Class: Paladin

[Dank]

as i've come to agree (with the farb and pixie) that the medieval knight is more like a typical jediMUD paladin than he is a typical jediMUD warrior, i've moved this post off of the warrior thread and onto this thread.

further, it seems to me that the jediMUD warrior, along with his set of mostly low encumbrance skills, more closely identifies with a lightly armored infantry class, like the ubiquitous barbarian, than he does the typically heavily armored infantry unit (knight).

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MEYER'S MEDIEVAL KNIGHT PRIMER
Lesson One: THE FULL SET OF ARMOR

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(a) helmet - think: down lineman
(b) visor - protects the face
(c) beavoir - protects the royal orthodontia
(d) neck piece - keeps head attached to body
(e) gorget - remove for spontaneous shiatsu goodness
(f) breastplate - put coat-of-arms here
(g) backplate - put sponsor endorsements here
(h) tassets - protects royal arse
(i) pauldron - shoulder blade protection
(j) epauliere - shoulder cap protection
(k) rander - decapitation avoidance technology
(l) vambrace - upper/forearm protection
(m) rerebrace - elbow protection
(n) gauntlet - armored glove
(o) lance rest - for your lance, what else?
(p) cuisse - thigh protection
(q) espauliere/poleyn - knee protection
(r) jamb/greave - calf protection
(s) solleret - foot protection
(t) chain mail skirt - protects the royal cod piece

[umi]

[Dank]

PALADIN OF THE MONTH
June 2004

King Arthur

[Pioneer]

A class made up of characters who are champions of justice and destroyers of evil, with an array of divine powers. (from D&D Player's Handbook)

I believe that the class should get revised... again.

Specifically, two of the skills they have don't make any sense, either role-play or class wise; Communal Prayer and Spirituality.

First off, the most aberrant skill, Spirituality. It locks the paladin's alignment so it can NOT go down, no matter what they kill... how can anyone rationalize this as a skill paladins should have? If anything, paladins should lose DOUBLE alignment for even contemplating killing anything good aligned, but instead, they can kill the Pope and/or Bishop in Ravenna and shed the guilt like a duck sheds water!

Secondly, Communal Prayer. By praying, the paladin can boost his and his group's alignment. That's all fine and dandy... so even if they don't have Spirituality, after murdering the Pope, with his blood still fresh on his hands, he can just kneel and pray and make not only himself but his WHOLE group feel better about killing the Pope!

Whatever happened to 'Paladins lose all their abilities if they knowingly commit an evil act and function hence forth as a warrior until such time as they atone for their crime'?

In short, the "paladin" class we have on Jedi is a travesty, a farce of the true paladin, the noble knight on his white charger battling at the gates of hell, the defender of the widow and orphan, the gentleman who would rather give up his life rather then hurt an innocent.

So, that's MY rationale for revising the class again, take out those fubar skills and give them new ones, make the Paladin a powerful champion in the cause of good, but if they stray from the path, the consequences are immediate.

What I propose :
take out Spirituality
take out Communal Prayer
Detect Evil (spell)
lower level for Heal
lower level for Sanctuary
double hit vs Evil IF using a sword
double alignment loss for killing good
half alignment gain for killing evil
lose ALL skills and spells if not good aligned

Paladins aren't for everyone, I'm tired of seeing warriors running around pretending to be paladins because their acts don't have any consequences. If you want to run around killing everything and you're looking out only for #1, be a warrior or Anti-paladin (Antis should have Spirituality as a matter of fact, they don't care what they kill, as long they gain from it, maybe rename it Selfishness)

Pio.

[guts]

I think Pioneer has hit the nail on the head. I am even a proponent for penalizing Paladin alignment in an even greater manner should they kill good.

Killing good: should take them to 0 alignment.
Killing Evil: raise their alignment by 1/10 of normal chars.

For not straying from the path and maintaining their align at 1k they should get major bonuses. Their Deity is way behind them when they are at 1K... Thats when I think the extra skills can kick in.

