Editing Paladin (section)

===Pathfinder===
[[File:Seelah.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Seelah, Pathfinder's Iconic Paladin/Champion]]
[[Pathfinder]] made a number of mechanical improvements (''beefy'' ones, Pathfinder paladins are ''badass''), but mostly left them alone conceptually.  Now they cast spells off charisma rather than wisdom ([[MAD|and praise Sarenrae for that]]. One unusual consequence of this is that thanks to high natural will save and adding charisma to all saves, Paladins are now free to [[Stupid Good|dump Wisdom]] as low as it can go), and their Smites, on top of granting better defensive and offensive bonuses, ''keep Smiting'' until they either Smite something else or the Smitee is dead.  (Sure, it can ''theoretically'' run out in twenty-four hours, but almost nothing suffering from a Smite is going to live that long).  The Code of Conduct was also softened a little to allow paladins to more easily be team players and not 100% stick-in-the-mud party cops.  One problem, if you can call it that, is that the paladin is ''too'' specialized (even with Pathfinder's improvements he still won't break tier 4): If the DM keeps throwing evil outsiders or undead into the campaign as [[BBEG]]s a modestly-well-prepared paladin will be able tear through them like a holy-powered buzzsaw without a lot of effort, since he deals better "burst" damage than almost any of them and has great saves and immunity to shit like ''mummy rot'', so he won't be afraid to charge in and [[rip and tear]] when another class would be adverse to taking risks around one.  If the final boss keeps getting one-shotted by a well-timed Smite Evil ''litany of righteousness'' power attack/deadly aim combo, it may very well be time to invest in "moral complexity."  (Read: throw some constructs or wild animals at him.). Despite this the Paladin still struggles to be worthwhile outside his niche. A major reason for this is that Paladins have only 2+int skill points per level, being the only player class in the system aside from Fighter to have only 2 skill points without getting at least 6th level spells. Their class list is at least much better than the Fighter’s, and they do have some spellcasting and healing for out of combat utility.

Thanks to their variety of class abilities that can be traded away, a Paladin has some of the most varied archetypes in the game, second only to [[Monk]]. These range from simple (Divine Hunter, which trades melee abilities for ranged ones) to "free planar ally and more casting" (Sacred Servant, which can shoot a Paladin up to tier 2 if they worship a deity that gives a good planar allies and tier 3 even if they give something lame like elementals).

It wasn't until the "Antihero's Handbook" that there was a paladin archetype that worked on the very underserved niche of fallen Paladins in the Vindictive Bastard. This archetype sacrifices all the divine power of the Paladin for a bigger focus on Teamwork feats, being able to benefit from them without needing an ally to also share it in the same way as an [[Inquisitor (Pathfinder)|Inquisitor]], and loses out on Charisma's utility. Smite remains, benefiting the most by now working on anything that harms the former paladin or their party.