I was wondering if I could get some help creating a build for an aasimar paladin. I know that I want him to use a battleaxe and shield, and wear chainmail armor. I also plan on worshiping Hieroneous, and have been thinking of taking the Knight of the Chalice prestige class.
Is there a build that can incorporate all of these things that doesn't suck in a fight?
Thank you for your kind attention.
A good, but basic, build is Charging Paladin 5/Pious Templar 5/Grey Guard 10. Take a paladin build that strips out your spells, and take battle blessing for your pious templar spells. Use LA buy back from UA to strip that nasty +1 LA or use the Lesser Aasimar variant found in Player's Guide to Faerun.
Use the +0 LA Aasimar, for which you never have to waste a level to gain the +1 LA.
Get out your Tome of Battle, and go Crusader 1/ Paladin 2/ Crusader 17. Use a Longsword and a shield. That's just as much a Paladin as going Paladin 20 as far as flavor goes, and it's a much better character at any given level.
1) What type of campaign. Diplomacy/talking heads, hack'n'slash, dungeon crawl, above ground, massive battles, scouting, enemy territory, undead-heavy... and anything else you could think of.
2) What do you want to do. Tank, charge, cast, smite evil, ride a mount, etc... This will determine what classes/ spells/ weapons you should use.
3) Other members of the party. Do you really want to deal with a chaotic neutral rogue, or the neutral evil sorcerer while you are stuck in the Lawful Good mode all the time? What are the other members of the party going to do while you are doing what you answered for #2?
Kurashu mentioned the charging smite alternate feature. Great for underground... less important for above ground, where you can expect to have open area to best abuse a horse/lance.
Is there a cleric in the party already? There -is- the fun option of the Prestige Paladin instead... makes you more a half cleric/ half paladin. You get 8th level spells, and most of the paladin abilities. I don't recommend it if there is a cleric already, however.
Look over the alternate class features for the paladin for other "tweaks" that can be done to improve your character:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14607531&postcount=3
Personally, I think the following have promise:
Avenging (Ranger favored enemy progression)
Curse Breaker (Lose remove disease, gain remove curse and break enchantment)
Half-Orc Paladin (d12 HD, switch Diplomacy for Intimidate; 1st level: Righteous Fury)
Underdark Knight (Lose special mount. Gain low-light vision. At 12th level gain earth glide. At 15th level gain dimension door)
Warded Special Mount (If you want your mount to stop dying so often)
Also, depending on lore and cannon, Heironious' favored weapon is either the battle axe (old aspect) or the longsword (new aspect). Thats just Greyhawk lore, although the core 3.5 setting is Greyhawk (kinda).
Love the feat, just hard to convince some DMs since it does have a touch of flavour attached to it.
Heironeous's favored weapon is the Longsword, but that doesn't matter at all unless you're getting the War domain.
Use the +0 LA Aasimar, for which you never have to waste a level to gain the +1 LA.
Get out your Tome of Battle, and go Crusader 1/ Paladin 2/ Crusader 17. Use a Longsword and a shield. That's just as much a Paladin as going Paladin 20 as far as flavor goes, and it's a much better character at any given level.
So says the Player's Handbook, but the Core Gods article in Dragon says it's the battleaxe.
How does a paladin get Travel Domain though? Domains are a cleric's thing.
How does a paladin get Travel Domain though? Domains are a cleric's thing.
There's a series of feats called devotion feats in Complete Champion; you can take two of them total, and they're themed around the domains, but you don't need to be a cleric to take them. He's suggesting taking the Travel Devotion feat, not picking up the Travel domain.
Domain feats are a new category of feats that signify character's dedication to a particular religious ideal or tenet. You and your DM should determine a reason for this devotion as part of your character's background. A domain feat usually corresponds to one of the domains to which a particular deity grants access, or those representing set of ideals.
You can usually access additional uses of the feat if you have turn/rebuke uses. Paladins could, but the domain would have to be at least loosely aligned with your deity for you to even take the feat.
Maybe Paladin4/Crusader1/RubyKnightVindicator10/Pal2/Crusader3. Get full BAB, 17th level initator with a focus on Devoted Spirit, a couple of really neato Shadow Hand teleports, a 4th level pally spells, the ability to cast 2 paladin spells in the same round by spending a turn attempt to Divine Impetus and the Battle Blessing feat, self and party healing with Martial Spirit at low levels and healing strikes at higher levels, including Strike of Rightous Vitality at 20, and a host of other goodies. Get a 2hander, take PA and Divine Might, and go to town. Travel Devotion with Divine Impetus is really fun too for some epic movement.
I certainly second this build idea. Absolutely nothing wrong with this at all. The first four levels of Paladin are nice enough, and with Crusader and Ruby Knight Vindicator you start to gain the maneuvers. Battle Blessing, from Complete Champion is definitely a must-have feat for any Paladin, and this build will be no different.
I hope you can actually use Tome of Battle, as in have it available, or can get it at some point. Because, yeah, the Crusader presented therein has all the same flavor and function of the Paladin, but it actually can function. And a Pally/Crusader multiclass is nicely meshed with the above PrC.
Ruby Knight Vindicator is Wee Jas only though, and I wanted to serve Hieroneous.
Duh, that's fluff. Just change it.
DnD is a lot about rule 0, and just having fun.
Paladin4/Crusader1/RubyKnightVindicator10/Pal2/Crusader3
Cleric 3 / Church Inquisitor 2 / Prestige Paladin (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigePaladin) and Ordained Champion (Complete Champion)
Quite strong
1 PA
3 Travel Devotion
6 Extra Granted Maneuver
9 Divine Might
12 Battle Blessing
15 ???