Guts

[Gugaru]

In all honesty I say that in entirety this proposition is rediculous. Original paladin changes weren't this severe, and in no way should they be changed this drastically now. While there were a few interesting points made, a few in fact that I would agree with myself, I doubt that what is being asked will be considered serious or acceptable by most. But as always if you have personal complications with a class, don't play it.

~Gugaru

[Pioneer]

*snicker* as usual, if you don't love it leave it... if you don't like Jedi, play somewhere else... if you don't like a class, don't play it... what did I expect?

Did you actually read the post? My point is the Paladin class is NOT what it should be. A Paladin should be a defender of virtue and justice. He -should- defend the weak and serve the greater good. The so called "paladins" we have on Jedi (mostly due to the skills I mentioned in the post above) are simply a bunch of thugs, running around pillaging and killing anything they feel like, with NO consequence what so ever to their actions. The Paladin should answer to a higher code, one that would make most sane people run for the hills. Instead we have a parody of the noble knight, one without morality or spine, Galahad, Percival and Lancelot would spin in their graves if they saw one of our 'paladin'.

And before someone even bring up the point, I have 3 paladins in my stable and I do play them so I'm not some schmuck standing on the side line commenting on something I have no clue about.

But thanks for your comment, even if you didn't agree with me.

Pio

[Pioneer]

I do have to disagree with Guts also, bringing a Paladin's alignment to 0 for killing a good aligned mob is extreme, and would restrict the class too much, not to mention that it would make them impossible to quest with (read gauntlet, group gauntlet, DQs).

I'm not out to make the class unplayable, I just want Paladins to be... well.. Paladins, not some bully with the law on his side.

A paladin seeing his alignment go from 1000 to 800 for killing Deloria will think twice about doing it again, specially when he realizes that it takes 20 evil mobs to get back to 1000 alignment.

Pio.

[Gugaru]

You are also seeming to disregard the fact that class revisions came into effect because they became far too unbalanced with changes to the remort statistic modifier. By changing paladins in the way you suggest, it will bring them back to their former inadequate state. Thereby making the previous changes irrelevent. If you wish to make the argument that the game isn't following D & D bylaws so be it, but that isn't a basis for such radical change. While other muds follow rollplaying to an extreme, our mud is far more diverse, which in my mind makes it far more enjoyable.

~Gugaru

[Antessima]

Some thoughts....

I agree with Guts and Pioneer on the point that the current JediMUD Paladin class doesn't act very much like an ideal holy warrior should. They have a lone offensive spell that, really, comes into play very little, and their defensive spells are inferior to their clerical counterparts. Their uniquely-Paladin skills and spells have some advantages, yes, but when compared to many other classes, they afford little usefulness in the long run. Consider that statistically only 50 paladins in Jedimud have 1 or more remorts (some of which may not have been paladin remorts), vs. 275 clerics, 198 mages, 102 warriors, and 80 bards, and you can see that this class still is not balanced enough to be as playable as others in our game.

Gugaru has stated that making the radical changes that Pioneer and Guts have proposed would create great imbalance again. I agree with that specific point, but not in the general idea that the class shouldn't be changed radically because of it. Our classes are already very imbalanced, something few would argue with. Radical changes for practically every class are required if we want to achieve balance. But revising one or two classes at a time won't get us very far; I think it's necessary to do a top-to-bottom redesign. This, of course, is currently impractical, and that's a totally different issue altogether.

The point of these threads is more to garner ideas for revisions. However, since we don't have any class revision team anymore, Gugaru is sadly more correct than he may have expected when he says these changes won't be considered or taken seriously. Our whole game is out of balance, but there aren't any prospects for changing that anytime soon. So I guess we can just keep posting our ideas and dream of them coming true someday.

[guelph]

I can dream, can't I?

