Subclass : Dark Paladin

Just spitballing a idea here but

How about a Paladin, that doesn't require you to be a Good alignment.

I'm thinking a Dark Paladin doesn't value charisma,
His abilities scale off of strength and constitution.

Thier imbue ability is Force and thier smites are a burst of Negative damage.
Lay on hands scales off of constitution.

Dark Paladin auras are debuffs that spread the "shaken" condition
And his turn undead is a burst of negative energy that on a failed save "fears" the living.

I'm thinking the Dark Paladin tree supports Two Handed fighting and grants "poison, contagion and exhaustion" sla options.
Instead of getting raise dead or ressurection, how about "Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee".

How about their capstone ability be called "Death Knight".

Toggle on and you are now healed by your Negative energy bursts from your smites and turn undead uses. You are considered undead and gain access to 1 of the pale master forms.

Thoughts ????

Paladin just got an archetype. Let's let a few other classes get their archetypes before Paladin gets another one.

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Originally Posted by captain1z

Just spitballing a idea here but

How about a Paladin, that doesn't require you to be a Good alignment.

I'm thinking a Dark Paladin doesn't value charisma,
His abilities scale off of strength and constitution.

Thier imbue ability is Force and thier smites are a burst of Negative damage.
Lay on hands scales off of constitution.

Dark Paladin auras are debuffs that spread the "shaken" condition
And his turn undead is a burst of negative energy that on a failed save "fears" the living.

I'm thinking the Dark Paladin tree supports Two Handed fighting and grants "poison, contagion and exhaustion" sla options.
Instead of getting raise dead or ressurection, how about "Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee".

How about their capstone ability be called "Death Knight".

Toggle on and you are now healed by your Negative energy bursts from your smites and turn undead uses. You are considered undead and gain access to 1 of the pale master forms.

Thoughts ????

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If you want to play a "dark paladin" that can FoD things, just play a non-good Eldritch Knight/Pale Master.

no and stop it already with those ridiculous "dark" versions. dark cleric is bad enough

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Originally Posted by Loriega

no and stop it already with those ridiculous "dark" versions. dark cleric is bad enough

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Dark Apostate is really bad.

As much as I like my dark aesthetics, I think we're better off letting other classes have fun before we make a second Paladin one.

That and the fact their attempt at a dark Cleric was of questionable quality.

I dont even know how that'd work mechanically since the base class is alignment-locked...it wont let you choose Paladin at all if you're not LG, which means you'll never get the chance to pick an archetype

Plus, honestly, I think DA was supposed to be the "death knight" tree anyway. If melee cleric gets a much-needed overhaul, then it'll fill that role better

Or you can just run a 14/6 Pal/DA, it'll cover all your bases for a melee build while letting you have that Death Knight flavor

Plus, a Force imbue would be OP for a melee like that, it'd instantly be the best imbue in the game - the only way it works for AA is because bows are inherently the worst weapon for imbues. STR or CON based magic-ability class (ie not just a pure melee class) is inherently problematic, especially if its not Lawful and therefore could be paired with Barb. Conversely, DC casting for a Pal (ie Finger, Wail) would be weird since they're still a WIS based casting class.

But yeah I agree with others, kinda sounds like you're just trying to recreate an EK/PM, with instakills and neg bursts

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Originally Posted by Xgya

As much as I like my dark aesthetics, I think we're better off letting other classes have fun before we make a second Paladin one.

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It would be a third paladin, actually: OG Pally, Sacred Fist, and that.

I would have liked to see an evil Paladin too, but given how a) DDO doesn't do evil alignments and b) we just got evil Cleric AND a Paladin archetype, I don't think it makes sense for them to go for it.

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Originally Posted by Firebreed

I would have liked to see an evil Paladin too, but given how a) DDO doesn't do evil alignments and b) we just got evil Cleric AND a Paladin archetype, I don't think it makes sense for them to go for it.

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It's the closest thing to it without actually being evil.
More like a fallen out of the evil grace type of thing.

And what OP is asking is "fallen out of good grace type of thing", so still not evil.

