As paladins are now immune to PhK, Fear, and with their endure elements can be immune to most of our elemental spells. Now 2 of my mages have fallen to paladins easily 3 levels below them, I'm thinking that paladins have a bit of a hidden power here. They are magepwners. They buff up and absorb or resist all our spells, Smite evil our animated deep lizard, and KD us. We lose.

So, I recommend these avatars of goodness get a vulnerability to negative energy. It would afford the already weak non-palemaster Necromancers a bit more use, and make sence in the setting. They have positive energy in and around them at all times, Infusing the essence of their being. So, negative energy would have a serious effect on them.

I have a long history of paladin bashing, but Ive checked with a few others and it seems like a fair change.

Thanks.

Weakness of the Paladin is not mechanic...

It's in his code of conduct, come on... It's painfully rigid! If you cant find a weakness there ,well...

TheThirteen Weakness of the Paladin is not mechanic...

It's in his code of conduct, come on... It's painfully rigid! If you cant find a weakness there ,well...

Painfully few pallys follow the Code. Most of them are 1 time, accounts who log in for a day, power level, kill people, and leave. [/Ihatepaladins]

I think you are overdramatizing, dear sir!

TheThirteen I think you are overdramatizing, dear sir!

Ive played here for awhile now. 1/3 of my character have died by the blade of a unknown paladin played by a player I never see again.

Maby bad luck on my part, though?

I agree, this would be a fair change.

I think Paladins are all ready balanced, thank you. I all ready have trouble fighting most enemies with my Paladin, so don't go off saying they are hard to beat, they are trained against evil, so try playing against them with a nuteral or good character, you may last longer.

That, and chances are you let the Paladin get close in the first place, a mistake any evil Spellguard agent WON'T make.

BTW, thanks for the tip with Endure Elements! :)

Luke Danger BTW, thanks for the tip with Endure Elements! :)

...I have done great evil.

Anyway, Paladins are trained at fighting evil, So evil should just die? Paladins are quite overpowers VS the already weak necromancer. All Im asking for is a chance to ballance the fight.

This suggestion has very little merit. Class balance is something that has been rigorously tested and watched here, Paladins are indeed scary, but so are rogues, mages, or fighters given that they are in their element. Granted Paladins are oft times more scary then other classes, but they face serious restrictions in all aspects of the character.

A fighter could chug a protection from evil, and an endure elements and do the same thing. Killing someone you've preped yourself to kill, isn't hard to do. The key here is to not ask for your opponent to get a handicap when they floor you; but for you to learn how to beat them, and it is very possible. I've seen quite a few paladins fall after biting off more then they could chew. (and KD is a mage-bane)

Paladins are granted a heightened ability to lay the beat-down on the forces of evil. Why does it make any sense to give them a weakness to the very same thing? I'm against changing the paladin's class any. I am however all for team evil working together to destroy the very real threat of those Goodie Two-Shoes.

This is a very bad idea. I suppose that warriors should get Damage Vulnerability against magic and druids should be mechanically forced to stay outside of Sanctuary or lose their spells too, right? If anything, Paladins should have a stronger resistance to negative energy.

What you're saying is that because -you- can't kill Paladins, they should be made weaker. I know I'm not misunderstanding you because I've read your post a few times to make sure. I'm not sure who it is you talked to that would call this a "fair" change but they obviously don't understand the word.

You'll note that people who tick off Paladins too often tend to get smote by pissed Paladins.

Hammerfist0 The server self-regulates really quite well.

If any thing paladins should be resistant to negative energy, making an already scary class even worse!

Really the awesome feats a paladin has makes up for his lack of bonus feats that fighters get. Try thinking out side of the box and summon forth elemental's instead of undead for a change, you can't smite evil something true-neutral.

Also, the bad guys never work together. Bane and Cyric try to kill each other any chance they get, I mean if they worked together they really wouldn't be as evil.

Lansert Also, the bad guys never work together.

Well, it comes and goes in phases. Sometimes, Team Evil is really on the ball. Other times, it's just a bunch of bunglers. Anyhow, I agree that most of the time bad guys won't work with the same cohesive attitude as goody-goodies, but that's not a reason to punish the Paladins. Not that I'm saying you're saying that.