Yes. A variety of things need to change for the current design of paladins to mesh with the accepted notion of holy knight.
Sprituality is not functioning as intended. Wasn't it supposed to function like the jedi's slower moving alignment? And yes, apals should lock into evil and not worry about what they kill.
Paladins lose all realistic offensive spells. (and you can't try to convince me it's worth casting turn undead) Sure, they get an unnoticable +10 to healing spells. Which, if it worked would be nice. Wow, 110 hp heals instead of 100 hp heals. No summonable pets (even summoning a warhorse would be nice) No restore. Yay, they can wield a bolt. I've never owned a bolt. I probably never will. My paladin is chilling at lvl 30 until I decide to remort. It's like playing a healing warrior without the dhit or wk and ignoring alignment.
Ultimately I'd rather they fiddled with everything else before turning around back to pal/apal. Beef up ninjas. The number of pals is probably higher than those of ninjas. I don't have any numbers, but man, I see plenty of paladins. Nary a ninja shows up unless eq is being run.

[siolfir]

Well, since I'm currently playing a paladin (one of those few with remorts, having 5), I may as well chime in here as well.

Spirituality: Nice ability, wrong class. Should've been on apal all along, with the name Amorality. OTOH, a little bit of history shows that there were all manner of atrocities in the Crusades, justified as "The Work of God", so there is a historical basis for "Holy" warriors not really giving a crap about what they do. Now, see point two:

Communal Prayer: What should have been in, since after said atrocities, they could pray for forgiveness and atone. Does it make it right? Nah, but hell, you're playing a game where you have to kill things that aren't doing anything to you most of the time to accomplish any of your goals, so why not? ;D

Now, some more ideas regarding class deficiencies, which I've already mentioned:

a) For a class with no offensive spells (turn undead is not offensive, there's no damage exp and it doesn't start a fight - it's a pure instakill spell that hardly ever works and costs too much mana), paladins have remarkably weak healing spells. Compared to antipaladins, who also receive the same curative spells except for heal (and apals get something far more mana-efficient than paladin's heal in aura of darkness).

Suggestions: for starters, fix Honor. I've bugged it twice - it has no discernable effect on ANY of your curative or healing spells . Since they already have to wait later to learn the spells, give them the same strength as cleric equivalents. Or, how about giving them back restore - since heal was raised to 26 (to match good-aligned jedi ), how about at level 30?

b) Since they have no offensive spells, why not give them more defensive ones? Magical vestment, even the crappy weaker version that canned gets you, stone skin (which is also weaker if not a cleric)...these would all provide a little help to a class that regens too slowly most of the time to make the spells overpowering.

Suggestion: stone skin @ level 22 (with cleanse heresy), drop mana cost on cleanse heresy to 25 (it's already highly restrictive since it doesn't stop fights and only works on evil mobs). Magical vestment at 27 with bless weapon - how often do you bless things anyway?.

c) Movement use...yeah, they can heal hp from their moves. Sure, they don't use as many as apals do (unless they're trying to keep the tank alive). But is it so wrong to have more than one class with rejuvenate? Even if you consider that it means they can lay hands more often, they still have to have all of hp, mana, and moves.

Suggestion: Rejuvenate at level 21 (yeah, yeah, I know, the same level that clerics get it - go figure, a wandering knight (see knight errant) would have a means of recovering energy).

d) Turn undead: it's a waste of mana, almost as inefficient as trying to use banishment. I've managed to get it to work a couple of times on TINY undead in the Abyss (the kind that die in two hits, so they never get to hit back anyway). I watched another cleric with higher charisma fail six of seven attempts against a skeleton (tiny undead in the Abyss) also. And while I've heard wonderful stories about people managing to get it to get it to work on larger mobs, I've certainly never seen it, and I've tried it a lot . Against the vampire in the Abyss, against the bodiless soul in SP, and a few times in Rhyoden, to name a few.

