Post by Wizard on Nov 16, 2005 13:42:17 GMT -5
(For a more complete treatment of the class, look here.)
PALADIN
Alignment: Lawful good.
Hit Die: d10.
Class Skills
The paladin’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Sense Motive (Wis).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.
BAB: As fighter
Fort save: Medium
Ref save: Poor
Wil save: Medium
The medium save progression has been introduced lately in certain WotC sourcebooks; it starts at +1 at 1st level, then improves by 1 at 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 15th, 17th, and finishing at +9 at 20th. It's really just a melding of a good progression and a bad progression.
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the paladin.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Paladins are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields).
Aura of Good (Ex): The power of a paladin’s aura of good (see the detect good spell) is equal to her paladin level.
Detect Evil (Sp): At will, a paladin can use detect evil, as the spell.
Smite Evil (Su): Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level. If the paladin accidentally smites a creature that is not evil, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
At 7th level, and at every six levels thereafter, the paladin may smite evil one additional time per day, as indicated on Table: The Paladin, to a maximum of four times per day at 19th level.
Courage (Ex): The paladin receives a +2 bonus on saving throws against fear effects, until 4th level (see Aura of Courage, below.)
Bonus Language: A paladin has an instinctive knowledge of Celestial, the language of good outsiders, which she gains upon becoming a 1st level paladin. Celestial is a free language for a paladin; that is, she knows it in addition to her regular allotment of languages and it doesn't take up a language slot. A paladin gains this language as part of her divine endowment; however, she may not be aware of this skill until others point it out.
[This simply means that a paladin speaks fluent Celestial without realizing it-- until someone asks her what language she was speaking, or converses with her and then points out that they're not speaking Common. Phrases might also slip out in moments of great emotion, such as battle cries when smiting evil. --JD]
Divine Grace (Su): At 2nd level, a paladin gains a bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws, to a maximum of +1 per paladin level.
Lay on Hands (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin with a Charisma score of 12 or higher can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her paladin level x her Charisma bonus. A paladin may choose to divide her healing among multiple recipients, and she doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using lay on hands is a standard action.
Alternatively, a paladin can 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 many of her daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.
Remove Disease (Sp): At 3rd level, a paladin can produce a remove disease effect, as the spell, once per week. She can use this ability one additional time per week for every four levels after 3rd (twice per week at 7th, three times at 11th, and so forth).
Aura of Courage (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects. At 12th level, the radius of the aura increases to 20 feet. This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if she is unconscious or dead.
Spells: Same as PHB
Special Mount (Sp): Same as PHB.
Divine Health (Ex): At 6th level, a paladin gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases.
Turn Undead (Su): When a paladin reaches 7th level, she gains the supernatural ability to turn undead. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier. She turns undead as a cleric of two levels lower would.
Purified Weapon (Su): At 8th level, any weapon a paladin wields is good-aligned for purposes of damage reduction.
Aura of Menace (Su): Beginning at 9th level, a righteous aura surrounds a paladin when she fights or gets angry. Any hostile creature within a 10-foot-radius of her must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 paladin level + Cha modifier) or be shaken for one day or until it successfully hits the paladin that generated the aura. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by that paladin's aura for one day.
At 14th level, a paladin's aura extends for 20 ft.
Constant Vigilance (Sp): A paladin of 10th level or higher is on constant alert against evil. She is immediately aware of any evil aura within a 60 ft. radius. When an evil aura enters within 60 ft. of the paladin, she feels a mental "ping" that awakens her from normal sleep but does not otherwise disturb concentration.. This ability is always active.
Upon one round of concentration, the paladin can discern the power of the the most potent evil aura present, as well its general direction. If the strongest evil aura's power is overwhelming (as described in the detect evil spell), and the HD or level of the aura's source is at least twice her character level, she is stunned for one round.
As the detect evil spell, this ability can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.
Holy Aura (Sp): At 17th level, the paladin is able to manifest a holy aura as the spell, once per day. Her caster level for this ability is considered to be half her class level. Use the paladin's Wisdom modifier to determine the Fortitude saving throw DC.
Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.
Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate.
Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than paladin may never again raise her paladin level, though she retains all her paladin abilities.
I doubt anyone will get in a tizzy over automatic knowledge of Celestial, or the +2 on saves against fear. So I'll focus on the main points: the saves, aura of menace, and holy aura.
