As you may have seen from my recent lost paladin post I accidentally deleted my favourite paladin character so am restarting him and wondered if I could improve on the build.

Here's what I had originally:

Kane
Male Imperial Paladin
Combat
STR/END
The Ritual (from my AD&D days)
Majors: Armourer, Acrobatics, Blunt, Block, Heavy Armour, Speechcraft, Restoration

Took Blunt over Blade as bashing weapons worked better on the undead in AD&D. Also would probably miss out Speechcraft this time round. I'd like to stick with Imperial even though their special powers are somewhat weak. Imperial just fits the bill as a holy crusader. I'll also keep the Ritual as the birthsign.

So can anybody suggest any improvements on specialisation, favoured attributes and majors?

Thansk in advance.

Former AD&D player here too. I've also got a paladin, which I happen to be playing tonite, although she's a Nord.

I'm more interested in how you are going to be a paladin, like how will you roleplay him or her (I'm assuming you're gonna RP this character somehow.) I've got my rules down pat! Actually broke out my old Player's Handbook and also studied how to play a paladin here online.

I tend to use major skills that level up slowly, so I can't really offer advice towards your actual OP, sorry. It looks as if you're going to use all your Majors (even speechcraft...paladins must be in touch with their communties and speehcraft definitely comes into play). None of them level up too fast, but the cumulation of using all of them will make your game level up consistently.

I never really liked Heavy Armor and Acrobatics together, I'd drop acrobatics for something like Mysticism. Deflecting/absorbing spells fit rather nice to a paladin character imo. Not to forget the dispel spell

My recent readings have yielded that paladins can turn undead, cure disease, detect evil (in Oblivion, this would simply be detect life), heal, and lay hands (convalesence). When a paladin gets to Level 9, he or she can start using Level 1 Cleric spells (command, light, etc), and I think level 4 Cleric spells are the best a paladin can acheive overall. Not sure though.

Poison, conjuring, sneak and a few other skills and spells can only be utilized as an absolute last resort. The paladin is supposed to engage in combat while presenting the enemy with a choice to fight, flee, or surrender. Sneaking around and using back-handed approaches are no-nos.

...All of this assumes you're playing the old-fashioned Lawful Good paladin of course. :shrug: I understand that with the latest edition of D&D rules (starting in 2008 I think) it's now possible to play a paladin with any alignment. I personally don't agree with this, but whateva.

With an AD&D build Renee Gade 2 has got it down pat.
I would say lose speechcraft and take Mysticism as Mastermind posted, as in the past palladins could dectect / protect from evil and dispel magic.
Plus with this you can tag a few turn undead spells onto your own made spells when the option is available.

Oh yea, I forgot about dispel. :clap: Also, I figure an Oblivion paladin should be able to get all the Fortify-type spells as part of being holy, so that's one of my personal additions outside of D&D.

I also forgot to mention in the old days we played paladins as being "granted" all these powers, as long as they served their LG gods properly. Any crossing of this line (stealing, murders, assaults, etc) and they could lose their status as paladins, and lose all those nifty spell-powers. The Gods only want the holiest of holy warriors as representatives against evil. Bla bla bla...

I think its kinda funny to see the word paladin associated with dungeons and dragons most of the time when it had other beginnings it was an actual order of knights with other meanings before that... just google search "origin of the word paladin" versions in other languages palatin palatine palatino (I think that last one is spelled that way) but that's enough about that.

My idea of the paladin class is based on warcraft 3

Arthas switched to a sword for frostmorne at one point and he was still a paladin till end campaign movie.

You could switch blade out for speech craft if you wished..

Blunt
Blade
heavy armor
Alteration
Restoration
Conjuration for Turn undead
Destruction for making a combination fire damage and turn undead spell

Excellent comments everyone.

1. Yes, I agree that conjuring, sneak and poisons don't really fit in with my paladin unless I only use the turn undead spells from conjuration, hmm....

2. He's my favourite character because I do roleplay him, he particularly loathes necromancers as they are an abomination to his god (still unsure which one that should be, any suggestions or should he just worship all nine?).

3. Yes, Heavy Armour and Acrobatics don't make a lot of sense as a fully armed warrior rolling and tumbling like, well, an acrobat doesn't really fit in.

4. Mysticism is a real possibility for the dispel, spell absorbtion, detect life etc.

5. As for roleplaying I see him as the classical lawful good character who's probably a bit of a stick-in-the-mud when he comes to religion, an arch-conservative who believes that what he's doing is right. Unfortunately I haven't got my AD&D books anymore (stupidly gave them to my nephew as he expressed an interest in AD&D) so can't remember exactly what the lawful good alignment was.


