If you ever need proof that D&D is really just a combat simulator with fluff all you have to do is read these post. If Con is you Spellcasting stat yes you get better hp, and better concentration. This doesn’t mean that you automatically get proficiency in Con saves. Also concentration and hp don’t matter if you don’t get hit. It does mean you no longer have a strong reason to improve your mental stats which improve your skill checks. So now you are weaker in other pillars of play. If a Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock became Con caster they are no longer the party face. If a wizard is a Con caster he has to struggle for arcana and history checks. If a Druid became a con caster suddenly keeping your mental stats while in Wild shape isn’t that great, and they aren’t super perceptive or insightful anymore. There is definitely a loss to switching to Con as a casting stat. Now I would not allow a con caster to use their Spellcasting stat for weapon attacks like 5eR Warlock, Hexblade warlock or Battlesmith Artificer. That might be a little too much. Also I would have Con as a flexible casting stat option. And leave everyone’s saving throws, and features alone. So a Con Wizard would likely have less prepared spells than an Int Wizard. If Con is going to be the sole casting stat option I could accept it for Sorcerer, Warlock, and/or Druid. I think it would be clunky as the sole casting stat on other classes. It could work, but if a Wizard additional spells prepared was based on Int, and your Spellcasting stat had to be Con with no choice that might not be fun.
If using Constitution as a casting stat is equivalent to using any other stat, as you seem to claim, then riddle me this: why don't martials dump Constitution the way they dump mental stats?
Bad riddle, I’ve definitely built ranged Martials with 12 Con.
12? Wow. Well, I've both seen and built buttloads of characters with 8 in Intelligence, Charisma, Strength, even Dexterity and Wisdom. But if you made a character with a 12in Constitution, well, I suppose that's undeniable proof that it's no more vital and useful than any other stat, huh?
Constitution is a powerful stat, as evidenced by the fact that you consider a 12 to be dumping it. To say otherwise is just silly.
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just because it sucks at 8, doesnt mean it needs to be top two. Apparently con past 14 has no real value to most caster builds.
On point build, getting to 16 for anything but your primary attribute is very expensive. I tend to see 14 in both Con and Dex.
it comes down to priorities, but most of the chars I play, I'm trying to get two stats starting at 3 mod. I like to have 4 mod by level 4. then, I can get one thing at 14, or spread it around if nothing else is really needed. you can start of with 17 in a stat, and 16 in another.
so what 14 means to me, is I'm not willing to put any asi, or any feats with that ability in my build, and it wasn't important in char building.
this essentially means to me, it has no value to you to get it higher, you had many opportunities to raise it and chose something else. Which makes sense, the goal of defense for most players is just to have enough to not die a lot. apparently for mages 14 is all they need/care enough to invest in. So I think if really given the option, would these players choose to be a 20 con 14 mental charachter? I'm beginning to think many wouldn't. The people playing these classes do value the +5 in perception/insight. or +5 in arcana/investigation, the feats over the extra hit points and concentration they don't feel they need.
If you ever need proof that D&D is really just a combat simulator with fluff all you have to do is read these post. If Con is you Spellcasting stat yes you get better hp, and better concentration. This doesn’t mean that you automatically get proficiency in Con saves. Also concentration and hp don’t matter if you don’t get hit. It does mean you no longer have a strong reason to improve your mental stats which improve your skill checks. So now you are weaker in other pillars of play. If a Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock became Con caster they are no longer the party face. If a wizard is a Con caster he has to struggle for arcana and history checks. If a Druid became a con caster suddenly keeping your mental stats while in Wild shape isn’t that great, and they aren’t super perceptive or insightful anymore. There is definitely a loss to switching to Con as a casting stat. Now I would not allow a con caster to use their Spellcasting stat for weapon attacks like 5eR Warlock, Hexblade warlock or Battlesmith Artificer. That might be a little too much. Also I would have Con as a flexible casting stat option. And leave everyone’s saving throws, and features alone. So a Con Wizard would likely have less prepared spells than an Int Wizard. If Con is going to be the sole casting stat option I could accept it for Sorcerer, Warlock, and/or Druid. I think it would be clunky as the sole casting stat on other classes. It could work, but if a Wizard additional spells prepared was based on Int, and your Spellcasting stat had to be Con with no choice that might not be fun.
If using Constitution as a casting stat is equivalent to using any other stat, as you seem to claim, then riddle me this: why don't martials dump Constitution the way they dump mental stats?
Bad riddle, I’ve definitely built ranged Martials with 12 Con.
12? Wow. Well, I've both seen and built buttloads of characters with 8 in Intelligence, Charisma, Strength, even Dexterity and Wisdom. But if you made a character with a 12in Constitution, well, I suppose that's undeniable proof that it's no more vital and useful than any other stat, huh?
Constitution is a powerful stat, as evidenced by the fact that you consider a 12 to be dumping it. To say otherwise is just silly.
I don’t take any stat below 10. I’ve only seen one person with an 8 dex and it was because the DM made their character and they weren’t happy about it. Especially when they kept failing dex saves. Having bad Dex, Con or Wis can be bad depending on what monsters you face, but having a bad Con only matters in combat. Having bad Dex or Wis can matter outside of combat. Which goes back to the part of my comment you completely ignored. I guess 5e is only a combat simulator.
If you ever need proof that D&D is really just a combat simulator with fluff all you have to do is read these post. If Con is you Spellcasting stat yes you get better hp, and better concentration. This doesn’t mean that you automatically get proficiency in Con saves. Also concentration and hp don’t matter if you don’t get hit. It does mean you no longer have a strong reason to improve your mental stats which improve your skill checks. So now you are weaker in other pillars of play. If a Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock became Con caster they are no longer the party face. If a wizard is a Con caster he has to struggle for arcana and history checks. If a Druid became a con caster suddenly keeping your mental stats while in Wild shape isn’t that great, and they aren’t super perceptive or insightful anymore. There is definitely a loss to switching to Con as a casting stat. Now I would not allow a con caster to use their Spellcasting stat for weapon attacks like 5eR Warlock, Hexblade warlock or Battlesmith Artificer. That might be a little too much. Also I would have Con as a flexible casting stat option. And leave everyone’s saving throws, and features alone. So a Con Wizard would likely have less prepared spells than an Int Wizard. If Con is going to be the sole casting stat option I could accept it for Sorcerer, Warlock, and/or Druid. I think it would be clunky as the sole casting stat on other classes. It could work, but if a Wizard additional spells prepared was based on Int, and your Spellcasting stat had to be Con with no choice that might not be fun.
If using Constitution as a casting stat is equivalent to using any other stat, as you seem to claim, then riddle me this: why don't martials dump Constitution the way they dump mental stats?
Bad riddle, I’ve definitely built ranged Martials with 12 Con.
12? Wow. Well, I've both seen and built buttloads of characters with 8 in Intelligence, Charisma, Strength, even Dexterity and Wisdom. But if you made a character with a 12in Constitution, well, I suppose that's undeniable proof that it's no more vital and useful than any other stat, huh?
Constitution is a powerful stat, as evidenced by the fact that you consider a 12 to be dumping it. To say otherwise is just silly.
