What Does Wis and Cha do for a Paladin?

Heindrich

Or... more specifically, a Cavalier.

I planned to create a Cavalier with the following stats:
Str: 17
Dex: 12
Con: 17
Int: 10
Wis: 12
Cha: 14

Clearly non-optimal stats for RP reasons. I just realised Paladins have min-reqs for Wis (13) and Cha (17). If I EEkeeper'd these down, what consequences will I have to deal with? I am guessing lower Wisdom means he'd lose a few spells? What about Charisma? Does it have a Paladin-specific role as a primary stat or anything?

Thanks.

CrevsDaak

Paladins and Ranger DON'T get bonus spells form WIS (unless this was changed in the EE). (sorry if that type of letters hurts you, I really like fooling with HTML).

Then, the Paladin should have high CHA just because "he is a holy warrior", and he is like more marketing than a real fighter but if you have RP reasons, it's OK with me, I'm playing with a Quasit right now, so...
Also, you won't have any penalties, so I guess it is OK.
There is a different type of RP re rolling: you can roll as many times as desired but you can't even min max a single point, I've done that some times, and it's OK, you can get a 90 with a F/M but had 18 WIS and 17 INT (clearly I've changed those to 18 INT to 17 WIS, I mean, there are both mind abilities and it wasn't swapping STR for CHA)...

As I've said before, WIS and CHA are like marketing for Paladins (unless Keldorn).

abacus

Aren't there certain dialogue benefits to high wisdom? I seem to remember having to get Viconia to speak to someone... Can't remember the specific instance though...

golingarf

As I understand the requirements of 17 charisma and 13 wisdom were supposed to be an obstacle to being a Paladin, but with the crazy way BG does stats, they end up being a bonus, because you automatically get the required minima. But I think the only benefits to having a high charisma or wisdom score are in the dialog options in BG2, and slightly better deals at shops.

Heindrich

@abacus @golingarf

Thanks guys. This character is part of a Black Pits playthrough.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/29032/black-pits-questions#latest

And there's 2 characters in there with 16 Charisma, one of whom has Friends memorised. So Charisma shouldn't be an issue for the party as a whole.

The character isn't supposed to be a paladin/cavalier in RP terms anyway, I just wanted a warrior who remained useful throughout BP 1 and BP 2 without dual-classing.

And yes the implementation of Paladin minimums makes it ridiculuously easy to roll insane stats for them. I remember seeing PnP rulebook once. I think the harshest rules for character generation was to roll ur stats and then seeing which classes u can be with those stats, so u'd have to be pretty lucky to be a Paladin in the first place.

golingarf

Heindrich1988 said:

The character isn't supposed to be a paladin/cavalier in RP terms anyway, I just wanted a warrior who remained useful throughout BP 1 and BP 2 without dual-classing.

Having taken Keldorn to the end of BG2, it was not my perception that he was relevant by the end. It was actually a little sad to see him just standing back in awe while the mages did their work. A multiclass F/M, F/C, F/T, or C/R definitely would be relevant, though. But of course you know that. It's unfortunate but even with GWW, critical strike and whatnot, single-class warriors are just not worth much after the time stops show up.

golingarf

Heindrich1988 said:

@abacus @golingarf

I think the harshest rules for character generation was to roll ur stats and then seeing which classes u can be with those stats, so u'd have to be pretty lucky to be a Paladin in the first place.

Well, the *harshest* rule for character generation was to roll 3d6 for your stats and not rearrange, which is what the old rulebooks told you to do. I once played a game like that. I made a mage with 13 intelligence, and had to roll 1d4 for the number of spells I knew at the start. I rolled a 1. I then had to roll for what spell it was on a d100. I got Tenser's Floating Disk (a.k.a. a magical wheelbarrow, if you're not familiar.) There was no maxing your first hit die either, but I forget what I rolled. Whatever it was, it was not enough to prevent me from dying in the first encounter.

Heindrich

golingarf said:

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Having taken Keldorn to the end of BG2, it was not my perception that he was relevant by the end. It was actually a little sad to see him just standing back in awe while the mages did their work. A multiclass F/M, F/C, F/T, or C/R definitely would be relevant, though. But of course you know that. It's unfortunate but even with GWW, critical strike and whatnot, single-class warriors are just not worth much after the time stops show up.

@golingarf
Of course the arcane casters are in a different league for ToB, but I wouldn't say Keldorn is useless by any stretch.

I only had him for 2 short periods to replace Imprisoned/Perma-dead companions. So he went into the final battle against Melissan with just 2.8M xp, about half compared to the rest of the party. Despite that he held his own in combat and his Dispel was good enough to strip Marileth Demons of their defenses, which was priceless as my mages were pretty exhausted by the time I got that far.

The power of non-casters also depends on how u play. If u rest before every significant battle, u can unload ur spellbook every time, which makes most encounters pointlessly easy. I play with 'realistic' rest rules, which means my mages only ever use the top level spells for a truly difficult adversary, and the party relies on warriors far more for weak-medium level foes. Minsc was the most effective killer in my party, with 28%-30% of experience contribution, and of course, he was the only non-caster in a party of F/M Charname, Anomen, Aerie, Jaheira, Minsc and Imoen.

golingarf

Heindrich1988 said:

The power of non-casters also depends on how u play. If u rest before every significant battle, u can unload ur spellbook every time, which makes most encounters pointlessly easy. I play with 'realistic' rest rules, which means my mages only ever use the top level spells for a truly difficult adversary, and the party relies on warriors far more for weak-medium level foes.

Oh, I didn't rest very much at all that game. I never rested in dungeons, and I usually almost emptied my spellbooks. I faced the final battle before day 50. Even under those conditions I found mages vastly more useful. I didn't say Keldorn was worthless, though - he was worth something as an obstacle to enemies reaching my mages. Like an extra summoned creature. As for marileths, I regarded them as a minor annoyance and they almost never touched me. Mostly I webbed them - that won't work in SCS though and we'll see what happens, I guess.

If you don't have an RP reason for being a Paladin I don't see the point of it. Although I don't know what the parameters of your playthrough are going to be. It could be reasonable to do if you want to nerf your character as a personal challenge. However, maybe you're a better player than me but I found the final battle on Ascension challenging enough with a mage PC! When I think of it, Keldorn was useful in stalling the guys on the right side of the board while I focused on the left - he seemed to be worth about two planetars. I looked at the vanilla version once and found that Melissan was a ridiculous pushover, so I don't think it really matters what you play if you're doing that.

atcDave

The Wisdom/Charisma restrictions on Paladin do have role playing justification, but no doubt the main thing is just making it hard to be one. BG character creation totally short circuits that. But for the record, only the very original White Box version of D&D ever suggested strait 3d6 rolls as normal for player characters (and there were only the four core classes in White Box!). By 1978 when Basic and 1E were both on the market they both suggested different methods. I remember 6d6 high three in order; or 4d6 high three assigned as the player wished as the two most common methods (among my friends). Point shifts were usually allowed; but that normally meant loose two of one stat to gain one to another. Even then; I always said point shifting was allowed ONLY to make minimum stats for a class, no discretionary shifting apart from making minimums.