Paladin

Paladins take their adventures seriously, and even a mundane mission is, in the heart of the paladin, a personal test - an opportunity to demonstrate bravery, to learn tactics, and to do good in the world. Divine power protects these warriors of virtue, warding off harm, protecting them from disease, healing them and their allies, and guarding against fear. Finally, a paladin can use this power to destroy evil. Even a novice paladin can detect evil, and more experienced paladins can smite evil foes and turn away undead. Many of the paladin's special abilities also benefit from a high charisma score.

Alignment restrictions: Lawful good only. Paladins must be lawful good, and they lose their divine powers if they deviate from that alignment.

Class features progression
Spellcasting: Divine (Wisdom based, armor related chance of spell failure is ignored). Must have a Wisdom score of 10 + the spell’s level to cast a spell.

Smite Evil
Once per day, a paladin may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per paladin level. If the paladin accidentally smites a creature that is not evil, the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day. At 5th level, and at every five levels thereafter, the paladin may smite evil one additional time per day, to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.

Divine grace
At 2nd level, a paladin gains a bonus equal to his Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws.

Lay on hands
Beginning at 2nd level, a paladin with a Charisma score of 12 or higher can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her paladin level times her Charisma bonus. For example, a 7th-level paladin with a 16 Charisma (+3 bonus) can heal 21 points of damage per day.

Aura of courage
Beginning at 3rd level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of him gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.

Divine Health
At 3rd level, a paladin gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases (such as mummy rot and lycanthropy).

Turn undead
When a paladin reaches 4th level, he gains the supernatural ability to turn undead. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier. He turns undead as a cleric of three levels lower would.

Remove disease
At 6th level, a paladin can remove disease once per day. At 9th level and every three levels after that, the paladin can cure disease one more time per day.

Spellcasting

 * Paladin spell list
 * Paladin spell progression: Paladins have the same spell progression as rangers.

Beginning at 4th level, a paladin gains the ability to cast a small number of divine spells, which are drawn from the paladin spell list. A paladin must choose and prepare his spells in advance.

To prepare or cast a spell, a paladin must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a paladin’s spell is 10 + the spell level + the paladin’s Wisdom modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a paladin can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day.

At 4th level and higher, his caster level is one-half his paladin level.

Spellcasting is unaffected by Armor-related failure.

Additional Restrictions
'''Included here for the aid of roleplay if desired. These restrictions do NOT officially apply in NWN2.'''

Code of Conduct
A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if he ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that he respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Associates
While he may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will he continue an association with someone who consistently offends his moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

Multiclassing
In DnD 3.5 a paladin can only freely multiclass between classes that are specified under canon paladin orders. Otherwise, a paladin, once multiclassed, can only take levels in their new class and not take further paladin levels.

Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and abilities (including the service of the paladin’s mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). He may not progress any farther in levels as a paladin. He regains his abilities and advancement potential if he atones for his violations as appropriate.

NWN comparison

 * The discipline skill that was created for NWN was removed in NWN2 and combat feats relating to it now function closer to 3.5 rules.
 * In NWN paladin caster level was equal to your total paladin level. However, in NWN2 your paladin caster level is only equal to half your total paladin levels; so for instance, a pure level 20 paladin will only count as a level 10 caster and therefore only recieve a +2 enhancement when casting Greater Magical Weapon.  Also, their Holy Avenger no longer carries the dispel feature that it did in NWN.  Furthermore, with stat and ab enhancing items and spells no longer stacking and several of their class abilities (e.g. turn undead) being pushed to higher levels the Paladin has become a much weaker core class in NWN2.

3.5 Rules Comparison

 * Paladin mounts and all associated features are not included in NWN2.
 * NWN2 uses character alignment for alignment-opposing abilities (such as smite evil) instead of specifically aligned auras. As such, the aura of good and detect evil feats are not implemented. Nor are the alignment detection spells.
 * DnD paladins can remove disease once per week, not once per day.
 * DnD paladins can specify how many hit points to heal with lay on hands instead of using all the hit points at once, allowing them to heal several characters or heal the same character multiple times.
 * The parry skill was created by NWN and is not a feature of DnD 3.5. It has returned in NWN2 for the same reasons it was in NWN.
 * The skills climb, handle animal, jump, profession, ride, sense motive and swim are not implemented in NWN2.
 * Lore was used in NWN as a collective version of knowledge and other information skills. NWN2 includes lore for the same reasons.

External resources

 * NWNWiki:Paladin