Advice on my Paladin?

[Bozone]

I've gotten my first toon up to 6th level (has the points for 7th but I haven't trained yet). I know I've made a number of mistakes with him, but rather than re-rolling yet, I'd like to keep playing him for awhile. I'm still contributing in the groups I've joined. And the weaknesses show up better as I progress through the quests, so I think I'll learn more by using him for a few more levels.

I think his greatest weakness is the newby controlling him

Dwarf Paladin 6th level

Abilities without feats or items:
ST 17
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 14
Cha 12

Feats:
Toughness, THF, ITHF plus all the standard Dwarf Paladin feats

Skill Ranks:
Diplo 1, Heal 2, Intim 1, Spot 1, UMD 1

Obviously, I made a bunch of mistakes in the abilities and skills when I built him.

I plan to reset the enhancements to get unyielding sovereignty and HoD, then respec enhacements later for KotC (if there is a later - I may need to re-roll before then):
Follower of the S.Host, Pal Xtra Smite Evil I, Pal Toughness I, Dw Axe Damage I, Dw Constitution I, Unyielding Sovereignty, Xtra LoH, Pal HoD I, Racial Toughness I, Pal Charisma I, Pal Toughness I & II, Extra tuning I, Improved Turning I

I plan to add to my abilities at level ups to get my charisma high enough for DM (needs 14), which will take awhile.

Should I drop a toughness, charisma, and/or constitution enhancement to get Divine Light, Exalted Smite and/or Divine Sacrifice?

What skills should I concentrate on? I know balance will be important (how much is enough?), UMD, jump, one in tumble?

Any advice? Thanks

[SteeleTrueheart]

At this level an axe and shield and virtually any enhancements will get you through. Dont be too stressed about being optimised. Yes you have made some noob mistakes with the build, but nothing that will kill it for now.

My suggestion.

Keep playing.
Keep learning.
Don't expect to do elite content at level and you wont be disappointed.
Try to unlock 32 point builds (via favour or store) as paladins really benefit from the extra points.
When you have played the character long enough and you know what type of gameplay you like, check the forum builds for ideas on similar builds.
Greater Reincarnate it and build it with what you have learned.

Welcome to DDO and the best class it has to offer.

[whomhead]

Your first mistake, and really the only one that you can't easily recover from, is 14 wisdom. The highest level paladin spells require 14 wisdom to cast, but this can be achieved (relatively) easily with just 8 base wisdom and a +6 wis item that you can swap on when you want to cast. If/when you do reroll, you probably want to put those extra build point into charisma.

You're doing fine so far on feats. You'll want to make sure you get power attack, gTHF, and then most folks go with extend since the best paladin spells are short duration.

You'll definitely want to get yourself as much exalted smite and divine sacrifice as you can. Those DPS enhancements are much more valuable than the charisma one. I wouldn't recommend dropping the toughness enhancements since more HP is basically always better.

In case you aren't aware, the Knight of the Chalice prestige enhancement currently adds damage to evil outsiders AND undead. Whether this is wai or not, it works right now. Given that, most folks just use KotC all the way, though the benefits of HotD aside from the damage boost are nice in the middle levels. Kind of personal preference there.

Skills as a paladin are tricky since they have so few class skills. UMD is a really handy ability, no doubt about it. A bit of balance and jump is also important. Not sure how much is enough, really.

[Tom_Hunters]

Agree with the above on WIS.
but I think CHA may need higher too (both base and thru item).
Coz your CON makes me think u have a decent hp. So a greater Loh is more worthy. Loh uses a multiplier based on CHA mod, so it surges to over 200 at most high lvl if u have a good CHA score.

On the other hand, Unyielding has a cool down of 10 min, which is not that useful in lower quests where duration is shortor or where there are many shrines. And in the heat of the battle, unyielding has a longer cast time and tends to be interrupted by your enemies, while Loh can't be interrupted. Usually if I choose to use unyielding during a fight, I have to drawback and cast it on running. This is not much of a problem when soloing, but it will be a disaster if u are the only melee protecting some casters.

And I think opening divine might 3 worths too. +6 damage per 1 min, which can be subjected to crit and multipliers. Imagine what it will add to your exalted smites. And I often find there are more DM than I can use up (I have 10 turns per shrine). Yeah I know dwarf got some penalties with CHA, but does it sound bit better to have a higher CHA, like 13 or 15, then look for a +3 tome? coz DM doesn't count CHA provided by items or feats.

And CHA also gives you bonus to all saves through feat. Usually fort save is not much a problem, but the low dex gives us pain on reflex. And usually will save is also a bit lousy for pally without a good CHA...

And as for your feat, I think it's great. Coz during battle pally got too many things to click already, so I want mostly passive feats. (Think, you need to keep up your divine favor, divine might, may be prayer as well for your buff; you are continuously spamming smite evil and sacrifice one after the other; you might want to give a LoH/unyielding soverighty to the teammates; you may also do a trip if u have a good STR. So I really don't know if i find it comfortable to spare some stunning blows...)

[Bozone]

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep working on it.

[MithrilSoul]

A few random thoughts, from a fellow newbie who is a bit ahead of where you are (my pally is lvl 11, my highest character in DDO):

1. Divine Sacrifice is, I think, our biggest burst DPS ability at least in the early levels, presuming you are facing an evil opponent. +5d6 "good" damage plus increasing the crit multiplier of your weapon by 1. And unlike Smite Evil or Exalted Smite Evil, we have unlimited uses of Divine Sacrifice...merely limited by its 6 second cooldown timer and the fact that each use costs us 5 hp & 1 sp. That's a fair tradeoff when you really need burst DPS.

