So I feel I messed up my build.

One noticable reason is my strength is not high enough to hold alot of items and gear (my current total is 110 lbs and 2 armor pieces cover almost all of that)

Now since this game is running on D&D 3rd edition rules I feel its a much more easier time to give me recommended numbers for: STR, DEX, CON, INT,WIS,CHA. as well as feats (Like Disarm) and skills (like weaponcrafting)

Also which do you think is the best possible Henchmen for me to have as a Paladin? And I am talking about those in the Vanilla content.

Attribute spread is definitely the hardest part about building a Paladin. By default a Paladin needs strength, charisma, wisdom, and constitution; that's a lot of attributes and leaves him spread thin compared to other classes.

As a melee character, strength is your top priority. I'd say 16 is the sweet spot; high enough to give a good bonus, but not so high that the cost is prohibitive.

Charisma is your second priority for the Paladin, since it fuels many of your class features. I'd say somewhere between 14-16 is the right place.

Your spellcasting as a Paladin is based on wisdom. For a single-class Paladin, you want exactly 14 wisdom. Not a point more, not a point less. This gives you access to all your Paladin spells without wasting additional points. Multi-class Paladins, however, face an interesting decision. It's entirely viable to decide that you just don't need that spellcasting ability and dump wisdom. If you do this, beginning with 8 wisdom can save you a lot of points and really free up your build elsewhere. However, you will need to begin your career as a different class then multiclass into Paladin to do this, as during character creation the game enforces a minimum of 11 wisdom for Paladins.

Constitution is important for everyone, but as a Paladin you're stretched for ability points and already have a naturally high HP total so you can skimp a little here to make room elsewhere. Preferably put a 14 here, but don't sweat it if you need to go down to 12. Never go below 10 constitution, ever.

Dexterity is only really important for bonus AC, but if you're using full plate (and you will be using full plate once you can afford it) then the benefits cap out at 12. You could easily just leave this at 8 and then use magic items to bolster your dexterity score. However, such items are not available early in the campaign so you'll take an AC penalty until you get them. It's a tradeoff; 12 dexterity will be better at low levels, 8 will be better at high levels. You could also go for a middle-ground and assign a 10 here.

Intelligence is your dump stat. Ordinarily you'd want to put an 8 here, since you get very little benefit from it and need those precious points elsewhere. However NWN's original campaign forces patronizing "me talk dumb" conversation paths on low-intelligence characters, so you'll probably want a 10 just to avoid these. There's no basis in the actual D&D rules for this, and it's sort of a face-palm moment when you realize the writing staff literally wrote duplicate versions of every conversation path to support this utterly stupid feature.

TL;DR: I'd suggest the following spread:

Str 16, Dex 8, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 15


For skills, maximize persuade. Heal can also be a helpful skill. Don't bother with concentration, if you're in the middle of a fight you'll want to be hitting foes not casting spells.


For feats, Power Attack, Divine Might, Cleave, Knockdown, and Improved Knockdown would all be useful for a Paladin. Once you've picked up the other feats you want, weapon focus and improved critical are decent.

This is exactly what I would have done. Only thing I want to add is I think you should take "Discipline" as a Skill since you will be fighting melee often.

You would take discipline on a melee build over anything else in most cases.

Also improved knockdown requires 13 intelligence so scratch that.

Power attack and your divine feats are important but can wait, get wep focus early on for the ab.

When it comes to skills, I'm at a loss as to which direction to go. I've googled a couple Paladin guides and they all seem to have the same lamentation: few skill and precious few points...yet they also say that almost every skill is "useless" for a Paladin.

The only consensus seems to be that Discipline is worth taking (to what degree I dont know) while Taunt, and Heal and debatable. Lore and Persuade are said to be good for RP but with the aforementioned lamentation I'm scared to spend on these.

So....what should a Paladin do? Pour everything into Discipline?

If you're a Paladin with 10 intelligence you have enough points to max out two skills. My choices would be Discipline and Persuade. A human Paladin gets additional points and could max out three skills, so you could add Lore or something else to the list.

Short of multiclassing Rogue (which actually isn't a bad idea; Rogue and Paladin synergize well) there really isn't a good way to rectify the Paladin's skill problem. Don't get too worried over this; a lot of classes have this very problem, with the Fighter, Cleric, and Sorcerer having it just as bad as the poor Paladin.

Thanks for that.

Is there special benefit or incentive to max out a given skill? IE, is it better to have 3 skills maxed compared to, say, having 2 maxed and 2 not maxed?

Aside from higher being better, no there's no special benefit to maximizing a skill. As for whether to maximize or not, it can really depend on the skill and the adventure. Sometimes an adventure might have very easy persuade checks, sometimes they might be very hard. So long as you have competent combat abilities to fall back on you'll be fine.

I think it depends on the skills. Generally speaking a skill like lockpicking or find traps should always be maxed. Diplomacy can be in that department too. Because those skills either work or dont work depending on your success so you want them maxed.

However, skills like heal would just work fine even at low levels. I cant remember a reason why you should max it.