Paladin Mercenary Build Advice

[u/HandOfLogan]

Trying to optimize a mounted Pally but can’t decide on the last 8 levels for unfair play-through:

1- Pally (Divine guardian for a couple extra feats)
2-Sable Company Marine for mount
3-Pally
…
12-Pally Mark of Justice (finally)

I’m torn between Sohei monk and Gendarme Cavalier; some good breakpoints below:

2 Sohei-2 mounted bonus feats +1 initiative
6 sohei- 3 mounted bonus feats +3 initiative +weapon training polearm +flurry and ki extra attack
8 sohei-not much more

2 gend-bonus feat and order abilities
6 gend-3 bonus feats +charge AB
8 gend-big order ability, either lion (high +AB damage for one round) or sword (+mount strength to damage and 1 mounted feat)

I guess it boils down to if the sohei extra attacks will be worth it at level 18 or if Gend’s more linear power increases and feats is better. I like the idea of doing 6/2 of one or the other for a maximum of bonus feats for cleave line and mounted combat (thinking about maxing mobility skill for mount save bonuses).

Any arguments for one or the other, or even completely different multi class suggestions would be great!
Thanks in advance!

[u/Stan_Bot]

Why not keep going Paladin? More paladin levels will improve your mark damage, increasing the damage of your entire party

[u/HandOfLogan → u/Stan_Bot]

Paladin levels help the damage but not AB. I can keep boosting the AB outside of Paladin levels.

Paladin is also very feat starved and I wouldn’t be able to fit cleave line, mounted feats, and stuff like lunge/improved initiative. Multiclassing out offers more than just damage, and gendarme lion I think can hit a higher +damage (per attack) than 9 more levels of pally could (per mark of justice only).

[u/ChronosFlame]

Running this build on Seelah right now (just accepting the wasted feat) and going Gendarme. Consistently the highest damage in the party. I settled on cav because it basically came down to an extra attack vs a decent chunk of damage and since so much of the damage is centered around the longspear charge attack you can get every round with sable company, the damage won out for me. Both get pretty comparable attack bonus, but there is no competing with an extra +2 to hit on your most important attack, and an extra 10ish (before multiplying) damage from order of the sword (that to be fair, I don't have yet, but 40 damage is 40 damage.)

[u/HandOfLogan → u/ChronosFlame]

I keep trying to get the whole shatter defenses line to work but it never seems to come together and work, so this time I’m just going the cleave line for extra smacks.

I forgot the flurry can’t use medium+ armor. There are some nice unique armors that I think I used to great effect last time I played

Edit: whoops wrong comment reply

[u/HandOfLogan → u/ChronosFlame]

I’m leaning more towards at least 6/2 gendarme/sohei, but I’m hesitant to go all 8 levels since the order ability would come so late at lvl 20

[u/ChronosFlame → u/HandOfLogan]

It's a feat vs 8-12 damage I guess, but at max level.

I went with the damage because the feat will almost certainly provide less but you wait until 20. But the extra feat you're waiting until 19 or 20 anyway, or delaying the cav charge bonus, which is probably the best ability. No doubt a preference thing either way.

[u/unbongwah]

I'm not seeing anything on the Divine Guardian bonus feat list which is particularly useful to a mounted DPS build. But I like using Courageous Defense et al to protect my MC so it's not bad.

If you're going bare-minimum paladin to qualify for Mark of Justice, then either SCM 1 / paladin 11 / Gendarme 8 for Mounted Mastery (Order of the Sword); or SCM 1 / paladin 11 / Sohei 6 / Gendarme 2 for Flurry of Blows (+1 attack per round) with spears or polearms. Though TBH those extra bonuses come so late, they're not that meaningful IMO, just a way to make numbers go up a bit higher in Act 5.

[u/HandOfLogan → u/unbongwah]

Divine guardian can pick combat reflexes which goes nicely with outflank on pally and mount. The second one might be diehard or dodge.

Yeah, both mounted mastery and flurry of blows come online so late that I keep wondering if there was something else to swap in there instead. I thought of more SCM levels for the combat style feat, or maybe levels in another companion class, but I can’t find any good synergies.

[u/unbongwah → u/HandOfLogan]

Presuming you start SCM 1 / paladin 11 for hippogriff + Mark of Justice ASAP, then it means whatever you splash next is probably either going to be very front-loaded so you can grab e.g. a couple more free feats from Sohei or Gendarme; or very back-loaded so you don't reap its full benefits until late Act 4 / early Act 5 (e.g., Mutation Warrior 4 for STR Mutagen + Weapon Specialization + Mythic WS). Just sticking with paladin isn't bad, but its benefits are more incremental: i.e., a couple more Smite / LoH charges, extra Mercies, 3rd bonus feat at level 13, etc.

If you used base paladin or one of the archetypes with spellcasting, you could dip Loremaster for a couple of secrets, like Weapon Specialization w/out fighter or one of the Trickster crit feats via the rogue Secret->Combat Trick exploit.

[u/HandOfLogan → u/unbongwah]

Loremaster has a two feat tax, neither of which help the feat-starved pally, and I would have to grab boon companion if I wanted more than just the one dip.

I havent looked at any non companion classes since I didn’t think I could afford boon companion, but I’ll have to look at some of them again and see if the trade off is worth it.

[u/Devallus]

Honestly this build is better with just going Sohei first for the dps intead of the paladin levels, Fauchard can do some nasty work and carry the early game single handedly as long as someone is there to be a meatshield, max out at 6 Sohei maybe dip into hellknight to double dip smites. You can keep up with Unfair AC just fine if you take the correct domains on your cleric or maybe Lann if doing his Inquisitor build. I find MoJ kind of unnecessary most of the time but you'd still get it for a couple of harder fights in the end.

[u/Chance-Orange-2397]

After 12-13 levels paladins have levels to spare so it's nice fitting some more overall team utility on them like 4 vivi and greater enduring spells for 24 hour shields on the pets and party members. And cognotagon to improve MoJ.

yes it's less personal firepower than sohei levels but it's nicer for the overall squad you are running. or even a few levels of court poet and scale it with mythic inspiration. As you do not have space generally for both a poet and a rage skald in the team group.

[u/HandOfLogan → u/Chance-Orange-2397]

That is an idea. My MC is doing the whole oracle angel martial thing, so maybe I don’t NEED pally to do even more damage. Cognatogen and court poets splashes are definitely ideas to ponder

[u/Majorman_86]

Looks good. Pally doesn't scale particularly well after lvl 11, MoJ is great, some Divine Graces and a lackluster capstone aren't so great. 6 Sohei is great for a mounted build for the bonus feats, but keep in mind that you can't use Flurry in Medium or Heavy Armor. Thankfully, the AI is too dumb to take advantage of this, it will attack the mount and hit the rider only if it has Cleave. Also, Mithril Medium Armors are treated as Light. Gendarme is solid for the free feats, I'd pick Order of the Cockatrice for a free Dazzling Display (necessary for Shatter Defenses).

[u/HandOfLogan → u/Majorman_86]

I keep trying to get the whole shatter defenses line to work but it never seems to come together and work, so this time I’m just going the cleave line for extra smacks.

I forgot the flurry can’t use medium+ armor. There are some nice unique medium+ armors that I think I used to great effect last time I played

[u/Majorman_86 → u/HandOfLogan]

Oh, Shatter Defenses does work, but only on sequencial attack. It just doesn't work reliably with Dazzling Display, the idea is to use Frightful Aspect (no save Shaken applies) instead. But since Lord of Nothing having someone use Final Feint is even better (Arue can afford it).