I don’t take any stat below 10. I’ve only seen one person with an 8 dex and it was because the DM made their character and they weren’t happy about it. Especially when they kept failing dex saves. Having bad Dex, Con or Wis can be bad depending on what monsters you face, but having a bad Con only matters in combat. Having bad Dex or Wis can matter outside of combat. Which goes back to the part of my comment you completely ignored. I guess 5e is only a combat simulator.
A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
As far as 12 con? My current character has a 13 which is essentially the same thing, particularly when you realize that I have an extra +1 in there from being half elf that I wouldn't have on a different character. Of course I am not a martial, and I doubt I would do that on a martial. That's the rub though. Martials don't dump it because they have need of hit points more than ranged characters do. Con is a good stat and a useful stat but it's not a wonder stat like Dex is. Dex is 100% more important to every character I build than Con is. I am pretty sure I've never played a character with a higher con than dex. Barbarian is the only class I think I might even consider it on, and even then they are more likely to be equal.
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A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
Dex isn't completely useless on a heavy armor build... but it's certainly not highly valuable. Dex saves just don't do that much because most dex save abilities are save for half, not save for none, and most of the status effects applied on a failed dex save are terribly scary. Initiative is nice (it's probably more valuable than the dex saves) but it still does a lot less than the AC. The premier dex skill is stealth... which is pretty useless in heavy armor.
There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
Pathfinder had a Scarred Witch Doctor which was Con based. Oddly they gave it a feature to improve its AC. Also it had a theme of body mutilation and cutting. I think they used errata to take it back to Int with the other Witch Doctors and eventually just moved away from it.
The problem is how do you balance it out without making it worse overall?
Anything can be made balanced with enough of a redesign. Obviously, there's no time now for OneDnD to pull this off for Sorcerer, but if they started with the intent? Absolutely. It's all just shifting numbers around at the end of the day.
It also depends a lot on how dangerous a Sorcerer with high HP is in your mind. To me, it isn't that big of a deal. Sorcerer would be more difficult to kill in battle which is for sure a big buff in one area of the game, but they'd be giving up being one of the best Face characters in the game for it. Being amazing at the Social Pillar of the game isn't nothing.
As for CON proficiency? They don't even necessarily need to have that. Sorcerer could break the rule of your primary stat being one of your proficiency stats and have them start with INT and CHA proficiency. Two weak saves to balance out being more physically robust than other casters. This would remove the worry of them being too good at concentration checks.
Heck, it'd give Sorcerer more of a unique identity as the tanky full caster class rather than just being Wizard but kind'a different.
I don’t take any stat below 10. I’ve only seen one person with an 8 dex and it was because the DM made their character and they weren’t happy about it. Especially when they kept failing dex saves. Having bad Dex, Con or Wis can be bad depending on what monsters you face, but having a bad Con only matters in combat. Having bad Dex or Wis can matter outside of combat. Which goes back to the part of my comment you completely ignored. I guess 5e is only a combat simulator.
I build nearly all of my characters with at least one 8 in a score; I have a bard (Habard Ashery) and a Rogue (Sneek Feef) which each have Strength and Constitution 8 to make them glass cannons (minus the cannon in Habard's case, since he's more support). This makes for high risk gameplay requiring judicious use of cover which is a lot of fun.
Also got two Dexterity and Charisma 8 characters including another Bard (Chortle the Tortle) since he's a Strength build Swords "bard", and my Artificer (Archimedes Screw) who's built to be more of a tank in his guardian armour. It's actually usually beneficial for both of these to be a bit behind in Initiative because they both do best when they can adapt to the situation, otherwise they'd just be rushing forward and getting into trouble half the time.
My Wizard (Edward Merryspell) runs with Strength and Charisma 8, but Constitution 12, and that's partly because I want him to appear frail, but he needs a bit of extra HP to compensate for his typically having a poor AC thanks to his prepared spells being mostly optimised for chaos rather than efficiency.
I also have a Ranger (Legion) with Intelligence and Charisma 8, which helps with him being a Strength build. He's also basically an animated tree-like construct who only says "We Are Legion" (because he's a Guardians of the Galaxy's Groot knock-off) so not much of a talker or intellectual.
When using Points Buy taking one or more 8's in ability scores not only helps with getting the scores you want higher, but also gives you some clear weaknesses which usually makes for a more fun character in my experience; it's not like 10's are much better, since a 1 point higher or lower modifier really only means a 5% difference anyway on checks. Constitution 8 is a trickier one to compensate for, but glass cannons can be a lot of fun to play, as being low in hit-points can encourage very different tactics.
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There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
Pathfinder had a Scarred Witch Doctor which was Con based. Oddly they gave it a feature to improve its AC. Also it had a theme of body mutilation and cutting. I think they used errata to take it back to Int with the other Witch Doctors and eventually just moved away from it.
In fact that's a great example of why you shouldn't use cons on a spellcaster. I didn't remember that example, but it's true. Scarred Witch Doctor used cons, but they changed it via a errata because using cons on a caster is broken.
There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
Pathfinder had a Scarred Witch Doctor which was Con based. Oddly they gave it a feature to improve its AC. Also it had a theme of body mutilation and cutting. I think they used errata to take it back to Int with the other Witch Doctors and eventually just moved away from it.
In fact that's a great example of why you shouldn't use cons on a spellcaster. I didn't remember that example, but it's true. Scarred Witch Doctor used cons, but they changed it via a errata because using cons on a caster is broken.
they currently have kinetisict and its not broken.
What you said was what spells would Paladin be concentrating on, which as I pointed out, the spells already exist but aren't used by Paladin and a big part of that is the concentration. Who is going to cast Divine Favor when it could be gone randomly after 1 round, or 2 rounds. If Divine Favor lasts for 4 rounds then it's better than using a 1st level slot for a Divine Smite, most of the time but keeping con saves up makes it not a reliable go too, similarly Spirit Shroud is the same thing but more damage. Paladin already has good concentration spells that exist but Paladin gets nothing to compensate for being a caster on the front-lines who takes more damage, so the chance to fail concentration is just straight up higher. We both agree the smite spells are terrible but the latter part going into the actually existing spells, they are there but the concentration requirements on most of them make them less than ideal. If Paladin actually had good concentration saves, which you'd think something like a Paladin would have, then it'd make sense.
I don't see where it says that? Cleric says "you gain the ability to channel divine energy directly from your deity", the Paladin version says "your oath allows you to channel divine energy", these are basically identical except for "from your deity", but where else do you expect divinity (literally "the state of being a god") to come from?
From the Oath, Paladins get their divine energy from their own internalized belief and dedication to their oath, this is literally how Paladin works lore wise in 5E.
Nothing in the lore says this; in 5e paladins of various deities still exist, the oaths clearly are not something you just pledge to do and immediately get all the benefits for free because for the millionth time if they were then literally everyone would be a Paladin.
Paladins do not get power from a Deity like a Cleric does. A Paladin may serve a Deity or Deities but this is not actually a requirement
It's not a requirement that a Paladin declares or establishes which deity or deities their oath is to, but that doesn't mean there isn't one involved. Someone or something must define the oath, because it can't be the Paladin otherwise everyone could just swear an oath to do whatever the (figurative) hell they want and get unlimited divine power forever.
you can have an Atheist Paladin in 5E and they'd still have their powers and have Channel Divinity
There's no such thing as a proper atheist in the Forgotten Realms because deities have tangible observable influence on the world; you can't go two feet without tripping over a deity. Even if someone chooses to deny that and refuses to believe in any gods, if they're upholding an oath that a deity supports then the deity can grant its power if it wants.
