Paladin Assassination?

[Amechra]

OK, this is going to sound crazy, but if a Paladin can hit a person with a touch attack, they can use Lay on Hands on them from any range, as long as they are on the same plane.

Why? There's a 4th level spell called Sacred Haven in the BoED that, among other things, removes any sort of range restriction from your Lay on Hands.

If you have levels in Grayguard, you can deal damage with your Lay on Hands.

Now, since you have to be close enough to hit them with a touch attack (or just use Reach spell with it, but that don't work as well), it is kinda less useful, but...

The spell also gives you a Status effect on the person it is affecting. And, well, get a Familiar and then...

Profit.

After all, who's gonna have a problem with an adorable kitty rubbing up against them (OK, maybe when all the blood in their bodies leave via their ears...)

So, yeah, hit the spell with DMM: Persist, and you can kill them at your leisure over the course of the day.

[Rebel7284]

After all, who's gonna have a problem with an adorable kitty rubbing up against them (OK, maybe when all the blood in their bodies leave via their ears...)

In a world where polymorph, wildshape, and shapechange exist, you'd be surprised about how paranoid people may get about adorable kittens.

[Amechra]

True...

Alternatively, this+Smiting Spell.

Paladins just got very deadly in 1-on-1 duels; they only have to hit you once, and then you will die from that wound if you are on their kill list (basically, undead, or lycanthropes+evil outsiders with a feat, or everyone if you are a Greyguard.)

[Jackinthegreen]

And here I was thinking the paladin might go into Avenger or something.

But yes, any knowledgeable person would know not to take various animals at face value.  Some sort of permanent Detect Magic might be in the works.

I like the idea of a paladin just saying "You are not worthy of living." BOOM

[Amechra]

I just rememebered something that makes this even better (on a certain level, at least; you need to have 16 levels in Paladin, which sucks and is awful.)

The Divine Spirit ACF lets you summon spirits that have certain neat-o effects.

The Spirit of Heroism gives you DR 10/-, the effects of the Diehard feat, and...

The ability to use Lay on Hands as a free action.

Maybe in a gestalt, lower optimization game?

[Prime32]

Action Healing feat (Faiths of Eberron) lets you spend an action point to Empower or Quicken your LoH, or extend its range to 30ft. Azure Touch^MoI and Hands of a Healer^BoED increase the size of your LoH pool (+essentia to paladin level and +2 to effective Cha, respectively). And then there's Empower/Enlarge/Quicken Supernatural Ability from Tome of Magic.

[Amechra]

Alright, shouldn't we work on a build for this kinda thing? Could be kinda cool.

I'm gonna have to check to see if there are any other good ACFs for this.

[sirpercival]

Golden Cup sub level 10 (CoV) increases level by 3.

[Amechra]

I actually was just about to post about that...

It combos really well with stuff like Azure Touch, Hands of the Healer, and the Unicorn Pendant.

To compare:

Level 20 paladin, Charisma 30:
200 points of healing.

Level 20 Paladin with Golden Cup 10th level substitution level, Hands of the Healer, a Unicorn Pendant, and Azure Touch (grap some incarnum stuff to fill it up), and natural Cha 30:

345 points of healing available.

Sadly, there aren't any PrCs that help maximize Lay on Hands stuff, and, except for Greyguards, there really aren't any that give you fun new things to do with the pool. And we can't even rob things from Pathfinder, because Lay on Hands works differently over there...

Are there any nice feats in Dragon to do with Lay on Hands? Serenity actually isn't that good in this case, because most things stop actually helping when you do that...

[gorfnab]

Optimized Lay on Hands Build