Well, This is verging on the border of Flamewar.

-EDIT: Nothing was ever in this space, very much not a equally flamey reply. Human nature to get defensive and strike out is strong indeed, I think the community's verdict is made, though.-

Paladins are immune to PhK?

That's the most ridiculous thing. There is absolutely no logical reason for them to be immune to a level 4 spell. None.

Paladins are immune to fear.

lulz, therefore immune to PhK

Thomas_Not_very_wise Paladins are immune to fear.

lulz, therefore immune to PhK

Wow Thomas, once again your brilliance is summed up by "lulz".

Phantasmal Killer conjures a phantasm from the target's mind of something they fear.

Paladins are immune to magical fear, but not to human fear.

Phantasmal Killer takes ahold of their human fear and creates it as a real image.

Then that image "kills" the paladin. It causes their physical brain to think it has died. It is a mental attack, not a fear attack.

Then if they fail the fortitude save, their body physically dies from the shock.

My ability to use logic will always defeat your ability to misspell "lol".

Then make a suggestion to change it back to what it originally was.

I like it how it is however.

At level 2, Paladins get Aura of Courage, which gives them immunity to fear. And an unmodified spell impact script for Phantasmal Killer has a special exit condition for when the target is immune to fear.

That's BioWare for you!

For the record, PhK is a magical fear. Always has been. You cannot create a human fear magically. You must actually scare them, non-magically. Intimidation comes to mind.

Also, the spell is very much a fear effect. Paladins are immune to certain spells ranging from level 1-9, all the other fear spells. Its nothing new.

And Oroborous has been proven wrong. 8)

Anyways, this has gotten off topic.

I still think Paladins should get a slight weakness to neg energy.

If i recall in P&p PHK works on paladins prettty much for the reason Oroborous stated (Pretty sure it was in an old issue of Dragon magazine where they clarified it.)

Logic fails when Preston Watamaniuk is writing spell scripts for BioWare!

I think this thread is pretty close to closing unless it gets usefully back on topic.

AScottBay Logic fails when Preston Watamaniuk is writing spell scripts for BioWare!

Actually, no one's "proven" me wrong.

However, because I am not a hypocrite, allow me to provide actual evidence on the question so we can get back on topic of paladins.

1) In 2nd Edition DnD, Phantasmal Killer was a Mind Spell. It could affect paladins because unless they disbelieved the illusion it was "real" to them and not a terrifying mental image that 'scared them to death'.

Take a look at page 71 of Unearthed Arcana where an early version of the spell was called Weird.

2) In 3rd Edition DnD, the Spell now gains the Fear descriptor and paladins gain an immunity to it.

Page 235 of the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook. This is how the spell has been put in place by Bioware and approved by WotC. WotC did make an error from what ScottyB said:

The "fear effect" is the last part of the spell. First the spell conjures a mental image (the spell has Mental Descriptor too) of the targets worst fear.

A paladin will have this fear. Paladins may not feel fear, but they are still human and can hold fears.

The will save is to determine if you realize this is a real "fear" or not.

If you fail it, you take 3d6 damage when you see this feared image hurt you.

Paladins should take this damage.

Finally, if you fail a fortitude save the "fear" kills you through some affect--like a heart attack.

Paladins are immune to this segment of the spell. It can hurt them, but never kill them.

So--while I was proved wrong, I had to do it myself. I will never be proven wrong by the inability to spell "lol" wrong.

That said, back on topic to avoid a LOCK:

This is a silly suggestion. I suggest you cast Dispel Magic on all paladins at the start of a fight. Then blast them with magic missile, improved missiles, firebrand, and watch them die. They don't need an extra weakness, you just need better tactics to face them.

Having played 3 paladins in my time here, I can safely say, that they get pwnd a lot more than you think.

Being able to cast endure elements doesn't make up for the fact that they can still be destroyed by just about any clerical spell there is. Doom, Negative energy burst (which does str damage, I believe), and hammer of the gods are certainly effective against Paladins. Cloudkill also on any paladin lower than level 7.

Also they aren't immune to ILMS or IGMS, or grease or wounding whispers.

