Knight of the Challice: A suggestion for very minor tweaking

[eulogy098]

There is a glaring problem with the current setup of the prestige:
A. It has nearly no benefit for players below level 15 or so
B. It no longer works on the majority of what is considered high-level content (epics)

My suggestion is to make this prestige only a tiny bit less dedicated (no not much! it's really cool how focused the paladin build is on destroying those Outsiders) Just a touch, here's my suggested change.

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Paladin Knight of the Chalice I
Cost: 4 Action Points
Prereqs: Paladin Level 6, Paladin Courage of Good I, Paladin Energy of the Templar I, Paladin Extra Smite Evil II, and any one of: Paladin Divine Sacrifice I, Paladin Divine Might I, or Paladin Exalted Smite I.
Benefit: You are a devoted champion of the Good, driving those on the fringe from Eberron forever. Your maximum number of Smites is increased by one, your anti-fear aura is improved, and you have +1 to attack Non-Good Enemies and deal 1d6 additional damage with melee and unarmed attacks against them. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +2 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by Non-Good Enemies.

((The paladin deals 1d6 Damage, has +1 attack bonus and +2 saves against any non-good enemies))
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Paladin Knight of the Chalice II
Cost: 2 Action Points
Prereqs: Paladin Level 12, Paladin Knight of the Chalice I, Paladin Courage of Good II, Paladin Energy of the Templar II
Benefit: You are devoted to fighting Evil, driving it from Eberron forever. Your maximum number of Smites is increased by one, your anti-fear aura is improved, and you now have +1 to attack Evil Enemies and deal 1d6 damage with melee and unarmed attacks against them, stacking with your earlier bonuses. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +1 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by Evil Enemies . You also gain the ability to Censure Demons.

((The paladin deals a total of 2d6 Damage, has +2 attack bonus and +3 saves against any evil enemies))

Knight of the Chalice II: Censure Demons
Benefit: You may expend a turn undead attempt to stun and damage nearby demons or other Chaotic Evil outsider. A successful Will save DC: 10 + Paladin Level + Charisma Modifier negates this effect. The targets gain repeated saves to break free of this effect. Non-Chaotic Evil outsiders are unaffected by this ability. Deals 2d6 Light Damage each second the target is stunned.


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Paladin Knight of the Chalice III
Cost: 2 Action Points
Prereqs: Paladin Level 18, Paladin Knight of the Chalice II, any Paladin Faith II enhancement
Benefit: You are devoted to fighting demons and other Evil Outsiders, driving them from Eberron forever. Your maximum number of Smites is increased by one, your anti-fear aura is improved, and you now have +2 to attack Evil Outsiders and deal 2d6 additional damage with melee and unarmed attacks against them, stacking with your earlier bonuses. You resist evil influences particularly well, gaining a +2 bonus to saves against spells and effects produced by Evil Outsiders.

((The paladin deals a total of 4d6 Damage, has +4 attack bonus and +5 saves against any evil outsider enemies))

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The idea being that the three would stack. Thus Evil outsiders are hit with the dice from all three ranks (totaling 4d6 damage and +4 attack bonus and +5 Saves). Evil monsters are hit with rank 2 and 1 (for 2d6 damage +2 attack bonus and +3 Saves). And simply Neutral monsters are only hit with rank 1 (for 1d6 damage, +1 Attack Bonus and +2 Saves).

Ultimately the damage caused by Paladins against Evil Outsiders does not change at all, and the "feel" of the prestige remains true to the concept all the while making KOTC more viable for low level characters and Epic content in the same swoop.



I realize this may not be as big a damage or Attack Bonus increase as many paladins are desiring when it comes to epic content and lower-level play but... I feel it is important to maintain the concept and feel of what we already have and allowing it to become overly rounded simply would destroy that. I feel that the scaling increase of damage and the growing hatred for those that are truly evil is well displayed in my layout of ranks.



Thoughts?

[eulogy098]

Another possibly interesting change would be to have the damage be Light damage instead of bane, thus allowing damage increasing from light boosting effects (such as that of the Angle of Vengeance)

[Corwinsky]

A month to get some thoughts on this thread
Obviously pretty much everyone has TR his KOTC already in a horc/wf Barbarian or a wf 12/6/2 Fgt/Pal/Mnk.
No need to make half measure suggestions for a class that the game mechanic has made obsolete at end game.

This suggestion is nice and I'm not against it but not enough to make Paladin more desirable at end level.
And actually by making the KOTC slightly better at low/mid levels it would only discourage/depress them more at high levels

[Angelus_dead]

Yes, the current KOTC set of eligible enemies is far too narrow. But switching to a progression that gets more limited over time isn't that good.