Kelemvor for example could support the oath of any Paladin that swears to destroy the undead because that's what he's into. We can see this throughout the class description but here's one example:
This is just straight up wrong, first off Atheists can and do exist in Forgotten Realms, that's why Myrkul made the wall of the faithless to begin with, the gods wanted to punish those that don't believe in gods or don't have a patron god, since the gods rely on mortal belief. But just because the wall exists doesn't mean there aren't still people who are not atheist or claim no Patron god at all, they still do.
Second off, nothing in the 5E lore says anything regarding that a Paladin's Oath has to be to a Deity, or that a Paladin HAS to even believe in a Deity at all. Ultimately you're doing a lot of wordplay to say that Paladin's are more likely to follow a Deity but it does not remove the fact that it's literally not a requirement. An Atheist Paladin would still have literally the same Divine Smite, the same spell casting and the same Channel Divinity as one that followed Torm, Bahamut or any of the other commonly followed gods; this is because Paladins do not get their power from their Deity, sure in past editions this might have been different but this discussion is about 5E.
Also an Oath is not a new year's revolution, it requires the Paladin to be seriously dedicated to it, it goes beyond just merely saying words to actually making yourself a part of what you believe in a very zealous way, and that belief is from what a Paladin pulls their power. It repeatedly says, a Paladin gets their power from their Oath and a Paladin's Oath is internal and a Paladin spends a considerable amount of time Meditating on their oath but ultimately it boils back to the Paladin not needing to follow any god at all.
Err, yes they clearly are MAD, what are the multi-class requirements of a Ranger? Dexterity 13 AND Wisdom 13
Read what I said again please, because of course Rangers are Multiple Ability Dependent in the sense that they need more than one, but they're no more MAD than any other MAD class (meanwhile Monk has Ranger beat hands down on ability score difficulties).
And this was supposed to be about you justifying why Paladin or Ranger specifically need Constitution spellcasting when there's no clear mechanical or lore justification (other than you want them to be both stronger and less MAD than other classes). But I'm getting really tired of going around in circles on this, as it's getting more and more offtopic, and you're the one that replied to me claiming it would barely change anything, when it clearly does. I still stand by my first post, which is as correct now as it was then.
My statement is not a competition of which classes are more MAD than others, my original statement and point, when you're trying to tangent off from is that it should either be ALL MAD classes or all SAD classes, that Monk has a worse time with MAD than Ranger is irrelevant. Ranger is obviously still MAD and Ranger was in a very bad place similar to Monk in early 5E days, Ranger has had more patch work and now is more viable than it use to be but this doesn't deter from the fact that a part of Ranger being in such a poor position is that it's a "MAD" class with subpar MAD features. Paladin is the only MAD class that actually has the features to justify being MAD and people call it overpowered because it has them, so if the only way to make MAD actually good is to make it overpowered then move away from MAD completely.
I already stated in that, that it is a more complicated change than just shift Paladin to CON, it needs rebalancing, however nothing in your first post is right to begin with, it's still wrong now as it was then. Paladin suffers a lot from being MAD, because you have three+ different things that Paladin is meant to normally be doing, Paladin is the heavy armour user with a dedicated resource for healing and good martial damage, so you're expected to have a good Strength, so you can hit things to begin with and wear that plate armour (15 str requirement). As a Paladin you're expected to have good Auras going into the 2nd tier, at level 6 the Aura of Protection is reliant on Charisma, having a good Charisma score makes Aura of Protection really good, having none basically reduces you to a +1 Aura of Protection. 3rd off, Paladin as a heavy armour user that can use Shields and can toss out buffs like shield of faith is often seen as a tank class, which means needing a high HP.
You can fix all of this by first off balancing Aura of Protection, set it to a standard +2. Move Paladin spellcasting to Constitution, do other Paladin features need adjusting? Sure, they do. Lay on hands is a lot of healing for a dedicated resource but then Paladin does not have Prayer of Healing like a Cleric does or other more powerful heal spells and spell slots, overall this has little to do with constitution to begin with.
Personally, as I see 5E, I just do not see that MAD works, it just messes up the whole system, it works better in some alternative systems because ASIs and Feats aren't competing with each other but in 5E the limited number of ASIs and that feats have to replace ASIs just makes MAD a system which drags the whole system down and throws the whole class balance off. You either need to make classes entirely overpowered so that when MAD kicks in, they are back to being somewhat balanced like Paladin*, or you have classes that are woefully underpowered like Ranger and Monk. Sure Monk has it worse but it's again, not a competition in this regards.
I actually prefer MAD but with the way 5E is set-up, I just don't think it works or will ever work well. You'll continue with unbalanced classes and any changes that come in (i.e. hexblade patron for warlocks) will always threaten to entirely break class balance where classes will suddenly shift in power. The well known Paladin/Warlock Hexblade multiclass is just another example of how people want Paladin to be SAD, not MAD, since that is the primary reason for even taking that multiclass/level dip to begin with, it's just that dumps strength instead of charisma but either way actually works.
And to be clear, since you seem stuck on this point, I've at no point said shifting Paladin or Ranger to constitution spell casting would be done without other rebalancing being needed, I have been clear since the start that in fact it would be needed, just that I do not believe we need to be dragging this all out in the thread.
*Ignoring NOVA/Divine Smite in this statement since that's a separate issue and this is a relative statement, not a statement that Paladin is entirely balanced.
There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
Pathfinder had a Scarred Witch Doctor which was Con based. Oddly they gave it a feature to improve its AC. Also it had a theme of body mutilation and cutting. I think they used errata to take it back to Int with the other Witch Doctors and eventually just moved away from it.
In fact that's a great example of why you shouldn't use cons on a spellcaster. I didn't remember that example, but it's true. Scarred Witch Doctor used cons, but they changed it via a errata because using cons on a caster is broken.
they currently have kinetisict and its not broken.
Kineticist is not a spellcaster. That example was discussed a lot during the Scarred Witch Doctor controversy, and it is simply not true. Kineticist are not spellcasters.
Paladin already has good concentration spells that exist but Paladin gets nothing to compensate for being a caster on the front-lines who takes more damage
Yes they do, it's called Aura of Protection as I've already covered.
It's the thing that even with only modest Constititon and Charisma scores makes them better at concentration saving throws than most spellcasters in the game, and with higher scores can make them one of the best at concentration saving throws in the game, especially if combined with a starting odd score in Constitution and Resilient (Constitution), all things I've now mentioned at least twice each.
This is just straight up wrong, first off Atheists can and do exist in Forgotten Realms, that's why Myrkul made the wall of the faithless to begin with
Faithlessness and atheism are not the same thing; an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of deities, which would be a patently absurd position to have in the Forgotten Realms where every second person you meet is probably a god. Faithlessness is not having confidence/devotion/trust towards a particular deity. Myrkul's Wall of the Faithless was specifically for those without a patron deity.
Second off, nothing in the 5E lore says anything regarding that a Paladin's Oath has to be to a Deity, or that a Paladin HAS to even believe in a Deity at all.
Sure… as long as you choose to ignore the meanings of half the words on the Paladin pages.
Paladins are blessed, holy warriors who wield divine power – literally all things that require a deity to be involved in some capacity. But this is another irrelevant tangent you've dragged us off on, because my point was that Wisdom has more justification than Constitution for Paladin because of their magic being a form of channelling, which both Cleric and Druid do using Wisdom (as a more "intuitive" method of casting).
