Aasimar Paladin 8 Considering 2 Levels of Rogue - Help Me Fix My Build, Please :)

[Belnavar]

Hi,

I'm a relatively new player to DDO, but am really enjoying the game. I have an Aasimar Paladin at level 8, first life, but am considering adding two levels of Rogue. I understand I should have taken Rogue at level 1, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for where to go from here. I know many traps can be avoided, but I don't know where they are, and I've found on an alt that I actually enjoy the trap dismarming and lockpicking aspects too.

Some history: I created this character years ago and levelled him to 4, using one of the paths. I don't recall why I chose Aasimar, but it might've been for the extra healing. I've since learned that the path thing is not a good way to go and tried to go with a Vanguard build, but then noticed the build for that seemed out of date. I'm trying to go Sword and Board and THF with Bastard Sword. I'm looking for decent damage and survivability, enough to do low reaper on some content. I will also be farming some favor for unlocks, so I don't mind a somewhat slower/less optimal build. I plan to reincarnate, so I'm not necessarily looking for an end-game or raiding build.

Here are some screenshots of my current setup. Suggestions are most welcome, especially on how to add some Rogue levels to deal with traps, etc.












Thanks!

-Bel

[unbongwah]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...o-play-players

And yes, you should've started with rogue. Are you willing to splurge on a +1 Heart of Wood now?

[cru121]

Don't bother with Rogue now. If you really want, start a different character and do roguey stuff there.

A new player's paladin will have a very hard time finding and disarming traps in difficult content.

[ValariusK]

Honestly, if he's mostly running elite and reaper in groups, he's not going to be able to make the trap DCs. Better to avoid the rogue splash. If he's running normal or hard mostly solo, no problem.

[SocratesBastardSon]

Maybe Arti would be a better choice? It's not like he's going to be able to use Evasion, and while the d6 sneak attack is nice, Arti provides a lot more variety, including BSword enhancements in Battle Engineer. That Strikethrough bonus is awfully nice. Plus, I've found RM synergizes well with Paladin, including offense, defense and Curative Admixtures, even if you don't use rune arms (which I do).

[GramercyRiff]

Stick with Paladin to 20. It's strong. I think it's also incredibly fun, but I've always been a Paladin fan, even when it wasn't as good as it is now.

[Belnavar]

Thanks for the responses so far.

Can I get a +1 Heart of Wood in-game or is that just from the Store?

I'm mostly soloing, and doing Elite. I'm hoping to do some low Reaper stuff, however. I haven't had any issues with traps on my alt (6 Wizard, 1 Rogue), where I'm doing Elite/Reaper stuff. Will 1 or 2 levels in Rogue at this stage really make it likely I won't be able to detect or disarm traps?

I don't have Artificer yet, as I need more favor to unlock it. I would have probably considered that otherwise.

For what it's worth, I'm looking at adding a +8 Supreme Tome. Not sure if that will make any difference to the proposed build.

-Bel

[SocratesBastardSon]

+1 Hearts are in-store only. They go on sale once quarter, and I don't think we're due for another one for a month or two.

I just remembered an old build known as the Batman. Usually people did a Fighter 12 for the feats, with the rest split between Rogue and Paladin. I used that as a template a few years ago with a greater emphasis on Paladin. The idea is to go with an evasion build - which would require you do a LR to redo your Dex. The high saves a Paladin gets can get your reflex saves, and therefore your evasion, extremely high. It also exploited some features that are no longer available, so I don't know how it would work today. Without Ranger DWS or Monk, I'd be concerned about defenses.

But if you just want to do a Paladin with a couple Rogue levels for trapping, and don't mind the loss of abilities at cap, well, DDO's flexibility lets you do a lot of things, including that.

[Caarb]

Hi,

I'm a relatively new player to DDO, but am really enjoying the game. I have an Aasimar Paladin at level 8, first life, but am considering adding two levels of Rogue. I understand I should have taken Rogue at level 1, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for where to go from here. I know many traps can be avoided, but I don't know where they are, and I've found on an alt that I actually enjoy the trap dismarming and lockpicking aspects too.

I would readjust your expectations. Despite what veterans say Reaper is not the default mode for new players. With the stats in the screenshot 2 rogue will not do much for you as you will almost certainly fail trap DCs anyway unless running over level. If I was starting new I would join reaper groups but drop the difficulty when solo. It is almost certainly not worth using a heart on a level 8 Character as especially after 3000 favor (very easily achieved even on a first life) you can start at level 7 anyway.

