Dagger/Shield Blood of Vol Paladin

[imaloony]

Quick disclaimer: I'm a relatively new player, having been playing regularly for less than a year now, and I play with a small and casual group of friends. We try to play builds that are decent, but we're not playing the super hardcore meta builds where we follow a guide to the letter. Somewhere in the valley between Meta and Meme.

We're about to reincarnate and I'd like a to play a Tank Paladin as my next character. When looking at religion, Blood of Vol seemed to have a very strong active (to my untrained eyes), so I wanted to know if this idea had any legs to stand on as a middle of the road build or if it'd be miserable to play and I should just axe it now while I still have the chance. I realize I'm crossing some wires here; a Dagger Paladin would probably be better off going TWF Vistani Knife Fighter and Shield Paladin would probably be happier with Onatar as their religion. I'm not asking for anyone to trying to write a guide for this or anything, I just want to know if this idea has any legs to stand on as a fun, casual, playable build.

And a quick follow up: is it worth it for a Shield Pally to use a feat/dip Fighter to get Tower Shields, or just stick with Heavy Shields?

 

[unbongwah]

So a couple of issues for a S&B dagger paladin:

• S&B is actually an AP-intensive combat style. Look at this build with its 41 VG / 39 KotC split or this build with its more balanced split. Now figure out what you'll drop for Vistani Knife Fighter instead. That said, this build comes closest to what you describe, but it's not using daggers despite the heavy VKF investment, it's using bastard swords because -
• Bastard swords and dwarven axes get Strikethrough and higher damage modifier from the THF feats when single-wielded which is why most Vanguards will use them. Though not all: the Strimtom build I linked uses longswords with Knight's Training for better crits and relies on KotC Holy Retribution for AoE damage.

Obviously, it's your toon, do what you want with it. If I were to make a Blood of Vol Vanguard, I'd probably load up on the shield feats and spend something like 41 VG / 25 VKF / 14 KotC.

 

[imaloony]

Bastard swords and dwarven axes get Strikethrough and higher damage modifier from the THF feats when single-wielded which is why most Vanguards will use them.

Really? Now there's a plot twist I didn't see coming. S&B with the THF feats... consider my mind blown.

I see what you mean about the trees being spread thin. When I used a calculator to try and put the points in, it feels like I'm stretching the points quite a bit, and it doesn't feel like I'm getting a lot from VKF other than +hit/+dam and a bit of tankiness that's definitely outclassed in the other trees. I guess in my head one of the main reasons I wanted to do it is that I found the idea of a Paladin with heavy armor, a giant shield, and a tiny dagger to be truly hilarious. I also may have overvalued the Vampirism you get from Blood of Vol. In my head, Vampirism on a tank sounds great, but I guess in reality it's too little healing to really matter. Though the rest of that active still looks good.

Also for my Tower Shield question, seems that after skimming those guides, the best plan is just to take UMD and load up on a bunch of Master's Touch scrolls. Seems that I was overcomplicating that one as well.

You've given me a lot to think about. I appreciate the help. I'll chat with my group and figure out what I want to do.

 

[unbongwah]

On a pure paladin, it's usually worth putting 11 APs into Vistani for Haste Boost and +5% doublestrike / doubleshot which apply to any weapon.

If you're looking for something a little different for a dagger paladin: SWF Scaled Fist 18 / monk 1 / cleric (or FvS) 1 with Blood of Vol. You won't get The Blood is The Life (the level 6 BoV power), only Divine Dream; but you will get daggers as Favored Weapons for Sacred Strike bonuses.

Enhancements: something like 39 Sacred Fist / 26 Vistani / 13 Sacred Defender / 3 Warpriest. Holy Sword won't stack with One With Blades, but you can take OwB a couple levels sooner and it frees a level 4 spell slot so can slot, say, Ki Explosion instead.

 

[ACJ97F]

If you're straight up tanking, you don't have to focus on the dagger so much, but there is one good reason to do a VoL Pally... turning the
Dull Dagger from LVoD into the Keeper of the Crimson Covenant. You have to have Follower of the Blood of VoL to make that dagger.

Look that one up, it's rather nice, plus once it's made you have it for later TR's you might want to do some blatant stabbing with. )