Help an Old PnP guy out

[gamer111]

Hail building experts,
I'm a fairly casual player online and I have recently (finally) unlocked 32 point builds and I'm having some fun with all the splash builds that are out there. Thanks to everyone who have previously given advice. I was just wondering if its feasable to make a 2HF human pure pally thats viable in end game?? Like I said I'm an old PnP guy and I find am always drawn to pally type characters I guess for 2 reasons. First it was my favorite PnP class, and secondly I guess I just love the image of the honorable, chivalric type character wading in to do battle against evil with his gigantic holy weapon.(insert pun here) Anyway if anyone could be so kind as to have a crack at building me this type of character I would really appreciate it. I would even settle for a sword and board I guess but The old 2 hander in shining armor is my ispiration.
Thanks

[eonfreon]

Off the bet, not knowing your gaming-style but knowing you want to be a Two Handed Fighting Paladin, and making a few assumptions, that you care little about AC and don't want to rely on Tomes, here's what you might like:

Human Paladin
Base stats + Simple Adjustments

Str. 18 + 4 level ups = 22 + 6 Item = 28
Dex. 10 + 6 Item = 16
Con. 13 + 1 Human Adapt + 6 Item = 20
Int. 8
Wis. 11 + 5 Item = 16
Cha. 14 + 3 Paladin + 1 Human Greater Adapt + 6 Item = 24

Alternately you can raise Cha to a 15 and lower Con by 2 if you want to gamble on acquiring a +3 Cha Tome in the future so that you'll have a base 18 Cha for Divine Might 3.

Feats I recommend are:

The 3 THF Chain Feats- before I wouldn't recommend all three but with the changes in Mod 9 it sounds like these will be very very valuable for THFers.

Improved Critical Slashing

Power Attack

Toughness - just one, I find the extra hit points are not enough to burn more than 1 Feat on a Feat Starved class like the Paladin.

Extend - One of my favorites for Paladins just to keep recasting Divine Favor to a minimum.

If you like splashing for extra abilities then I highly recommend 2 Levels of Rogue or Monk. That way you get evasion.
In the case of the Rogue you can unlock UMD and if you do it right you can max it out.

If you take Monk you can get 2 extra Feats.

Personally, I preferred the Rogue. I built a TWF 18/2 Paladin/Rogue that is a lot of fun.

If you do take 2 Levels of either Monk or Rogue then take it at Levels 7 and 8.

Do not start with Rogue or Monk.

THis way you can take your THF Feats at the appropriate levels and, in the case of Rogue, you will be able to max out UMD.

This Paladin will have 2 Skill Points per level.

Spend them on Balance and Jump until Level 6.

At Level 7 take 1st Level of Rogue.

You will have 8 Skill Points per Rogue Level so spend them to max out UMD and then spend any left over points on whatever you like, once again I recommend Jump and Balance.

Then from Level 8 onwards continue Paladin and always spend those 2 points on UMD.

This way you'll be able to max out UMD at every level- at 16th Level you'll easily reach 30's with items and buffs, enough to use Raise Dead scrolls and just about every Race Restricted item in the game
.
Alternately if you prefer getting the attention of the enemies you can max out Intimidate instead.

Up to you.

[Hobgoblin]

i disagree. you lose out on so many skill points if you dont take rogue first. if you go monk wait until later for evasion

[Geonis]

I recommend splashing the 2 levels of Monk, I am currently working on the same build, in a WF, and it seems to be working great. Take Monk levels at 7 and 8. Everything else that is recommended above should work fine, and you get 2 more feats too.

The one difference I would suggest is dropping Str to a 17. With the 5th point at level 20 you end up with the same Str score, and it gives you 3 more building points to put somewhere else.

[eonfreon]

i disagree. you lose out on so many skill points if you dont take rogue first. if you go monk wait until later for evasion


This is true.

And that is valid for a Skill Build.

However I'm assuming that THF might work like TWF currently does, in that if you do not upgrade your Chain Feats at the appropriate levels ( Improved at 6 and Greater at 12) you lose CONSIDERABLE dps until you can catch up.

If you skip on Improved at Level 6 because your BAB is at 5 due to Rogue Level, then you won't be able to take it until Level 9.

Then you won't be able to take Improved Critical until Level 15, because you'll need Greater at Level 12 or once again your dps will suffer.

That's how it works for TWF chain anyway.

If the benefit of upgrading the Feat Chain for THF is not as necessary as it is in the TWF chain then I agree take Rogue at 1st level.

If it does matter and you don't want to deal with "weaker" levels of power for a bit of your time Leveling, then that's why I recommended it that way.

You can get the Feats at the appropriate times and still max out UMD- very useful and still have some points in balance and jump.

[tc12]

i disagree. you lose out on so many skill points if you dont take rogue first. if you go monk wait until later for evasion

Sometimes. Let's look at the rogue @1st vs later as there are good reason for either case.

Rogue @1st -- Do this if you're looking to gain ranks across a broad set of skills. You can put 4 each into 8 skills, or 8 + INT mod +1 if human to be more accurate. If you're looking to maintain rogue skills with only a small rogue splash or just want to get as many points as possible across jump, tumble, balance, intimidate, umd, whatever this is the way to go. But note you can only put 4 pts in each skill this way. Which leads to...

1st rogue level later -- Do this if you're looking to unlock and max a rogue class skill (this isn't a class skill of your primary class). The key here is that you get your 8 +/- your INT mod pts to spend on that level, and you can use them all in a single skill at that level -- or at least up to character level +3 ranks.

In the example build above, an 8 INT human gets 8 pts. Max ranks is character level +3. So character level 5 is the first level which you could take one rogue level and get 8 UMD ranks immediately. Then without spending any more pts, a second rogue level at 13th you could add 8 more. From 14 on you'd want to spend 2 pts / level to keep it max'd. That would be a very efficient way to spend the rogue levels for max'ing UMD, but if you have BAB considerations for feats or want evasion sooner YMMV.

You can also split the approaches above. Take Rogue @1st to get 4 UMD and 4 of 7 other things too. Spend no more on UMD through level 8, then @9th take Rogue 2 and put all 8 in for UMD 12. That's about when you want your evasion anyway. And hopefully eat a +2 INT tome by now if you haven't sooner, to make it easier to spend the 2 pts/level thereafter.

So it's situational, as well as a bit of personal preference. Rogue @1st certainly gives you the most *total* points to spend, but if those points go into skills you don't care about then the first level of rogue later in a build can be better for a focus on a single skill.

TC

[eonfreon]

Yes, exactly.
Well said tc12.

For a TWF build the BAB loss hurts at Level 6 for taking Improved TWF.

If the Feat Chain for THF is not as essential to be upgraded at the appropriate levels as the TWF Feat Chain, then that changes quite a lot of considerations.