18 ???
If human, get a bonus feat depending on what you'd care for. Maybe an EWP if you want to use a Spiked Chain, otherwise go with a Glaive. For 15 and 18, just about anything would work. Divine Vigor might be a decent one, or Extra Turning, since you'll burn through about 5+ turns per combat if you are doing it right.
For gear, definitely load up on Pearls of Power1. That'll let you Rhino's Rush (SpellComp) multiple times per while only devoting 1-2 spell slots for it. 2nd level brings in Knight's Move, a decent mobility spell, since its autoquickened by Battle Blessing, and 3rd level brings the awesome Righteous Fury and 4th level brings the decently powered Favor of the Martyr, which is decent to keep you from getting Blasphemy locked by powerful evil outsiders. Probably comes too late, but still a solid spell when you get it.
RKV could be reflavored to Shining Blade Vindicator, or some such, and the 5 ranks in Hide moved to 5 ranks in Know:Nobility or something equally worthless. The 5th level RKV ability would probably have to change to something as well. Other than that, its really Divine Impetus and duel progression spells/IL that you are looking for.
Then again, the big H uses a longsword or battleaxe...
I'd assume you are gonna invest in medium to heavy armor, and tumble isn't a class skill for Pal, Crus, or RKV, so you won't be able to avoid AoOs that way. At the highest levels, if you keep Shadow Hand manuevers with RKV, you'll get Shadow Blink, which is pretty much amazing for avoiding AoOs, but that won't come until around ECL 12-14 IIRC. Thats kind of late to be waiting for this life saving mechanic.
Also, BEG your DM to allow you to perform normal manuver swaps during your RKV levels, otherwise you'll be pretty high level with very few worthwhile strikes. The Devoted Spirit ones that heal tend to be good choice for bailing you out of a bind. If you get really hurt, Shadow Jaunt away to recouperate as needed.
Reach is NICE.
The problem with armor spikes, is that they are a light weapon, so you can't PA with them. You could still get your +cha with Divine Might, and 1x your str, but that would be it.
You can always use armor spikes or a spiked gauntlet for when things are right beside you and you don't want to 5' step away.
Reach is NICE.
There is iirc a feat - short haft I believe - that lets you use a reach weapon in close quarters if you take a penalty to hit. Oh, and speaking of feats - I don't know if someone mentioned Law Devotion from CChamp, but it's crazy good for a pally. It's like a "don't be hit or don't miss, your choice." Imo as good for paladin fighting as Battle blessing is for paladin casting.
As a paladin, I would probably take something like Paladin5/Pious Templar 10/Divine champion 5 (FR, very generic and easy to export though) or Singh Rager 5 (OA). A paladin/Singh rager is a pretty nice combo - you get rage, pounce, and the ability to use (greater) ki shout as a free action on a full attack, as well as some other stuff. Divine champion grants feats, iirc saves vs divine spells/abilities, smite progression or other goodies. Either is a good option, imo, especially if you do not use a mount and thus do not care for advancing it. I'm more partial to Singh Rager, myself - it makes for a more original paladins.
There is iirc a feat - short haft I believe - that lets you use a reach weapon in close quarters if you take a penalty to hit. Oh, and speaking of feats - I don't know if someone mentioned Law Devotion from CChamp, but it's crazy good for a pally. It's like a "don't be hit or don't miss, your choice." Imo as good for paladin fighting as Battle blessing is for paladin casting.
As a paladin, I would probably take something like Paladin5/Pious Templar 10/Divine champion 5 (FR, very generic and easy to export though) or Singh Rager 5 (OA). A paladin/Singh rager is a pretty nice combo - you get rage, pounce, and the ability to use (greater) ki shout as a free action on a full attack, as well as some other stuff. Divine champion grants feats, iirc saves vs divine spells/abilities, smite progression or other goodies. Either is a good option, imo, especially if you do not use a mount and thus do not care for advancing it. I'm more partial to Singh Rager, myself - it makes for a more original paladins.
Don't spend a feat on Short Haft. Guantlet, Spiked Gauntlet or Armor Spikes.
Half orc paragon can give lawful characters the rage ability so take the extra rage feat once or twice. maybe you could even use the whirling frenzy variant to give you an extra attack when raging.
Don't spend a feat on Short Haft. Guantlet, Spiked Gauntlet or Armor Spikes.
Each of these can give you a close-range attack, but it would probably be much worse than your main weapon - and cost a lot to enhance properly, as well. I personally see SH as a way to boost the effectiveness of a reach weapon, and in that imo it is good enough. YMMV.
Each of these can give you a close-range attack, but it would probably be much worse than your main weapon - and cost a lot to enhance properly, as well. I personally see SH as a way to boost the effectiveness of a reach weapon, and in that imo it is good enough. YMMV.
Spend some gp on the sizing weapon enhancement that lets you change the weapon's size from MIC. Small reach weapon on medium character = no reach. Spending 5.000 gp >>> spending two feats.
Either go the cheap route and make sure you can always take a 5' step, or spend the 1 feat on EWP: Spiked Chain. Those are the best options, IMO. Spikes and Short Haft just don't cut it in terms of mid-late game damage/actions.
5k is expensive, but becomes relatively less so at higher levels. I rather spend 5k than a feat, but YMMV.
Yea, but sizing is also a +equiv enhancement, so its not just a 5000g investment, its a huge investment by the time you add other nice stuff like wounding or a martial style enchancment. Its a lot of cash to go from +5 to +6, or more. Getting sizing primarily to deal with reach seems a fools errand.
Er, wha?
+5000, gp enhancement, that's it :P No +x bonus.
