A paladin..so please help :-)

[gamer]

Hi everyone,

in my current party we have a paladin as main tank/meat-shield.
So far he has been amazingly effective with a guisarme and combat reflexes.

The rest of us is buffing him, because we are a bard, a ranger/scout and a CCleric/rouge/...

The build so far is Paladin LVL5

Str   14
Dex  14
Con  12
Int    low
Wis   low
Cha  12

Feats: Power attack, Combat reflexes, Improved initiative.

Now, what I would ask you is advice on how to go on from here on. Stats (rolled) and feats are set in stone to this point.
All books are OK.

I was thinking Crusader, but the player likes "simple" concepts.

So your help is very much appreciated, especially on feats and PrCs.

[Jackinthegreen]

What do his buffed stats look like?  What is his race?

Crusaders are simple if you get some maneuver cards and shuffle them for the whole Granted Maneuver stuff.  It sounds more like the player isn't keen on putting much thought into his character, and I don't blame him with those rolled stats.  Even one level of crusader would help so much if he got the Thicket of Blades stance.

The guisarme is a step in the right direction.  Make sure he gets armor spikes or a spiked gauntlet too so he can threaten adjacent squares.  It's a free action to swap from holding a 2h weapon with two hands to holding it with one hand, so it does work either way.

As for future feats, Stand Still might prove useful.  Have him immediately switch over to Fighter because he's going to be pretty useless as a paladin with those crappy Wis and Cha scores and would be better off getting fighter feats.

[muktidata]

If he wants to stay single-class Paladin:

Level 6: Awesome Smite (Complete Champion)
Level 9: Battle Blessing (Complete Champion)
Level 12: Animal Devotion (Complete Champion)

If he wants to go into a PrC, then he will have to use those feat slots to satisfy prerequisites for most things.

[xaotiq1]

I've had much better experiences with Paladins since I read this: http://dictummortuum.blogspot.ca/2011/08/paladins-handbook.html

[Unbeliever]

Mukti has pretty good advice.  Divine Shield makes for a solid defense, though I think Animal Devotion, Protection Devotion, and Law Devotion outclass it.  You might think of a Cleric dip just for extra devotion feats and things like more Turn Undead.

Also, if you're looking for a Paladin tank character but a build that plays more classic or "straightforward" than a ToB character, the Hellreaver from Fiendish Codex 2 is quite good and easy to get into.  Given the OP it'd probably be my top suggestion. 

His stats and feats aren't great for Paladin tank, to be honest.  As Jack points out, he's kind of screaming for Stand Still with the Dex and Power Attack I suppose, though I don't know where he's going to get a ton of accuracy for it.  As a higher level option, he could use Find the Gap from the Paladin spell list, I suppose.  But, I'd recommend Hellreaver above all of that.

[gamer]

Ok guys, thanks for all the input.

The Hellreaver sound interesting. Have to look it up. Also awesome smite sound good. Besides that, i will try to get him into crusader.

Spiked gauntlets he already has. I forgot to mention.

What is the trick with "Level 12: Animal Devotion (Complete Champion)"???
Buy a bunch of animals???

Appendix.
His race is human, and the Str is actually 16 rather than 14. TypeO
In terms of buff we normally give him divine shield, enlarge person and +3attack/+3damage from the bards song of courage.

More input is always welcome

[muktidata]

If you aren't going to progress Paladin casting, then drop Battle Blessing. Use google to see what Animal devotion does. If he goes for Crusader, ignore all the feats I listed and tell us the Int score. You likely want to go for Combat Expertise and Improved Trip. While enlarged and in the Thicket of Blades stance, he will improve by a lot.

[sirpercival]

See if you can get someone Ability Enhancer (dragon compendium), and then buff him with Fist of Stone for +8 Str from a 1st-level spell.

[gamer]

"You likely want to go for Combat Expertise and Improved Trip"

That was my first idea. Unfortunately his Int is 8 or 9, so no way.
I checked animal devotion... interesting.

Paladin casting is basically nonexistent with those stats... so battle blessing is out.

If I get him into crusader, thicket of blades will be enough I hope. And the cards sound like a good idea. Thx
If not, stand still does basically the same and might be easier for him. So he could stay a Paladin.

The Hellreaver also looks nice. In combination with stand still this could be good.

I will post soon what course of action we decided on. The first time I play in a group that works by putting all our effort into buffing/healing the paladin :-) to bind the enemy and letting the ranger/scout be the artillery decimating their numbers.
 

[Waazraath]

With these stats, I'd never go for single class paladin; they ask for (much) higher stats. If the player insists, try to use either the spell-less variant 'holy warrior' from complete champion (bonus feats instead of spells), so you can forget about wisdom, or consider serenity from dragon compendium (use wis instead of cha for all cha-related class abilities).

Maybe check this build compendium out for inspiration: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10057

[Jackinthegreen]

Serenity would be a fairly bad choice since he'd need to be buffed with Owl's Wisdom (or get a +Wis item) for every fight to be useful.  The CC spell-less pally is a solid option to ignore spells (unlike the CW version. What the hell were they thinking?).