Suggestion: Given that it was (in D&D) a multiple-effect skill in the first place, could we make it an area effect at least? Then you -might- be able to get it to work more often, just based on the fact that if you cast it in a room full of mobs one might actually die! ;D

e) As for align? Take out Spirituality - it never fit, even if it just moved the align more slowly. As I said before, it fits far better for antipaladins who wouldn't care that they killed something evil, than for paladins to not care about killing a good mob. Communal prayer, on the other hand, I do like the idea of. Leave the normal rate of change, but let alignment drop.

[Nando]

ROFL! And again, ROFL! Had lots of fun with this thread, specially Pio's comments. I just had to imagine a Paladin chopping down the Pope's (yes, the leader of his church and faith) head, then kneeling down to pray for his partners in crime. Anyways...

I agree with Ari. Paladins, as long as the church ordered it (God's will) would really not see a good mob in front of them. Their faith turned any foe in front of them into evil mobs. I can see how a Paladin swinging through the straight Path, and killing angels and babies would seem bad. But...wasn't killing muslims in the crusades an atrocity too? Hind sight is always 20/20. But let's leave that discussion to the history books. Let's just say, I think guilt should play a little part in this.

I myself would actually like to see defensive skills increased, as previous posters. There HAS to be a reason why to play paladin. They are not the hardest hitters, nor the best healers, have no offensive spells (except for the above mentioned almost un-working spell)...let's face it, they are not the best at anything...Some argue that they are better than any class against evil mobs. Divine defense vs. orb/sanc. You be the judge. For them to even match, Divine defense would have to hit 25% of the times. I have gone complete fights against UW mobs without it working oncce. And, since it doesn't work against good mobs, then Jedi has better defensive skills then too, even against good mobs. So...make Divine defense work 50% of the time. That would make Palladins the choice tank for evil mobs. Then let the jedi tank the rest ;-)

Welp, I'll try to keep this one small..so tata!

[relantel]

As a player whose primary char is a Pal that started a Pal and is now on 2nd remort as a Pal...

I have not used "turn undead" since I was a 0-remort char and didnt know any better. Just not worth it. Mana regens too slowly, and cure critics and heals are much more valuable use of mana.

Would I still play a pal if changes were made, sure I would. But since that point I've added other chars to gain experience playing those as well, some much further than others. Why? Primarily for the ease of solo play, which is a necessity with little ones running around -- the chance for getting pulled AFK at a moment's notice for a few minutes makes it undesirable at times to be in a group, and feel like you are letting the group down by them carrying you and giving you xp even though you arent doing anything during that time. Its usually only after the kids bedtime that I even think about grouping. Even then, I've usually switched to another class by that time. The other advantage to solo is to figure out where your true limits are, what mobs you can hit at what level and such. (Even after years of play, there's always something new to learn)

[Maranta]

Normally during downtimes I look for threads like this to share an opinion but having re-read all these posts again, there's nothing major I could possibly add. Long Live the Baby Killers!

[gambler]

Paladin class has always been lacking and still is... I read all the threads and there are some concrete reason for change. I agree with everything said on abolishing spirituality and communal and absolutely agree with double penalties to alignment. However, paladins SHOULD be able to do all their warriors skills regardless of align since they have been trained in these arts and no gifted from some deity. To make the class more fun and versatile I think you should add:

"Spirits of the Round" - A calling to the spirits of the knights of the round to assist a paladin in battle. (similiar to ranger stamp)
"Horsemanship" - At a high level, Paladin's should not suffer huge movement penalties since they will be riding a horse at that point anyway.
"Word of Justice" - Instead of turn undead, how about something that strikes fear into the evil mob they fight and causes a penalty to hitroll and damroll.

I like the idea of giving them dhit against evil mobs wielding a sword, but since that would require some coding, why not just move Weapons Knowledge down to 27. After all, they SHOULD be just as skilled as a warrior with all that training.

Leave heal alone, they aren't clerics. Do NOT give them back restore... I can already see 2 abuses to Paladin's having that skill.

