Talk:Paladin, Tome (3.5e Class)

Page Titling

I thought the Class Inserter form would have added the (3.5E Class) to the end automatically, but it didn't. That needs fixed. IGTN 08:12, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

Moved. Of course, I did the move before I remembered where I had seen 'Tome of Virtue' before. First off, do you not think that it is rude to impose like this, and assume that you can make the Tome of Virtue? (unless you are either Frank or K, in which case, nvm) Secondly, this should not read 'Paladin, Tome of Virtue' either way, it should read 'Paladin, Tome', as with all other Tome classes. Thirdly, if you intend to make a sourcebook like the Tomes, you must at least try and with the sourcebook first, and not leap ahead of yourself and make the mechanical peices first. → Rith ^(talk) 08:38, September 12, 2009 (UTC)

I labelled it as "Tome of Virtue" because it's based off what Frank shared of what the team's notes for the Tome of Virtue was going to be before they had to abandon the project. If you want to change it to "IGTN Variant", go ahead. http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49996&start=0 is the thread for the discussion where all of this is. The notes are in Frank's first post on the page. Other important posts are Kaelik: "The entire point is to claim ownership of the Tome series in such a way that we the community have a total rewrite of 3.5 in Tome form" (near the bottom) and Frank in the last post on the page. IGTN 05:17, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think it should merely be labelled 'Paladin, Tome'. Especially seeing that even the classes made by Frank & K themselves end in 'Tome' and not 'Races of War' or 'Tome of Necromancy, so, I'll change that. → Rith ^(talk) 05:38, September 13, 2009 (UTC)

Beyond Wizard?

I'd have an arguement that this class is strong even by wizard standards, and I base that on the fact that the class is, in essence, Paladin/Cleric gestalt. Yes, it's not the full cleric list, but enough of the big spells were it doesn't matter, and enough times per day to make a sorcerer proud. There's another 9th level casting "paladin" class in Complete Divine, but makes up for it in that it's fairly featureless (nothing to write home about anyway) and the casting is limited to 1 spell per level known, 3/day base, and Medium BAB.

Anyway, in calling it wizard, I'd have to compare it to the wizard or similar. And it has the power of 9th level casting, and the spells per day of a good caster, so it's already at least, sorcerer level, arguably low-sorcerer. Then, slap on full BAB, good HD, no ASF, and a shitload of really nice class features* and it just climbs and climbs. I feel the class has fallen victim to power creep. (*On a positive note, I like the class features, it's just too much with the whole everything else and casting. Honestly the paladin strikes me as if it is less of a caster and needs to employ more class features like this. Closest so far was the 'mundane but holy' maneuvers of the crusader.)

Discuss. -- Eiji Hyrule 00:07, November 11, 2009 (UTC)

It's missing most of the cleric's offensive powers against targets that aren't undead or demons. No Slay Living or Harm, for instance. If I designed the spell list right, this Paladin basically shouldn't be able to take down anything that matters in a single hit, and instead be reduced to grinding away their hit points, which is fine for her because of her defenses. I might remove a few problematic spells from the spell list, or defer them to higher levels, though.

When I same-game tested this class, grapple monsters managed to overwhelm the build I used (low strength, pumping Wisdom and Charisma to the max), but nothing else could since she had an armor class high enough to actually matter against level-appropriate basher monsters (I think it was 38 at 10th level), and saves capable of matching it, so the paladin was perfectly fine to try to grind things down with a little one-handed sword, until she got grappled by 5th-level monsters, where my using strength as a dump stat (plus the start middle-aged for cheap bennies to your mental stats trick) started to be a problem, so Freedom of Movement is actually the most problematic spell, although I might not want to eliminate it due to my design goals. In all, though, enough things had some capability of grappling that it didn't blow the test away at 5th or 10th level, and the 15th-level test used enough monsters I don't know that I couldn't fully evaluate it.

In a party, the goal is for this paladin to, basically, be a defensive wall that also heals and casts defensive spells on the rest of the party, while still providing some amount of damage output. To do that, the paladin basically needs to be immune or resistant to almost everything (check), have support abilities that actually matter (check), and have limited ability to actually advance the party toward winning on her own (I think I can check this off). Remember that by the time the Paladin gets the best Insightful Strike powers, the Wizard has enough save-or-dies to throw one every round and two in some rounds, and the Monk is throwing one on every attack, so doing 60 extra damage on your autoattack (42 from Insightful Strike's BAB 16 benefit plus power attacking, 16 more from Smite, and another two for good measure) isn't a meaningful contribution unless you can guarantee a full attack. The class is actually a similar concept to the Tome Fighter. --IGTN 08:32, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Too Much

Something that struck me as I was formatting is this class just has too much, and the focus just seems all over the place. I'd suggest tightening the focus a bit, especially on the spell list...cut it down to 6 levels of spells. The thing is, there's just a lot of flagrantly ridiculous stuff on every level of that spell list, stuff that has no business being there by default, especially on a class that's already as good as this one is and with the ability to fast-cast the spells. Surgo 07:11, December 23, 2009 (UTC)