As I said before I strongly suspect that WotC went with Charisma more for the benefit to certain skills to fit the "courages knight" archetype, rather than it strictly being the most appropriate spellcasting score. My preference would be for Paladin to have the choice between Charisma and Wisdom for spellcasting, but that's an aside as it's not what this thread was supposed to be about (Constitution specifically).
My statement is not a competition of which classes are more MAD than others, my original statement and point, when you're trying to tangent off from is that it should either be ALL MAD classes or all SAD classes
You're literally arguing that Paladin and Ranger should be less MAD than other classes, so I'm not the one that started this tangent. All my post said is that having to balance scores is part of being a half caster.
Literally all I've said since then is that "Rangers aren't that MAD", specifically compared to Paladin, because they can choose between Constitution and Wisdom fairly easily depending upon your preferred build focus.
Both of these statements are objectively true, and neither of them should be controversial.
Meanwhile you seem to be arguing simultaneously that Ranger is both too MAD and doesn't gain any benefit from investing in more scores. I will gladly concede that there is no point in discussing this further if your position remains incoherent in this way.
Your first post came directly after mine
Well in that case I wholeheartedly apologise for my post being after yours, since clearly I have broken the unwritten rule that yours must be the final post of any thread. 😒
If I was replying to you, I'd have quoted you, the poll itself included Paladin/Ranger and people have voted for both. You might like to consider that sometimes someone posting to a thread is simply that, and not everyone replying after you is personally attacking you. I am sorry if you feel your post doesn't stand up well enough on its own without being relentlessly defended, but it's not my fault if that's the case.
nothing in your first post is right to begin with, it's still wrong now as it was then. Paladin suffers a lot from being MAD, because you have three+ different things that Paladin is meant to normally be doing, Paladin is the heavy armour user with a dedicated resource for healing and good martial damage, so you're expected to have a good Strength, so you can hit things to begin with and wear that plate armour (15 str requirement). As a Paladin you're expected to have good Auras going into the 2nd tier, at level 6 the Aura of Protection is reliant on Charisma, having a good Charisma score makes Aura of Protection really good, having none basically reduces you to a +1 Aura of Protection. 3rd off, Paladin as a heavy armour user that can use Shields and can toss out buffs like shield of faith is often seen as a tank class, which means needing a high HP.
Paladin is easily one of the strongest all around classes in 5e as it has multiple excellent resources to draw upon to be strong in multiple areas; it needing to pick and choose which of these areas it will excel as is not a weakness, it is not "suffering" because you need to choose which areas to focus on when it'll still be solid at the rest. You might resent having to choose, and want to get everything for nothing, but reducing it to only needing two scores would be fundamentally broken.
And you still won't justify why as a class it needs to be more powerful than it already is, or why Constitution is somehow the correct ability score when both Wisdom and Charisma are far more appropriate.
I said all this in the first place, and it's as correct now as it was then, because you haven't shown otherwise.
And to be clear, since you seem stuck on this point, I've at no point said shifting Paladin or Ranger to constitution spell casting would be done without other rebalancing being needed, I have been clear since the start that in fact it would be needed, just that I do not believe we need to be dragging this all out in the thread.
And yet the rebalancing is absolutely critical to the argument, because the fact that it requires rebalancing at all makes changing any class to use Constitution a broken proposition, as there is simply no good way to rebalance them around an obviously superior spellcasting ability score.
It's not enough to just say "all I want is for it to be broken, someone else can fix it", that's called nihilism. It would take so much work to fix Paladin after breaking it that it's almost certainly a non-starter, and may even be impossible without making it less fun to play/build, or opening up big new multiclassing issues, because adding downsides to a class usually just invites a multiclass exploit to counteract or ignore them.
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Paladin already has good concentration spells that exist but Paladin gets nothing to compensate for being a caster on the front-lines who takes more damage
Yes they do, it's called Aura of Protection as I've already covered.
This is just straight up wrong, first off Atheists can and do exist in Forgotten Realms, that's why Myrkul made the wall of the faithless to begin with
Faithlessness and atheism are not the same thing; an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of deities, which would be a patently ridiculous position to have in the Forgotten Realms where every second person you meet is probably a god. Faithlessness is not having confidence/devotion/trust towards a particular deity. Myrkul's Wall of the Faithless was specifically for those without a patron deity.
Not everybody is a PC walking around doing quests and fixing literally every issue they come across, there are also con artists, spell casters and numerous other reasons why people may not believe things to be the result of a god. Your average civilian isn't going to be tripping over gods every 2nd step, the vast majority of characters aren't PCs.
As for Aura of Protection, the comparison was against sorcerer, who gets con saving throw proficiency from level 1, for the cost of not having to worry about anything, that'll grow and cost nothing else as the game progresses. Yes Paladin gets Aura of Protection, but at level 5 a Paladin has their CON mod, a sorcerer has a CON mod+PB. At level 6 a Paladin gets CON mod+CHA mod where a sorcerer still has what they had at level 5. Sorcerer only needs Charisma and Constitution, Paladin needs Strength, Constitution and Charisma, so a sorcerer can always win this contest while a sorcerer is a back-liner taking less hits to begin with.
My statement is not a competition of which classes are more MAD than others, my original statement and point, when you're trying to tangent off from is that it should either be ALL MAD classes or all SAD classes
You're literally arguing that Paladin and Ranger should be less MAD than other classes, and I'm not the one that started this tangent.
Literally all I said is that "Rangers aren't that MAD" because they can choose between Constitution and Wisdom fairly easily. Meanwhile you seem to be arguing simultaneously that they're both the MADest class in the entire game and also don't get anything out of investing in any ability scores. I will gladly concede that there is no point in discussing this with you because you can't seem to pick a coherent position.
I've never at any point said that Paladin and Ranger should be less MAD than other classes, I've literally said MAD should not exist. You can shoot that strawman as much as you want. I've not said that Ranger do not get anything out of investing in any ability scores, this is another strawman. Please quote these points, so we can go over them, show where I've actually said these things, they are not there, you've contrived this in your own head. I've said pretty clearly, a ranger with a bow still need constitution, it was you that said they don't. I've also said a dual-wielding ranger still needs wisdom, it was you that said they didn't. What I have said, is that Ranger does not get as much from being MAD as Paladin does.
Well in that case I wholeheartedly apologise for my post being after yours, since clearly I have broken the unwritten rule that yours must be the final post of any thread. 😒
If I was replying to you, I'd have quoted you; you might like to consider that sometimes someone posting to a thread is simply that, and not everyone replying after you is personally attacking you.
I was trying to point out how jumping to the first post you made as being a point is a ludicrous point. I don't think you understood it, yes I responded directly first but I also made points earlier in the thread than when you joined but both of these are irrelevant to what is correct or incorrect. That is to say, I was countering a non-point, with a non-point.
nothing in your first post is right to begin with, it's still wrong now as it was then. Paladin suffers a lot from being MAD, because you have three+ different things that Paladin is meant to normally be doing, Paladin is the heavy armour user with a dedicated resource for healing and good martial damage, so you're expected to have a good Strength, so you can hit things to begin with and wear that plate armour (15 str requirement). As a Paladin you're expected to have good Auras going into the 2nd tier, at level 6 the Aura of Protection is reliant on Charisma, having a good Charisma score makes Aura of Protection really good, having none basically reduces you to a +1 Aura of Protection. 3rd off, Paladin as a heavy armour user that can use Shields and can toss out buffs like shield of faith is often seen as a tank class, which means needing a high HP.