I suggest broadening the KOTC list of eligible enemies, but not as wide as Non-Good or even Evil. Instead, allow KOTC damage to work on anything with a connection to supernatural evil. That would mean evil outsiders, undead, most Abberations, any divine caster who is either evil or serves an evil force, any cultists / followers of any of the above, and anything merged or tainted with one of the above. Different categories of creature might take more or less of the bonus damage.

That would mean, for example, that all Inspired enemies in the Path of Inspiration area count, as they are possessed by an Evil Outsider. Anything from Shavarath.or Xoriat would count (well not the Archons mostly). Since Velah has some divine spells, she'd apparently count too.

Since the large majority of quests involve an evil divine caster, KOTCs would be able to use their features most places.

[justagame]

KOTC is too much of a one-trick pony, I agree with the general concept of broadening it some.

[eulogy098]

Yes, the current KOTC set of eligible enemies is far too narrow. But switching to a progression that gets more limited over time isn't that good.

I suggest broadening the KOTC list of eligible enemies, but not as wide as Non-Good or even Evil. Instead, allow KOTC damage to work on anything with a connection to supernatural evil. That would mean evil outsiders, undead, most Abberations, any divine caster who is either evil or serves an evil force, any cultists / followers of any of the above, and anything merged or tainted with one of the above. Different categories of creature might take more or less of the bonus damage.

That would mean, for example, that all Inspired enemies in the Path of Inspiration area count, as they are possessed by an Evil Outsider. Anything from Shavarath.or Xoriat would count (well not the Archons mostly). Since Velah has some divine spells, she'd apparently count too.

Since the large majority of quests involve an evil divine caster, KOTCs would be able to use their features most places.

Problem with your suggestion is that it would still be too narrow. Think about epic quests, they are filled to the brim with non-good and evil monsters but not very many cultists outsiders undead or abberations. I believe that your suggestion is actually far more limiting then mine.

[Asmodeus451]

my suggestion:

change Kotc to ALL evil enemies, but lower the damage die to d4* (tier 3 would be 4d4, or 4-16 damage instead of the current 4d6(4-20)

change Censure Demons to work on all Choatic Evil mobs and change the name.

change the flavor text to something like:

You are devoted to fighting the forces of Evil, driving them from Eberron forever.


keep all other effects the same, but broadened to work against ALL Evil mobs


*if an extra Xd4 against evil mobs still seems too powerful, take it down to Xd3

[~econner1]

I agree with making it more generalized, though I also think you should boost the paladin in general and not just focus on KOTC (though,they are the best ) The class is feat/enhancement point/ability point starved right now. At the very least give them FOM and a dmg boost.

[eulogy098]

my suggestion:

change Kotc to ALL evil enemies, but lower the damage die to d4* (tier 3 would be 4d4, or 4-16 damage instead of the current 4d6(4-20)

change Censure Demons to work on all Choatic Evil mobs and change the name.

change the flavor text to something like:

You are devoted to fighting the forces of Evil, driving them from Eberron forever.


keep all other effects the same, but broadened to work against ALL Evil mobs


*if an extra Xd4 against evil mobs still seems too powerful, take it down to Xd3

I dont see how 4d6 damage, even if it worked on all targets, would be too powerfull. It's still a lot less then what other melees are getting for their DPS prestige.

[Xenostrata]

I have to say, I dislike this idea. Mostly because, if it was ever implemented, it would mean the devs wouldn't go any further.

4d6 (~14 per swing) uncrittable damage is pitiful for a PrE. Having it apply to more than just evil outsiders would be good, but not nearly enough.

Quick list of helpful changes changes -

• Change it from a die roll of bane damage to a straight number of added damage/attack (maybe +2/3/3 for the whole PrE, then +2 more for the ToD set) against Evil outsiders
• Seriously reduce smite regen time, to something closer to 30 seconds. Then have each tier of KotC reduce that time (added damage against non-outsider mobs)
• Maybe add extra effects to Smites (pure good/true law at tier 1, holy/axiomatic at tier 2, maybe Banishing at tier 3 but make it work in shavarath/shroud)

Even with this, paladins would still need more help, imo.

[~econner1]

I have to say, I dislike this idea. Mostly because, if it was ever implemented, it would mean the devs wouldn't go any further.

4d6 (~14 per swing) uncrittable damage is pitiful for a PrE. Having it apply to more than just evil outsiders would be good, but not nearly enough.

Quick list of helpful changes changes -

• Change it from a die roll of bane damage to a straight number of added damage/attack (maybe +2/3/3 for the whole PrE, then +2 more for the ToD set) against Evil outsiders
• Seriously reduce smite regen time, to something closer to 30 seconds. Then have each tier of KotC reduce that time (added damage against non-outsider mobs)
• Maybe add extra effects to Smites (pure good/true law at tier 1, holy/axiomatic at tier 2, maybe Banishing at tier 3 but make it work in shavarath/shroud)

Even with this, paladins would still need more help, imo.

