Trying to Build a Baseborn Titan Pure Paladin

[vorshlumpf]

Hi all,

I could use your awesome feedback again. I'm planning to build a Baseborn Titan pure paladin (yes, pure, I'm not changing that) to adventure along with some new people I'm getting into the game. I've looked at many of the paladin builds on the forum, including all the pure ones. They've been quite helpful, especially the open-subbie build posted by Chirality.

I'm trying to fit in all the Great Smite feats as well as the OC/DC tree - makes it very tight with this subby, obviously. Below is what I'm looking at right now. Please let me know if any of it is rubbish. I also have some specific questions for anyone who's played paladins.

Any input and advice is greatly appreciated!

[Edit: Adding a Uni-Tank option]

- Niilo

"Baseborn Titan" (secret UltraRare)
- FC: Paladin
- STR +5, CHA +2, +10 heal, free feat: Extra Smiting

Uni Tank Variant
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Abilities

	At Creation	With Subrace Edits	At Level 60
STR	12	17	42
DEX	14	14	20
CON	14	14	14
INT	12	12	12
WIS	14	14	15
CHA	12	14	18

Level Progression

Level	Class	Ability Choice	Feat Selection	Misc Notes
1	Pal (1)		Blooded Weapon Proficiency (exotic)
2	Pal (2)
3	Pal (3)		Weapon Focus (bastard sword)
4	Pal (4)	STR
5	Pal (5)
6	Pal (6)		Power Attack
7	Pal (7)
8	Pal (8)	WIS
9	Pal (9)		Blind-Fight
10	Pal (10)
11	Pal (11)
12	Pal (12)	STR	Improved Critical (bastard sword)
13	Pal (13)
14	Pal (14)
15	Pal (15)		Cleave
16	Pal (16)	STR
17	Pal (17)
18	Pal (18)		Great Cleave
19	Pal (19)
20	Pal (20)	STR
21	Pal (21)		Metamagic (Extend Spell)
22	Pal (22)
23	Pal (23)		Armor Skin
24	Pal (24)	STR	Great Strength I
25	Pal (25)
26	Pal (26)		Epic Weapon Focus (bastard sword)
27	Pal (27)		Great Strength II
28	Pal (28)	STR
29	Pal (29)		Epic Prowess
30	Pal (30)		Divine Might
31	Pal (31)
32	Pal (32)	STR	Overwhelming Critical (bastard sword)
33	Pal (33)		Great Strength III
34	Pal (34)
35	Pal (35)		Devastating Critical (bastard sword)
36	Pal (36)	STR	Great Strength IV
37	Pal (37)
38	Pal (38)		Epic Toughness
39	Pal (39)		Great Strength V
40	Pal (40)	STR
41	Pal (41)
42	Pal (42)	STR	Legendary Skill Affinity (Tumble)
43	Pal (43)
44	Pal (44)	STR
45	Pal (45)		Great Strength VI	+1 STR +1 CHA
46	Pal (46)	STR
47	Pal (47)
48	Pal (48)	STR	Great Strength VII
49	Pal (49)
50	Pal (50)	STR		+1 STR +1 CHA
51	Pal (51)		Legendary Weapon Focus (bastard sword)
52	Pal (52)	DEX
53	Pal (53)
54	Pal (54)	DEX	Great Dexterity I
55	Pal (55)			+1 STR +1 CHA
56	Pal (56)	DEX
57	Pal (57)
58	Pal (58)	DEX
59	Pal (59)
60	Pal (60)	DEX		+1 STR +1 CHA

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Old Post
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Abilities

	At Creation	With Subrace Edits	At Level 60
STR	14	19	48 (60)
DEX	8	8	8 (20)
CON	12	12	12 (24)
INT	12	12	12 (24)
WIS	14	14	14 (26)
CHA	16	18	29 (41)

Ability increases from levels: CHA x 6, STR x 14
Increases from Paladin Bonus: STR x 4, CHA x 4
Increase from Gr Smite (@ level 41): STR x 10
Increases from Feats: CHA x 1, STR x 1

Feats

1 Blooded
1 Cleave
3 Power Attack
6 Great Cleave
9 Weapon Focus
12 Improved Critical
15 Divine Might
18 Blind Fighting
21 Epic Weapon Focus
23 Epic Prowess
24 Great Charisma I
26 Great Smiting I
27 Great Smiting II
29 Great Smiting III
30 Great Smiting IV
32 Great Smiting V
33 Great Smiting VI
35 Great Smiting VII
36 Great Smiting VIII
38 Great Smiting IX
39 Great Smiting X
42 Legendary Skill Affinity: Tumble
45 Legendary Weapon Focus
48 Overwhelming Critical
51 Devastating Critical
54 Armor Skin
57 Greater Weapon Focus
60 Great Strength I

I'm missing out on Divine Shield. Is that too useful to give up? Should I replace something above with that?

