Paladin EPP to high?

Zulgyan · Post by **Zulgyan** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:22 am

I don't see anything on the Paladin to justify the fact that it is the slowest advancing class. When you compare it to other classes the paladin does not seem to be the one with the most cuantity of abilities or the most powerful.

What do you guys think?

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:23 am

Its a sacrifice the paladin must make to be an annoying, high-and-mighty, haughty, arrogant, asshat. Just the rules. Sorry, but the paladin needs something to put them in their place... behind everyone important and useful.

Seriously, though, they have a might few abilities that are pretty impressive.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:34 am

serleran wrote:
Its a sacrifice the paladin must make to be an annoying, high-and-mighty, haughty, arrogant, asshat. Just the rules. Sorry, but the paladin needs something to put them in their place... behind everyone important and useful.
Seriously, though, they have a might few abilities that are pretty impressive.

True, but I have the same opinion as Zulg. They aren't as powerful as a cleric, especially when the cleric gets to cast all their buff spells.

So I have been thinking about lowering their xp requirements a little bit. They do have some nice "permanent" spell abilities after all. So they should pay some XP's for that.
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Zulgyan · Post by **Zulgyan** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:12 am

I dunno, but I see them quite close to Rangers, maybe a bit more, and depending on the situation.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:17 am

Zulgyan wrote:
I dunno, but I see them quite close to Rangers, maybe a bit more, and depending on the situation.

The real big thing is their 12th level power.

Then you have to decide how powerful is being immune to diesease?

Protection from evil?

Laying on of hands?

Smiting Evil (pretty whimpy, really, as written).

\

Etc...
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SavageRobby · Post by **SavageRobby** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:10 pm

I think the Paladin is a good example of a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Individually each of their abilities might not seem like much, but as a whole, its a pretty nice package. In most games, unlimited Detect Evil and always-on Divine Aura are pretty nice abilities for a 1st level character.

At higher levels, they don't get quick as much cool stuff, I'd agree (even Divine Healing can be used but once a week). But at lower levels, they are pretty bad-ass.

Zulgyan · Post by **Zulgyan** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:28 pm

The thing is that Divine Aura, only add +2 to saves at first level. Then it is like having only +1, cause you are always lower level! lol.

Turanil · Post by **Turanil** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:19 pm

Paladin EPP advancement becomes really slow mostly around 12th level, so giving them additional uses of Smite and increased save bonus, after 12th level could very well offset that hindrance. Another idea would be to give them cleric spells: a 13th level paladin would gain and cast spell as a 1st level cleric, a 14th level paladin as a 2nd level cleric, etc. up to 20th level paladin gaining and casting spells as a 8th level cleric. Seems to be reasonable to me. In fact this would represent different paladin achievement between a Crusader (additional smite increased save bonus) and a Divinate (cleric spells), and would require having being a really exemplary paladin and enters Church or Templars order, etc.

Anyway, the CKG will probably have rules for class abilities past 12th level, so we will see...
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:31 pm

The reason a class gets exponentially more difficult to advance depends a lot (entirely in fact) on what class abilities they get early on, and when they get them later. For example, if an ability is something like "gets +2 on all saves starting at 1st level" thats got an XP value of 300 (to get to 2nd; there is no XP needed to be 1st level,) which seems low. But, at 3rd level its 600. At 4th, its 1200. At 5th its 2400. At 6th 4800, and so on. The more abilities, and costly those abilities are, the more expensive the PC is to advance because they are "front-loaded" to use a d20 phrase, but the way XP works is that those costs continue to accrue because they never become useless. Having a +2 bonus to all saves at 14th level is just as impressive (and arguably more so, since by then, you'd better have magic items to help your saves or you're likely to get hosed outright) as it was at 1st (if not more so as there are far fewer "save or die" effects at start.)

So, yes, there is a reason the Paladin has the progression it has.. even if its not a true formula.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:16 pm

Divine Aura gives +2 to saves and AC. Versus evil creatures. Plus it prevents bodily contact with sumoned and/or vil creatures. in other words its a permanatized "Protection from Evil" spell.

I agree at lower level all of these are very helpful. I have played and DMed plenty of Paladins over the years and the C&C Paladin is close enough to all the other versions for me to feel comfortable about evaluating this.

What I was thinking of doing to make the Paladin worth the XP costs (I have an 11th level Paladin in my home game with which to try out these tweaks) is upping the frequency of Cure Disease, Smite Evil (even allowing thsi to be earned earlier, probably 6th level), and Divine Healing.

Cure Disease I will have the number of times it can be cast improve every 3 levels. So levels 1, 4, 7, 10, and so on.

Smite Evil. If I keep it starting at 9th level I will probably have them gain a additional Smite Evil every level. I found even 3E's use of Smite Evil too slow. If I lower the "entry point" to 6th level I'll probably have it improve every other level (8th, 10th, 12th, etc...).

