentioned it's a Gargantuan version of a Butcher's Cleaver, but it could still have a reach of 5 ft. I'd peg it as Huge, to be honest. Buster Sword is essentially a Greatsword with an absurdly broad blade, single-edged, and with a tong/handle/guard that HAS to be made of Adamantine to withstand the size of the blade without bending. But, YMMV.

    The reason is because, if the reach is good enough, you can do Lockdown pretty well. There's two ways to handle Lockdown - either Stand Still (a feat that sacrifices your damage from an Attack of Opportunity for stopping the enemy's movement) or the Trip combat maneuver. The other way to handle it would be Damage Redirection, but that works best with your choice of spells - essentially, you either take damage for an ally regardless of distance (what Shield Other, Paladin's Sacrifice and Sacrificial Oath do) or return a portion of the damage you take back to the attacker.

    If you're going for Lockdown, ideally you want Combat Reflexes and a Dexterity of at least 12; that way, you can have at least 2 attacks of opportunity. Then, you make your choice - Stand Still only requires ONE feat, while Trip requires three (Combat Expertise, Improved Trip and Greater Trip). The former mostly stops there (unless you worship Irori, in which case you can take Steady Engagement to initiate a Disarm or Trip after Stand Still, or your GM allows it no matter what), while the latter can branch out a bit further (you can take Tripping Strike to initiate a free Trip with a successful critical hit, or Quick Trip to initiate a Trip as a swift action with your first attack). No matter what path you take, you SHOULD take Dazing Assault; arguably one of the best feats a Martial character can choose, it's based on your BAB and while it imposes a penalty on attack rolls (and CMB, which is what you use to make Trip attempts), but imposes a condition that virtually NO monster can ignore. You have to wait until 11th level for that one, though.

    Another good idea is to get the Step Up feat chain. While at first it's not that great (you move 5 ft., you sacrifice 5 ft. of movement on your next turn and can't make 5-ft. steps), it eventually gets better (you can move up to 10-15 ft. and you sacrifice no movement, and you can eventually make a free attack against the target that moved). Step Up is easy to follow and doesn't require a Reach weapon (a weapon where you can attack at least one square farther), and it's ideal for a Defender-based character.

    Healing in combat is inefficient, BTW (most of the time; the Oradin is an example of efficient in-combat healing, as well as the Silver Crane discipline from the 3rd party supplement Path of War, which is available on the d20 PF SRD.) If your party can scrape up funds for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, that should give you enough healing for at most half of the distance to 3rd level, and then you can use Channel Positive Energy for the rest (probably the reason why you're focusing on healing until 4th level). Please keep in mind to enchant your main weapon (and any reach weapon, really) with the Exclusionary weapon property, as it'll make Channeling Energy all the more useful; it's far, FAR better by a good length than Selective Channeling, since it doesn't require a feat from you.

    Finally: going Vanilla Paladin, or planning to choose an archetype (or Oath)?
    Retooler of D&D 3.5 (and 5e/Next) content. See here for more.
    Now with a comprehensive guide for 3.5 Paladin players porting to Pathfinder. Also available for 5th Edition
    On Lawful Good:
    Quote Originally Posted by firebrandtoluc View Post
    My friend is currently playing a paladin. It's way outside his normal zone. I told him to try to channel Santa Claus, Mr. Rogers, and Kermit the Frog. Until someone refuses to try to get off the naughty list. Then become Optimus Prime.
    T.G. Oskar profile by Specter.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Pixie in the Playground
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Need help with Defender Paladin feats.

    Quote Originally Posted by T.G. Oskar View Post
    Finally: going Vanilla Paladin, or planning to choose an archetype (or Oath)?
    I'm planning to go divine defender. My reason for healing 1-3 is that out primary healer won't come online until fourth level, although after that I will probably have to function as a backup healer in some situations. I'm not sure as to what the range of the weapon will be (I'm not the one who calculated the stats so I'll have to ask) but I think the stand still feat would work better for what I am doing instead of tripping. I do have to ask, is intimidate worth taking as a tank in pathfinder?

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