Armored paladin tank build?

[Uzkin]

I would like to play a heavy armor + sword + shield type paladin tank. Is such a thing viable and what would be the optimal archetype and feats for it?

I tried to build one but somehow the end result was a DEX-based aldori defender tank with a 2 lvl dip into paladin and 1 into scaled fist.... :/

Any suggestions and help would be welcome. :)

[InEffect]

well you can play it. That's for sure. If you are asking if you will stop being hit by bandits grandma anytime soon - no.

[Uzkin]

Haha, ok thanks. :) A pity though. Guess I'll make a 2H melee paladin instead...

[InEffect]

If you really want pally tank you need some crutches. Paladin/monk unarmored tank works really well. It's jsut the class has almost no AC boosters and one he has comes really late.

[vysionier]

This may sound crazy, but why not just play as a pure paladin? Invest in extra lay on hands, shield, and armor feats. Get the team play defensive feats. You’ll be an ok tank who can heal tons of hp as a swift action and have pretty great saving throws and team improvement abilities. And at lvl 20 you even get 10/Evil dmg resistance.

[InEffect]

pure paladin doesn't get enough AC. well rather you CAN get AC but it will cost you. I have hospitalier armored build posted on gog forums. It's worse than monk version, but at least he will be ok as a healer/off-tank.

[vysionier]

You’ll get quite enough ac to play the game except on really hard settings.

[Uzkin]

Originally posted by vysionier:

This may sound crazy, but why not just play as a pure paladin? Invest in extra lay on hands, shield, and armor feats. Get the team play defensive feats. You’ll be an ok tank who can heal tons of hp as a swift action and have pretty great saving throws and team improvement abilities. And at lvl 20 you even get 10/Evil dmg resistance.

Hmm... I might try it still. I'm just afraid of what will happen when he meets Linnorm, Owlbears, Hargulka, Adamantine Golems, Armag, Wild Hunt, ...

[Shadenuat]

As someone who finished game with pure Paladin on Hard, I'd pick Divine Guardian. Because Paladin spells are so mediocre (Challenge Evil actually allows saving throw, so you're basically stuck with spamming level 1 buff spell for +3 bonus) that having some extra Feats is really preferable. The best thing of Paladin is of course Mark of Justice which makes Evil things explode in one round from your party's barrage, as well as extremely high saving throws which allow "tanking" some things in a sense.

Anyway, I played high DEX, standard class, qualified for Two Weapon Fighting and went full Shield Bash route. The route is hard and you're sorta mediocre when you can't use Smite Evil, but somewhat awesome when you can. The key pickup was Ravenna's bashing shield. I don't know if this thing is bugged or something, but due to how Shield Bash and its line work, it seems to count both bonuses from bashing shield & feat, which meant I was bashing with effectively +10 shield (my left hand was way above +40 attack rating, while right 10 lower). Multiply that by Smite and I soloed and ate for breakfast all the astradaemons I found.

Alas before that you're mostly stuck with some crappy +2 Light Shields, although I did see Bashing Shields in some Artisan lines. If game had some more strong bashing shields before Ravenna's it would be a lot nicer to play.

I think in many ways, Cleric, pure or hybrid, would easily beat Paladin in terms of utility and tankiness in this game depending on build/spells/items.

[Uzkin]

Thanks for the info, that's some impressive shield bashing. :) Does Divine Guardian get anything to increase the max DEX bonus allowed by heavy armor? Or is the high DEX mostly wasted when it comes to AC?

[InEffect]

they are mostly the same, except guardian trades too much for his mediocre stuff(imo). base paladin class gets the best of it. Divine hunter if good for 2 level dips cause free feat.

[Shadenuat]

Depends on armor you wear, but yeah unless you somehow dip into Fighter can be wasteful, because due to belts you end up with more than you need (and without belts, improved TWF just shuts down). The final heavy armor is mithral with total dex bonus of +3.

I guess you can metagame it around DEX belts somehow to qualify for Feats but it might end up somewhat boring.

The best things higher level Paladin gives is ability to put Axiomatic/Holy/Keen on your weapon of choice and Mark of Justice. So you might stop somewhere around when you feel you have enough weapon bond bonuses and multiclass somewhere.

But then the idea for me was to (role)play single class Paladin, so I never did it.

guardian trades too much for his mediocre stuff(imo)

Spell by spell, Paladin spellbook is simply mediocre. Challenge Evil allows a save, Holy Sword does not stack with anything (it actually did before patch) and you get it too late, buffs can be replicated, your DC is too low to make Archon Aura matter, various trash like "gib +4 against fear for good folks" is just that - trash, Blessed Weapon is alright but Clerics have it too, Protection from Evil as you know doesn't stack with rings/cloaks, and so on, and so forth.

To make Paladin good, the class simply needs a better, stronger spellbook.

And as a bonus, the very final boss of the game is not Evil.

[Kyutaru]

Kind of hard to make Paladins tanky. They get default armor feat advantages and can cast in armor but that's just not enough in a game where the unarmored Monk has more AC than you. Paladins are hybrids, they have great saves and immunities so they're more of magic tanks. You can easily build a paladin who saves against everything but building one that can tank end game that isn't a defender/2 paladin splasher is going to prove too feat intensive for the class. Fighters are the tanks because they absolutely need all those extra feats to boost their armor class.

[Shadenuat]

Yeah you are magically tanky. But when you need it, enemy (fey) is probably Chaotic, so you can't do damage cause Smite doesn't work.

[Swordman_Red]

Originally posted by Shadenuat:

As someone who finished game with pure Paladin on Hard, I'd pick Divine Guardian. Because Paladin spells are so mediocre (Challenge Evil actually allows saving throw, so you're basically stuck with spamming level 1 buff spell for +3 bonus) that having some extra Feats is really preferable. The best thing of Paladin is of course Mark of Justice which makes Evil things explode in one round from your party's barrage, as well as extremely high saving throws which allow "tanking" some things in a sense.

Anyway, I played high DEX, standard class, qualified for Two Weapon Fighting and went full Shield Bash route. The route is hard and you're sorta mediocre when you can't use Smite Evil, but somewhat awesome when you can. The key pickup was Ravenna's bashing shield. I don't know if this thing is bugged or something, but due to how Shield Bash and its line work, it seems to count both bonuses from bashing shield & feat, which meant I was bashing with effectively +10 shield (my left hand was way above +40 attack rating, while right 10 lower). Multiply that by Smite and I soloed and ate for breakfast all the astradaemons I found.

Alas before that you're mostly stuck with some crappy +2 Light Shields, although I did see Bashing Shields in some Artisan lines. If game had some more strong bashing shields before Ravenna's it would be a lot nicer to play.

I think in many ways, Cleric, pure or hybrid, would easily beat Paladin in terms of utility and tankiness in this game dependant on build/spells/items.

Oh man, TWF/Shield Bash is so satisfying on a deep, gutteral level :D Though i found myself wondering why buckler is not considered light shield for the purpose of bashing faces in. The damn thing was invented exactly for that.

[Uzkin]

Alright, thanks for the replies everyone!

Btw. I looked at your build guides on gog, InEffect. Very nice. :)