The saves:
It never sat right with me that the paladin suffered from a low Will save. I thought that paladins were supposed to be the most dedicated, the most self-sacrificing, and at least fairly introspective. Why then, did they suffer from the same Will save as the barbarian?
At the same time, I didn't want to just go crazy raising saves, especially given Divine Grace, or when doing so might infringe on the monk's territory as the King of Saves, so I looked for something to drop. The Fort save was not only the only available target, but it seemed like the perfect answer. Paladins get turned to stone, they get turned into frogs---but not in D&D. Here was my chance to both keep them doughty combatants, and represent their willpower-awesomeness in game terms. So that's the saves.
Aura of Menace: In my mind, this is the greatest power-up the paladin receives in this revision. One thing DM's must keep in mind is that many creatures are immune to fear. Furthermore, fear effects are mind-affecting.
Even with all that, I'd say the aura is overpowered---except that it doesn't come until later in the paladin's level progression. Does this make the paladin more powerful at later levels than he is currently? I think so. On the other hand, the power is distributed across multiple enemies, rather than concentrated on one---like the extra smite attack he'd normally have at that level. So I think this simultaneously makes the paladin more valuable to the party and prevents him from ridiculously outshining them.
Finally, she pays for it with the delay of many of the abilities she previously got before 4th level. It's true that she now gets remove disease three levels earlier...but...please tell me no one thinks that's overpowering.
Besides, it's not that great an ability. One hit on the paladin, and they're fine.
Holy aura: This has more "cool" than punch, IMO. The save DC won't be that high, and the PC's probably already have deflection bonuses to AC at the same or nearly the same level. Same goes for the +4 resistance bonus to saves. The big benefit of this is the 25 SR. And for an ability usable once/day at 17th level, I don't think that's off par.
Wizard
PALADIN
Alignment: Lawful good.
Hit Die: d10.
Class Skills
The paladin’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Sense Motive (Wis).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.
BAB: As fighter
Fort save: Medium
Ref save: Poor
Wil save: Medium
The medium save progression has been introduced lately in certain WotC sourcebooks; it starts at +1 at 1st level, then improves by 1 at 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 15th, 17th, and finishing at +9 at 20th. It's really just a melding of a good progression and a bad progression.
Table: The Paladin
Level Special
1st Aura of good, detect evil,
smite evil 1/day, courage +2, bonus language
2nd Divine grace, lay on hands
3rd Remove disease 1/week
4th Aura of Courage (10 ft), spells
5th Special mount
6th Divine health
7th Turn undead, smite evil 2/day, remove disease 2/week
8th Purified weapon
9th Aura of menace (10 ft)
10th Constant vigilance
11th Remove disease 3/week
12th Aura of courage (20 ft)
13th Smite evil 3/day,
14th Aura of menace (20 ft.)
15th Remove disease 4/week
16th
17th Holy aura 1/day
18th
19th Smite evil 4/day, remove disease 5/week
20th
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the paladin.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Paladins are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields).
Aura of Good (Ex): The power of a paladin’s aura of good (see the detect good spell) is equal to her paladin level.
Detect Evil (Sp): At will, a paladin can use detect evil, as the spell.
Smite Evil (Su): Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level. If the paladin accidentally smites a creature that is not evil, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
At 7th level, and at every six levels thereafter, the paladin may smite evil one additional time per day, as indicated on Table: The Paladin, to a maximum of four times per day at 19th level.
Courage (Ex): The paladin receives a +2 bonus on saving throws against fear effects, until 4th level (see Aura of Courage, below.)
Bonus Language: A paladin has an instinctive knowledge of Celestial, the language of good outsiders, which she gains upon becoming a 1st level paladin. Celestial is a free language for a paladin; that is, she knows it in addition to her regular allotment of languages and it doesn't take up a language slot. A paladin gains this language as part of her divine endowment; however, she may not be aware of this skill until others point it out.
[This simply means that a paladin speaks fluent Celestial without realizing it-- until someone asks her what language she was speaking, or converses with her and then points out that they're not speaking Common. Phrases might also slip out in moments of great emotion, such as battle cries when smiting evil. --JD]
Divine Grace (Su): At 2nd level, a paladin gains a bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws, to a maximum of +1 per paladin level.
Lay on Hands (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin with a Charisma score of 12 or higher can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her paladin level x her Charisma bonus. A paladin may choose to divide her healing among multiple recipients, and she doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using lay on hands is a standard action.