Paladin is easily one of the strongest all around classes in 5e as it has multiple excellent resources to draw upon to be strong in multiple areas; it needing to pick and choose which of these areas it will excel it is not a weakness, it is not "suffering" because you need to choose which areas to focus on. You might resent having to choose, and want to get everything for nothing, but reducing it to only needing two scores would be fundamentally broken.
And you still won't justify why as a class it needs to be more powerful than it already is, or why Constitution is somehow the correct ability score when both Wisdom and Charisma are far more appropriate.
I said all this in the first place, and it's as correct now as it was then, because you haven't proven otherwise.
And to be clear, since you seem stuck on this point, I've at no point said shifting Paladin or Ranger to constitution spell casting would be done without other rebalancing being needed, I have been clear since the start that in fact it would be needed, just that I do not believe we need to be dragging this all out in the thread.
And yet the rebalancing is absolutely critical to the argument, because the fact that it requires rebalancing at all makes changing any class to use Constitution a fundamentally broken proposition, because there is simply no good way to rebalance them around an obviously superior spellcasting ability score. It's not enough to just say "all I want is for it to be broken, someone else can fix it", that's called nihilism.
Paladin is not one of the strongest classes, Paladin is a high AC class with good saves and good Nova, however it is still weaker than most of the full casters.
If we talk about one-on-one fights
Sure a Paladin will tear a Wizard or Sorcerer to pieces if they duel and start 5 foot away from each other, except the Wizard or Sorcerer probably has a higher Dex so a higher initiative roll, probably has a spell like invisibility, misty step, etc. Paladin has about the worst ranged damage in the game, so a fight against a paladin is usually a matter of maintaining distance. This is before then going into the other full casters like Warlock, Druid, Bard and Cleric which at least would likely survive more than 1 round of close distance combat. Bard and Druid beats Paladin with a single spell, heat metal, vast majority of paladins can do nothing against this spell.
So then we are going to the other classes. Well for the non-casters, Rogue is basically the weakest one-on-one class in the game, unless they are a swashbuckler they probably aren't getting a sneak attack off in a fair fight, Rogues require the party but offer amazing party utility on the flip side. Monk, Monk is probably going to lose to a Paladin, Paladin having high AC and high saves what is about the worst case for a Monk to face. Barbarian, well Barbarians have the highest HP in the game, and normal melee damage is halved, so it really comes down to if Paladin can smite the Barbarian down, it probably favours the Paladin but Barbarian can out run a paladin and will likely win initiative, so it depends a bit on barbarian subclass. Fighter, Fighter is a lot more dependent on subclass choices and build choices, I'd say it's actually relatively equal overall.
So this only leaves one other class, that is Ranger. Paladin beats Ranger, except for when it doesn't. Paladin again is weakest in ranged combat, ranger has both spells and features that allow it to maintain a good distance and to stay out of melee, a ranger with a bow is likely beating a paladin just by using Zephyr Strike. Now I am not going to say that Paladin is entirely powerless in range, Paladin could use spells like command or compelled duel (which have DCs and are now slots not usable for smite) to try and close those distances or use short ranged throwing weapons like Javelins.
There are of course multiple builds, but when you get down to it, when people say Paladin is overpowered, most of the time it's about how Paladin performs in "PvE" against in a singular target, which is because most DMs play most mobs like complete morons that would try to derail a train going 150 MPH by attempting to attack the front of said train with their face, while train is in motion. Paladin, Barbarian and Fighter are all very good at standing in a spot and acting like brick walls, barbarian more so, fighter (sub-class dependent) and paladin are very good at putting out damage against a single target, paladin has some spells and healing. When people view it like this, Paladin always seems very overpowered but really Paladin is just doing well for the front-line role, it's the worst at ranged and still woefully weaker than the full casters, which makes up half of the classes in the game. Also Paladins also tend to go last in combat (which is actually bad for tanky roles, you want to secure your position before the mobs get there, or worse, attack some of your back liners), usually terrible at stealth and most other non-talking activities... as much as Paladin is good at, it's also about as terrible at in a roughly equal number of things.
A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
Dex isn't completely useless on a heavy armor build... but it's certainly not highly valuable. Dex saves just don't do that much because most dex save abilities are save for half, not save for none, and most of the status effects applied on a failed dex save are terribly scary. Initiative is nice (it's probably more valuable than the dex saves) but it still does a lot less than the AC. The premier dex skill is stealth... which is pretty useless in heavy armor.
I tend to not use heavy armor at all because I am not going to dump dex. Medium armor can get me to within one of heavy armor anyways. When I DO use heavy armor, I keep at least a 10 anyways, negative initative feels bad.
As far as casters, I am far more concerned about them cranking up AC rather than hit points. I think that you as a group are seriously overstating the dangers of a high con caster, depending on the caster in question.
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No negatives???? Why? Flaws are so much fun, and everyone cracks up at the table when you manage to roll a 0! All of my characters always have at least one negative score. I've played as a Paladin with -2 Dex, and am currently playing a Wizard with -3 Cha.
A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
Dex isn't completely useless on a heavy armor build... but it's certainly not highly valuable. Dex saves just don't do that much because most dex save abilities are save for half, not save for none, and most of the status effects applied on a failed dex save are terribly scary. Initiative is nice (it's probably more valuable than the dex saves) but it still does a lot less than the AC. The premier dex skill is stealth... which is pretty useless in heavy armor.
I tend to not use heavy armor at all because I am not going to dump dex. Medium armor can get me to within one of heavy armor anyways. When I DO use heavy armor, I keep at least a 10 anyways, negative initative feels bad.
As far as casters, I am far more concerned about them cranking up AC rather than hit points. I think that you as a group are seriously overstating the dangers of a high con caster, depending on the caster in question.
HP is the only thing that protects against everything, AC protects against attack rolls but does nothing against saving throws. DEX and CON are the only two ability scores that every class in the game wants, dumping DEX, even as a Paladin, is not good. You still want the best initiate you can get and when Aura of Protection comes in, you then actually have an okay chance of making DEX saves, so you don't want to sabotage that with a negative dexterity modifier, for sure.
So I agree with you on this point, but is DEX or CON better? I'd say CON is better for casters, and it goes beyond AC. Yes AC is important for when you take attacks but it's meaningless when you don't, such as being hit by an AoE spell with a saving throw. Casters often avoid the front lines, so they take significantly less attacks against them but AoEs can target multiple characters. CON gives both concentration saves and more HP, so while I still see the importance of DEX for casters to boost AC, it's still very much behind CON for HP and concentration, in my opinion.
A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
Dex isn't completely useless on a heavy armor build... but it's certainly not highly valuable. Dex saves just don't do that much because most dex save abilities are save for half, not save for none, and most of the status effects applied on a failed dex save are terribly scary. Initiative is nice (it's probably more valuable than the dex saves) but it still does a lot less than the AC. The premier dex skill is stealth... which is pretty useless in heavy armor.
