Zealot, Paladin (4e Class Variant)

Class Overview

Name: Zealot

Characteristics: The Zealot is a predominately melee striker who uses divine powers to deal damage to their enemies. They utilize the same encounter, daily and utility power as paladins, but utilize different class features and at-will powers to enhance their damage. They possess secondary healing and defender powers, however they are not as good as dedicated leader such as a cleric and possess less health than a dedicated defender (like the original paladin). They gain powers in the same way as other classes and the paladin, but they are geared more towards dealing raw damage.

Religion: A divine protectors of justice, they are heavily inspired by religion. The majority are strong believers in their faith, fighting relentlessly and with a zeal unmatched by most other divinely inspired characters. The forgo the natural defenses usually offered to them as paladins and instead focus almost entirely on damage, throwing away their own safety in order to inflict damage upon their enemies. Zealots believe that self sacrifice and undying devotion to their cause are the best ways to achieve their objectives, and thus they rush head first in to battle with very little concern about their own defense. Due to their chaotic and somewhat uncontrolled nature, they sometimes lean towards Good or Chaotic good, given how rarely they fall in line with the law and their own personal crusades for justice. A few still worship darker gods, using the raw power of their faith to inflict damage, with the same vigor as the more divinely inspired Zealots.

Races: The Zealot naturally favors races with high Strength and Wisdom. This includes the Goliath, Minotaur and Shifter. Any strength based race can benefit, and humans are particularly effective in the role. Dwarves and muls are naturally inclined towards the role, as are Dragonborn, with humans performing much better in the role of a Zealot than original paladins.

Creating a Zealot

Ability Scores

Strength should be your primary ability. As almost all of your powers and attack rolls utilize strength for the attack and damage roll, strength should be the primary ability, and 20 strength at character creation is recommended for power characters or strikers. However, wisdom is extremely important, as well. Virtually all of your secondary powers use wisdom, and many of your secondary damage roles use Wisdom. Wisdom is almost as important as strength, although some builds can get away with lower wisdom levels. 20/16 or 18/18 is recommended. 20/14 or 18/16 are plausible, albeit weaker builds.

Feats

Zealots emphasize durability and power. Feats which boost your defenses, such as toughness or improved defenses, will naturally augment your already high defenses which can make you more survivable on the battlefield (given your reduced health compared to normal paladins). Damage feats, such as weapon proficiency or expertise feats, should not be neglected, especially if you are going a more striker oriented route. Feats built for the Zealot should be considered, such as the Avenger's Wrath (4e Feat) or the (Domain) Power of Vengeance (4e Feat), as should racial feats that are particularly powerful, such as Dwarven Weapon Training. Any feats or powers that boost radiant damage should also be sought after, as most of your powers also deal radiant damage.

Equipment

As you are a heavy armor dependent class with secondary abilities that do not boost lightly armored defenses (such as dexterity or intelligence), you should start with the highest armor you can, or plate. Choosing heavy shields or two-handed weapons will be your biggest choice; if you want to do more damage, you should go with two-handed weapons, which also can receive additional benefits with certain powers. As all of your melee attacks can substitute your enhancement with your implement bonus instead, it is an additional option to choose a magical holy symbol. Otherwise, standard adventuring gear is suggested.

Implement Bonus

When you wear or hold your holy symbol, you can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of powers that have the implement keyword. You can also add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of weapon attacks you make using a weapon with which you have proficiency.

You can also use a weapon with which you have proficiency as an implement. When wielding the weapon as an implement, the weapon's characteristics-proficiency bonus, damage die, and weapon properties like defensive or high crit-are irrelevant to your implement powers.

If you have both an implement and a magic weapon, you choose before you use an attack power whether to draw on the magic of the implement or the weapon. Your choice determines which enhancement bonus, critical hit effects, and magic item properties and powers you can apply to that power. You can't, for example, use the enhancement bonus of implement and the critical hit effect of your magic weapon with the same attack.

Zealot Class Features

Zealots's use divinely inspired at-will powers for most of their attacks. As most of their powers deal radiant damage, it is recommended that you pick up abilities that boost radiant damage as well. Zealot's are very similar to original paladins, however they lack many of the defensive benefits of being a standard Paladin, including the same amount of health, which is reduced.

You must choose the "Crusader" or Paladin path to gain all of the following features. You cannot simply choose some of the features as new additions to the paladin, but instead are given these powers by choosing the path. You use all of the same paladin encounter, utility and daily powers, but must use the described class features. You can choose at-will powers from the paladin class in addition to the newer at-wills presented. It's important to bear in mind that some paladin abilities allow you to mark or focus on defender oriented abilities; for encounter and daily purposes, you can mark, which gives you secondary defender abilities, much like how the paladin has secondary healing abilities.

Heroic Zealot

Zealot's gain access to the Crusader's Wrath, Channel Divinity, and Lay on Hands class features. In addition, at level 1 they gain access to two at-will powers, an encounter power and a daily power of their level. These powers as well as other paladin at-will powers are available to your character, however the powers below are not available to paladins that have not chosen the "Crusader" build.

Level 2

Benefit: You can choose one of the following powers below or a Paladin Utility power of the same level.

Level 6

Benefit: You can choose one of the following powers below or a Paladin Utility power of the same level.

Level 10

Benefit: You can choose one of the following powers below or a Paladin Utility power of the same level.

Level 16

Level 22

Benefit: You can choose one of the following powers below or a Paladin Utility power of the same level.

Level 26

Benefit: You can choose one of the following powers below or a Paladin Utility power of the same level.

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