Looking for advice

[Vandiin]

Greetings, all!

I'm a returning player, though, I only played a short period of time, just after the game went f2p. I'm back now, and I'm looking for something fun to play, and I'm thinking of a pure Drow pally build. I've got access to all races/classes, 32 point builds, and level 7 vet builds, though I really want to stick with Drow, mostly for a bit of RP. I want something that does well both solo and in groups. I was thinking of trying out the following pally build, because it seems like it may be fairly durable, and self sufficient.

Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 03.12.01
DDO Character Planner Home Page

Drow Knight Pally
Level 20 Lawful Good Drow Male
(20 Paladin) 
Hit Points: 332
Spell Points: 434 
BAB: 20\20\25\30\30
Fortitude: 21
Reflex: 13
Will: 14

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(28 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength             15                    18
Dexterity            10                    10
Constitution         14                    14
Intelligence         10                    10
Wisdom               12                    12
Charisma             16                    22

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Charisma used at level 7

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
                 Base Skills         Modified Skills
Skills           (Level 1)            (Level 20)
Balance               0                     0
Bluff                 3                     6
Concentration         6                    28
Diplomacy             3                     6
Disable Device        n/a                   n/a
Haggle                3                     6
Heal                  1                     1
Hide                  0                     0
Intimidate            7                    29
Jump                  2                     4
Listen                1                     3
Move Silently         0                     0
Open Lock             n/a                   n/a
Perform               n/a                   n/a
Repair                0                     0
Search                0                     2
Spot                  1                     3
Swim                  2                     4
Tumble                n/a                   n/a
Use Magic Device      n/a                   n/a

Level 1 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Shield Bash
Enhancement: Follower of the Sovereign Host


Level 2 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil I
Enhancement: Paladin Devotion I
Enhancement: Paladin Charisma I


Level 3 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Shield Mastery
Enhancement: Paladin Courage of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Focus of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Lay on Hands I


Level 4 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Bulwark of Good I
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil II
Enhancement: Paladin Devotion II
Enhancement: Paladin Energy of the Templar I


Level 5 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Might I


Level 6 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness
Enhancement: Unyielding Sovereignty
Enhancement: Paladin Knight of the Chalice I


Level 7 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Sacrifice I
Enhancement: Paladin Exalted Smite I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Paladin Toughness I


Level 8 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil III


Level 9 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Shield Mastery
Enhancement: Paladin Redemption I


Level 10 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Courage of Good II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II


Level 11 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Exalted Smite II
Enhancement: Paladin Energy of the Templar II


Level 12 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack
Enhancement: Paladin Knight of the Chalice II
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Might II


Level 13 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Sacrifice II
Enhancement: Paladin Toughness II


Level 14 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Toughness III


Level 15 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Mental Toughness
Enhancement: Paladin Extra Smite Evil IV


Level 16 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Exalted Smite III
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Might III


Level 17 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Charisma II


Level 18 (Paladin)
Feat: (Selected) Extra Turning
Enhancement: Paladin Item Defense I
Enhancement: Paladin Knight of the Chalice III


Level 19 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Sacrifice III


Level 20 (Paladin)
Enhancement: Paladin Weapons of Good
Enhancement: Paladin Divine Might IV

I'm not 100% sure if I should stick with the sword and board feats, or if I should instead go THF or TWF. Also, I debeated on taking the Follower of Vulkoor feats instead of Sovereign Host, but I'm not sure how useful the summon is.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[unbongwah]

I prefer TWF for drow pallies; it plays to their strengths better. Plus S&B pally tanks are hard to pull off as pure builds; and tanks in general are a lot more stat- and gear-intensive. Base stats something like 16 / 16 / 12 / 10 / 8 / 16 with lvl-ups into STR; Need a +1 DEX tome for ITWF & GTWF and +2 CHA for Divine Might III, but that's it. [Or start STR 15 CHA 17 if you're willing to farm for a +3 CHA tome.]

The Vulkoor summon starts out kinda helpful but it doesn't scale with level, so it quickly becomes useless. My advice is: take it at lvl 6, use it until the novelty wears off, then respec into Sovereign Host (i.e., the useful faith).

[Vandiin]

Thanks unbongwah, I think I'll do that, and go twf, with the +1 dex and +2 cha tomes... don't think I want to farm for a +3, and don't want to invest tons into tomes just yet. I rolled one up with Vulkoor, and played around with the scorp for a bit, but I can see it getting kind of "meh" after a while, especially if it doesn't scale. I do like having pets... I've been tinkering with an Arti as well... but think I'll go ahead and reroll with the "useful faith"

[unbongwah]

Assuming you plan to use rapiers, feats are pretty easy: TWF (1), Toughness (3), ITWF (6), IC Pierce (9), GTWF (12), Power Atk (15). Final feat is open to debate: Extend is one option, mostly for Zeal; Shield Mastery is another if you want to go DoS; maybe Imp Sunder.

[Vandiin]

Thanks again. That was pretty much the order I'd picked feats in after I changed things around from the sword and board build. Quick question, however. I hadn't thought about going DoS... would it do well with a twf build? Or used as a fall back, in case I needed to pull aggro from a squishy, etc? Most of the bonuses with it seem to be when I'd use a shield, though, could I use the other DoS abilities like the Magic Circle against Evil while dual wielding?

[unbongwah]

The main problem with HotD & KotC is their dmg bonuses only apply to undead & evil outsiders, respectively; so pallies are at a disadvantage when fighting anything else (esp. non-evil creatures). While some of the DoS bonuses only apply when using a shield, others do not; the main drawback seems to be you wouldn't want the threat bonus from defensive stance if you're not tanking. Although I suppose you could still go S&B when dmg mitigation is more important than DPS.

[Vandiin]

Really appreciate the advice, unbongwah. I hadn't thought about HotD and KotC's drawbacks till you mentioned them. I rolled up the pally as a DoS - changed feat order just a bit in order to pick up DoS at level 6, and stats very slightly to fit my tastes... dropped str to 15 and wis up to 10, to make it a bit easier to be able to cast spells starting out, and it makes my final str end at 20 instead of 21. DoS makes him a bit more durable while soloing, even without a shield, so I'm pretty happy. Think I'll have fun with this one!

[wax_on_wax_off]

I've recently played a pure TWF'ing drow paladin and honestly the best part about it was TR'ing it to Artificer for the 5% healing amp.

At cap it was barely passable DPS in devil raids and horrible in all others. The only redeeming feature was that I had nice BTA slashing weapons - epic brigands cutlasses with metallic edges slotted - so I could swap out IC:P to IC:S and save a bunch of AP which let me max out AC aura to be valuable to all the AC tanks running around.

The Divine Vengeance weapon is also slashing and is an easily accessible radiance weapon and hox/CE outsider beater and works much better with IC:S.

Finally, Terror is about the best trash beater in the game and that worked wonderfully with my IC:S.