Keep in mind that they have good saves, but have a crap reflex one, and generally, monks of a lower level get better saves then even paladins. Also, Monks are the 'mage-killers'. They have increased speed, mega-saves, and stunning fist which most mages can't save against....if you want to worry about a mage-pwning class, then worry about monks.

Also as stated before, Paladins are soldiers who crusade primarily agianst evil, it can be assumed they have built up a tolerance to some negative energy forces, but not an immunity (thus no immunity, just slightly higher saves)

I have to say, I don't think Paladins are really over powered. My only problem with Paladins is based on the fact that I feel there are too many in Sanctuary. I've always felt that the Paladin class should be treated similarly to the Blackguard PrC. It's not easy becoming a Blackguard. Why should it be easy to become a Paladin, when at the end of the day it's much harder to be good than evil?

That is pretty much the only suggested change I could support for the Paladin.

I have to agree with Mother Agnes, there are far too many Paladins in Sanctuary, and too few 'normal', run of the mill adventure types/members of clergies/etc. So, with the current immunities they are granted, and all the other bonus', perhaps they should be restricted somewhat, for instance, one has to prove themselves to become a Paladin of their chosen God, I have met far too many that really have very little idea of the dogma behind their chosen deity, and even though Paladins are a different arm to their clergymen, they are expected to know a bit more than just a name, upholding the ideals of *their* church, and not just generally being all good and so forth. :wink:

Many people in the FR universe are almost exclusively one school casters. It would make sense if, say, Blackguards were virtually immune to Clerics. And, as most of the people here play TN characters when they are really evil to beat mechanics, I can see that its easy to misunderstand. What Im saying is:

Team good has paladins. Easily spamable evil-smiters, who, when Min-Maxed (as they disturbingly often are), are unbeatable by a CE character.

Team evil has no specific non-app class, but necromancy is all that really serves. And necromancy, without the palemaster prC, is mediocre.

This is seen by the fact that the only 'evil' places in sanctuary are a 4 screen walk away (Toms and Mur), and the fact that, even in lower, Good characters outnumber evil. Good is far more survivable, both mechanically and IG. If this is earth, this makes sense, but the FR are supposed to be in a somewhat balanced state.

For some reason, In the single most Evil-Dominant area on the FR map, and when Good slaves are far more likely to be killed then evil, The playerbase is somewhere around 30% G, 55% N, 15% E.

Team evil is populated by a bunch of max-one month life span characters, who, no-matter how powerful they are, will eventually be overtaken by the hoard. [/rant]

Wow. That felt good.

And to... they know who they are: Repeating "This idea is silly/ridiculous ETC" now 3 times will not make the topic poof away. Insulting the suggestion and debating it are entirely different things. "This is stooopid" and "I dislike this idea because: [point A] [point B]" have different results.

To be honest this seems to come around a lot kind of a flavor of the month thing. One month its paladins and team good another is team evil and the month after that is the pc Goblin horde long story short EFU goes through phases where diffrent things become the norm.

As for team evil being overtaken by the horde (And this is no a critisisim of a charecter being played) Well at the end of the day if your doing evil things sooner or later its going to catch up with you. Also remember evil at times has other disadvantages that good dont get as much ie good people wont often kill other good people or stab them in the back whilst many evil people will do it readily.

Also just out of intrest what makes you think good slaves would more likely to be killed than evil ones i mean its not like slaver would stand there casting detect alighment on there slaves and even if they did i would say the evil ones would most likely be the ones killed since good ones would be easier to keep under controll (Threatining the life of others to comply will work much better on the good cleric of Illmater than ann evil cleric of bane)

I feel that playing a good alignment is vastly more difficult than playing either a neutral or evil alignment. I don't necessarily agree with you, Hammer although I see where you are coming from very clearly. I've played what I consider successful evil characters and somewhat unsuccessful evil characters. Generally speaking, so long as an evil character is intelligent and doesn't flaunt the fact that they are evil then they can beat any good aligned person 9 times out of 10.

Here is how I view alignment, and why I think being good aligned is the most difficult.

Good is based around morality. You hold certain key values that make up the core of your being. They exemplify the virtues of mercy, forgiveness, hopefulness, redemption and compassion. They strive to help others, offer charity and do so at great personal expense. This is what it means to be good aligned.