Divine Healing I will probably allow to be used once/day.

My players can use all the healing they can get their hands on most of the time. Having two divine healers in my Monday group has been very good to them. So having a Paladin in high level games who can add that kind of Healing for one character per day will be a good thing. Especially in groups like my home game. The only other healer in the group is a Druid.
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Maliki · Post by **Maliki** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:18 pm

I think we have had a paladin in three of our C&C campaigns, and each time they have been one of the "best" characters in the group. The +2 to saves and AC is huge, I think they are fine btb.
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:42 pm

Maliki wrote:
I think we have had a paladin in three of our C&C campaigns, and each time they have been one of the "best" characters in the group. The +2 to saves and AC is huge, I think they are fine btb.

I agree. How many of those Paladins, and campaigns, went above 8th level? That is where things change for me.
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Zulgyan · Post by **Zulgyan** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:43 am

Yes. Me too. I see them strong at lower levels, but weak at highers due to slow progression. Once a cleric can cast HEAL. He can do almost everything the paladin can do, at lower cost. Just needs time to cast a couple of spells.

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 4:22 am

If you truly feel the paladin needs something more, to justify the XP requirement, I would suggest this one very easy fix:

Give them very minor spellcasting. At 10th level, a paladin can cast spells as a cleric of 1st level, but receives only half the normal number of slots, and cannot gain bonus spells. Each level, up to the sum of the paladin's natural (unmodified by magical items, though permanent increases via wish and the like count) Wisdom and Charisma modifiers (this means a negative hampers a positive), the paladin is counted as an additional level of cleric.

It does not tremendously weaken the cleric class as the paladin will be far worse, and it does not supremely strengthen the paladin, though it certainly does not hurt them any. It also has the built-in advantage of limiting the paladin to a non-magic-heavy maximum cleric capacity of 6th level (and then, only if the paladin is lucky enough to have 18s in both Wis and Cha) keeping them nearly identical to the AD&D version.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:10 am

I am actually trying that out right now. This is becaue my son wanted his Paladin to follow a PrC path from 3E. When I adapted it this is how I worked out the spellcasting progression the PrC has in 3E.

However, the way I worked it out was it gives him 1 spell per level. Meaning at the first level of the PrC he can cast 1 first level spell, at the 5th level of the PrC he will be able to cast 1 spell of each level, first to 5th. Literally meaning 1 level 1, level 2, level 3, level 4, and level 5 spell. Maxing out at level 9 when he achieves 9 levels in the PrC. Which will be if he reaches 19th level over all.

I also allowed him to have bonus' based off his WIS, so he does get a bonus level 1, 2, and 3 spell. When he is able to cast that level. He can only do levels 1 and 2 right now.

So this, combined with the powers given to him by the PrC, actually made me decide to add 50,000 XP's to the standard Paladin XP requirements.

He was OK with that, and that is what he has gained the last two levels with doing. Plus we have been really role playing his PrC's "theme" and we have actually both gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it as player and CK.

He did lose the divine healing ability at 12th level, but he does progress in Smite Evil since he learned that at 9th level. I have that progressing at every other level right now.
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Turanil · Post by **Turanil** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:36 pm

After reading this thread and reading the thread about AD&D classes in C&C, I decided on the following houserules. My only problem is, are they balanced with respect to each other?
Paladin Houserule: Paladins are as per the book until 9th level. With the addition that paladins are considered to have the (knight's) Horsemanship ability when riding their Divine Mount (but no other mount). Then, upon reaching the 9th level, they must follow one of the two following paths:

1) Common Paladin: Your typical questing paladin, upholding the values of law and goodness, but not necessarily devoted to a god or church.

-- Smite Evil: Now this ability also enables to hit evil creatures immune to non-magical weapons, with mundane weapons. Cha bonus to hit as per a magic weapon of same bonus (i.e.: Cha 18, strikes as if a +3 magic weapon for purposes of bypassing immunities). Uses of Smite Evil per day are: 1 at 9th, 2 at 12th, 3 at 14th, 4 at 16th, 5 at 18th, 6 at 20th.

-- Divine Healing: Becomes "Divine Intervention", where paladin can request divine help that may include Divine Healing as per the book, or something else such as Legend Lore, Exorcism, some extrapalanar being sent to help on battlefield, etc.

2) Divinate: This paladin is more religious, and is affiliated to a LG church for which he acts as a champion, tithes to, etc.

-- Doesn't get Smite Evil and Divine Healing.

-- Gets cleric spells as per AD&D1e paladin.
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imweasel · Post by **imweasel** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:31 pm

I would simply add the cleric spell ability chart from 1e and change the smite to the number of times per day = charisma bonus and maybe change the divine healing to the number of times per week = charisma bonus.