Paladin ability Lay on hands

[Eegxeta]

I've found the rules for lay on hands makes it less useful than it could be. The Lay on hands rules in table games allows you to split up the healing but this doesn't work in a video game. DDO changed it so you could use it a few times this works out pretty good. Just using it once(NWN lay on hands) really limits the usefulness of that ability. I think it would be nice if you could gain a use every two levels. If your going through a cave or the like and you get into a battle and use it for healing then you fight a harder battle right after you'd be wishing you could use it more.
I hope this isn't another one of those things that you can't change because I feel this is a reasonable request.

[Lance Stargazer]

As a paladin player i know what you are talking about , I do feel the same when i found the way Lay hands work, yet its as you mentioned one of those hard coded feature that NWN has, basically the features of class and how they work are all as that. There is no way to change the hardcoded part of the classes sadly.

yet i can say too that eventually lay hands become a very useful feature now that you start to hit the high levels, getting to get a lot of healing in the mean time you have to move away from a heavy combat and return almost as new one round later is a good thing, I say this by experience

[davidhoff]

If you increased lay of hands to one use/2 lvls...it would become quite powerful.  This I say not only for healing, but also against killing undead.  I think it deals out damage equal to your cha mod x level.  Might be out of balance to increase its usage.

[Hellblazer]

As a paladin player i know what you are talking about , I do feel the same when i found the way Lay hands work, yet its as you mentioned one of those hard coded feature that NWN has, basically the features of class and how they work are all as that. There is no way to change the hardcoded part of the classes sadly.

yet i can say too that eventually lay hands become a very useful feature now that you start to hit the high levels, getting to get a lot of healing in the mean time you have to move away from a heavy combat and return almost as new one round later is a good thing, I say this by experience

Not too sure about that mate. See the paladin warhorse seems to be an addition to the Layonara paladin, compared to the regular game which doesn't get a war horse. So there's a definite way to replace or modify a feat. Lay of hands is not a spell in this case but a feat. And eve with spells you could modify or replace them in the 2da. Could be wrong though

[Eegxeta]

See the paladin warhorse seems to be an addition to the Layonara paladin, compared to the regular game which doesn't get a war horse.

Summon Mount is the warhorse. You get it at 5th level according to the link you have on the regular game.

You get the paladin mount at level 14!?! Why such a high level? If you get it at level 14 that warhorse better be a really powerful companion because that is a bit ridiculously high accounting for the extremely slow leveling in Layo which is another thing that I don't quite understand because the game world is very low level unfriendly.

If you increased lay of hands to one use/2 lvls...it would become quite powerful.  This I say not only for healing, but also against killing undead.  I think it deals out damage equal to your cha mod x level.  Might be out of balance to increase its usage.

That could be balance by making the healing 1d6 every two levels and instead of using the cha mod for the healing it would be added to the number of times you can use it.

[Lance Stargazer]

You get the paladin mount at level 14!?! Why such a high level? If you get it at level 14 that warhorse better be a really powerful companion because that is a bit ridiculously high accounting for the extremely slow leveling in Layo which is another thing that I don't quite understand because the game world is very low level unfriendly.

Well we must take in acount that the Paladin warhorse was added after the relase of 1.69 patch, as for why so high level. Well there are people I am sure that could answer better than me on this one yet I am going to give my thoughts anyway .

First. We must remember that this is a rp server, not a "leveling" server, we must focus on the fact that the xp tables are for that for a reason and that is to help to understand and develop your character as you are able, I do know that at times it may be slow, But at times one can get lots of fun with the low levels characters. Now its a matter of balance. Before the paladin warhorse was implemented by Bioware ( not layonara team ) and was giving to paladin's at lvl 5 as states the PHB of 3.5 D&D, There was indeed the horsing system. At the point in Layo and perhaps this is a spoil, Any character can buy a horse to transport and move fast,  you need to go to the horse trader and then pay for the horse and you need to be lvl 15 in order to be able to buy one. ( i am not getting here on if makes sense for to be a lvl 15 to be able to mount a house , its just how it is and i am sure reasons exists over balance ).

So paladin Characters are able to summon or get a horse one level before any other character in game, The paladin warhorse you get at 14th level is an impresive Rp value companion, its a steed that somehow was sent for you by the will of your god, not siimply another stalllion. and it has the ability to be able to come to your side whenever you want. all other characters have to actually look for the horse is and stay in one place. So there is indeed a better steed than the rest of the characters can get.  

We must remember as well that Layonara even if based on NWN 3rd Edition its not a D&D Standard world so its to be expected that some things doesn't work the same way Rp wise even if mechanically wise it could be that way.

Those are just of my thought on the matter. I personally loved when my paladin horse arrived at lvl 14, it felt like a hard worked reward and had give me a lot of pleaseant rp oportunities and challenges ( right now its the second horse cause well.. horses are still horses and die as well.  So now its Avenger 2nd.) .

[Dorganath]

Well we must take in acount that the Paladin warhorse was added after the relase of 1.69 patch, as for why so high level. Well there are people I am sure that could answer better than me on this one yet I am going to give my thoughts anyway .

Actually that's not true.  Paladin warhorses and indeed horses in general were implemented well before the 1.69 update, as someone managed to come up with a system that worked pretty well given the limitations that NWN had at the time. It is true, however, that 1.69 improved the horse system we had (both in function and appearance), and we took advantage of it while keeping within the limits we wanted.

And to head off another potential question, we are aware that NWN's horse system that comes with 1.69 allows for horses at any level, it was originally Leanthar's decision to make them unavailable for purchase until level 15 and for Paladins to get them at level 14.  Thus, it was implemented with this in mind.  

And as a general statement, NWN is not tabletop D&D, and Layonara is not D&D. There are overlaps, yes, but they are most certainly not the same, and they should not be treated as the same.

[Eegxeta]

Ok Back to lay on hands. I think another good way to improve it without making it overpowered is make the number of times you can use it your cha mod but, this is the important part, you cannot increase the number of uses with spells or magical equipment that increase you cha mod. Also you could add a feat that grants another lay on hands usage.

[darkstorme]

Unfortunately, the Lay On Hands uses-per-day cannot be modified to be dependent on an attribute.  Turn Undead and Bard Song are handled differently by the engine than other feats, allowing this.

Even if it were, the specification (no spells or magical equipment) is impossible without screwing up a _lot_ of other systems (most notably the racial skins system).

The last suggestion (a feat allowing additional uses) may be possible (a cursory look at feats.2da doesn't suggest that it is not) but non-trivial.

[Eegxeta]

Well maybe you could have the feat and the number of uses increases every 5th level or something along those lines.

[darkstorme]

The last suggestion (a feat allowing additional uses) may be possible (a cursory look at feats.2da doesn't suggest that it is not) but non-trivial.

Adding additional uses every 5 levels would be of equivalent difficulty to this suggestion.

On top of that, I don't see anything particularly wrong with Lay on Hands as it stands - it can't be divided among multiple people, but that's not too much of a shortcoming, and Paladins, as with Clerics, can spontaneously cast heal spells of the same level as other prepared spells, so it's not as if they're going to be short on healing.

Not every ability is going to be a gem, and any way you slice it, it's extra healing that's available to your character and your party.