[3.5] Arcane Paladin - PEACH

[BruceLeeroy]

I'm trying to balance a paladin with arcane spellcasting. Here's what I've got so far:

Remove: Shield Prof, Heavy Armor Prof, Detect Evil, Smite Evil, Lay On Hands, Divine Health, Turn Undead, Divine Spells, Special Mount, Remove Disease.

Retain: Divine Grace, Aura of Courage, Code of Conduct, Light and Medium Armor Prof, Martial Weapons Prof, Class Skills, Hit Die, BaB, Saves.

New: Arcane Spells Known as Sorcerer, Cha-based casting, Spells per day as follows:
    0  1  2  3  4  5
1   2  -
2   2  1  -
3   2  2  -
4   3  2  1  -
5   3  2  2  -
6   3  3  2  1  -
7   3  3  2  2  -
8   4  3  3  2  1  -
9   4  4  3  2  2  -
10 4  4  3  3  2  1
11 4  4  4  3  2  2  
12 4  4  4  3  3  2
13 5  4  4  4  3  3
14 5  4  4  4  3  3
15 5  5  4  4  4  3
etc.

Whatcha think?

[bearsarebrown]

Let him keep armor/weapon prof, detect evil, smite evil, Lay on Hands and Turn undead. and add the paladin spell list.

then I'd play it.

[BruceLeeroy]

Soo, is that a sarcastic way of saying it's underpowered? 'Cause I kinda thought that the whole cha-synergy thing was really, really nice. Especially given the myriad ways to boost CHA.

[bearsarebrown]

there was no sarcasm
the only cha synergy is cha to saves, correct?
i hink it needs more. look at the Duskblade for example. it's very similar to this. except you trade all those neat abilities for... cha to saves. and Aura of Courage i guess but that's nothing to write home about.

[Flay Crimsonwind]

Soo, is that a sarcastic way of saying it's underpowered? 'Cause I kinda thought that the whole cha-synergy thing was really, really nice. Especially given the myriad ways to boost CHA.

Apparently not, but it could have been. You really need to work hard to make a paladin a cleric's bitch as opposed to his normally powered role as the clerics welcome mat.

[BruceLeeroy]

Okay. Well, that confirms my initial feelings on the subject. A few of my friends in my gaming group had knee-jerk "wait, what? Give a bitch class some power? No, that's ridiculous!" So, naturally, I wanted to test the reactions in the wild, which of course meant this board. I've always considered the Paladin to be a third-rate class anyhow.

The particular rub in this instance, is that I'm designing this class for a Fire-Souled Lesser Aasimar.

[EjoThims]

Yea, even with Cha based casting and higher level spells the Paladin needs something else to really be up to par.

I've done just that with my own paladin rewrite, but it currently has divine casting.

But just switching it to arcane with spells known but more per day should be just about what you're looking for, I think.

And if you or the player doesn't like the flexibility of it, just sit down together and decide ahead of time which smites and auras will be taken when.