Contrast this with evil who is literally the reverse of all of those things and based around immorality. They embrace the concepts of vengefulness, hopelessness (often through oppression), corruption, hate and fear. They strive primarily for themselves, care little for others and are only likely to do something at a great personal expense if it furthers their own goals or aims.

Neutral aligned people fall somewhere between the two extremes, but that is what good and evil are fundamentally - extremes. They are more closely linked to amorality, they may lean either toward good or evil, but lack either the conviction of a good aligned individual or the sheer depravity of an evil aligned individual.

It is for these reasons that I have trouble accepting so many Paladin's in Sanctuary, and why I do think becoming a Paladin should require an application. I see the class as the embodiment of all of those good ideals and much more. They are held to such a strict code of conduct, it only makes sense that their numbers - especially here in the Underdark - would be highly limited.

A Paladin has virtually no hope of surviving any extended period of time in slavery. By the time he makes it to the nearest evil settlement he's likely to find himself strapped to an altar and sacrificed to an evil deity. Even Clerics are in danger of this. Read Oro's post on slavery in the General Discussion forum for reasons why.

So even getting to Sanctuary through the typical means (escaped slave) is difficult for a Paladin. So that means the Paladin is likely to either arrive in Sanctuary through unorthodox means or become a Paladin while in Sanctuary, after character creation. (Many already do this as evidenced by the Fighter 4 / Paladin X multiclass.)

Keeping that in mind, shouldn't becoming a Paladin be more than simply selecting the class on level-up? Shouldn't it be some type of mystical experience, even if you are already playing a deeply spiritual and religious character? You are literally becoming a Chosen Warrior for a god, it isn't something that you simply wake up one morning and simply become. It is generally speaking a process.

So it is for those reasons, and others that I made my suggestion in this thread. I do not feel that the problem with Paladin's is their strength. Anyone who has proper time to prepare can kill a Paladin. (Preparing also meaning bringing along some friends, not just buffing up for a fight.) I don't believe Paladin's should be easy to kill - they are blessed by a deity. Anyone is hard to kill if they are prepared and you're not - in fact on EfU this is almost instant death, and the best advice that can be given when faced with an enemy who has come ready for battle is to run. Run and return to fight the battle on your own terms.

I think this is primarily the gist of the suggestion: Paladins are over powered and require a weakness. The above is my counter suggestion.

Mother Agnes I think this is primarily the gist of the suggestion: Paladins are over powered and require a weakness. The above is my counter suggestion.

Funny how here Paladins are considerd overpowerd whilst in P&p with the exact same abilities the Paladin is often seen as underpowerd.

Also in regards to making paladins app because background wise it dosent make sence im completly against since by the same argument Drow background wise will just kill elves on sight and both grey's and drow genrally kill halflings and gnomes rather than take them prisoner (both generally not being much use for slave labor). so by the same logic we would have to make elves halflings and gnomes app only.

Just to drop one suggestion in on the original topic before this gets locked. I think it is pretty simple for those evil mages to defend themselves. Make friends with a pure fighter CN half orc...

Really though, toe to toe, a fighter of the same level is going to pwn a Paladin. If you're evil and weak in hand to hand combat, compensate and hire / invite / trick a big huge warrior to join you. Think about basically every movie where you have an evil master mind type. They always have huge thugs around them. To think that even with spells and summons you can fight against the warrior that was bread to kill you without the help of some type of minion, is kind of missing one of the major "features" of playing a mage... They are weak physically...

Just my 2 cents.

Well, the traditonal escaped slave thing can be done differently. My Paladin was just trapped while on his way down to Underdark to assist some followers of Estrallie (or whatever her name is!), and got trapped in a rockslide, and made it to Sanctuary. Really, no slave backround, just got stuck in Underdark. So really, that isn't an app backround.

Personally, I don't think that there ARE that many paladins on EfU at the moment. They just tend to congregate.

I know I haven't seen more than 5 active at once.

Skrillix Personally, I don't think that there ARE that many paladins on EfU at the moment. They just tend to congregate.

I know I haven't seen more than 5 active at once.

I agree. Paladins aren't as populous as you might think. They just make them selves know a whole lot more obvious when crying foul on someone trying to join the party.

PCs with good fortitude can resist one elemental damage type if they choose so. How about extending that to positive and negative energy?