I am playing through with my first ever Paladin character in any game (pnp or crpg) Ive ever played. While using the P-ditty in ToEE really has me excited from an RP perspective, Ive already run into a couple issues and am hoping any experienced holy-rollers would mind sharing some advice. 1) I already had a restart after the Drinking Contest. I had seen mention of fallen pallys from this quest but thought that only applied if the Pally himself was the drinker. The fact that my DWARVEN Pal cant even standby and watch my DWARVEN Cleric drink a few barrels of mead is completely stupid. Even if other Pallys arent forgiven for being in the room during this quest, Dwarf characters at least should be exempt from penalties. 2) I tried to multiclass in a level of Fighter to get an extra Feat, that turned out to be stupid. Cant even boost my combat prowess taking a level of my favored class without losing the ability to continue upgrading Pally levels? Had to reload the save from when I first entered Hommlet to fix that. So what I would appreciate is if any of you veterans can hook me up with some Pally playing advice - tips, tricks, watch-out-fors, etc. Any other big no-no's I need to avoid? Skills or abilities that work great or not at all? I accepted Id be forfeiting even the possibility of playing nicely with evil characters, but considering Im playing a purely good group I thought that fit in the roleplaying sense. Im just wondering if there are any more limitations I should be aware of before they bite me in the ass. Thanks in advance.
1. I believe Geaer is looking into changing that, specifically for dwarven paladins. 2. I may be best to start as a fighter, go to level 4 for specialization, then go from then on as a paladin.
Yea unforunately I find the Paladin and Ranger limited in the CRPG because some of the things that are usefull in a PnP game just are not implemented or not usefull enough in the CRPG. One of a Paladins primary features is his Mount at 5th level which is not implemented, that along with the fact that detect evil; even though implemented is unnessary and useless in the CPRG. Makes them not as resonable options when compared to fighters, even though I still play them along with Rangers for a RP aspect. I agree with General Ghoul, multi-classing is probly the way to go if you want a good combo of roleplaying and "abilities", just have to decide rather to go Paladin first then switch, or your other class then switch to Paladin. Anthor suggestion is to muti-class your paladin with a Cleric or Pelor or Heronious. Then either give him the sun/heal domain (if your primary healer) or sun/good (if your going to craft). Or for Heronius make sure one is the War domain giving you weapon focus in Longsword, just gives you one extra feat you can spend on something else besides weapon focus. Two things that the paladin does have implemented in this game that are very helpfull is: -Divine Grace (2nd level) if you have at least a 14 CHR this is like getting Great Fortitude/Lighting reflexes and Iron Will all at second level, thats 3 feats. If you have an 18 CHR well twice as good. -Aura of Courage (3rd or 4th level) You add these to something like a freedom of movement ring and he will usually still be swinging away when others are incapacitated in some way. I usually tend to do 4-6 levels of paladin then switch to Cleric the rest of the way and or do exactly as the General mentioned and go 4 levels of Fighter and then switch to Paladin the rest of the way.
I used to play as General Ghoul suggests. First four (or more) levels fighter, then multiclass to paladin. AND by doing so you may bypass drinking contest restriction too. Because falling does not occur for past deeds.
I agree with the Ghoul and Sergio, and you pretty much hit all the "surprise" things in your first post. You are aware of working with evil NPCs, like the evil temple priests quests and recruiting Scorpp, the Hill giant. I would warn about the Brothel in Nulb, but I think you actually don't fall for paying for sex, strangely enough. Hope my two coppers helped reinforce. Go with Fighter until 4, (or Cleric of Heronius until after the drinking contest) then Pally.
Thanks for the advice. I went with the Fighter to second level, did the contest and took the bribe from the merchants, then switched to Pally. In Moathouse now at lvl 4. Plan to run him up at least 6 Pally levels then maybe switch back to Fighter. Ive got a cleric and a druid along with a rogue/wizard so pally Dredd is the lone tank. Next, on my evil run through, Im thinking to make Dredd a Barb/Rog just to see how Rage, Cleave, and Combat Reflex do with Sneak Atks. =)
I know I was the one asking for tips but I had some fun with this last night so thought I would share. I ran through the moathouse hallway and guard room leading to Lareth and took "the master" himself out all in a single easy fight using this. Am now running amok through Hickory Branch doing the same. I, obviously, used my Pally2/Fighter2 Dreddnawt. Just before opening the door (or initiating combat) I buffed him with Aid, Protection From Evil, Barkskin, Bull, Bear, Eagle, Inspire Courage, Bless (I know its redundant), Guidance (save), Resistance, and Shield of Faith then topped it off with Enlarge Person. Freedom of Movement would have been great but I didnt have it. Then I opened the door to the hall, went through the dialogue til the guard ran off, sprinted down the hall, and burst into the guard room like it was a surprise party. Dropped Dredd right in the middle of the melee on the first round then Web/Entangled the whole area. He was surprisingly mobile given the pally saves and buffs. I hacked and cleaved through the guards and the commotion prompted Lareth himself to crash the party mid-fight. Lareth wasnt so beautiful by his 2nd round. My other group members sat idly by drinking mead, playing dice, and occasionally firing arrows into the fray, but I mainly let Dredd have his way with the room full of aspiring corpses just for the fun of it. I pulled the FoM ring off Lareth the Mutilated and repeated this tactic for the ambush exiting the moathouse and again for the first few fights of HB. While it may not be strategic genius, its still pretty fun to solo superman a dozen or so enemies.
