Paladin was always a solid class, simply on the fact that they could tank (to an extent) and heal. They were also the best class in the game for killing undead, as I think priest and paladin turns worked exactly the same (though I could be mistaken I didn’t play either class very extensively) but paladins hit harder and had more hit points to tank them.
Whereas rogues and rangers are going to generally hunt living targets that they can snipe/backstab, paladin will probably spend most of his hunts killing undead, so perhaps we just want to cater paladins toward that end. They can already turn which is huge, but perhaps they get a small amount additional holy damage on their attacks against undead, that could be increased to a moderate amount of bonus holy damage when they pray.
I think before some of the follower bonuses for paladin were damage buffs, I believe Aalynor gave a damage bonus against undead, and erisar gave a damage bonus against living creatures. I’m not really sure what the other gods follower bonuses were. But perhaps just give all paladins that follow a bonus damage against undead as the main perk, but then their could also be some flavorful follower bonuses that did minor things for the individual gods.
I already mentioned this in a few other posts, but just wanted to reiterate it here on the paladin forums, is if you want to give paladins additional tanking stats I think making them shield oriented. If the shields now have a block value, the paladin could have a chance to double the effectiveness of his block, or block an attack completely due to their affinity for shields, which would function like a dodge as far as a mitagation stat. I would see paladins as more of a class to sport either two handers or sword and board, not really dual wielding, so I think emphasizing shields for them could be a good way to.
You could also give them if a shield slam, if you wanted a way for paladins to have another way to pull aggro aside from turn that only works on undead.
Ive been stewing on suggesting this idea because the pros and cons of it…
Undead are the enemies of Paladins and clerics period (This could go for clerics as well, but with different damage rolls), so it goes without saying that they are the bullseye target for both classes to hunt with or without Deity influenced direction (Aalynor). So shouldn’t they automatically be doing more Holy damage to them anyway? Nothing ridiculous but in line with them trying to rid the world of the vile. So with that said, Paladins were KIND OF meh when fighting anything living when they had no bonus damage from their follower bonus (Only Erisar really gave them bonuses for living if I recall right), so why not have the follower bonus for all Deities be a blanket damage done on all attacks done since they’re imbued with their God’s favor, and even stronger when against undead as well. Just a thought.
As far as the sword and board versus 2hander:
I feel like anytime I fought undead it was something that would be close to killing me in a vital after turning so there was no question about whether I would use a sword and shield or a 2h, it was always survival first. Now we are directing the class to be either a Templar or a Crusader which is cool and all, but we all know with how the nexus experience system was that no one would even take a chance on dying lol. Especially when -50 AC was the minimum standard for tanks not to get train wrecked.
As far as a shield bash skill goes or something of that nature, I’m not quite sure what could or would be balanced or appropriate. Only on undead? Some kind of holy wrath ability that agitates the creature to incite their hatred for the Holy. Or are we talking about a shield bash that sends the creature sprawling with no damage dealt, but something to direct their anger.
Regardless, if size modifiers come into play, any tank paladin should be tall if they’re planning to end game tank with a definite detriment to their stats. My paladin had 18 con and 27-28 piety and was a beast, but he was human so he got rocked around. Everything is a trade off.
I was thinking of shield slam in terms of being something to pull aggro, not do damage. Maybe a stun attached to it, with minor damage, maybe just damage based off the shields block value, that way if they wanted to do anything with shield imbues, or holy shield skill or anything there might be a way to buff it, but usually it would just do negligible damage and have a very high aggro value and be usuable on all mobs. that way you can pull aggro from living mobs with a paladin without a stun device.
I was thinking classes should also benefit the most from their primary stat. Why not have paladin have additional Holy Damage added to their attack thats based on piety. That way they would also get a slight bonus on top of that while prayed.
Could be like:
You attack from 100 damage and an additional 20 holy damage!
If prayed it might look more like 25.
Or could be like:
You attack for 100!
You weapon sears the unfaithful for 20 holy damage!
then you could just make undead weak against holy damage, so that it does like double damage and maybe says:
Your weapons sears the undead scourge for 40 holy damage!
As someone who played Paladin extensively and was the emmisary to Erisar - I honestly don’t think Paladins needed that much changing or help. They were capable doing pseudo decent damage in groups, could help with healing and tanking to an extent and had some basic solo capability when fighting undead.
Given the state of games like Muds as a whole, that final point is going to be something I think is very important - Soloability. No matter what, I don’t think the game will ever get back to the point it was in the 90’s where there were 60 online and people fighting to log in a ssoon as someone logged off, soloability is going to have to be something looked at for every class for leveling in order to cultivate a playerbase as a whole.