Gambler.

[Maranta]

Actually I CAN add something. While turn undead isn't the most useful spell and it should most definately be made an area attack, I've managed on quite a few attempts to destroy wraiths and spectres with it quite easily without burning my full amount of mana. Its not worth it either way but it DOES destroy undead mobs, just not huge ones.

Oh and yeah, Divine Defense really does suck. Flat rates for skills are a waste of time. There needs to be some way to increase it, same goes for Anti-Paladins and Underhanded Tactics.

[guts]

The one thing that I think that wouldn't be too hard to imp is to have paladin move gains affected increase until up until 7 remorts. As it stands right now, I believe that Paladins get a 1, 2 or 3 for moves.

It is kind of hard to do since I wouldn't want to see 1 move bonuses at 1, 3, 5 and 7 remorts such that a paladin could get 225+ moves, maybe a bonus move after 3 remorts and another after 7.

I agree with WK at a lower level and combat skills should never be prevented by align. Ditch the Spitituality, Double align hits for killing good.

[Maranta]

The bonus moves idea is a great one. Well after any char's first remort, regardless of class, they start with 110 moves instead of 100. So obviously there must exist some way of granting the bonus... so adapt it for paladins... apals would benefit too as their move cost is every bit as high along with their shield skills.

Good thinking.

[Dank]

Without requiring the need of a coder, I think that we could improve the paladin eq set slightly by allowing them to get to a lower ac, like around -120, which is a nice AC for tanking. Would love to see PALS tank more, and by definition, they should.

Lower the level in which WK kicks in (as mentioned, and should NOT require a coder, really) and provide some g! body near 45AC (like gilded which is !g) and some arm/leg/head which could be akin to mahn-tor based AC, but just g!.

With WK, the class won't need to load up on damroll bonus and can get down to -120AC without clerical buffing.

I found that bringing Lorax to 30 was rather enjoyable, slightly easier than my A30, and there were plenty of interesting evil aggro undead zones that he could play in, (old thalos, abyss, catacombs, cemetery-sanctuary, weeden underground, greza among others).

[Maranta]

But you still need someone who can and would be allowed to make those changes to the code. Easier said than done I think. I do wholeheartedly agree though. Paladins should be far more tank worthy than some bare-chested warrior. Their armor spell IS the second best, even apals only get 20ac from theirs.

If you want ac though, just grab a protector of the faithful and a black leather uniform. The trick to enchanting items for extra ac is persistance and a high int factor. You can get two different ac boosts, and the second is signifigantly better especially on already high ac items. But thats also the fun of personal experimentation and customizing your own chars to suit your style of play.

I ran my pally though a few remorts. Personally I found it really slow despite the ease of using canned glows to conserve mana and the solidness of the cure spells. The available range of areas to run though is one of the more enjoyable factors by far. If the class had a decent tweaking , it could easily see far more play across the mud.

[relantel]

Some good ideas there. Pal is still my primary class, though I've gotten to the point of creating enough chars to try most every other class. I've got a mage or two to 30, a cleric and a jedi in the high 20s, a warrior and sohei in the high teens and 8-10 range on a N,T,A,B.

I do enjoy the getting from low to mid on a char, and the feeling out of a class, it's play, eq, limits. Pal allows great freedom with the PFE spell, as do clerics. Sure helps out in Enfan City for example. I've learned how to play mages up there with disintegrate, largely by sleep-ing the largest enfan in the multi-mob-rooms, and fleeing as necessary.

I will admit to getting in a rut with most chars, usually using my J27 to go out to Sanctuary or to fetch another corpse, though I sometimes use the namesake relantel for that. Spent much of today bringing up a new Jedi char from start to 9, and advancing a Pal from 7 to 15. Largely to reacquaint myself with some of the lower level areas in advance of getting the J27 and P28 up high enough to remort.

Long story short, whether the Pal stays the same, or is changed, I'll still play it.