Extra Smiting is probably the feat that will help the most from that list.  Going into Awesome Smite could be useful for making things prone, but you'll need to buff your strength score/trip modifiers to reliably do that.

Would it be possible to retrain him a little to get Charging Smite from PHB2?  The tradeoff is losing the mount, but the mount probably doesn't come into play much for you does it?

[Waazraath]

Serenity would be a fairly bad choice since he'd need to be buffed with Owl's Wisdom (or get a +Wis item) for every fight to be useful. 

Eh, yeah, of course serenity includes changing the 12 from cha to wis, should have mentioned it... the idea is to have less ability scores to worry about. But I think I read to fast and the OP is already playing and past the stage of character creation, isn't relevant then indeed.

[muktidata]

Yeah, with Improved Initiative, Power Attack, and being buffed, Charging Smite is a solid option. Get a +1 Valorous (Weapon) and go to town. I didn't see the low Wisdom, so yeah, no Rhino's Rush for him. At that point, I agree on the spell-less variant from Complete Champion and again agree on using it for Extra Smite if he plans on continuing Paladin levels, the Mounted line if he can't take Charging Smite, or Cleave if he's switching to Crusader immediately.

For level 9, instead of Battle Blessing, then, I recommend Knockdown. He won't have Improved Trip, but he'll likely be far away (you said he gets Enlarged and uses a reach weapon) and a high strength. When he gets Animal Devotion at level 12, that'll be another +6 Sacred bonus to strength, on top of the +8 enhancement that someone will have given to him. With some Crusader levels, he'll get the key stance Thicket of Blades.

[gamer]

"Would it be possible to retrain him a little to get Charging Smite from PHB2?  The tradeoff is losing the mount, but the mount probably doesn't come into play much for you does it?"

Thank you for the suggestion. I think this will be possible. The mount we actually never use... the rest of us is on foot :-)

"With these stats, I'd never go for single class paladin; they ask for (much) higher stats." This is what i said as well..but he insisted..and now we have to work with what we have.

so charging smite and stand still seems the way to go.

Also the holy warrior is a solid idea.

More on Sunday, this is the day we will level him up

[muktidata]

Standstill doesn't seem like a good idea to me. They can still withdraw and you have to give up your attack to stop them. Most enemies in the DnD universe are leary of giving up their ground next to a warrior-type (unless your DM is just moving characters around constantly for him to AoO). It makes sense if he's wanting to "Tank" in the sense that he wants to stop enemies from rushing allies, but I'd rather just see him take Martial Maneuver [Foehammer] at level 9 and Martial Stance [Thicket of Blades] at level 12. Move Animal or Law Devotion up to level 6. At every level he gets a bonus Paladin feat, get Extra Smite since it scales with his Paladin levels.

[Dragonmaster]

I'd just like to point out that, if you can stand losing the "no-multiclassing" approach, there are two 2-level dips that give Imp. Trip without the prereq.'s:

Passive Way Monk (gives both Combat Reflexes and Improved Trip, so feels like a waste unless the feat choices can be retconned). The other features gained are pretty meh (you aren't going to fight unarmed or with monk weapons, you aren't going to have a larger Wis modifier than armor bonus (unless you can retcon the Wis score too for Serenity), and you gain no fast movement or anything else fun) and you lose a point of BAB to gain better saves, which seldom are a weakness for paladins anyway. Decisive Strike (with a monk weapon... bleh) can be fun for the AoO-heavy builds, but usually not.

Wolf Totem Barbarian (gives Improved Trip as well as Rage (or Whirling Frenzy or Favored Enemy with more nonconflicting mix-and-match ACF's or class variants)) without losing the point of BAB. Sadly incompatible with Pounce dip, but what can you do.

[sirpercival]

Wolf Totem Barbarian (gives Improved Trip as well as Rage (or Whirling Frenzy or Favored Enemy with more nonconflicting mix-and-match ACF's or class variants)) without losing the point of BAB. Sadly incompatible with Pounce dip, but what can you do.

False.  Wolf Totem is the totem barbarians from UA/SRD, Spirit Lion Totem gives pounce and is from Complete Champion.  You can absolutely take both.  Only problem is that Wolf Totem takes 2 levels to give you Imp Trip.

[Rebel7284]

Barbarian + Paladin has some alignment issues... (paladin of freedom solves these, but that's not the character in play)

While Crusader is indeed awesome, another good option is Divine Crusader from Complete Divine.  An interesting twist on spellcasting.  There are some great domains out there.

Edit:
Paladin 5/Crusader 2/Divine Crusader 10 is really good for a martial character.

Edit 2:
I noticed that the charisma of that character is a bit low.  That should not be much of an issue as you will be able to afford cloak of charisma + X before the level you need it. 

[gamer]

hi guys,

thanks for all the input

"Paladin 5/Crusader 2/Divine Crusader 10 is really good for a martial character."
I will suggest this tomorrow.

"Martial Maneuver [Foehammer] at level 9 and Martial Stance [Thicket of Blades] at level 12"
also good.

I still hope to get him into crusader...and taking the t ACFs Holy Warrior and charging smite

[sirpercival]

Divine Crusader is actually best paired with classes that give you access to more domains, like Sovereign Speaker or Contemplative.