Paladin

[Redaurora]

Historically, the shiny things about paladins have been three constant things. Cha to saves, Smiting, and Holy Avenger.

K holy avenger was nerfed, then buffed again. As it stands 'meh' Ive no strong feelings one way or the other. Apparently also has buggy interaction with flame weapon.

Cha to saves is just fine, and iconic, and its a trade off.

Smiting however is messy, and alot like current death magic. It either is useless, or too good, or good, but too limited in uses per day.

I noticed that additional uses per day were being added to some abilities, such as blinding speed.


I propose that smiting be reduced to two times per day, or even one, and instead, once every turn (10 rounds, 60 seconds) an additional smite use is gained (extra smiting could make smites come back faster), to a maximum of whatever you originally started with. So its not too front loaded, and neither are you done in half a round and then have to rest.


I'd also like to bring to attention the paladins healing ability, which is more a random ability than the class defining feature that it was.

One of the reasons its underused is that lay on hands is one use per day, in the pnp game that nwn is based off, many abilities are variable, and draw from some pool.

With power attack (the pool being your bab) you could decrease 1 bab per 1 pt of damage (1:2 ratio for 2hers), with nwn you have 5 for 5, unchangable, and another feat for 10 for 10.

Lay on hands works similarly, you have a healing pool totaling your paladin level x your charisma modifier, And could use lay on hands as many times per day as you liked, as long as you didn't heal in total, more than this pool limit. and so a paladin with a good charisma modifier actually made an ok secondary healer (other feats and abilities would improve upon this base).

Would it be possible to implement a similar pool type, where say.. you have a level 30 paladin with a 15 charisma modifier, and so a healing pool of 450. Instead of healing someone with 50 dmg removing your use for the day, remove 50 points from the pool, so 400 would be remaining, which you could use as you wanted later. Or perhaps one of their spells could be modified, so that casting it recharges the uses per day of one of their abilities.

Paladin spells could also be modified to supplement this support role, instead of being yet another hitter that barbarian, and cleric and fighter are already so good at.

Oh and Remove Disease (see how forgotten it is!) Making it into a more universal panacea (with at least eight dozen uses!) for detrimental effects seems ok.

[sestitodc]

I'm not sure how much of this is implementable, but there are some really nice recommendations here. On a side note, any chance you could remove the useless dc 14 dispel magic on Aragorn's sword

[Terrorble]

Healing pool sounds good.  If it has a spell script I think I could do something.

So HA does work, just not with flame weapon???  On my paladin I've carried a second sword that I switch to for HA, and buff the other sword with all the other stuff.

[NLawson]

I quite like the smiting idea (I run a smiter, so I know both how overpowered and how useless they can be), because it'd stop smiters being SO powerful they could drop a good boss in 1 flurry, but it'd also stop them having to save smites specifically for the boss, they could smite lesser bosses and other dangerous enemies if they absolutely needed to.
And 10 rounds is quite a long time, in the middle of a fight, so that's a good balance.
I like the healing pool idea as well. I get really annoyed when I have to use lay on hands to heal myself or my tank, because the damage is too much for normal healkits to be useful in the time, but too little to get the full benefit from lay on hands...
I heal 570 hp, assuming the calculation is still "(CoT levels + Paladin levels) * Chamod". Most of the time, waiting for the tank (or myself) to take 570 hp of damage is not just risky, it's impossible (or at the very least REALLY REALLY stupid), so I tend to heal around the 300-400 mark, for the most part.
It'd be nice to have the rest of my heal (some 200 hp) ready for use at a later date.

[Khaine]

I like the healing pool idea. However, the smiting idea, if implemented, would put me off playing smiters.

The whole reason for why I sometimes play my smiter is for the heavy burst damage. If I wanted heavy damage, but more evenly spread out over a longer fight I'd just play my Limit Break (2h barb/rdd).

[Sancho29]

Im with daccid,  the whole point of smite is fast dmg.  And Lawson, as someone who runs a smiter i'm supprised you would say different.  The whole point of a smiter is to try to use the 3 attacks they get (which are subject to conceal/1rolls/epic dodge) to try and change the tide of a boss fight.  I think it's only fair that we can do a lot of damege 3 times a day if every boss has like 10 heals and can get a full (few thousand hp) heal on any of them.  Smiters are not exactly uber boss killers,  lots of other hitters I'd rather have with me in most situations,  that's why my smiter dosent run often.  Well...that and the fact that when the word tank is spoken evereyone points at me, lol. 

