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I'd go two further and make the Barbarian and Ranger a Fighter and Rogue subclass, respectively. Maybe even fold the Sorcerer under the Wizard and Druid under Cleric if we really wanted to commit to reducing class overlap.
 
Outside of that your are still a full martial with kickass saves, self heal and spells.

On a more hilarious note:
So we had a short mini campaign, I was playing a Rogue who was really into this Sarenrae and redemption thing after a particularly shitty neighborhood and given a chance at bettering himself because he was just a kid at the time.

The problem: he is just terrible at being a decent person.

Because how do you think he interpreted that he can't go around murdering innocents? It's obviously fucking a-ok to stab bandits and the like. In the name of Sarenrae and her Paladin, George I would become a hero of innocents everywhere.

Starting out with inflicting a mysterious hole-in-chest disease on a bandit encampment because they had it coming quickly had the NG cleric going "oh dear that could have gone better".

And then I killed the corrupt mayor in tow with those assholes, a problem occured.

See, in my handy haversack were a pair of vials that make bodies go away.
The cleric had the bag because the party was shopping and selling loot in the process.

Another problem was that the mayor was kinda... obese.
HOWEVER I am smart man of stabbings and carry with me potions of invisibility!
So, the GM was obvious about guards coming to investigate so I tried to chug one down his rather corpse-y throat.
GM: it's not working, OC: it's a corpse, it can't swallow.
Me IC: screaming "come on you have to swallow or people will find out."
- OK the guards are no longer coming.
Party was losing it.
Cleric had that dawning look of horror on his face.

So, crisis averted but problem unsolved.
Rolled the guy in a carpet but quickly figured that I was
A- too weak
B- never getting it past the guards.

So I tried summoning some animals with my wand but I didn't have animal handling so they were mostly fucking around and not enough by far to pig-farm the mayor.
I thought about cutting him up but that would be messy and impractical.

So I took the only remaining option for getting rid of evidence.
I'll let you guess what that was.
If you guessed "set mansion on fire", you guessed correctly

Eventually, after being reunited with the party and being too obviously distraught/guilty looking the wizard managed to pry what happened out of me.
"why are you so bad at this?"
-I don't know, I'm not a murderer I just kill people!

So the mayor is dead and the party is asked to investigate it, the cleric is preparing speak with dead. Oh boy :V

*edit*
Apparantly the Paladin that once threw me into jail isn't too happy about me committing well-intentioned atrocities against bandits and assorted criminal scum in his and his deity's name.
 
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TBH I mostly think of Paladin as a 2 level dip to boost my saves.

My one char with more than 2 Paladin levels is a Time Knight/Tempest who set almost all his Paladin class features on fire for archery stuff, plus a bit of Time Sphere magic a Psionics.

He has no Smite, no spellcasting, no bond, and lost about half his auras too.

He does eventually get the ability to shoot a 100 ft cone of "I threaten this area with Bow AoO's" though.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
TBH I mostly think of Paladin as a 2 level dip to boost my saves.

My one char with more than 2 Paladin levels is a Time Knight/Tempest who set almost all his Paladin class features on fire for archery stuff, plus a bit of Time Sphere magic a Psionics.

He has no Smite, no spellcasting, no bond, and lost about half his auras too.

He does eventually get the ability to shoot a 100 ft cone of "I threaten this area with Bow AoO's" though.
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I'll be honest, that's the sort of play that makes me take a player aside and explain that if he thinks I'm trying to hard to kill the party that he should say something rather than trying to cheeseplay saves, then politely ask him to try something else. Dipping paladin for saves is really obnoxious.
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
I'll be honest, that's the sort of play that makes me take a player aside and explain that if he thinks I'm trying to hard to kill the party that he should say something rather than trying to cheeseplay saves, then politely ask him to try something else. Dipping paladin for saves is really obnoxious.
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Just because you don't enjoy dollcrafting does not make it wrong, my dude. Let other people have their fun.

Single classing is boring. And generally a mistake (in optimization terms) in 3e unless that class is Druid or Artificer.



I play segregation of fluff and crunch, so Paladin levels have no special significance aside from alignment restriction anyway
 
Arawn_Emrys said:
I'll be honest, that's the sort of play that makes me take a player aside and explain that if he thinks I'm trying to hard to kill the party that he should say something rather than trying to cheeseplay saves, then politely ask him to try something else. Dipping paladin for saves is really obnoxious.
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Being constantly told that you are having badwrongfun is also really obnoxious.
 
Hey, whatever floats your boat.

