Note: in keeping with the medieval knight orders, in addition to the “Big-Three” (Templars, Hospitalers, & Teutonic), there were numerous other little orders, such as the Thistle Knights in Scotland, and the Livonian Knights in Poland/Lithuania. This build is in keeping with the theme; players familiar with the other three builds will note, however, that this is more of a power-paladin build than are the others, which I build quite some time ago, and decided to dust off and re-tweak a bit before bringing him/her here following an enjoyable discussion I had with Mick Dagger and Finneous. Because it's more of a power-build, this character is purposely limited in terms of its skill-set; nevertheless, I hope everyone enjoys this character and, as always, welcome your comments and feedback. ~ Deborah Tyr
Knight Commander (Order of the White Rose) Fighter(6), Paladin(24), Champion of Torm(10) Human, Lawful Good
BAB: 30, AB +40 (No Buffs) / +47 (Bull’s, GMW Only) +5 Divine Favor +1 Bless +1 Aid +1 Prayer +5 Divine Wrath -- AB +60 (Self-Buffs Only, No Equipment)
*Smiting AB: Adds Cha-Bonus to Attack Roll (or, AB +71/72, with Aura & Eagle’s Only)
Damage Calculation: Mundane Long Sword, 1-8 +*Str Mod. (17-20 crit./x 2) -- +2 Bull's Strength +5 Greater Magic Weapon +5 Divine Favor +5 Divine Wrath -- +*11/12 Divine Damage (Divine Might, with Aura & Eagle’s) -- +204 Physical Damage (Great Smite V)* (see notes for alternative/even more smiting damage, below)
Other Damage: Lay-on-Hands (Positive Energy): *11/12 x 34 = 374/408 Pos. Damage (note: also dubs as healing power, and essentially equivalent to a Heal Potion)
Turn Undead: Turn Undead (HD): 29+2d6
Defense Vitals: AC (naked/mundane armor/shield only): 13/24 +12 Divine Might + 5 Divine Wrath -- AC 41 (Divine Buffs Only, Does Not Include Spell Buffs or Any Magical Items/Equipment)
Skillpoints: 129 Concentration 43(44)*, Discipline 43(49), Heal 3(5), Tumble 20(19) Note: an alternative, since we've so few skills to play with here, is to leave concentration untrained, and toss 'em into taunt instead; this, to reduce enemy AC (in turn raising your AB +5/6), but doing so could in turn leave you open to taunt
Level Chart:
01: Fighter(1): toughness, weapon focus, power attack 02: Paladin(1) 03: Fighter(2): blind fight, Knockdown 04: Paladin(2): CHA+1, {Smite Evil}, (CHA=16) 05: Paladin(3) 06: Paladin(4): divine shield 07: Paladin(5) 08: Paladin(6): CHA+1, (CHA=17) 09: Paladin(7): divine might 10: Paladin(8) 11: Paladin(9) 12: Paladin(10): CHA+1, extra turning, (CHA=18) 13: Champion of Torm(1) 14: Paladin(11) 15: Paladin(12): extra smiting 16: Fighter(3): CHA+1, (CHA=19) 17: Paladin(13) 18: Paladin(14): improved critical 19: Fighter(4): weapon specialization 20: Fighter(5): CHA+1, (CHA=20) 21: Champion of Torm(2): great charisma I, epic weapon focus, (CHA=21) 22: Fighter(6): epic weapon specialization 23: Champion of Torm(3) 24: Champion of Torm(4): CHA+1, great charisma II, epic prowess, (CHA=23) 25: Paladin(15) 26: Paladin(16) 27: Paladin(17): great charisma III, (CHA=24) 28: Champion of Torm(5): CHA+1, (CHA=25) 29: Champion of Torm(6): great smite I 30: Paladin(18): great strength I, (STR=17) 31: Champion of Torm(7) 32: Paladin(19): STR+1, (STR=18) 33: Paladin(20): great smite II 34: Champion of Torm(8): great smite III 35: Paladin(21) 36: Paladin(22): STR+1, great strength II, (STR=20) 37: Champion of Torm(9) 38: Paladin(23): great smite IV 39: Champion of Torm(10): great strength III, great smite V, (STR=21) 40: Paladin(24): STR+1, (STR=22)
Special Note (Smiting Damage) : For even more smiting power, drop 2 Great Strengths for Great Smite VII; this would net you an additional +68 damage enhancement on smiting (for a total enhancement thus of +272 to damage, on each smite), at the same cost of (-1) AB, should you desire more smiting power;
Another alternative would be to drop one Grt.Str. for one more great smite, and the other Grt.Str. for Armor Skin, which would net you another 2 AC plus one extra GS, for the same (-1) AB cost. I'd recommend the above design as-is, but put these alteratives out as valid options.