[NLawson]

This is how I see it. I don't play smiters for two rounds of burst damage, I play them for the high ab and damage hits that get through to a boss that a normal hitter can't scratch. It all comes down to math.

All told, you currently get 3 smites every 6 turns, plus whatever you do on normal hits. After the smites are gone, you do relatively little on most powerful bosses and have to hang around until you can go and rest and get your smites back.
I'd rather have 6 smites every 6 turns, plus what I do on normal hits. It won't do as much in the first two turns, but after the third you will have caught up, and by the 6th you'll have outdone yourself. And at least you won't be useless once you've used your smites, and you won't NEED to rest if you haven't taken bad damage, or used up your lay on hands.

To put it simply, 6 is larger than 3.

[Terrorble]

I like the idea of a regenerative smite quite a bit actually - it's reminiscent of a cooldown timer, which isn't a bad convention at all.

I'll have to look into it, but I'm not sure at this point how it could be done.

[Abimael]

DDO implemented a 90 sec cooldown timer on Smites, but they also implemented increased gain/level. I remember my paladin had about 4 smites at level 18.

They had also increased damage formulae and LOH HP gain, but that was basically because they don't have epic levels implemented

And, hmm, I still think Pallys are at least equal hitters as fighters and barbs, since Divine MIght and Favor are exceptionally awesome on nwn

[Redaurora]

I think when you say pally, you mean cleric ;p

clerics are still on par with fighters and barbarians (barbarians being the easy best), pallies are far behind when it comes to non-smite killing of things, especially a pally built to smite.

What pallies can do that two of those three cant, is deal unresistable damage, through the two abilities you mentioned, and since 15-20 unresistable damage will never make or break a fight nowadays (and if it does, its not the pally thats broken), it shouldn't really count for much. Still however, clerics are better at it.

[azurerogue]

Paladin/HS/Fighter

30 base+17 str+4 feats+5 weapon+2 bless/aid+5 divine favor+5 harper potion = 68 AB.  Duration of the shortest buff (the harper potion) is 30 rounds.  I can bump it one higher with prayer, but that "only" lasts 29 rounds. 

My paladin also gets 1d10+28 slashing+8 divine (irresistible)+5 magic (maybe +10?  Not sure if harper potions and divine favor would stack - but I'd assume not)+whatever is on the bastard sword I'm using (currently 1d10 electric, 1d10 sonic).

I'd say Paladins seems fine to me. 

[Redaurora]

With 5 attacks per round! A fighter with the new widget will get equivalent or more ab than that, due to ac decrease and similar ab + all the effects of the widget, and the fighter only gear, a barbarian will have 9 attacks per round, same ab and higher damage per hit on top of that.

A cleric/bg/sd, has 9 attacks, 9d6 sneak, and 45% chance to crit, with 15 unresistable damage, and 64 ab (66 with flank, which it can even get while solo, and the obvious advantages of hips). by the time the pally has done two hits, probably ending up 100 dmg, this will, for example, have done an easy 250 (assuming no crits).

Even the tenser drow at the moment, higher ac, more attacks, higher damage, same ab.

The pally is pretty much the bottom of the order. Any other build can get all the ab increases that that pally build you have there, except the favour, which they have other ways of making up, barb rage for example.

The meant-to-be hitter class that is worse at melee than a paladin, would be a ranger, but noone likes rangers anyway ;p

Regardless, these buffs arn't meant to focus on a paladin being a hitter, the paladin IS JUST FINE, as you say, its one of the lowest, but its fine where it is, the aim here is to focus on what else it can bring to the table.


the pally harper scout build i came up with then btw, got 9 divine might dmg, whatd you use the harper bonus feats on?

[azurerogue]

Great CHA.  I could have gotten 9 easily (and that was in the original GSword build I made) but I dropped it to 8 for some reason.  I honestly can't remember why.  But I promise I had a reason (though maybe not a good one). 

And that's fine with trying to refocus the Paladin to other areas (with the healing pool + smites ideas) - I like that.  Just making sure this didn't turn into a "let's make Pally more like Barb/Fighter" thread (which I was afraid it was about to) because - as we've both said - they're fine...if not great.