I tend to not use heavy armor at all because I am not going to dump dex. Medium armor can get me to within one of heavy armor anyways. When I DO use heavy armor, I keep at least a 10 anyways, negative initative feels bad.
As far as casters, I am far more concerned about them cranking up AC rather than hit points. I think that you as a group are seriously overstating the dangers of a high con caster, depending on the caster in question.
It's not just HP. You could build an extremely SAD character. And even more now that they have changed true strike so you can hit with your spell casting modifier. By maximizing CONS you would have HP, your spellcasting modifier, cons saves and your weapon attack modifier. Magic, attack, HP, all in the same stat. And being a caster, you can heal, buff, etc... And with a lot of room for feats. If that's not broken, I don't know what is.
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12? Wow. Well, I've both seen and built buttloads of characters with 8 in Intelligence, Charisma, Strength, even Dexterity and Wisdom. But if you made a character with a 12 in Constitution, well, I suppose that's undeniable proof that it's no more vital and useful than any other stat, huh?
Constitution is a powerful stat, as evidenced by the fact that you consider a 12 to be dumping it. To say otherwise is just silly.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
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it comes down to priorities, but most of the chars I play, I'm trying to get two stats starting at 3 mod. I like to have 4 mod by level 4. then, I can get one thing at 14, or spread it around if nothing else is really needed. you can start of with 17 in a stat, and 16 in another.
so what 14 means to me, is I'm not willing to put any asi, or any feats with that ability in my build, and it wasn't important in char building.
this essentially means to me, it has no value to you to get it higher, you had many opportunities to raise it and chose something else. Which makes sense, the goal of defense for most players is just to have enough to not die a lot. apparently for mages 14 is all they need/care enough to invest in. So I think if really given the option, would these players choose to be a 20 con 14 mental charachter? I'm beginning to think many wouldn't. The people playing these classes do value the +5 in perception/insight. or +5 in arcana/investigation, the feats over the extra hit points and concentration they don't feel they need.
I don’t take any stat below 10. I’ve only seen one person with an 8 dex and it was because the DM made their character and they weren’t happy about it. Especially when they kept failing dex saves. Having bad Dex, Con or Wis can be bad depending on what monsters you face, but having a bad Con only matters in combat. Having bad Dex or Wis can matter outside of combat. Which goes back to the part of my comment you completely ignored. I guess 5e is only a combat simulator.
A lot of people think that heavy armor is a good excuse to dump dex. I uhhhh strongly disagree.
As far as 12 con? My current character has a 13 which is essentially the same thing, particularly when you realize that I have an extra +1 in there from being half elf that I wouldn't have on a different character. Of course I am not a martial, and I doubt I would do that on a martial. That's the rub though. Martials don't dump it because they have need of hit points more than ranged characters do. Con is a good stat and a useful stat but it's not a wonder stat like Dex is. Dex is 100% more important to every character I build than Con is. I am pretty sure I've never played a character with a higher con than dex. Barbarian is the only class I think I might even consider it on, and even then they are more likely to be equal.
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Dex isn't completely useless on a heavy armor build... but it's certainly not highly valuable. Dex saves just don't do that much because most dex save abilities are save for half, not save for none, and most of the status effects applied on a failed dex save are terribly scary. Initiative is nice (it's probably more valuable than the dex saves) but it still does a lot less than the AC. The premier dex skill is stealth... which is pretty useless in heavy armor.
There are many D20 systems out there, and I don't remember any of them having a caster whose main stat is CONS. I don't know all of them either, but of the most famous ones, none of them have a caster based on CONS. And there is a good reason for that, as already explained in this thread.
4th edition warlock, but con wasn't as important in 4e.
Pathfinder had a Scarred Witch Doctor which was Con based. Oddly they gave it a feature to improve its AC. Also it had a theme of body mutilation and cutting. I think they used errata to take it back to Int with the other Witch Doctors and eventually just moved away from it.
Anything can be made balanced with enough of a redesign. Obviously, there's no time now for OneDnD to pull this off for Sorcerer, but if they started with the intent? Absolutely. It's all just shifting numbers around at the end of the day.
It also depends a lot on how dangerous a Sorcerer with high HP is in your mind. To me, it isn't that big of a deal. Sorcerer would be more difficult to kill in battle which is for sure a big buff in one area of the game, but they'd be giving up being one of the best Face characters in the game for it. Being amazing at the Social Pillar of the game isn't nothing.
As for CON proficiency? They don't even necessarily need to have that. Sorcerer could break the rule of your primary stat being one of your proficiency stats and have them start with INT and CHA proficiency. Two weak saves to balance out being more physically robust than other casters. This would remove the worry of them being too good at concentration checks.
Heck, it'd give Sorcerer more of a unique identity as the tanky full caster class rather than just being Wizard but kind'a different.
I build nearly all of my characters with at least one 8 in a score; I have a bard (Habard Ashery) and a Rogue (Sneek Feef) which each have Strength and Constitution 8 to make them glass cannons (minus the cannon in Habard's case, since he's more support). This makes for high risk gameplay requiring judicious use of cover which is a lot of fun.
Also got two Dexterity and Charisma 8 characters including another Bard (Chortle the Tortle) since he's a Strength build Swords "bard", and my Artificer (Archimedes Screw) who's built to be more of a tank in his guardian armour. It's actually usually beneficial for both of these to be a bit behind in Initiative because they both do best when they can adapt to the situation, otherwise they'd just be rushing forward and getting into trouble half the time.
My Wizard (Edward Merryspell) runs with Strength and Charisma 8, but Constitution 12, and that's partly because I want him to appear frail, but he needs a bit of extra HP to compensate for his typically having a poor AC thanks to his prepared spells being mostly optimised for chaos rather than efficiency.
I also have a Ranger (Legion) with Intelligence and Charisma 8, which helps with him being a Strength build. He's also basically an animated tree-like construct who only says "We Are Legion" (because he's a Guardians of the Galaxy's Groot knock-off) so not much of a talker or intellectual.
When using Points Buy taking one or more 8's in ability scores not only helps with getting the scores you want higher, but also gives you some clear weaknesses which usually makes for a more fun character in my experience; it's not like 10's are much better, since a 1 point higher or lower modifier really only means a 5% difference anyway on checks. Constitution 8 is a trickier one to compensate for, but glass cannons can be a lot of fun to play, as being low in hit-points can encourage very different tactics.
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In fact that's a great example of why you shouldn't use cons on a spellcaster. I didn't remember that example, but it's true. Scarred Witch Doctor used cons, but they changed it via a errata because using cons on a caster is broken.
they currently have kinetisict and its not broken.
What you said was what spells would Paladin be concentrating on, which as I pointed out, the spells already exist but aren't used by Paladin and a big part of that is the concentration. Who is going to cast Divine Favor when it could be gone randomly after 1 round, or 2 rounds. If Divine Favor lasts for 4 rounds then it's better than using a 1st level slot for a Divine Smite, most of the time but keeping con saves up makes it not a reliable go too, similarly Spirit Shroud is the same thing but more damage. Paladin already has good concentration spells that exist but Paladin gets nothing to compensate for being a caster on the front-lines who takes more damage, so the chance to fail concentration is just straight up higher. We both agree the smite spells are terrible but the latter part going into the actually existing spells, they are there but the concentration requirements on most of them make them less than ideal. If Paladin actually had good concentration saves, which you'd think something like a Paladin would have, then it'd make sense.
