Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I also would love to see the Crusader "upgraded" in potency. I'd envision it to be somewhat more of a melee specialist, but of course with divine-based powers. A sword-wielding zealot, driven by intense faith to bring judgement swift & harsh to the bad guys with a big, sharp blade.

Perhaps even going so far as to make the Crusader a "glass cannon" type of build ? Maybe forgoing some (many?) of the traditional Paladin's more defensive abilities, in exchange for a damage dealing destroyer of evil ?

It just seems that many of the complaints with Paladins seem to be with it's ( lack of ) sustained firepower. Now, in the interest of balance, that power must come with a cost..... but that's where I'll leave the brainstorming to the many great build-masters here.

In any case, some tweaking of the kit seems to be pretty much universal in the requests. I don't imagine there are a whole lot of Crusaders in active use as the kit is presently. I know I would give one a try if it gets somewhat powered-up. And with the power-creep slowly but surely upping the difficulty of the server the past couple years, I don't think it's too unreasonable of a request.

It looks like in order to satisfy everyone's version of paladin, we would need a 100 kits.Its not a bad think for everyone to think in a different way how the paladin should be. On the contrary, it brings more flavor to the server. However, it highlights the difficulty in making specialized classes that will satisfy most. Some of the versions i read, can be made very easy with the crusader kit. In any case, the crusader is a generic platform which specializes in 2 handers non spell casting paladins. Everyone can build on this their version of a paladin, a turner/smiter or a brute or a combination of both.

Having read through the thread and also having made a crusader level 30, all I can say is, they are rather decent, with the right gear and so forth. They are not a Barbarian, dwarven defender or anything insane, but they are decent.

I think a good way if they should be improved was mentioned earlier, and that was specifically with dealing with evil things, perhaps even more specifically, let them be amazing at killing the undead, for PvE/dm events.

I think we can all agree it would look awesome during a DM event a known crusader paladin gets to show off his stuff if needed and become that beacon of hope/salvation we all want them to be.

Against undead their ac bonus goes up another 4, they do an extra 2d6 bane damage or something like that. But only to undead creatures. Maybe have a different kit for devils, one for Daemons, specialize them in that sense? Could be an interesting trio of crusaders all with their own niche, would also give the class something "Unique" and would not make them pvp powerhouses in that sense.

...Maybe if undead are near they get a special slight glow? (Wishful thinking?)

Just make it 25 level kit, and tone down one or two weapon defense levels. It will allow for some flexibility and multiclassing.

Let's talk the Crusader's theme, which is meant to be "the" two-handed paladin. To this end, it gets up to 6 Shield AC when not using a shield. I don't think armor class sells the theme of the class. Let's look at the other paladin kits.

Three are 3 "main" paladin builds: Epic Divine Might, Strength, and Great Smite.

Standard
The standard Paladin can do any of the main builds. Its EDM and Strength variants aren't as good as the Divinate and Cavalier, respectively, but it is the best option for Great Smite because it retains the Turning and Lay on Hands synergy with Charisma.

Divinate
Divinate focuses on the formidable paladin spell book and sacrifices Smite Evil, which leaves two possible build paths: Strength and EDM. It gets more spell slots and doubles the durations of its spells, which leads to a better experience in PvE. The Divinate naturally gravitates toward EDM.

Cavalier
Cavalier exchanges Turn Undead and Lay on Hands for a ton (too many) of bonuses: 5 favored enemies, Shield Bash/Charge/Slam, Extra Smiting, Great Smiting, and Epic Prowess. With the Shield feats and lack of Turning, this kit emphasizes Strength over other build paths. One could argue for a Smiting paladin because of the free Extra Smiting and Great Smite, but the amount of CHA needed to actually build up to Great Smite doesn't otherwise synergize well with this kit. Cavalier is the Strength paladin.

Crusader
Crusader gives up the Paladin's spell book in exchange for 3 Weapon Focus Feats (+4 AB), up to 3 divine damage (Wisdom reliant, doesn't stack with DM/EDM), and 6 Shield AC if no shield is equipped. It also gets Holy Sword as an SLA with scaling frequency, up to have no cooldown at all (so long as the ability doesn't bug). This is meant to establish it as "the" two-handed weapon paladin. Because it doesn't have the paladin spell book, it can't match the STR/CHA scores of the other paladin kits, making it less attractive for both EDM and Smite builds.

The idea of a two-handed weapon is strength and damage. In this regard, the Crusader is bested by the Cavalier, which is allowed full effective investment in Strength with access to the paladin spellbook and favored enemies. Instead, a bit counter-intuitive, the main thrust of Crusader is having more AC without a shield. Because Fighter levels are necessary for Weapon Specialization / Mastery, the Crusader does not have a path toward building more damage without multi-classing, and multi-classing severely undercuts the power of this 30-level, capstone-focused kit.

All this in mind, I'd recommend the following:

*Cavalier: Remove Epic Prowess, Great Smite, and Extra Smiting. As the class is weighted, they're just over-the-top extras.

*Divinate: Leave as is.

*Standard: As the generalist paladin, it could be left alone, or it could be granted Extra Smiting and Extra Turning somewhere in the progression. These wouldn't be huge power boosts but would allow a little more freedom in building.

*Crusader: More should be done to illustrate that this is "the" two-handed paladin. This would be accomplished through adding more feats in the class progression. Such feats could be chosen among the following:
**One Weapon
**Northlander Hewing
**Epic Prowess
**Disarm
**Power Attack / Improved Power Attack
**Enhanced Power Attack
**Awesome Blow
**Knockdown / Improved Knockdown
**(Greater, Epic) Weapon Specialization
**Weapon Mastery

You guys remember all the threads about nerfing paladins that cropped up when they used to have a permanent holy sword bug ? Yeah, me neither

The Whistler wrote:You guys remember all the threads about nerfing paladins that cropped up when they used to have a permanent holy sword bug ? Yeah, me neither

We are looking into some suggestions, like compressing the kit a bit.

We should only nerf classes/PrCs/kits that M3nt likes to play!

Steve wrote:We should only nerf classes/PrCs/kits that M3nt likes to play!

Good luck with that... During the latest RCR i realized that i have more than 30 characters... Most of them lvl30 or high epics and with different builds. You will have to nerf everything

Or just nerf rangers since that is the one class i really enjoy to play

mrm3ntalist wrote:We are looking into some suggestions, like compressing the kit a bit.

Score one for the good guys !

mrm3ntalist wrote:You will have to nerf everything

I've been right all this time....

Any update on this ?

The Whistler wrote: ↑Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:49 pm Any update on this ?

Good question!

No, it's good enough.

Valefort wrote: ↑Sat Apr 06, 2019 2:33 am No, it's good enough.

I had hoped you all would have considered scaling the cooldown as the Kit reaches 30.