I'm getting around to working on Gradius paladins.

They will lose:
turn
lay on hands
the need to stay royal-blue

They will gain:
smother
vile races will not hurt alignment (this goes for clerics, too)

Gradius paladins will have the same alignment restrictions as clerics (neutral and lightblue). The paladin bonus damage will depend on this alignment. Current Gradius paladins will be set to neutral alignment so you don't have to fight your way back down.


Why they are more difficult:
Paladins are easy because they can stay royal blue. Because a Gradius paladin will not have this luxury, they will be more difficult to play. Additionally, turn can do massive against turnable monsters, which equates into lots of exp and easier fights.

Other options:
no flee penalty
bash
make them heal as well as Gradius clerics
some new ability


Discuss! I'd like to make these changes soon and get Gradius paladins into the testing phase. Also, if Gradius paladins will use smother, it will be on a different scale than clerics. Discuss what scale would be appropriate.

Clarification:

Alignment changes from vile races will only help, not hinder.

Ex:
A blood red Gradius paladin kills an evil orc. His alignment is pushed towards good.
A neutral Gradius paladin's alignment will not be changed by killing an evil orc.
A light blue Gradius paladin's alignment will not be changed by killing an evil orc.

However, this depends on all of the vile races having their race set properly. Here's an out-of-character way to test: try vigging them as a Gradius cleric (or get Delta to do it). If you get a message complaining they are vile, then the race is set correctly. If they are not set properly, post them in this thread - but only one monster per area. If you give me a monster/area to check, I will check all monsters in that area. No need to post all of them.

The current changes are now live. If you have a Gradius paladin, post here so I can set you down to neutral. Smother currently uses the cleric scale, but this is definitely going to change.

Keep in mind that Gradius paladins are now in beta testing.

Here's my two cents as a current Enoch paladin user, and former Gradius cleric user.


Lose/gain: lose the ability to turn, lay on hands, and maintain royal aura, for the ability to smother, and maintain neutral/light blue aura (with vile races clause). I won't go into turn vs. smother, but consider them equal for now. The smother damage will rival the turn damage at higher levels, with the timer difference accounted for by the ability to smother whatever you want.

As for lay on hands, there is a rather large list of restrictions on usage, that it becomes hardly a loss.

Off the top of my head -

Level 13+
Cannot be in battle.
Cannot use on evil aligned (maybe only reddish/blood red, not sure).
Target must be at half of maximum HP or lower.
Timer: 1 hour (real time)
Daily: 3 times @ lvl 26 (never done it more than 3 times, can't tell if this restriction is in place)
Must be royal/blue to use (not sure of this one, not that you would want to be anything but royal on an Enoch paladin).

Removing the penalty for flee would balance out the total loss/gain, in my opinion.


The goodness damage requires some clarification. Right now, an Enoch paladin gains goodness damage when at royal blue, and attacking either evil or neutral aligned creatures. I understand that Gradius must be neutral or light blue, but what are they allowed to attack? Since Enoch must be good and cannot attack good (ie. not harming similar aura), would the Gradius have to be neutral/l-b, and cannot attack neutral/l-b? Would it always gain goodness damage when attacking the vile races (ie. harming those against all that they stand for)?


Difficulty: Yes, Enoch paladins are easier to some degree because they can stay royal blue. This is because their skill set coincides with this aura restriction. Turn/goodness damage occurs on evil/neutral aligned mobs, which serve to maintain the good aura. It is only when the skill and the aura does not coincide, that it becomes more difficult (ie. Ceris and turn).

This backfires on the Enoch paladin in the same regard. On something that would make it stray from royal, it unavoidably loses the goodness damage, and pretty much the ability to turn it. This is akin to the loss that Gradius suffers from when non-neutral/l-b (both lose their offensive skill), but there is hardly as much complaint.


Other options: no flee penalty is already addressed. As for bash, any disabling ability would upset the balance. The paladin is built to not be able to avoid any damage, and because of this, it is able to dish out the damage, and heal it back. It also doesn't make any sense for Gradius to heal better than Enoch.

I agree with Hanzo. If balanced out, smother should balance out with turn - of course the damage scaler and timer might have to be modified.

Hands should be balanced by no flee penalty.

Alignment requirements change should be okay - assuming there are a decent number of "vile-race" mobs. I never really go out to seek them, so I'm not sure.

Hanzo wrote:

The goodness damage requires some clarification. Right now, an Enoch paladin gains goodness damage when at royal blue, and attacking either evil or neutral aligned creatures. I understand that Gradius must be neutral or light blue, but what are they allowed to attack?

Currently, they are restricted to non-dwarves (it's not a very big restriction: it can be raised to include n/l-b mobs).

Quote:

Since Enoch must be good and cannot attack good (ie. not harming similar aura), would the Gradius have to be neutral/l-b, and cannot attack neutral/l-b? Would it always gain goodness damage when attacking the vile races (ie. harming those against all that they stand for)?

Gradius paladins must be n/l-b to gain goodness damage (it's earth damage, rather). They are penalized when they go lower than pinkish and higher than bluish. This gives them a wider operating range than Enoch.


Currently, the healing scale goes:
Gradius paladin < Gradius cleric < Enoch cleric.
Gradius paladin < Enoch paladin < Enoch cleric.

I'm not sure where Enoch paladins actually stand vs Gradius clerics without putting in real numbers.

delta wrote:

Alignment requirements change should be okay - assuming there are a decent number of "vile-race" mobs. I never really go out to seek them, so I'm not sure.

I have a feeling that, once we add a troll/orc/goblin starting area, there will be plenty of vile races to kill. The problem is this isn't in the immediate future.

I'm going to check the 2 goblin tribes I know about to make sure they are set properly.

I just made a Gradius paladin and one problem I found was that all the training exits for paladins are aura restricted, so I had to get blue in order to train for each level.

Gradius paladin training has now been set up in Highport. Gradius paladins can use the smother ability starting at lvl 4.

ROAR!