The difference between a paladin and a wizard is wizard has higher int so more skills and search and disable are based on Int so its not suprising you had no trouble with traps on a Wizard. Low level quests are relatively easy on the DCs too but it will be rough for you at higher levels without the appropriate stats and gear. You can have good enough stats without tomes on a first life toon but you need to build for it and/or run over-level (get some tips from Hardcore runners).

Dont buy a +8 supreme tome - buy the 10th Anniversary of Free to Play Launch Bundle it is much better value if you want to go that route.

[FTPDDO]

So I did build paladin 18/ rogue 2 on a first life character on a new account with full free-to-play limits here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...o-play-players

So the build is definitely reaper capable on the first life. I ran most heroic quests on R1 solo and only died a few time before 20. Epic reaper is harder which I knew in advance so I solo'd some quests on epic elite and ran others with a group on epic elite while leveling to 30. At 30 I ran R4 with a 2 others - another first lifer and a more accomplished alchemist. I did run in unyielding sentinel for most of the level 30 run because the extra defense is needed for a melee first-life character. I still died a decent amount, a little more than 1 in 3 quests largely because of one-shots and we didn't really have a balanced party - no healer, no crowd control, no debuffing.

Since intelligence is used for trapping skills and for skill points I took 14 int and 8 dex and took insightful reflexes with my extra human feat. With the paladin save bonuses at 30 my saves were well over 100 and I am evading everything - that combined with epic reflexes means I effectively immune to evadable spells and most anything with a save.

For trapping you need 6 skill points on your paladin levels to take 1 full rank of disable device, search and spot which are all cross-class skills costing 2 points to raise it 1 rank.

I only had 5 skill points until I reached 1750 favor and took a +2 int tome. Then I had enough skill points to take search, spot and disable full ranks each level. I used my free lesser heart to respec and take advantage of 32 point build I earned + the tome.

So to this is math on how I get 6 skill points:

2: Paladin
2: Taking 14 int
1: +2 int tome raising my int to 16
1: Human

Even with only 5 ranks in open lock I am able to pick most locks. The ones known to be hard I can't pick.

For trapping in general I had very few problems - the usual haunts like slave lords chains. This is with no skill tomes and no ability tomes helping other than the +2 int tome I earned.

The one thing I would do different is get the red fens ravenloft gloves/goggle raven set for level 7+ which gives an artifact bonus to spot and search. In general my search was solid but spot was hit or miss - esp before I earned the +2 int tome and was only putting half ranks to spot. If you get the +8 supreme tome that will definitely help, be sure to get the anniversary bundle which includes a +8 supreme tome and cheaper than the tome. Only one use per account on that. Skill tomes also help, but I had a very high success rate without any of those things.

overall I really recommend the paladin 18/rogue 2 split, but I would start at 1 with a rogue level to make it all work. Perhaps run your character to 20 fast for the past life and then TR.

[Tsutti]

It's not that you can't do a rogue splash on a pally first lifer and get traps, the main problem I see with it if you don't use a heart of wood is that you did not know you wanted to splash rogue when you created the char--so you have no intelligence (pretty sure the build paths set your stats anyway though). If you had a decent int I think doing rogue splash 8 lvls in like this wouldn't even be that bad because the rogue levels give so many skill points that you might be able to spend all the points in trapping skills and get them up to the rank they're supposed to be at in short order.

If you use a heart of wood I recommend using +1 from store to start rogue just in case adding 2 rogue levels now wouldn't be enough, but if you don't want to spend on that then just use the +0 heart your char should have been granted at creation and be sure to put a decent int (probably 14 minimum, as I assume you don't have tomes and you would not be taking rogue until level 9 so you need to get a lot of skill points when you finally take rogue).

EDIT: If you did +0 and started 14 int, it would not get you max skills as at lvl 8 a max skill would have 11 ranks; you would take rogue level at 9, spend 5 points search and 5 disable. Another 5 each at lvl 10. Now you have 10 ranks each, when if you had taken rogue level first could have reached 13 max. Then you go rest pally and have 4 points per level, since not proficient in disable or search need to spend 2 points per rank, 2 points in each per level, so will consistently be 3 points behind a normal trapper of that level. Could make that work on a char with gear, but since I'm assuming you don't have much, if any, trapping gear I don't think this would succeed on a first lifer so your best bet is +1 heart if you want to put the rogue levels in.

If you didn't mind taking a 3rd rogue level, however, you would be able to max these skills out when you hit level 11 then just keep them maxed as you leveled, still wouldn't get to spend any other skills if you wanted to remain able to trap but you could also sacrifice some other stats a bit so you have 16 starting int for 1 additional point per level to put in one other skill if there is one you want, or level up int at lvl 4 and 8 when you lesser reincarnate if you don't want to lose out on other starting stats at lvl 1.