Personally I think that if you want to multiclass the pally you need to at least trade out the spellcasting or find a way to add it to something or vice versa, otherwise it's... Kind of a wasted class feature.
Dipping for saves is well, depending on your GM it's either necessary or not at all.

I'm okay with being worse at something, and if you have a decent CHA score you can always take Steadfast Personality to boost your most important save :V
 
Regarding the paladin's specialization towards fighting evil, I've never considered it a problem. In most campaigns, I would expect most of the adversaries to be evil. There might be the odd construct, elemental or dire animal, but those'll be far outnumbered by all the evil things that you could have used smite on but refrained from because you only get a few of them per day and don't want to waste it. It's not like ranger's favored enemy where it'll probably only apply 5-10% of the time unless you managed to pick the creature type that is a major theme for the campaign.

Paladins also have some neat defensive abilities, like immunity to fear, disease and charm, and good saves.

The main downsides are their pathetically-small number of skills that means that they can rarely do anything relevant if there's no one to stab (much like the fighter), and that depending on how restrictively you view their Code of Conduct, it might keep the party from using any sort of guile.

Disclaimer: I haven't played paladins that often, and the one I've played the longest has the Knight Disciple archetype from Path of War, so I might not have fully realized some of the problems that vanilla paladins have.
 
The Narrator said:
Regarding the paladin's specialization towards fighting evil, I've never considered it a problem. In most campaigns, I would expect most of the adversaries to be evil. There might be the odd construct, elemental or dire animal, but those'll be far outnumbered by all the evil things that you could have used smite on but refrained from because you only get a few of them per day and don't want to waste it. It's not like ranger's favored enemy where it'll probably only apply 5-10% of the time unless you managed to pick the creature type that is a major theme for the campaign.

Paladins also have some neat defensive abilities, like immunity to fear, disease and charm, and good saves.

The main downsides are their pathetically-small number of skills that means that they can rarely do anything relevant if there's no one to stab (much like the fighter), and that depending on how restrictively you view their Code of Conduct, it might keep the party from using any sort of guile.

Disclaimer: I haven't played paladins that often, and the one I've played the longest has the Knight Disciple archetype from Path of War, so I might not have fully realized some of the problems that vanilla paladins have.
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Nah you basically got the gist.

The DM or other players going out of their way to try and mash the "Make the Paladin fall" button is the biggest problem with paladins.
 
I always wanted to play a 5e Paladin since they changed so many of the things that made the class a hassle in the older editions. Sadly, open slots in games get filled faster than I can find them these days.
 
Well the only problem PF pallies have is alignment restrictions and the code of conduct. It can be disruptive to parties
Chloe Sullivan said:
Nah you basically got the gist.

The DM or other players going out of their way to try and mash the "Make the Paladin fall" button is the biggest problem with paladins.
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I may have already shared this but I witnessed that backfiring in the most horrible way for the CN Wizard who wanted someone a bit less stuck up.
Helm of opposite alignment, applied during sleep. Paladin fails save.
Now-fallen Paladin wakes up and figures out what happened.

"So you and me are the only ones who know about this right? We can keep this between us."
Wizard, eager for a partner in crime: Sure!
First kill of the newly-fallen Paladin? The Wizard.

Wizard-player was pissed because "it made no sense".
Pally: lol, you created a monster and you are seriously surprised to see it backfire in such a way.

GM was like "well there's consequences to everything. Here's a new sheet."
 
Honestly if someone tried that on my character, paladin or no, I'd consider it grounds for walking away from the table. Maybe after dumping the dipping sauce on the guys head, depending on how much of an ass they were about it.
 
So my IRL friend gave me an idea on alternate rules for Fighting Styles and I thought that I would share with you. This is 5e obviously.

Originally, my friend thought that the new rules for Fighter were switching between FS was on long rest. It was on level up. I really liked the first idea so here's my house rule:

Instead of Fighter picking one fighting style, the Fighter picks three FS and picks one active one that they can switch on every long rest. Paladins and Rangers get two. Barbarian gets nothing at all. I was real tempted to give them all the offensive FS (Duelist, Two Weapon Fighting, Great Weapon Fighting) but I was advised by the same IRL friend to not do that.
 
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JayTee said:
Honestly if someone tried that on my character, paladin or no, I'd consider it grounds for walking away from the table. Maybe after dumping the dipping sauce on the guys head, depending on how much of an ass they were about it.
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There were some choice words but not before he made it abundantly clear in-game as well.