Is Extend Spell very useful for a paladin? I originally thought it would be good to have, but then realized that Death Ward is 4th level so can't be meta'ed.

Can Baseborn Titan drink blood for free Cleave?

Skills
I had hoped to get INT up to 14, but my CHA demands sank it, and I didn't want to reduce CON or STR. So that leaves me with enough skill points for 4 maxed skills. I'm thinking I'll go with Discipline, Tumble (starting at level 43), and Taunt. I'm not sure about a fourth. Maybe Craft Armour, Craft Weapon or Concentration (or split between them?). What do you think?
Also, as a non-splash "human" paladin, I figured any cross-class points put into Listen would be a waste since I'm taking Blind Fight.

Misc
I have it stuck in my head that I'll use a war hammer as a weapon. I like the flavour of it, and I also have a half-decent hammer on another toon I could use for a while.

[Yojimbo]

I am guessing this is more an oversight/mistake when typing it out but you have Cleave @l1 and Power Attack @l3 those would have to be swapped as Cleave requires Power Attack IIRC.

Personally I would drop the Great Strength I for Extra Smiting feat and then move last stat point from STR to CHA as 47 STR is no better than 46 and 30 CHA vs 29 CHA will mean longer Divine Might & Shield as well 1 more to all saves. This is just personal choice mostly because I feel the reduction in Smite timer from the feat is worth the cost of 1 AB. Only open subrace builds can drink dragon blood and receive a benefit and extended spell is useful but I would say it is 2nd to most all else.

[vorshlumpf]

Thanks, Yojimbo!

Yeah, the Power Attack / Cleave thing was a typo. Thanks for pointing it out.

I get Extra Smiting for free from the subrace (I should have included those details above, sorry - done!).

So, do you think I should still do something else with that last feat? (meaning STR 46 and CHA 30 instead of STR 48 and CHA 29)
Or was it merely because of Extra Smiting?

- Niilo

[chirality]

I'll talk to you ingame/pm regarding this, but suffice to say it's tough to hack it and get what you want with a pure pally even with Baseborn.

Also (just me opinion of course) you *definitely* don't want to waste points on Taunt, you really want to put those in Conc imo or at least 30-40 points and the rest into CA/CW maybe, also keep in mind ditching Parry is a bad idea as you won't be getting crit imm for a really long time and even then it is situational, i.e. won't last forever even with extend spell and if it's ever morded or breached away or you die and can't immediately re-rest then you are not going to be tanking very well at all.

Even with a UR sub, certain builds are hard to pull off and pure paladin is one of the worst of these in my opinion, Taunt is sheer fluff, I would even say downright useless given your particular gaming, you want to absolutely maximize your tanking ability as much as possible by ever little nickle and dime.

All just my opinion of course.

[MurphysLawAgain]

Is Extend Spell very useful for a paladin? I originally thought it would be good to have, but then realized that Death Ward is 4th level so can't be meta'ed.

Randomized gear means that some UR and BUR paladin items will have a few level 5 slots - so yes Extend spell is very useful for that purpose.

[Vichya]

Extend spell is usually very good on paladins, blackguards and rangers. For a paladin I would say it's even more necessary than for the other two classes since they have many useful spells that share a spell level or are of short duration. I have a list of spells I use with my paladin here.

However, with 14 base wisdom you won't be able to cast level 5 spells so you can't extend deathwards until you hit demi, use a wisdom artifact or just wait until paragon levels.

[Yojimbo]

I would still consider Extended Spell or LSF: Enchantment as final feat and go with 46 STR & 30 CHA.

[Vichya]

Yes, I strongly recommend extend spell too.

