Noob Q: Why is a paladin better than a DM Cleric?

[taurean430]

This came up in another thread.

Just an example to get started: Consider a DM Cleric, with paladin-like stats, e.g. Drow Cleric 18/Fighter 2:

Str 14/Dex16/Con14/Int10/Wis8/Cha16 <-- probably not optimal but close enough, can have more wis, less cha, etc depend on tomes

All level ups into strength. Feats: Toughness, 3xTWF, PA, IC:Pierce ; Emp Heal, Quicken, Maximize (or Extend or Extra Turning).
Enhancements: Radiant Servant 2 and Divine Might III

Playstyle: Divine Power "always on". Divine Might for smackdowns, Healing as secondary role.

Compared with Paladin...

Cleric Advantages:
* Level 6-9 spells, 800 more SP
* Radiant Servant (Turns regenerate, healing bursts)
* Critical weakness: Low wis means cleric functionality can be disjuncted, also losing DP making it gimp.

Paladin Advantages:
* Paladin Capstone (+1d6 vs Evil, another +2d6 vs devils and demons)
* Knight of the Chalice (+4d6 vs devils and demons)
* Smite evils
* Max base AB (don't need to keep DP running, less vulnerable to disjunction)
* DM IV (+2 damage vs cleric's DM III)

It seems to me the paladin is sort of "special case useful" in terms of being a superb evil outsider-beater while the cleric is overall more effective against general foes. I'm probably wrong, educate me. Thanks.

Palladins get an extra 10d6 damage and +4 to-hit vs. evil outsiders.

Paladins can expend 1 hp and 5 sp and the divine sacrifice attack gets 9d6 light damage and increases the crit multiplier of the weapon by 1.

Paladins can At 20 paladin, these add 67 base damage to an attack. Increases crit multiplier by 2. Increases threat range by 2. Gives you 2x crit modifier to-hit.

Paladins get Weapons of Good: Any weapon you wield is considered Good aligned for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction, deals 1 to 6 additional holy damage against all evil opponents, and deals an additional 2 to 12 light damage against evil undead or evil outsiders.\n\nD&D Dice: Weapons you wield deal an extra 1d6 holy damage to evil opponents and deal 2d6 additional light damage against undead and evil outsiders.

This also allows unique ability to use any weapon and still bypass the DR silver/good or cold iron/good of devil and demon raid bosses.

My pally is not geared yet. He has only done 3 TOD's. In two of them, I've been told to back off of the bosses and to not use my Smites/Divine Sacrifices until it's safe to do so. It's because he'll steal aggro off of the tank on either boss. Paladins are an excellent dps class, but make poor healers imo.

My favored soul can dps with his lightning2's/Min2's. As much as I love playing him he is constantly stigmatized by other players with dumb questions regarding whether he can heal a party of six or a raid. He can indeed heal any raid in this game so far without issue. But he can also go offensive and whoop on bosses and trash mobs. He's an excellent healer, but his dps pales in comparison to the pally. FvS= great utility and awesome multitasking when it hits the fan.

But a paladin, when built well, is top end dps. Much moreso than any 'battle cleric' And let me say that I love playing my battle cleric and exceeding expectations and squashing preconceived notions on the regular. This and I am a proponent of what I consider to be active clericing as opposed to healbotting.

[FlyingTurtle]

Great comments everyone, thanks, I'm going through with my +1s as it recharges, not that many of you need it.

Paladins can At 20 paladin, these add 67 base damage to an attack. Increases crit multiplier by 2. Increases threat range by 2. Gives you 2x crit modifier to-hit.

Can what? Did you try to spoiler something? It looks like a piece of paladin-only equipment. Noobs want to know.

[taurean430]

Sorry, I wasn't very clear on that. It's what an Exalted Smite can do. My pally has 12, which recharge at a rate of 1 per 90 seconds. Though I rarely run out of them in between shrines.

[Emili]

so a DM cleric is a 'battlecleric'?

I never heard them called that before...maybe D#mn battlecleric...but never just a DM cleric.

DM is Divine Might... it is by all similar in many ways to Kensai boost ... it has a pre-req of certain CHA for each level of it which adds an additional +2 damage per level of it taken. A BC is not neccessarily called a DM cleric - chances are however a real BC melee cleric does have this in their enhancements.

[MrWizard]

DM is Divine Might... it is by all similar in many ways to Kensai boost ... it has a pre-req of certain CHA for each level of it which adds an additional +2 damage per level of it taken. A BC is not neccessarily called a DM cleric - chances are however a real BC melee cleric does have this in their enhancements.

thank you..now the question and term mean something and make sense.
(never done a battle cleric before, it seems silly to not use blade barriers and kill everything...just me.)

[phalaeo]

thank you..now the question and term mean something and make sense.
(never done a battle cleric before, it seems silly to not use blade barriers and kill everything...just me.)

Not everything kites through BBs.

Also, if you think people get flak for entering a group on a BC and not being able to main heal, try going in on a pure offensive casting specced Cleric and not main healing. On a full OC caster Cleric, you have pretty much all the tools you need to be a decent healer- you haven't tanked WIS and likely have cure-boosting metas.

Even when it is better to go in and BB a group of mobs people don't listen.... I'm like, look: Either I spend 95 SP to throw a BB, or I spend 300 SP healing you guys through meleeing trash.... 9 times out of 10, melees will stand whacking at the mob and taking damage right outside the edge of my Blade Barrier.