I would agree, Definitely a boost to base attack/damage against evil creatures for all paladin types.

• Maybe using new class base feats automatically earned at certain levels. Something like...
  Feat1(lvl5) would be +1 vs evil, +2 vs evil outsiders, undead
  Feat2(lvl10) would be +2 vs evil, +3 vs evil outsiders, undead
  Feat3(lvl15) would be +3 vs evil, +4 vs evil outsiders, undead
  These would stack with existing prestige bonuses
  TOD (KTOC set) give lesser evil outsider bane (+1/+1d6 bane)
  TOC (HOTD set) give lesser undead bane (+1/+1d6 bane)
  
• Make aura boosts better or cost less enhancement points
  
• Love the smite regen time reduction... maybe 30/20/10. Although they might have to put it on a different pool than turn undead/divine vitality or paladins might become caster charging stations.
  
• Banishing doesn't affect creatures on their home plane so it would be useless on shavarath... except maybe in wrath of the silver flame . Maybe
  Exhaulted smite II - add Disruption
  Exhaulted smite III - add Banishing
  Exhaulted smite IV - add Vorpal (not sure how that would work if you used a blunt/piercing)

[Steppenwulf]

agreed, even with a halved recharge time for smites it still wouldnt overpower the PrE or the pally class itself, or even make an impact on any current gameplay mechanics. such a change is certainly welcome, viable and should be implemented soon to update the paladin class.

[Fensen]

Agreed, KOTC is underwhelming at low levels. Having TR'd my pally, I find that taking Hunter of the Dead is more useful up through level 15 or so (essentially until I start running Veil stuff). I then spend the pp to reset my action points and switch over to KOTC. I would welcome KOTC getting some beneficial low level upgrades. Even just a 1d6 damage to all evil creatures at level 6 and another 1d6 at level 12 would help.

[eulogy098]

I expected that the majority of those that dont agree with my proposed changes would do so because it's still "not powerful enough" but the way I see it is .... well the simpler the change the more likely for it to happen without taking another two years before getting done.

I sorta figured that my idea could be implemented rather quickly and a better, fuller, more detailed review of paladin prestiges would occur at a later date.


You know a damage focused prestige enhancement line is out of wack when many (most?) end game minded players are considering respecing into what is "the" paladin tank prestige for their THF and TWF DPS needs....


even if KOTC did 6d6 damage, had +4 attack bonus and +4 saves versus ALL evil monsters, would anyone really consider it overpowered? It would still be far less of a DPS boost then Frenzy and Kensai (the nearest relatives to the paladin I suspect), Knight of the Chalice needs some developer attention, but I fear that they aren't even aware of the problem so the odds of it getting any work are non existent.... which makes me think that having a subtle change such as my suggestion has the best chance of ever happening, much more likely the the more dramatic option that others are wishing for.

Next time I post I'll add my "real suggestion" for what I feel KOTC should be, but for now I stand by my suggestion as the simplest and most likely to happen in the update11 timeframe.

[crestoftheknave]

This suggestion is nice and I'm not against it but not enough to make Paladin more desirable at end level.
And actually by making the KOTC slightly better at low/mid levels it would only discourage/depress them more at high levels

So my pally (my very first toon and still the only one i play) is at lvl 19... and 3 bubbles...

Is there a better PrE that I can use for endgame content or should i TR her and go with a

build that is more suited to endgame play?

[Xenostrata]

So my pally (my very first toon and still the only one i play) is at lvl 19... and 3 bubbles...

Is there a better PrE that I can use for endgame content or should i TR her and go with a

build that is more suited to endgame play?

Come u11, the Defender of Siberys will be an excellent choice for all Paladins.

This alone should be enough of a sign to Turbine, when even the pure-DPS specs switch from a DPS focused PrE to the tanking one.

[eulogy098]

Theres a few problems with DOS for DPS paladins-

First is the threat, which could potentially be a huge issue if you pull aggro when you really didnt want to.

Second is the complete loss of a feat, for a DPS paladin to be totally losing a feat on a shield related talent is pretty dang painful.

Third is the fact that its potential was when it comes to strength. You cant use Madstone Boots or Spell Rage during Stance so you're not actually gaining any DPS at all, in fact you're losing DPS during the times that you could have been Double Madstoned.


It's really, really sad that DOS is the only actual prestige that will do any effect at all on Paladins for most of the games content.... its bloody freggin' tragic that DPS focused paladins woudl consider that prestige at all for their needs..... KOTC clearly needs some attention....

yet we are barking at a wall, I doubt any devs have but even a moments thought into the KOTC problem, or are even aware that there is a problem at all.

Q_Q