[tonoplast]

My paladin also gets 1d10+28 slashing+8 divine (irresistible)+5 magic (maybe +10?  Not sure if harper potions and divine favor would stack - but I'd assume not)

Divine favor is added onto ur character, and harper scout is onto the sword. This will stack theoretically (I have a pally WM HS, but i have yet to try cuz I havent reached lvl 5 HS). HS pot will not stack with weapon that already has magical damage though.

[Khaine]

I don't play smiters for two rounds of burst damage, I play them for the high ab and damage hits that get through to a boss that a normal hitter can't scratch. It all comes down to math.

My 2h barb with baragor axe gets 9 attacks per round and 73 ab self buffed (for about 60 seconds or so. then down to 69 ab I think it was... haven't played NWN in a while).

I highly doubt your or any smiter build can come anywhere near that.

Also, I can't think of a single boss, except for maybe Smaug and possibly that dracolich boss in fallen tomb, whom my barb "can't scratch". He may not do divine damage, but he makes up for it with 4 more attacks per round than a smiter, and godly AB.

[sestitodc]

The Nazgul boss in the basement of Barad Dur has great immunities+resists, and so do the Nazgul in Temple of Doom. I'd be willing to bet Nlawson with his smiter does a lot more damage than a barb with baragor's gaxe against them.

[azurerogue]

Unless NLawson is busy attacking that very same Barbarian of Daccid's instead of the Nazgul

[NLawson]

My 2h barb with baragor axe gets 9 attacks per round and 73 ab self buffed (for about 60 seconds or so. then down to 69 ab I think it was... haven't played NWN in a while).

I highly doubt your or any smiter build can come anywhere near that.

You misread, so I suppose it's not surprising that you misunderstood as well...
Firstly, I said "Normal hitter", not "2H Barb RDD". Even among hitters, that build is better than most, so it can hardly be called "normal".
Secondly, I was talking about the smites - I get ~75 ab and 300-400 damage when I use a smite, you get 73 ab and damage that varies wildly depending on the enemy. Something like 0-60 (depending on their resists) or so, without critting.

Therefore; the more smites I get, the better. I quite like being useful for the whole fight, not just the first ten seconds of it, and irresistable damage only goes so far to compensate for lack of attacks. I might be able to take down a DR tank in a few rounds, but most bosses only get hit by the smites.

And finally, regarding the actual math I was talking about in that quote, which was also mentioned at the bottom of that post (but I notice you didn't refer to it at all in the reply. Odd):
You do realise 6 is in fact larger than 3, yes?

6 Smites are better than 3, and 3 smites are better in certain specific circumstances than your hitter. That's pretty much the whole point of the build, really.

[ollebroc]

As a representative of the Blackguard's union, I must protest any raising of smites for paladins. Smites between pallies and BGs are greatly disproportionate. If anyone deserves an increase in the number of smites, it's the BGs.

I'm sure someone from the wimpy CoT union will be screaming later.

There is only one way to raise the number of smites per day and this would have to cover all smiters, including CoTs. Turril would just luv for all of his mighty CoTs to have extra smites. Doesn't he smack you folks around enough with just 3.

The bosses might protest since big parties won't be needed, just 2 smiters. They might have a change of heart and go nuetral or start taking steroids, then what's the point of all this.

[Redaurora]

Read what has been proposed before you reply please.  

And then think about the duration of pvp and boss fights, then rub those two thoughts together.
The smite changes more focuses on the mechanics of smite, rather than the paladin class specifically, i doubt it'd be an issue for bgs one to be similarly affected. It just didn't cross my mind, since the bg class more revolves around its sneak attack, bulls strength buff, pet and cha to saves as its defining features, rather than smite, but by all means.

[BaaRamYou]

Currently, smiters hope to get it done in 6 hits: 3 at the start of the fight, rest (since the timer has finished before the boss was engaged), then another 3. If it's not done by then, the boredom of waiting out the remaining ~5 min starts.

Their usefulness is also shackled to the availability of rests. What are they going to do for smaug, or ToD? The longer you have to fight without rest, the better this idea becomes.

So I'd prefer the sustained damage that regenerative smites would provide. (Probably no surprise coming from someone who hates instagibs :p but I've made a smiter before and got sick of being useless until the boss)

Also, it is a straight up nerf (that I agree with) when it comes to pvp. You get only 1 try, not 3 to gib someone in the first 2 rounds. You can't (easily) rest. You can of course run around in circles or otherwise buy time for a minute, but at least that allows the recipient time to recover if the first smite didn't already score a kill. It will change smite from spam-and-win, to being used as a finisher. A crit smite can still 100->0 most builds anyway.