Alternatively, a paladin can 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 many of her daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.
Remove Disease (Sp): At 3rd level, a paladin can produce a remove disease effect, as the spell, once per week. She can use this ability one additional time per week for every four levels after 3rd (twice per week at 7th, three times at 11th, and so forth).
Aura of Courage (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects. At 12th level, the radius of the aura increases to 20 feet. This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if she is unconscious or dead.
Spells: Same as PHB
Special Mount (Sp): Same as PHB.
Divine Health (Ex): At 6th level, a paladin gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases.
Turn Undead (Su): When a paladin reaches 7th level, she gains the supernatural ability to turn undead. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier. She turns undead as a cleric of two levels lower would.
Purified Weapon (Su): At 8th level, any weapon a paladin wields is good-aligned for purposes of damage reduction.
Aura of Menace (Su): Beginning at 9th level, a righteous aura surrounds a paladin when she fights or gets angry. Any hostile creature within a 10-foot-radius of her must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 paladin level + Cha modifier) or be shaken for one day or until it successfully hits the paladin that generated the aura. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by that paladin's aura for one day.
At 14th level, a paladin's aura extends for 20 ft.
Constant Vigilance (Sp): A paladin of 10th level or higher is on constant alert against evil. She is immediately aware of any evil aura within a 60 ft. radius. When an evil aura enters within 60 ft. of the paladin, she feels a mental "ping" that awakens her from normal sleep but does not otherwise disturb concentration.. This ability is always active.
Upon one round of concentration, the paladin can discern the power of the the most potent evil aura present, as well its general direction. If the strongest evil aura's power is overwhelming (as described in the detect evil spell), and the HD or level of the aura's source is at least twice her character level, she is stunned for one round.
As the detect evil spell, this ability can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.
Holy Aura (Sp): At 17th level, the paladin is able to manifest a holy aura as the spell, once per day. Her caster level for this ability is considered to be half her class level. Use the paladin's Wisdom modifier to determine the Fortitude saving throw DC.
Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
Associates: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.
Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description), as appropriate.
Like a member of any other class, a paladin may be a multiclass character, but multiclass paladins face a special restriction. A paladin who gains a level in any class other than paladin may never again raise her paladin level, though she retains all her paladin abilities.
Alright, Wizard. Explain to me why she isn't overpowered.
I doubt anyone will get in a tizzy over automatic knowledge of Celestial, or the +2 on saves against fear. So I'll focus on the main points: the saves, aura of menace, and holy aura.
The saves:
It never sat right with me that the paladin suffered from a low Will save. I thought that paladins were supposed to be the most dedicated, the most self-sacrificing, and at least fairly introspective. Why then, did they suffer from the same Will save as the barbarian?
At the same time, I didn't want to just go crazy raising saves, especially given Divine Grace, or when doing so might infringe on the monk's territory as the King of Saves, so I looked for something to drop. The Fort save was not only the only available target, but it seemed like the perfect answer. Paladins get turned to stone, they get turned into frogs---but not in D&D. Here was my chance to both keep them doughty combatants, and represent their willpower-awesomeness in game terms. So that's the saves.
Aura of Menace: In my mind, this is the greatest power-up the paladin receives in this revision. One thing DM's must keep in mind is that many creatures are immune to fear. Furthermore, fear effects are mind-affecting.
Even with all that, I'd say the aura is overpowered---except that it doesn't come until later in the paladin's level progression. Does this make the paladin more powerful at later levels than he is currently? I think so. On the other hand, the power is distributed across multiple enemies, rather than concentrated on one---like the extra smite attack he'd normally have at that level. So I think this simultaneously makes the paladin more valuable to the party and prevents him from ridiculously outshining them.
Finally, she pays for it with the delay of many of the abilities she previously got before 4th level. It's true that she now gets remove disease three levels earlier...but...please tell me no one thinks that's overpowering.
Besides, it's not that great an ability. One hit on the paladin, and they're fine.
Holy aura: This has more "cool" than punch, IMO. The save DC won't be that high, and the PC's probably already have deflection bonuses to AC at the same or nearly the same level. Same goes for the +4 resistance bonus to saves. The big benefit of this is the 25 SR. And for an ability usable once/day at 17th level, I don't think that's off par.
Wizard