Legendary spell focus enchantment is only good if you also plan to take paragon spell focus in that school. If not then you can just use an enchantment draught to get +14 GMW.

[redbeard]

Is 14 more damage per hit worth a book, a legendary feat and either paragon feat or draught? Divine Clang cast by Paladins gives +14 AB so the hit % chance and resistance (reduction?) penetration would not change.

I used the spell pen book on my palasmiturnidin to allow prayer to hit more often. I have to admit I'm not sure the extra spell pen helps against the mobs I want prayered the most.

[Vichya]

That is actually a very good point. And if your paladin is pure you even get +15 attack bonus with deafening clang. You can also use that in combination with GMW so you do not lose that much damage after all.

[vorshlumpf]

Hey, great advice, everyone! Thanks for clarifying the Extend Spell importance, and for pointing out that I lacked the Wisdom to use it for Death Ward, anyway. I suppose I cold wait until paragon levels for a wisdom of 15, but that's a long way off (if the character ever gets there).

Chirality, I'll catch you in-game for your advice. One way I look at it, though, is playing a pure paladin now gives me a better idea of what paladins are all about. In the future, I'll probably get a subrace that is better and then I'll be able to apply what I've learned to that build.

- Niilo

[chirality]

Hmm, I didn't mean to say that Baseborn is a bad subrace or you should wait to get a better one (good luck with that ).

What I meant is two things: a) the pure option, while I've already discussed with you so no need to re-cover that ground; but also b) the common conception that paladins should "take advantage of" the Great Smiting feats.

On paper it looks great, and why wouldn't you? At first glance it seems obvious that any paladin, especially pure, should go for all ten Great Smites.

However the reality, in my opinion, is a bit more bleak. The fact is that the cost is prohibitive (in several ways) to squeeze in all ten feats before LLs (and thus gain the full benefit) with all but a couple BUR subraces which are hand-tailored for the job.

What I mean by this should be clear upon digesting the requirements, extreme feat-tightness, ability score options, etc.

I know already that you are not going to be "swayed" by my cynicism but I think it's worth mentioning regardless. I don't think smiting is really that great for your situation (ur sub, hardcore play, no option to reinc, insanely low probability for obtaining either demi or Cha arti). I would not bother with it. I would ditch all the feats and focus on making the toon truly a good tank. Now I know at first this sounds like "aw come on, won't I be missing half the fun of playing a paladin [especially a pure] if I don't take the great smites and even worse if I don't care about smiting?" Sure, but again think realistically for your situation. The upside is that even without smiting, paladin offers some really nice benefits anyway and will surely be both a powerful tank, powerful party member, and much more of a solo-er than many other builds. Pure offers some really great benefits, which I assume you have either already realized and some have been touched upon by others in this thread. Buffs here are a large part of it. This is not to be shaken a stick at. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I think even without smiting you don't lose much, you gain enormously by *seriously* loosening up your build options, and you will still be left with a quite unique, fun, and powerful toon, which by no means will be lackluster or dull in comparison to a smiter. I think most would agree that smiting is fun and certainly extremely effective in the right situations (certain runs, vs. certain mobs, with certain parties, with certain gear, etc. etc.), but overall it's definitely not amazing and again for your particular situation I hardly think it will be missed much.

If I can't find you ingame I will post again more about the build options associated with dropping Great Smites pre-41.

Either way, not trying to knock your build or your goal/"dream", just my 2 cents.

[vorshlumpf]

No I understand. I look forward to seeing your analysis. In fact, I see you're online right now. I hope you don't mind me bothering you

[vorshlumpf]

Ah, afk. So, I don't really care about great smite, other than that seems to be the thing to do for paladins (especially with one that gets Extra Smiting for free). It does seem awfully tight on feats (and ability points) to go this route. I would like to be a sturdy tank that dishes out some damage (go figure). I just figured this was the best way to go. I'll hold off on building this guy until I here you out, because I'd like to know. But I need to build this guy by tomorrow, so hopefully we can chat before my scheduled session with the newbies. Otherwise, I'll just go with this.

- Niilo

[Torin]

If you want to build a Paladin smither, then I would put all points into charisma (Greater Smite will do (Charisma Modifier * 4)dX damage of a selected type) + Rapier Wit and Divine Might. That gets you also enough base charisma for Paladins pseudo bard's song.