OK, definitely going with Blunt, Block, Heavy Armour, Armourer, Restoration and Mysticism although having all 3 Endurance skills is a bit overkill but can't see any way round it as I need all three. Just need to choose one more from Conjuration (turn undead and bound items spells only), Speechcraft and Destruction (his holy powers allowing him to weaken his enemies armors and weapons)

How about attributes? STR/END or WIL/END?


Thanks again everyone, great stuff.

Here's the wikipedia description on Lawful Good. It's consistent with AD&D:

Lawful Good
Lawful Good is known as the "Saintly" or "Crusader" alignment. A Lawful Good character typically acts with compassion, and always with honor and a sense of duty. A Lawful Good nation would consist of a well-organized government that works for the benefit of its citizens. Lawful Good characters include righteous knights, paladins, and most dwarves. Lawful Good creatures include the noble golden dragons. Lawful Good outsiders are known as Archons.

Lawful Good characters, especially paladins, may sometimes find themselves faced with the dilemma of whether to obey law or good when the two conflict - for example, upholding a sworn oath when it would lead innocents to come to harm - or conflicts between two orders, such as between their religious law and the law of the local ruler.

In the Complete Scoundrel sourcebook Batman, dike Tracy and Indiana Jones are cited as examples of lawful good characters.[7]

If you are interested in it, the Crusader Panolopy has Fortify Destruction enchantments, and could go with an ES Paladin, but not much equivalent in the D&D paladin. So that might be a good reason to pick Destruction. I had a Pally with Destruction and got a spell called Smite Evil - which was the good ol' Drain Health 100 pts for 1 sec..... Speechcraft is always a no brainer filler for a Pally though.

Sounds like he's probably favoured by Arkay, or perhaps just favours Arkay (learning whether he chose or was chosen should tell you which). He could easily work for all of the Nine, with more emphasis on Arkay's teachings. Arkay's father is Akatosh, who is also one of the chief deities found throughout Tamriel, and Talos is the ascended Tiber Septim, who of course is very important to mortals, especially Cyrodiil, so those two would probably be important for him too.

He might even be torn over Meridia at some point, since she's associated with living energies and opposes death and the undead, but her realm is the source of many of the problems encountered while reestablishing the Knights of the Nine.

Many of my characters who worship one or more of the Nine carry Ten Commands: Nine Divines with them for study and reflection, so he could get some inspiration from that as well. Just depends on with whom he connects -- when my dremora was banished to the realm of mortals, he eventually became a holy knight for Dibella.


You could replace Armourer for something else like Speechcraft, just for the mechanics (the option of getting more than +3 at level up). If you did that, you could go STR/INT. You'll want to work on increasing INT for sure, just so you're able to cast all the spells you want to. At the very least, healing others will require more magicka than you'll have if you don't work on it. Doing a little Alchemy for healing and magicka potions can help with that as well. Willpower can be worked on after INT is maxed, or close to it, so at first you'll want to focus on STR/END/INT.

For spells, the Ritual will give you Turn Undead, so no need to dabble in Conjuration at all. Other spells can be purchased from chapel healers and the Mages Guild as needed; not sure if he'd be okay with purchasing spells from other vendors, since they provide the spells for profit, rather than as a service for their faction.

He'd probably want to join the Mages Guild at some point, since they also oppose necromancy -- and YOU would want to join it so he can at least gain access to the enchanting and spellmaking altars. A big enchanted hammer that includes a Light spell would be a good weapon for a paladin; Light doesn't cause damage, but it'd be great for the aesthetics of smiting evil with a holy light. Plus, with more limited magicka, he'll have an easier time healing with custom over-time spells.

Why just 1 magic skill? personally, I think you should have about 5 and 5, or at least 7 and 3, and for your attributes I would have strength or endurance and intelligence or willpower.

Great stuff yet again, thanks peeps.

1. Renee Gade 2, thanks for the lawful good heads up and your valuable info earlier.

2. Wasn't too sure if the turn undead spells were better than Blessed Word but get your point Drewbstr. OK, I'll forget Conjuration.

3. I'm reluctant to take Speechcraft as I found it all but useless as I just bribed everyone (which isn't a Paladin thing to do but I feel he will do anything to fight evil). Mind you for roleplaying purposes I'll take Drewbstr's advice and swap it for armourer.

4. Yes, I'll do the Mage Guild quests even though I have the Frsotcrag Spire dlc as he'd need a bit of money to get all the upgrades to it and can't see my Paladin trading as he would probably think it was beneath him to engage in commercial enterprises. Mind you I will take advantage of the free herb garden in the dlc as I see him using herbs for healing and other non-poison purposes. I do have the Battlehorn Castle, Dunbarrow Cove and Deepscorn Mine (or whetever they're called) dlcs but he won't even touch the last twoas dishonourable.

