Eldritch paladin theorybuilding and tests

[stoerm]

Like others I've been thinking what to do with those 5 levels once you've deciced to take 15 pally for Zeal and Holy Sword. The idea crossed my mind to take 5 wizard for spells, feats and EK enhancements. I made a couple test characters to see what kind of numbers I'd get. Both are bladeforged straight off the ship without any tomes or shippies, just self buffs. The only non-starter gear were a +6 int ring and a cheap lootgen shield from the AH. The first is a 2HF and the second more of a S&B type.

These were just tests so it's not the best order I'd want to take enhancements in. The numbers were surprisingly good, especially PRR and MRR. These ofcourse reflect the Armor Up changes from update 23, which some have described a bit OP, so I called my test dummy pallies Opie.

Here's Opie number one, a 2HF KoTC type with starting stats 16, 8, 14, 10, 10, 16. Feats included PA, Cleave, Great Cleave and Adamantine Body. If you can mitigate ASF and aren't crazy about top tier AK enhancements, you might be able to replace cleave feats with KoTC tree cleaves.



Here's Opie number two, a template for a S&B type build. The idea was to see what kind of numbers were achievable with a heavier investment in defensive feats and enhancements. Starting stats were 14, 6, 18, 10, 10, 16. I took two Shield Mastery feats, otherwise it was very similar to the first one.



Here's what a default path KoTC bladeforged could look like for comparison:



Discussion

5 Wizard gives you two feats, and access to two level 3 spells: displacement and haste. Taking extend and mental toughness lets you cast lots of these - 1 minute at a time. The EK tree has some nice stuff like doublestrike bonuses, Improved Shield, Improved Mage Armor and permanent Tenser's if you go to tier 5. Cherry on top you get a bunch of utility spells such as blur, invisibility and jump - all of which I find very useful.

The downside is the investment in EK is expensive, especially if you need to spend points in EK to mitigate arcane spell failure, or want the tier 5 EK enhancements. After spending on EK and bladeforged you may not have much left to play with in the paladin trees, making this build more eldritch then pally. If you can wiggle around the ASF issue either by dropping heavy armor or with gear, and are willing to live with the shorter bladesworn transformation instead of Tenser's, you'll have many more points left to spend in pally trees.

Yeah, so 2HF is out of fashion and the builds are kind of basic, but they look good in my eyes especially for a new player.

[Chimeran1]

Not sure if you have run a Paladin since U23 but....

You don't need displacement.

Heavy armor and Sacred Defender stance has created a playable class that feels like a Paladin should.
Paladin can take a whole world of hurt without hurting.

The need for displacement is gone
The need for monk splash is gone
The need for evasion splash is gone

Paladin is what it is, a pure front line defender, evil beating bad a$$
The survivability is truly awe inspiring and has now become my favourite class to play.

Yes to splash for extra feats :5/fighter
No to any outside defensive plug ins - the Paladin does not need it.
It would be like wearing a stab proof vest while driving an M1-Abram Tank.

[unbongwah]

T5 EK isn't worth the AP cost. I've got a BF pal 14 / wiz 5 / ftr 1 who is...okay, but I feel like I need to LR to tweak it. I've been considering pal 15 / wiz 3 / ftr 2: I lose lvl 3 wiz spells but gain 2nd lvl 4 pal spell slot while keeping the same number of feats. Haven't worked out details, but goal is something like 33 APs in KotC for Avenging Cleave, 13 APs into EK for Arcane Barrier & other goodies, at least 13 APs into SD for defensive stance and +6 STR or +20% HPs (will be taking Addy Body), 16 APs into BF for Recon SLA and PotF, and 4 APs into Kensei for Haste Boost. DPS-focused, but with some nice survivability perks from SD + EK. [If had more APs to spare, I'd probably put it into AM for two SLAs.]