2. FWIW, I just love the HoTD line as a midlevel player. Don't have to bother with a Ghost Touch weapon, and all heals (potions, wands, LoH, you name it) are 10% more effective. Very nice. Really looking forward to HoTD II next level so I can get the level drain immunity. At which point every Beholder in DDO had better look out, because I'm coming for YOU...

3. Divine Light is a skill I am still on the fence about. Since it's AoE, it finds situational uses when you are really swamped by large numbers of trash mob undead. For example in the zombie room of the Black Loch quest in the Sentinels pack (40 zombies coming at you almost at once), I just get in a corner, turtle up with a shield, wait for all the zombies to gather round me, and then 3 or 4 Divine Lights and I've killed half of them without so much as swinging my weapon. So it's kind of a nifty skill to have, but probably not a necessary one. I could also see it being useful against a really, really high AC undead boss (when you might be swinging & missing a ton) since even if the mob makes the save it still does half damage. Dunno. Call it situationally useful.

4. I'm less of a believer in the benefits of Exalted Smite at your level. If you look at what Exalted Smite gives you beyond what the regular ol' Smite Evil gives you...it's not much. Basically +1 crit multiplier, that's all. If your attack doesn't crit, then an Exalted Smite doesn't do any more damage than a regular smite would. And as a lvl 6 character you don't have the Improved Crit feat yet (can get that at level 9) so Exalted Smite starts to become more worthwhile then. Not saying you shouldn't take it, just saying it's not necessarily a priority. Will be more useful to you the higher the crit range of your weapon is. For a lvl 6 character wielding a greataxe, there is only a 1 in 20 chance that an Exalted would give you any benefit over a regular Smite. Whereas a lvl 9+ (with Improved Crit: Slashing) wielding a Falchion, there is a 6 in 20 chance that an Exalted would give you extra benefit above & beyond a regular Smite.

5. For UMD to be useful, you need to be "all-in"...i.e. maxing it out every level. A little bit of UMD is really of no value. Either go all-in or ignore it entirely. I have it on my pally and it's nice. I don't think it makes-or-breaks the character...but it's nice. Several of the weapons I am using are race-restricted to other races but I can equip them because my UMD is high enough. (Though to be fair, my pally has 1 level of rogue splash so I was able to get UMD up to 4 at character creation, which definitely helped.) But with an INT of 8 (that's a -1 modifier, yes?) and UMD being cross-class, I don't think you are going to have the points to keep it up. You're only getting 1 skill point per level, correct? If that's the case, other than 1 in Tumble, you are probably best served just splitting them between balance and jump every other level. I personally like having Spot too so that's another possibility.

6. As for stats, the thing that really stands out is your low CHA. Since so many of our pally abilities are CHA based, I think that is your Achilles Heel right now. You can probably compensate by looking for the highest CHA item you can possibly get your hands on.

Enhancements are easy enough to change around, so feel free to experiment and if you don't like how something works out, you can always change it again in 3 days. As for the rest, you may eventually decide to do a Lesser Reincarnation to switch around some of your stats/skills but it's certainly not needed for now, I would think you have a very solid character who can serve you well.

[Tom_Hunters]

just a few quick comments

I agree Divine Sacrifice is better than smite, especially if you don't have a critting weapon or at lower lvls. If u don't like the hp sacrifice part, u can also cast urself virture before divine sacrifice (+20 temp hp), in that case u can run 4 sacrifice with nth but 14 sp. But rmb this is not GOOD dmg but LIGHT dmg, it's particularly effective to vampires, but it hurts everyone else! (I don't find a single char/npc immune to light atm, maybe some angels do, but there aren't any angel around lol) If you have the mood to play PVP sometimes, ur smite won't work, but ur sacrifice will be the only weapon to match a same lvl fighter.

I think Balance is a good skill too, being a melee I can't hate more when I am knocked by some minotaurs or got overrun and take forever to get up.

Jump is also nice, unless u get some jump clickies and is willing to take armour off every time u want to do a big leap

Agree that exalted smite II and onwards are good, but not untradeable.

[yuerong89]

my penny of thoughts, paladin main dmg booster rely on Cha score, Divine might I need 14 BASE CHA and II need 16 III need 18 IV need 20.
u might want to get ur CHA to at like 16 but a dwarf its abit hard.

[Bozone]

Thanks for all of the advice. I appreciate it.

Yep, I screwed up by increasing my wisdom too much when I rolled the character, and making my charisma too low. I also regret how I spent some of the skill points. Unfortunately, the biggest errors are in those places that can't be fixed without a reincarnation.

According to the character planner, it looks like I can only get my UMD up to 14 or so by lvl 20 if I put all of my skill points into it and choose the skill focus:UMD feat. I suspect that I could get that to a useable level with a few items adding bonuses, but I don't think it's worth it at the expense of all the other skills. It's a pretty helpless feeling to be laying on your back with a giant standing over you.

I think I need to abandon the idea of getting UMD so that I can raise balance, a few points into jump, and 1 rank in tumble? If I get a +2 tome for INT so that I get more skill points, I'll be able to do a little better.

Meanwhile, I'll put all of my ability points at level-ups into charisma, and hopefully get a CHA tome from a chest somewhere along the way.