If you enjoy having more skills, then check out any one of the three other builds, being: the Knight Templar, the Teutonic Knight, or, for those who are "evil" at heart, see the Blood Knight.
I saw this mentioned in another build too, when did smiting damage become sonic? I always thought that was physical damage, that means slashing in this build.
Is this Great Smiting week? Not much else to say here though, seems nicely balanced. I'm gonna go test that smiting later today and check if you guys test your builds. *points finger* _________________ Dragonlance ROH is back, better than before! and I spend a little time here WoG
Hey, Grim: glad you like him
As to the type of damage enhancement re: smiting, in PnP was always just that, an enhancement, as in physical damage. One of the places I test epic characters before taking 'em PvP, is the player-created mod Arena, which is an insane high-magic kinda place, but tends to be accurate on stuff, and it tells me that NWN smite is sonic.
As an aside, I also like that mod/challenge 'cause I can pretty much assess rather quickly how well a character will do (without using all of the buffs and other things so provided): if it gets through on its own, I typically find that it does well in a nice variety of other environments (plus, it's an easy leveler .
Nevertheless, when I first tried that mod with a pally and saw "sonic", I tried to look it up in WiKi once, as that too caught my eye, but couldn't find anything at the time. I know that Bioware changed quite a number of things from the D&D rules (to which of course they're entitled to do), and just assumed then that this was the case re: smite and dropped it. So, I haven't looked at scripts or anything else to otherwise question the result. However, there seemingly being a lot of strange things going on with mods, servers and the like, it would be a good thing to test this, to be 100-% sure, not only for my own purposes but everyone else's. Thus, I'm happy to take the pally out for a smiting test drive and pay attention. If I find out before you, I'll post it here; conversely, if you find out first ... (hey, certainty is always good Back soon
Edited By TyrTemplar on 06/23/06 06:30
Smiting Damage is physical according to the the weapon. _________________ "We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne, Our aims self-same: The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came! The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn, And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn."
Thanks for that info, Finn. Yeah, I thought it should be, and Grim says so also. But Arena insists it's sonic & as stated above, nothing to tell me otherwise, so I assumed it was correct (well, OK, never looked further into it by checking scripts or anything, this is true; however, next time something seems "off" from the PnP rules, gonna check it out in the Official Campaign just to be sure. While many changes have been made, for "balance" reasons, it's hard to know sometimes what's what...(& teaches me never to assume anything when it comes to anything other than the OC 'cause, you know what they say, when you assume you make an A** out of U and Me (seriously, I appreciate the confirmation on that, as was gonna check it in the OC meself later today - certainty is def. good - thanks!)
...and, uh, uh, uh, with that, could we possibly get an edit on this and the Teutonic build to remove the "sonic" statement, pretty please and thankyou, with a dragon's horde of gold on top?
Edited By TyrTemplar on 06/23/06 11:15
Edited. _________________ "We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne, Our aims self-same: The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came! The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn, And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn."
24 lvls of paladin makes the character almost immune to greater dispelling. 25 lvls makes it immune. Taking away 1 lvl from fighter costs 1 feat. Taking away 2 lvls from fighter also costs 1 feat. Adding 2 lvls to paladin gives 1 epic bonus feat and also makes it immune to greater dispelling. If you take 4 lvls of fighter and weapon specialization pre epic, you can still get epic weapon specialization on a COT lvl!