Why in the names of the 666 layers of the Abyss would you multiclass a HTH class with a class that can't wear armor while using its own abilities, gets no bonus feats, has no hit points worth mentioning, and can't fight its way out of a wet paper death trap? The only multiclass option in 3.x worth its weight in SPAM is adding a HTH or missile combat class to another HTH or missile combat class, e.g. fighter/paladin, fighter/barbarian, rogue/ranger, fighter/rogue, fighter/ranger . . . and frankly, multiclassing ranger with anything makes for kind of a weak combination; you're far better off using a fighter and taking missile feats than you are with a ranger. But DEAR GODS, don't ever multiclass a primary spellcaster with anything!!!
Multiclassing primary casters is generally a sub optimal choice, but there are ways you can make it work. Usually not as optimal as a well done straight caster especially at higher levels, but there are tricks to make it work. TOEE bad guys generally are not all that optimized anyway; you could make a terrible build and still do fine once you get to mid lvls. Paladin/sorcerer combos do get some synergy due to their primary stat being the same (CHA) so you can make it work (though it's considered one of the cheesier Core multiclass combos out there), especially with the reduced asf armor available in this game. I personally prefer Ftr/wiz combos as good INT translates into fun stuff like imp trip with the overpowered reach weapons (while remaining unhittable without a shield); the high saves of a pally are not as valuable with relatively few spellcasting foes in the game but I suppose true strike/smite/max Power Attack criticals x3 with two handers could be fun. The build he suggested would probably pwn a straight lvl 10 paladin handily if it wins initiative and gets mirror image off; however in a party, a straight sorcey would be far more preferable, unless there was another pure class arcane caster in the group. Of course, give the pally at higher lvls a Holy Avenger, and it's a different story.
Hi I know I am veering off the original topic, but I am currently running a group where EVERYBODY is multi-classed (something new for me). The group consists of: Rath ( Human Cleric of Heironeous / Monk: Levels 8/3 ) Tiny ( Half-Orc Fighter / Barbarian: Levels 9 / 2) Elmo ( Human Ranger / Fighter: Levels 8 / 4 ) L'auren BaCall ( Human Conjurer / Monk: Levels 8 / 3 ) Whisper ( Elf Wizard / Rogue: Levels 7 / 4 ) Meleny ( Human Druid / Monk: Levels 8 / 3 ) I originally called this group "Rath's Order" (Yeah I know it's a bad pun, but what the heck :yes: ), but lately think of them as "The Tumblers" for their ability to dodge Fireballs and the like. Trust me it came in very handy in a certain cave near Verbobonc. Also the fact that three of my four spellcasters can deflect the first arrow shot at them each round doesn't hurt either. I would say that either way can work. I have run parties where the only people who multi-class are my Elf Rogue / Wizard and Elmo ( Because he IS a Ranger doggonit !! ), and can't honestly say they work any better or worse than "Rath's Order" does. By the way if you want to talk about a "Lean, Mean Fighting Machine" Rath is currently somewhere around AC 30 ( courtesy of an Amulet of Wisdom +6, Gloves of Dexterity, Bracers of Protection +3, and a Ring of Protection +2 ) He currently has a +2 Holy Kama, and will probably craft another one as soon as he has the spare EXP and gold to do so. At that point with "Flurry of Blows" he will be a wicked front line fighter (which is where my Clerics always end up anyways ). Getting back to the original topic, I think that a Paladin / Sorcerer could be very interesting, especially with the right spell mix ( Mage Armor, Shield, Enlarge Person, Mirror Image, Blur and Displacement ). Another interesting thought would be to include a level or 2 of Monk for the WIS bonus to AC and the Deflect Arrows Feat.
Ugh. adding a lvl of monk for those benefits is a well known trap. I don't know why people keep falling for it. Mage armor doesn't stack with the elven chain armors in the game, which eventually will be far better when you get the +2 and +3 ones. But otherwise, yes, those are the standard melee/arcane hybrid buffs. Upside, you can be unhittable while smacking things around with a two hander, tripping, never missing while max power attacking, etc. and occasionally throwing around attack/control spells. Downside is you need to buff up quite a bit, which doesn't always lend itself to good RP without metagaming (i.e. you know the fight in the next room is really tough so you start buffing up heavy, then charge in) and your HPs will be lower than a pure melee, etc. There's other downsides vs intelligent foes, but you won't have to worry about getting dispelled and such too often in TOEE. Or you could just run a cleric who buffs up with divine power, divine favor, righteous might, etc and be just as nasty while not giving up any caster lvls, wearing full plate, healing, getting domain powers, and having almost as much HPs as a pure melee. Eventually, pure melees become fairly redundant in 3.5e at higher lvls. Unless you run into an antimagic field situation or such (which there is one or two in TOEE) But paladin/sorcey's... (Sorcadin's they're called) ... can work, definitely, though I always found the flavor unconvincing unless it's like a paladin of Mystra or such.
As long as you can rest after a battle, a group of all sorcerers and wizards works fine if you survive 1st level. They become an unstoppable tidal wave of fire, basically, except in a few case where spells aren't going to work. Which makes me wonder if even single classed paladins don't work, by comparison.
When the Fireballs don't work, that's when you Summon in a Elder Earth Elemental or a Chain Devil to do some slapping.