5. Probably take Destruction as Avarae has convinced me of its usefulness.

6. Will also take Drewbstr's advice and do STR/INT/END.

7. He'll worship Arkay primarily but pay homage to the other gods.


OK, as above I'm going STR/INT/END and my majors will be Blunt, Block, Heavy Armour, Restoration, Mysticism, Destruction and Speechcraft.


Thanks once again and can I say what a friendly and helpful this forum is to a poor Brit who's still a relative novice. Drewbstr, I assume you're a fellow Brit from the way you spell favour as I do?


That's a point, why do we spell certain words differently such as favour/favor, armour/armor etc? Just curious.

lol nope, pure Yank here, I've just been on the Internet long enough to have absorbed a lot of other cultures :laugh: For the longest time, people would look at me funny when I'd say, "Good on ya!"

I'm not really sure about the spelling differences, but I think some has to do with Webster's compilation that simplified many common spellings, and it took hold in the Colonies more than in other parts of the Empire.

Favour/armour are the preferred British spellings. Favor/armor are American. Not sure how the Aussies & Canadians do it. No idea when the change took place, either. As for why, American efficiency, lol? But in Britain it's usually "judgment" while Americans spell it "judgement".

Mara

Destruction is another good idea, I had forgotten smite evil as Avarae nicely posted.
You could also add some small fire of shock damage plus a small light effect over time and it may look pretty cool visually.
As I remember in other games it tended to have a nice visual effect to it.

I'd say its for the same reasons Americans drive on the right side of the road when the Brits do left... we wanted to do things our own way thumbing our noses at them... also language changes a lot due to slang and the passage of time. Just look at how people talked in Shakespearean times compared to now, who in the world would think to talk like that outside of an old play now?

For instance in the mid west of America people says "Soda Pop" as "Pop" while on the east coast "Soda Pop" is called "Soda" at least in New Hampshire its called "Soda". Distance from one area to another can play a role in how words change.

you should switch acrobatics out for something like alteration, illusion, or mysticism. why? all of those have cleric like spells. and when does someone in armour need to jump out of the way, leave the jumping to the khajits.

My paladin bribes certain NPCs, but I pretend it's actually a tithe or a tip. She tithes to each church member she can (assuming they're not maxed with disposition) and occasionally tips guards, stablehands, and others who help her along the way.

If I remember my Ad&d paladins could only carry a certain ammount of wealth, so that makes sense..

Of course if you want to go overboard make sure you keep less than a 1000 gold and only weapons and armour, and possibly some work clothes.
Then gve the rest away with bribes and rebuying items as "donations"
One house or abode at max, anvil for obvious reasons would be a good paladins residence.
When you need to enchant or buy some new gear, dungeon delve as a " holy quest" to earn your gods favour, then just get rid excess founds again.

YEa, that's another thing. No excessive shows of wealth. Old-skool paladins keep it real by not having multiple houses full of nice stuff. They're supposed to only have enough money to keep them questing. My paladin has the Waterfront shack (with only the bedroom & kitchen upgrades), but she also uses Greyland (near Lleyawin and associated with that skooma quest) and Lord Drad's slave houses as places to store stuff.

Yea I would agree, haveing a place near Anvil when doing KotN is good. :wink_smile:

Slightly off topic...
I know a few containers there do not respawn, but the marauder does every 3 days or so in my experience...
If you don't mind me being nosy, do you mod them out or just repeat kill them when they spawn.
That said leyawiin is a fantastic place to roleplay a paladin, after all the quests you can face a moral crisis if you ever find the torturous secrets behind the place.

There's a chest in Greyland that does not respawn. Every other container does, though, I think.



No mods, I'm on PS3. Dyan doesn't mind killing the baddie who's "broken in" to the place; at least that's one less miscreant who's out to spread evil! She makes sure to kill him outside the house, though, so there isn't this dead body stinking up the place! : :yuck:

Good to see the thread's still going.

Bit of a disaster, my Paladin isn't so holy anymore. I've downloaded all 4 dlcs as I said and finally got enough money to buy the alchemist thingy at Frostcrag Spire. Went to the Mystic Emporium and even though it was after 9am the door was locked. Checked the Wiki and it said it was a bug so picked the lock intending to buy the alchemy upgrade and was promptly arrested for breaking and entering. That's all I did, I didn't steal anything even though the Wiki said it wouldn't count as a crime.

Therefore my character record shows a crime. I've fudged it by pretending it was a crime in his youth which so ashamed him he decided to fight evil but it still rankles.

Well possibly too late for this character, but if you save right in front of the door, then reload, it should be open, though it may take a few tries. a bit of a pain, but....

Also, for this character you could roleplay it was a bit of a chaotic act, he got pissed cuz they should have been open because he is trying save the world. And in in old school D&D a Paladin would just have to do an atonement for a chaotic act, and a minor one like that would be pretty a small atonement, maybe just dump some valuable in a barrel at the temple of your fav god....