Been looking at the
Silver Champion Paladin lately. It's an archetype that gives up a lot of smite evil uses, has diminished spellcasting, has diminished mercies, loses aura of justice and aura of righteousness, casts all of Apsu's domain spells instead of his usual spells, and gets a Drake Companion. If it didn't give up aura of justice, it would have been a fairly solid archetype by letting you use Oath of Vengeance to cover your smite evil loss and bolster your spell list, but it doesn't so now you have a Paladin that can barely smite, which is... still manageable as long as you save your smite for when it really counts (to kill a boss). Still, the Drake Companion seems useful (see
here) and I'm wondering what can be done with this Paladin.
The Silver Champion uses
Apsu's domains and subdomains for his spells instead of the standard Paladin spell list. He essentially has the following spell list:
1:Animate rope
Command
Divine favor (Paladin)
Expeditious retreat
Floating disk
Longstrider
Magic fang
Protection from evil (Paladin)
Protection from chaos (Paladin)
2:Align weapon (good only)
Align weapon (law only)
Animal trance
Locate object
Wood shape
3:Apsu's Shining Scales (Paladin)
Draconic reservoir
Fly
Greater magic fang
Magic circle against chaos (Paladin)
Magic circle against evil (Paladin)
Prayer (Paladin)
Stone shape
4:Dimension door
Dragon’s breath
Holy smite
Locate creature
Minor creation
Order's wrath
Poison (forbidden by Code of Conduct)
Surprisingly, not that bad of a list. Spells marked (Paladin) are spells you would've had as a Paladin regardless. Apsu's Shining Scales is a spell Paladins specifically get for worshiping Apsu, not a spell on the regular class list or Apsu's domains. Ironically, Silver Champions do not get to cast Draconic Ally. Clerics, inquisitors, oracles, and warpriests who worship Apsu or Dahak add draconic ally to their spell lists as a 3rd-level spell, but Paladins do not because it is always part of their class list, unless they are Silver Champions. In addition to that, the following Oaths can be taken to improve the Paladin spell list:
Oath against Fiends:
1. Resist energy
2. Detect thoughts
3. Invisibility purge
4. Plane shift
Oath against Grotesquery:
1. Sanctuary
2. Make whole
3. Banish seeming
4. True form
Oath of Chastity:
1. Remove fear
2. Confess
3. Heroism
4. Freedom of movement
The last oath is generally undesirable because it neuters your Divine Grace. The first one seems to be a bit of a must-have. All of those spells are welcome additions to the Paladin's list. In addition to that, the
Unsanctioned Knowledge feat can be used to add 1 spell of each spell level from the Cleric, Inquisitor, or Bard spell lists, so overall it seems the Silver Champion would retain a decent spell selection. In addition, while the Silver Champion cannot cast spells at 4th level, it still gains the Spells class feature at 4th level, so it still has the same caster level as normal. Giving a Silver Champion
Fate's Favored and
Magical Knack traits will still give him a decent self-buff while he casts Divine Favor at -1 caster level instead of -3 caster levels.
I'm wondering if there's anything interesting to be done with the Silver Champion, but
Drake Companion optimization aside it seems to be pretty much the same as a regular Paladin, with a different spell selection, slightly delayed spell progression, and fewer Smite Evil uses. A couple of
1st-level Pearls of Power will pretty much give him enough Divine Favor to last all combat encounters, though. At high levels UMDing a Wand of
Mnemonic Enhancer (21k gp) is probably the way to go in order to make up for the Paladin's deficient spells per day.
