pally with less tomes?

[epicmadnessosity]

looking on the forums, it seems like every twf pally uses roughly 3476.6 tomes.
what are good stats/feats for a 32pt build that uses little or no tomes?
does thf become better than twf when not using a bunch of tomes?

also, for twf pally, i have never seen weapon finesse on a build. why is this?

[Calebro]

Paladins are difficult to create because they require so many high stats.
TWF builds are even harder to build.
TWF builds with the ability to AC tank are **** near impossible.
This is the reason that you see many tomes being used.

The reason that you see no weapon finesse builds is because they are gimp past level 9 or so. The only toons that can legitimately run Finesse and not be gimped for late game content are rogues and some monk builds.
There are a few specific exceptions to this, but generally speaking, anyone else that runs Weapon Finesse will be basically useless in late game content.*

edit: *I'll quantify: Useless compared to a similarly build & equipped Str based build.

[Tanka]

As Calebro implied, Multiple Attribute Dependency is a Paladin's worst enemy.

As a rule, you want good Str (16 minimum for most purposes), good Con (14-16) and good Cha (14 minimum, to maximize use of Divine Might Enhancements), plus some splash into Dex for AC or possibly TWF.

Which, of course, leaves little wiggle room for anything else, and is most easily shored up by tomes.

[Ralmeth]

It's really difficult to build a TWF Pally without eating a set of +2 tomes because TWF requires a natural dex of 17, in addition to your need for a high strength, con and charisma.

If you don't want to have to eat a bunch of tomes, I highly recommending going THF. On a DPS build then you just need Strength, Charisma and Con and you can dump wisdom, dex and intelligence. On a DoS tank build you probably want to have 32 point build so you can put points to intelligence to qualify for combat expertise.

As for weapon finesse, in general this doesn't make sense for a Paladin because of three reasons.
1) In addition to your to hit, you also want to increase your damage. Thus you're better off going as a strength build.
2) Unless you go with a 2 monk or 2 rogue splash (which require lots of tomes to make work well), generally you want to wear heavy armor. Due to the max dex bonus on heavy armor you can't get an AC advantage from a high dex (and you wouldn't bother with AC anyways unless your a DoS tank build).
3) Paladins have very limited feats and it's very expensive to spend one on weapon finesse when there are lots of other feats better to pick up.

Hope that helps,
Ralmeth

[Tanka]

As has been suggested and implied, once you've got an established set of stat gear to work with as you're leveling, making a Paladin becomes a little bit easier.

You, for instance, don't need more than an 8 base (including tomes) Wisdom. Add a +6 item and you can cast your 4th level spells just fine.

That said; if it's your first character, finding and fitting those items will be more luck-of-the-draw than anything else, so sacrificing temporarily other attributes may be a good thought.

[Fomori]

A TWF Pally needs 17 dex for GTWF and still would like a high str, con, and cha (for divine might). A THF pally doesn't need dex, as THF feats are str based. Thus in order to save on build points on 17's and 18's tomes are used to get the stats, especially dex. A dex 15 is 8 build points, 16 is 10pts, 17 is 13pts. Thus a +1 tome saves 3pts a +2 5pts at character creation.

Its the same thing with charisma. Divine might is an enhancement that all pallys should want, +2 dam/level for 60 sec clicky effect. However it has some steep cha requirements, DM I - 14 cha, DM II - 16 cha, DM III - 18 cha, DM IV - 20 cha. The +2 tome effectively give you one more level of DM. A lot of pallys are happy with capping at DM III, so they take 16 cha, thus 18 with +2 tome.

Looking at stats we have spent 10 pts for cha 16, 8 pts for dex 15. We'll tank wis and int, so those two stats are 0 pts. thus we have 32-10-8=14 pts for str and con. Str is +hit and +dam for every 2 pts so we don't want to tank that. Con give us +1hp/level per 2 pts so no tanking that either. A good split then is 6/8 or 14/15 stats. Again since these are good, but not great, we'll want to tome them. My personal preference is 15 str and 14 con, but there will be others that feel 14 con is bare minimum. HP is the king at level 20 so 14 str/15 con, or even 12 str/16 con are other choices as well. It all depends on how you want to play.

As you can see its a fight to get the stats a TWF pally wants thus the need for lots of tome usage.

[Alternative]

Unlock drow (easy), build a pal18/rog2 with the following stats: str16 dex16 con12 16cha wis/int - dump. This requires only a +1 dex tome to qualify for GTWF, and a wis item to cast spells. You get a solid dps (better than a pure thf that's for sure) and highly survivable character with sky high reflex save and evasion. Enjoy.

Before someone claims 12con is not enough on a melee, I'll just point out that 12con paladin will have the same hp as 14con ranger due to higher hp die, evasion, much higher reflex save, and 4 emergency heals.

[Calebro]

Unlock drow (easy), build a pal18/rog2 with the following stats: str16 dex16 con12 16cha wis/int - dump. This requires only a +1 dex tome to qualify for GTWF, and a wis item to cast spells. You get a solid dps (better than a pure thf that's for sure) and highly survivable character with sky high reflex save and evasion. Enjoy.

Before someone claims 12con is not enough on a melee, I'll just point out that 12con paladin will have the same hp as 14con ranger due to higher hp die, evasion, much higher reflex save, and 4 emergency heals.

It's actually easier to build a TWF evasion Pally using monk instead of rogue.
Those two extra feats are huge for a pally. The only thing you lose is a potential 12 pts of UMD.