Then there were some choice words and an eventual split-up of the group. I was rather critical of the GM's "play it out, don't roll (sense motive) against each other" yet apparently being fine with the Pally having to roll Will. It felt cheap and shitty.

Still, the backfire was glorious, especially seeing as he choked out the wizard with a cord so it wasn't a quick -x HP but a drawn out trying to roll to escape Fort save after Fort save, getting looted by his former ally and unceremoniously tossed in a shallow grave. It was Karma.
 
Sounds like a bad situation all around, GM and players alike. DnD is one of the few games where, when I GM, I'm willing to let you die if the dice decide they hate you or you do something stupid, but there are lines that even I try to respect.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
Just because you don't enjoy dollcrafting does not make it wrong, my dude. Let other people have their fun.

Single classing is boring. And generally a mistake (in optimization terms) in 3e unless that class is Druid or Artificer.



I play segregation of fluff and crunch, so Paladin levels have no special significance aside from alignment restriction anyway
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Chloe is quite right here, @Arawn_Emrys , dollcrafting is both very highly enjoyable for certain people, and it's also how some of us put their best backstories and roleplay opportunities together.
On the other hand, talking to a player with regards to the level of optimization to expect at a table is a good thing to do too. It's not really fun if my character can't be hurt, and nearly one-shots enemies, while the rest of the party fights and takes damage normally - or if the GM tries to adjust encounters to fit my character, and that then endangers everyone else.

But that's then not the fault of dollcrafting, that could happen with more conventionally optimized builds too. I don't need five classes and two PrCs for that to happen, I can do it with single-class builds and picking the right combination of feats, talents and spells.
 
Expectations for optimization (as with many things) should be part of the conversation you have before you start building characters, and should be a conversation you have with all of the players.
 
azoicennead said:
Expectations for optimization (as with many things) should be part of the conversation you have before you start building characters, and should be a conversation you have with all of the players.
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Also, depending on the edition, there are ways of balancing things out, if the optimizer is okay with it, so that the encounter balance is less wonky despite a difference in player power:
  • Group encounters where stronger monsters focus on the optimized character, either because of in-universe infamy or some kind of "curse".
  • Giving out magical items to the rest of the party that the optimizer's character can't use or aren't in direct consideration for. Alternatively, do what happened when one of my players pissed off the enchanter's guild and hand them things like the Threadbare Cloak of Protection, which takes "damage" when the person using it fails a save or gets hit and eventually has the magic fail.
  • A broader sort of curse, like some kind of reverse-inspiration (from 5e) that you can use to arbitrarily impose disadvantage on them one time per session as bad luck just overwhelms them for no visible reason.
  • Backstory reasons mean they have a massive debt. Like, truly massive. A portion of all the money they earns is going to have to go toward paying that off, or some very unfortunate "accidents" might take place.
  • If you're in an edition with subdual damage or the like, maybe they have a glass jaw and take subdual damage in cases where they're just barely missed by an enemy or something. Or, if your're using 5e's death saves but not the Lingering Injuries table, make an exception for them and let them pick up an LI each time they go down in battle, or each time a fight takes 1/2 their HP, or whatever.

But all of these also require talking things over with the optimizer, and making sure they're okay with it. Some players want to have lots of magical items and would hate being excluded from that, but are fine if they're a bit unreliable in some way or another. Others may be fine with the anti-inspiration curse but aren't running a build that'd survive being the target of a bunch of stronger enemies and would find that more stressful.

All of these require communication, of course, and work on multiple fronts (as you should also make sure the other players are okay with one person having a curse, or getting the short end of the loot, etc.), but even beyond "is it okay to play this optimized build" and managing those expectations there are ways to keep things more interesting so long as everyone is okay with communicating about it with each other and feels able to do so.

And some players are fine with one character being stronger than the rest of the party combined so long as that character isn't also the centerpiece of every non-action scenario on top of it.
 
You have to take into account that this can vary a lot depending on the system/mechanics you use.

4e puts everyone on the same tightly constrained advancement curve so that any advantage is generally marginal.

3e honestly was kinda built around caster supremacy. That's bad, but it does mean that you can have high tier and low tier characters in the same party without problems pretty easily if the high tiers focus heavily on buffing and control and let the low tiers enjoy almost all the facestabbing action. Of course that means you have to have the high op players be the kind who prefer to play support. Unlike the harmony of High support/Low DPS, High DPS tends to result in anger and fights (because many men correlate their DPS with dick size, apparently).

PF is like 3e, but worse without 3pp fixes since Paizo hates friendship.
 
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