Anyway, I'd like to see more archetypes for other classes:
- Poison Sorc;
- Sonic Artificer;
- Illusion Alchemist;
- Silver Tongue Ranger that transforms wild empathy to work on anything.
- Vecna as a Pact for Warlocs

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Originally Posted by captain1z

How about a Paladin, that doesn't require you to be a Good alignment.

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I believe you mean Blackguard
They've been in game ever since Tempest Spine, just not a playable class as we can't choose Evil allignment :)

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Originally Posted by Septimus-Boldrei

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Originally Posted by captain1z

Just spitballing a idea here but

How about a Paladin, that doesn't require you to be a Good alignment. [....]

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I believe you mean Blackguard
They've been in game ever since Tempest Spine, just not a playable class as we can't choose Evil allignment :)

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Blackguards can get haste and polymorph spells, but not finger of death and not Wail of the Banshee and is not undead.

In 5e they can also get demonic wings and unholy aura, again, not undead!

If you wanna play undead, be a Palemaster along with (or Sorcerer EK) Eldritch Knight, say, wraith, that should give you FoD and Wail.

They look great, and you see casters FoD here, wail there... note that it needs high primary stat for high DCs and spell penentration to work.

and in reaper, it needs wizard past lives. In high reaper it needs both 3x wizard and 3x FvS past lives depending on the gear(s)/ED that the character have and the target monster(s)

Alternatively, play a pure warlock and melee but take SoulEater and fiend pact. FoD is in T5, and pick Wail as a spell when level up. Again, not undead.
(You can mix match with ES for more PRR/MRR/HP, but roleplaying wise, it doesn't make sense)

I think the curse damage should apply to all enemies, including undead. That's certainly a good start to making Apostate more appealing.

Dark Paladin. I like the idea of a Fallen Paladin or just doing away with alignment restrictions altogether. The Gish idea is specific enough to work. I think that previous versions of DnD called the dark Paladin a Blackguard. That might help fleshing this idea out!

I just checked out the DnD 5e blackguard, it is a lot of power.

I believe they said a while ago there was a Revenant tree in development, I'd it's the reasoning behind the DA archetype being among the first released.

Assuming they're still planning on it, it should take care of all the people who seem to want an undead melee .

How about a Cavalier as an Archetype?

I often wonder if a Dark Apostate would to a Turn Undead, if he or she would be affected by that as well ? Or a Pale Master with Cleric levels, too ?
"I just healed myself to death."

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Originally Posted by Eantarus

It would be a third paladin, actually: OG Pally, Sacred Fist, and that.

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No he was saying a 2nd paladin archetype

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Originally Posted by captain1z

Just spitballing a idea here but

How about a Paladin, that doesn't require you to be a Good alignment.

I'm thinking a Dark Paladin doesn't value charisma,
His abilities scale off of strength and constitution.

Thier imbue ability is Force and thier smites are a burst of Negative damage.
Lay on hands scales off of constitution.

Dark Paladin auras are debuffs that spread the "shaken" condition
And his turn undead is a burst of negative energy that on a failed save "fears" the living.

I'm thinking the Dark Paladin tree supports Two Handed fighting and grants "poison, contagion and exhaustion" sla options.
Instead of getting raise dead or ressurection, how about "Finger of Death and Wail of the Banshee".

How about their capstone ability be called "Death Knight".

Toggle on and you are now healed by your Negative energy bursts from your smites and turn undead uses. You are considered undead and gain access to 1 of the pale master forms.

Thoughts ????

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Charisma is not a good characteristic, charismatic evil is a thing.. it is utilized by non-good characters.
Dark Paladins/Fallen Paladin/Anti-Paladin/Blackguards whatever you want to call it use charisma just like Paladins basically just flip link to evil gods instead of good ones.
Should make a good archtype or even an Iconic with adjusted enhancements.

Don't need to add useless things like finger or wail those are DC caster focus spells.

Shift positive aura to negative and flip things that says good/evil to the opposite.
Replace the paladin enhancement Knight of the chalice with Wizard Pale Master.

No need to invent something from scratch, dark paladins already existed in D&D 3.5 that DDO is based on as the Blackguard PrC: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeC...blackguard.htm

They basically get Sneak attack, Smite Good and fear aura instead. Check the bit about Fallen Paladin as well.