This is just straight up wrong, first off Atheists can and do exist in Forgotten Realms, that's why Myrkul made the wall of the faithless to begin with, the gods wanted to punish those that don't believe in gods or don't have a patron god, since the gods rely on mortal belief. But just because the wall exists doesn't mean there aren't still people who are not atheist or claim no Patron god at all, they still do.
Second off, nothing in the 5E lore says anything regarding that a Paladin's Oath has to be to a Deity, or that a Paladin HAS to even believe in a Deity at all. Ultimately you're doing a lot of wordplay to say that Paladin's are more likely to follow a Deity but it does not remove the fact that it's literally not a requirement. An Atheist Paladin would still have literally the same Divine Smite, the same spell casting and the same Channel Divinity as one that followed Torm, Bahamut or any of the other commonly followed gods; this is because Paladins do not get their power from their Deity, sure in past editions this might have been different but this discussion is about 5E.
Also an Oath is not a new year's revolution, it requires the Paladin to be seriously dedicated to it, it goes beyond just merely saying words to actually making yourself a part of what you believe in a very zealous way, and that belief is from what a Paladin pulls their power. It repeatedly says, a Paladin gets their power from their Oath and a Paladin's Oath is internal and a Paladin spends a considerable amount of time Meditating on their oath but ultimately it boils back to the Paladin not needing to follow any god at all.
My statement is not a competition of which classes are more MAD than others, my original statement and point, when you're trying to tangent off from is that it should either be ALL MAD classes or all SAD classes, that Monk has a worse time with MAD than Ranger is irrelevant. Ranger is obviously still MAD and Ranger was in a very bad place similar to Monk in early 5E days, Ranger has had more patch work and now is more viable than it use to be but this doesn't deter from the fact that a part of Ranger being in such a poor position is that it's a "MAD" class with subpar MAD features. Paladin is the only MAD class that actually has the features to justify being MAD and people call it overpowered because it has them, so if the only way to make MAD actually good is to make it overpowered then move away from MAD completely.
Your first post came directly after mine, https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/unearthed-arcana/185329-alternative-casting-stat-poll?comment=10
I already stated in that, that it is a more complicated change than just shift Paladin to CON, it needs rebalancing, however nothing in your first post is right to begin with, it's still wrong now as it was then. Paladin suffers a lot from being MAD, because you have three+ different things that Paladin is meant to normally be doing, Paladin is the heavy armour user with a dedicated resource for healing and good martial damage, so you're expected to have a good Strength, so you can hit things to begin with and wear that plate armour (15 str requirement). As a Paladin you're expected to have good Auras going into the 2nd tier, at level 6 the Aura of Protection is reliant on Charisma, having a good Charisma score makes Aura of Protection really good, having none basically reduces you to a +1 Aura of Protection. 3rd off, Paladin as a heavy armour user that can use Shields and can toss out buffs like shield of faith is often seen as a tank class, which means needing a high HP.
You can fix all of this by first off balancing Aura of Protection, set it to a standard +2. Move Paladin spellcasting to Constitution, do other Paladin features need adjusting? Sure, they do. Lay on hands is a lot of healing for a dedicated resource but then Paladin does not have Prayer of Healing like a Cleric does or other more powerful heal spells and spell slots, overall this has little to do with constitution to begin with.
Personally, as I see 5E, I just do not see that MAD works, it just messes up the whole system, it works better in some alternative systems because ASIs and Feats aren't competing with each other but in 5E the limited number of ASIs and that feats have to replace ASIs just makes MAD a system which drags the whole system down and throws the whole class balance off. You either need to make classes entirely overpowered so that when MAD kicks in, they are back to being somewhat balanced like Paladin*, or you have classes that are woefully underpowered like Ranger and Monk. Sure Monk has it worse but it's again, not a competition in this regards.
I actually prefer MAD but with the way 5E is set-up, I just don't think it works or will ever work well. You'll continue with unbalanced classes and any changes that come in (i.e. hexblade patron for warlocks) will always threaten to entirely break class balance where classes will suddenly shift in power. The well known Paladin/Warlock Hexblade multiclass is just another example of how people want Paladin to be SAD, not MAD, since that is the primary reason for even taking that multiclass/level dip to begin with, it's just that dumps strength instead of charisma but either way actually works.
And to be clear, since you seem stuck on this point, I've at no point said shifting Paladin or Ranger to constitution spell casting would be done without other rebalancing being needed, I have been clear since the start that in fact it would be needed, just that I do not believe we need to be dragging this all out in the thread.
*Ignoring NOVA/Divine Smite in this statement since that's a separate issue and this is a relative statement, not a statement that Paladin is entirely balanced.
Kineticist is not a spellcaster. That example was discussed a lot during the Scarred Witch Doctor controversy, and it is simply not true. Kineticist are not spellcasters.
Yes they do, it's called Aura of Protection as I've already covered.
It's the thing that even with only modest Constititon and Charisma scores makes them better at concentration saving throws than most spellcasters in the game, and with higher scores can make them one of the best at concentration saving throws in the game, especially if combined with a starting odd score in Constitution and Resilient (Constitution), all things I've now mentioned at least twice each.
Faithlessness and atheism are not the same thing; an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of deities, which would be a patently absurd position to have in the Forgotten Realms where every second person you meet is probably a god. Faithlessness is not having confidence/devotion/trust towards a particular deity. Myrkul's Wall of the Faithless was specifically for those without a patron deity.
Sure… as long as you choose to ignore the meanings of half the words on the Paladin pages.
Paladins are blessed, holy warriors who wield divine power – literally all things that require a deity to be involved in some capacity. But this is another irrelevant tangent you've dragged us off on, because my point was that Wisdom has more justification than Constitution for Paladin because of their magic being a form of channelling, which both Cleric and Druid do using Wisdom (as a more "intuitive" method of casting).
As I said before I strongly suspect that WotC went with Charisma more for the benefit to certain skills to fit the "courages knight" archetype, rather than it strictly being the most appropriate spellcasting score. My preference would be for Paladin to have the choice between Charisma and Wisdom for spellcasting, but that's an aside as it's not what this thread was supposed to be about (Constitution specifically).
You're literally arguing that Paladin and Ranger should be less MAD than other classes, so I'm not the one that started this tangent. All my post said is that having to balance scores is part of being a half caster.
Literally all I've said since then is that "Rangers aren't that MAD", specifically compared to Paladin, because they can choose between Constitution and Wisdom fairly easily depending upon your preferred build focus.
Both of these statements are objectively true, and neither of them should be controversial.
Meanwhile you seem to be arguing simultaneously that Ranger is both too MAD and doesn't gain any benefit from investing in more scores. I will gladly concede that there is no point in discussing this further if your position remains incoherent in this way.
Well in that case I wholeheartedly apologise for my post being after yours, since clearly I have broken the unwritten rule that yours must be the final post of any thread. 😒
If I was replying to you, I'd have quoted you, the poll itself included Paladin/Ranger and people have voted for both. You might like to consider that sometimes someone posting to a thread is simply that, and not everyone replying after you is personally attacking you. I am sorry if you feel your post doesn't stand up well enough on its own without being relentlessly defended, but it's not my fault if that's the case.
