Paladin

The divine warrior relies on his faith and his sword to protect the faithful. The Paladin is the protector of the faithful and the champion - or terror - of the weak. He combines a fierce devotion to a virtuous principle with hard-won experience fighting for that virtue on the field of honor.

Paladin Class Features
All Paladins, regardless of their other Class Features, gain the following proficiencies and abilities upon choosing the Priest class:
Weapon Proficiencies	The paladin is proficient with all melee weapon groups.
Armor Proficiencies	The Paladin is proficient with all Leather, Hide, and Chain armors, and with light shields.
Magic Proficiencies	The priest can perform divine prayers and invocations, usually using the Religion skill. His magic damage bonus is equal to his Charisma modifier.
Skill Proficiencies	The paladin is proficient in Religion and Endurance.
Starting Feats	The paladin chooses two role-based class features, gaining the skill proficiencies and prayers or invocations of those class features. The paladin chooses one virtue class feature, gaining that virtue's blessings and invocation. The paladin chooses two at-will prayers or maneuvers that are available to him based on his class features. At level 0, the priest may perform one Rank 1 prayer, maneuver, or invocation per day.

The Essential Paladin

This chapter presents many different options for creating a Divine Martial Hero, also known as a Paladin. Many of these options can seem daunting, so the following builds have been distilled down into the essential necessities.

Each of these builds has been constructed using the Essential Array ability scores, choosing abilities and adding the +2 racial ability bonuses so that the final ability scores become 18/16/14/12/11 regardless of the character’s race. This ensures that the character begins play with their abilities optimized for that class’s rigors, and won’t find themselves particularly hampered compared to another player.

The Complete Paladin

If you feel like delving into the nuts and bolts of character design, you can skip past the Essential builds and construct a Complete Paladin, which takes significantly more work but will result in a vision that is uniquely your own. There are four possible Complete Priest starting points:

Oathsworn (Divine Martial Striker)

The Avenger focuses her divine valor into...

Cavalier (Divine Martial Defender)

The Templar focuses her divine valor into...

Warpriest (Divine Martial Controller)

The Warpriest focuses his divine valor into...

Hospitalier (Divine Martial Leader)

The Hospitalier focuses his divine valor into...

Paladin (Divine Martial Hybrid)

You can easily choose to create a hybrid Paladin as a starting character, simply by picking Role-based Class Features from two different Roles. This will dilute your ability to fulfill each Role, but allows much more flexibility during character creation.

Virtues

Virtue

Leveling Up
At each level, you gain new features and bonuses to increase your paladin prowess:
Level 1	(1,000 XP)
You gain a new paladin class feature. Per-encounter and daily feat uses: ⓈⓇ Ⓒ① Ⓓ
Level 2	(3,000 XP)
You gain a new at-will prayer or maneuver, and training in one proficiency of your choice. You gain +1 to one ability score of your choice.
Level 3	(6,000 XP)
You gain a new paladin class feature. Per-encounter and daily feat uses: ⓈⓇ Ⓒ①② Ⓓ
Level 4	(10,000 XP)
You gain a new at-will prayer or maneuver, and training in one proficiency of your choice. You gain +1 to one ability score of your choice.
Level 5	(15,000 XP)
You gain a new paladin class feature. Per-encounter and daily feat uses: ⓈⓇ Ⓒ①② ⒹⒹ
Level 6	(21,000 XP)
You gain a new at-will prayer or maneuver, and training in one proficiency of your choice. You gain +1 to one ability score of your choice. Your Expertise bonus becomes +2.
Level 7	(28,000 XP)
You gain a new paladin class feature. Per-encounter and daily feat uses: ⓈⓇ Ⓒ①②③ ⒹⒹ
Level 8	(36,000 XP)
You gain a new at-will prayer or maneuver, and training in one proficiency of your choice. You gain +1 to one ability score of your choice.
Level 9	(45,000 XP)
You gain a new paladin class feature. Per-encounter and daily feat uses: ⓈⓇ Ⓒ①②③ ⒹⒹⒹ
Level 10	(55,000 XP)
You gain a new at-will prayer or maneuver, and training in one proficiency of your choice. You gain +1 to one ability score of your choice.
Level 11	(65,000 XP)
You become a paragon hero, and your adventures pass beyond the scope of these rules.