But what you end up with then is - well, you've already seen it... I guess I'm a bit biased _________________ The curve is more powerful than the sword -- BG courtesan
Thanks, Finn, and here ya go: http://lynncoins.com/GOLDDRAGON_2000_twen.jpg
Edited By TyrTemplar on 06/23/06 11:40
Morning, Mick - nice to see ya
Hmmmm. This build is an older one, and at the time, was thinking at pal 24 plus str 22 (thus discipline of 49) would be more than adequate to offset any dispelling, yes? And having a natural AB +40 with Great Smite V, ...
But ya know, I'm hearing ya; just took another look and tossed the idea on the CPC (would have to re-test of course Seriously, if we rearrange this fellow around a bit, drop frt by 2 & take pally up to 26 as you suggest, this would seem to be a nice improvement over both of our builds With your permission of course, watcha think (and no worries, in the story, you'll get an honorable mention
(thanks, Mick - you're a good *Sharinian*, indeed!) Seriously, check this out: watcha think? Comments? Is this our power-pally/undead hunter in the series?
Fighter(4), Paladin(26), Champion of Torm(10) Human, Lawful Good
01: Fighter(1): toughness, weapon focus, power attack 02: Paladin(1) 03: Fighter(2): blind fight, Knockdown 04: Paladin(2): CHA+1, {Smite Evil}, (CHA=16) 05: Paladin(3) 06: Paladin(4): divine shield 07: Paladin(5) 08: Paladin(6): CHA+1, (CHA=17) 09: Paladin(7): divine might 10: Paladin(8) 11: Paladin(9) 12: Paladin(10): CHA+1, extra turning, (CHA=18) 13: Champion of Torm(1) 14: Paladin(11) 15: Paladin(12): extra smiting 16: Paladin(13): CHA+1, (CHA=19) 17: Paladin(14) 18: Paladin(15): improved critical 19: Fighter(3) 20: Fighter(4): CHA+1, weapon specialization, (CHA=20) 21: Champion of Torm(2): great charisma I, epic weapon focus, (CHA=21) 22: Champion of Torm(3) 23: Champion of Torm(4): epic weapon specialization 24: Champion of Torm(5): CHA+1, great charisma II, (CHA=23) 25: Paladin(16) 26: Paladin(17) 27: Paladin(18): great charisma III, (CHA=24) 28: Champion of Torm(6): CHA+1, epic prowess, (CHA=25) 29: Champion of Torm(7) 30: Paladin(19): great strength I, (STR=17) 31: Champion of Torm(8): great smite I 32: Paladin(20): STR+1, (STR=18) 33: Paladin(21): great smite II 34: Champion of Torm(9) 35: Paladin(22) 36: Paladin(23): STR+1, great strength II, great smite III, (STR=20) 37: Champion of Torm(10): great smite IV 38: Paladin(24) 39: Paladin(25): great strength III, (STR=21) 40: Paladin(26): STR+1, great smite V, (STR=22)
Edited By TyrTemplar on 06/23/06 12:54
Just did some research re: dispel magic, and found this on the NWN boards:
Dispel rolls a 20-sided die and adds your caster level up to a maximum dependent on the type of dispel against each spell found. If a dispel check is greater than or equal a DC of 11 plus the opposing caster's level, the spell is removed.
And so, it would seem that no skills, nor any saves, have anything to do with it, other than caster level (as in, the victim's caster level +11, vs. caster's level (to a pre-determined max.) +1d20); and so, pally 26 in and of itself could avoid this effect, with nothing more? This is very good to know, and would qualify as an improvement for sure (and also that really neat undead HD, too, of yours of course - while losing nothing in the process. If so, that's pretty cool alright!
note: although, gotta point out, and so totally interesting, that Mick's build has +39 AB and Great Smite 3, but with slightly better saves, and +3 AC, which is also nice; I still can't get over how close the build was to the original Teuton build, even although totally different level splits - so very interesting (and thanks again so much for sharing & the dispel info is so very good to know
Not much else to say here though, seems nicely balanced. I'm gonna go test that smiting later today and check if you guys test your builds. *points finger* 
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