Paladin is easily one of the strongest all around classes in 5e as it has multiple excellent resources to draw upon to be strong in multiple areas; it needing to pick and choose which of these areas it will excel as is not a weakness, it is not "suffering" because you need to choose which areas to focus on when it'll still be solid at the rest. You might resent having to choose, and want to get everything for nothing, but reducing it to only needing two scores would be fundamentally broken.
And you still won't justify why as a class it needs to be more powerful than it already is, or why Constitution is somehow the correct ability score when both Wisdom and Charisma are far more appropriate.
I said all this in the first place, and it's as correct now as it was then, because you haven't shown otherwise.
And yet the rebalancing is absolutely critical to the argument, because the fact that it requires rebalancing at all makes changing any class to use Constitution a broken proposition, as there is simply no good way to rebalance them around an obviously superior spellcasting ability score.
It's not enough to just say "all I want is for it to be broken, someone else can fix it", that's called nihilism. It would take so much work to fix Paladin after breaking it that it's almost certainly a non-starter, and may even be impossible without making it less fun to play/build, or opening up big new multiclassing issues, because adding downsides to a class usually just invites a multiclass exploit to counteract or ignore them.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Not everybody is a PC walking around doing quests and fixing literally every issue they come across, there are also con artists, spell casters and numerous other reasons why people may not believe things to be the result of a god. Your average civilian isn't going to be tripping over gods every 2nd step, the vast majority of characters aren't PCs.
As for Aura of Protection, the comparison was against sorcerer, who gets con saving throw proficiency from level 1, for the cost of not having to worry about anything, that'll grow and cost nothing else as the game progresses. Yes Paladin gets Aura of Protection, but at level 5 a Paladin has their CON mod, a sorcerer has a CON mod+PB. At level 6 a Paladin gets CON mod+CHA mod where a sorcerer still has what they had at level 5. Sorcerer only needs Charisma and Constitution, Paladin needs Strength, Constitution and Charisma, so a sorcerer can always win this contest while a sorcerer is a back-liner taking less hits to begin with.
I've never at any point said that Paladin and Ranger should be less MAD than other classes, I've literally said MAD should not exist. You can shoot that strawman as much as you want. I've not said that Ranger do not get anything out of investing in any ability scores, this is another strawman. Please quote these points, so we can go over them, show where I've actually said these things, they are not there, you've contrived this in your own head. I've said pretty clearly, a ranger with a bow still need constitution, it was you that said they don't. I've also said a dual-wielding ranger still needs wisdom, it was you that said they didn't. What I have said, is that Ranger does not get as much from being MAD as Paladin does.
I was trying to point out how jumping to the first post you made as being a point is a ludicrous point. I don't think you understood it, yes I responded directly first but I also made points earlier in the thread than when you joined but both of these are irrelevant to what is correct or incorrect. That is to say, I was countering a non-point, with a non-point.
Paladin is not one of the strongest classes, Paladin is a high AC class with good saves and good Nova, however it is still weaker than most of the full casters.
If we talk about one-on-one fights
Sure a Paladin will tear a Wizard or Sorcerer to pieces if they duel and start 5 foot away from each other, except the Wizard or Sorcerer probably has a higher Dex so a higher initiative roll, probably has a spell like invisibility, misty step, etc. Paladin has about the worst ranged damage in the game, so a fight against a paladin is usually a matter of maintaining distance. This is before then going into the other full casters like Warlock, Druid, Bard and Cleric which at least would likely survive more than 1 round of close distance combat. Bard and Druid beats Paladin with a single spell, heat metal, vast majority of paladins can do nothing against this spell.
So then we are going to the other classes. Well for the non-casters, Rogue is basically the weakest one-on-one class in the game, unless they are a swashbuckler they probably aren't getting a sneak attack off in a fair fight, Rogues require the party but offer amazing party utility on the flip side. Monk, Monk is probably going to lose to a Paladin, Paladin having high AC and high saves what is about the worst case for a Monk to face. Barbarian, well Barbarians have the highest HP in the game, and normal melee damage is halved, so it really comes down to if Paladin can smite the Barbarian down, it probably favours the Paladin but Barbarian can out run a paladin and will likely win initiative, so it depends a bit on barbarian subclass. Fighter, Fighter is a lot more dependent on subclass choices and build choices, I'd say it's actually relatively equal overall.
So this only leaves one other class, that is Ranger. Paladin beats Ranger, except for when it doesn't. Paladin again is weakest in ranged combat, ranger has both spells and features that allow it to maintain a good distance and to stay out of melee, a ranger with a bow is likely beating a paladin just by using Zephyr Strike. Now I am not going to say that Paladin is entirely powerless in range, Paladin could use spells like command or compelled duel (which have DCs and are now slots not usable for smite) to try and close those distances or use short ranged throwing weapons like Javelins.
There are of course multiple builds, but when you get down to it, when people say Paladin is overpowered, most of the time it's about how Paladin performs in "PvE" against in a singular target, which is because most DMs play most mobs like complete morons that would try to derail a train going 150 MPH by attempting to attack the front of said train with their face, while train is in motion. Paladin, Barbarian and Fighter are all very good at standing in a spot and acting like brick walls, barbarian more so, fighter (sub-class dependent) and paladin are very good at putting out damage against a single target, paladin has some spells and healing. When people view it like this, Paladin always seems very overpowered but really Paladin is just doing well for the front-line role, it's the worst at ranged and still woefully weaker than the full casters, which makes up half of the classes in the game. Also Paladins also tend to go last in combat (which is actually bad for tanky roles, you want to secure your position before the mobs get there, or worse, attack some of your back liners), usually terrible at stealth and most other non-talking activities... as much as Paladin is good at, it's also about as terrible at in a roughly equal number of things.
I tend to not use heavy armor at all because I am not going to dump dex. Medium armor can get me to within one of heavy armor anyways. When I DO use heavy armor, I keep at least a 10 anyways, negative initative feels bad.
As far as casters, I am far more concerned about them cranking up AC rather than hit points. I think that you as a group are seriously overstating the dangers of a high con caster, depending on the caster in question.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
No negatives???? Why? Flaws are so much fun, and everyone cracks up at the table when you manage to roll a 0! All of my characters always have at least one negative score. I've played as a Paladin with -2 Dex, and am currently playing a Wizard with -3 Cha.
HP is the only thing that protects against everything, AC protects against attack rolls but does nothing against saving throws. DEX and CON are the only two ability scores that every class in the game wants, dumping DEX, even as a Paladin, is not good. You still want the best initiate you can get and when Aura of Protection comes in, you then actually have an okay chance of making DEX saves, so you don't want to sabotage that with a negative dexterity modifier, for sure.
So I agree with you on this point, but is DEX or CON better? I'd say CON is better for casters, and it goes beyond AC. Yes AC is important for when you take attacks but it's meaningless when you don't, such as being hit by an AoE spell with a saving throw. Casters often avoid the front lines, so they take significantly less attacks against them but AoEs can target multiple characters. CON gives both concentration saves and more HP, so while I still see the importance of DEX for casters to boost AC, it's still very much behind CON for HP and concentration, in my opinion.
It's not just HP. You could build an extremely SAD character. And even more now that they have changed true strike so you can hit with your spell casting modifier. By maximizing CONS you would have HP, your spellcasting modifier, cons saves and your weapon attack modifier. Magic, attack, HP, all in the same stat. And being a caster, you can heal, buff, etc... And with a lot of room for feats. If that's not broken, I don't know what is.