I find the burst provided by 3 smites far too extreme, and works like (as mentioned initially) death-magic-for-bosses. If rages, wraths, favors etc all started with a smaller pool but regenerated, I don't think we'd see as much opposition.

The numbers can still be tweaked anyway. Let's say 3 +3/6min. Hey that's we have now, without needing to rest! This would be roughly equivalent to 3 +1/2min, which is being compared to the proposal's 1 or 2 +1/min(or shorter with feats). The proposal really just uses the same system, but with changed numbers, and takes out the need to rest, which can be important.

[Red Raisin]

i havent looked but how much of this smiting is hardcoded?

[Redaurora]

I'm not sure myself; but smiting uses/day can already be reduced on login right? Such as when a player uses 1, then relogs. If so; stands to reason they can be increased similarly, this is a guess on my part however ;p

[Khaine]

The bosses might protest since big parties won't be needed, just 2 smiters.

As opposed to how it is now?

I can think of a great number of bosses that can be taken out by either just 2 smiters (like baragor, me and sancho/lawson have 2man smited him dead in 1 sec flat several times from invis), and a whole bunch who can be taken out by 2 smiters + a tank.
Even one of the top tier bosses can be taken out like that.

Also, we tried doing Smaug like that. 2 Smiters and 1 tank. We got him down to injured with smites, and then hit him for a truckload of divine damage every hit for about 45 seconds or so before our tank died out, so that's pretty close to badly wounded right there... I'm pretty sure 3 smiters + a tank (like sancho's conceal/AC tank) can take him down in about 60 seconds, tops.

--

@NLawson:

Your suggestion is still to make the smiters long distance runners, when they should just remain sprinters. There are already a whole bunch of different builds that can do a lot of damage over a long fight or long series of fights. The smiter is the only one with real burst damage. Let it stay like that.

Unless I'm completely misreading your previous post, you're suggesting to make it so you can only use smite once per 60 second or so, which would completely ruin the burst damage.

--

On another note, if you really want to make some smiter changes, do so to BG smiters.
As olle pointed out, BG smiters are vastly inferior to pala/cot smiters as it is now.
I'm fairly sure Sancho told me he was scrapping his BG smiter because it was so useless compared to just a regular hitter, while pala/cot smiters are far from useless compared to a regular hitter.

[NLawson]

Yeah - you would lose the burst damage if you went down to 1 smite per turn (unless you tweaked the numbers before this was implemented, as BRY suggested) . You'd be more useful overall (which is what I'd prefer...especially since bosses still get lucky with full heals), but wouldn't do 800 billion damage in the first round.
Or 2000. I can't remember which of those big numbers it was.

@Olle: Since when did you need big parties for bosses anyway? Most bosses in this mod can be taken down with a group of 3 or 4, with virtually no problem. The only exceptions are places like BD and the ToD, and neither of those would be made any easier by changing smite.

It doesn't bother me that much no matter what happens. I'm happy with gondor smiters as they are, but I would prefer if they were useful after about 10 seconds in. Some bosses don't die from the rapid onslaught, and some get a full heal, and then we have to go rest and come back and hope the tank is competent. Mordor smiters are nonexistent, for several reasons.

Also, as has been pointed out, it's virtually impossible to make a good BG smiter. This is because good smiters use great smiting, and great smiting requires 10 spare epic feats, after getting 25 cha. Blackguards just don't have this ability. This is why they get their bull's str buffs, and other such thingies.
Paladins can use the CoT bonus feats, among other things, to do this...they also add their CoT level to the smite damage, ending with about 400 damage on a successful smite.
Blackguards can't use CoT (alignment restrictions) and so have to find other ways to get these feats...which mostly make the build not worth playing.
And with the Peacekeepers having great damage and no evil counterparts...an evil smiter would get ripped apart, while a good one only has to worry about the blackguards. And they can't 1 hit him.

P.S. Here's something you can do - make sure Paladins and Blackguards both get their horse summon at the same level. Blackguards get it at lvl 1, paladins get it at...5, I believe.
I don't mind which level you make it, but if they could be the same level that'd be awesome...