Dungeons & Delvers Deep Dive Review: Paladins

In part seven of Bruce's Dungeons & Delvers deep dive, he for the most part praises the paladin. Doesn't like the Redemption talent very much. Frankly I'm not much of a fan myself, but mostly because after reading it...yeah, it's just not as compelling as many other options. Needs something else, or to be folded into another talent like Confrontation.

Some answers and commentary (you'll need to watch the review for full context): 

A big part of the paladin's design was to make it more than a fighter/cleric hybrid, with a few things added on. We'd initially created a paladin class for Dungeon World, which revolved choosing moves based on the Seven Heavenly Virtues, so we more or less ported it over, converted the mechanics, and added more options.

The paladin is the only class besides the barbarian that doesn't get to choose a Talent without having to exchange its Damage Bonus. This is because it gets front-loaded with a bunch of really badass abilities, each of which I felt was necessary for the baseline paladin concept (barbarians get baked-in DR and AC, plus more WP and VP to boot).

As part of wanting to give the player more control over complexity and customization, there are some iconic paladin abilities that aren't inherent to the class. This way, if something doesn't interest you, not only do you not have to burden your sheet with it, but it also won't feel like a wasted option, either.

A lot of the paladin Talents might seem "overpowered", but that's because many have limited scope. Would you really want to take a Talent that just gives you a bonus to some check or save to see through the illusions of an evil creature? To bash through a bone devil's wall of bone? Probably not. So we opted to make many of them automatic, that way if/when they crop up you know you'll get some value.

In regards to Short and Long Rests, I get that there's an associated stigma but while the terminology is the same the effects are not. There's also a limit that isn't dependent on something weird like healing surges or Hit Dice.

I think there are a few Talents that are linked to the idea of being exhausted that can refresh/recharge via a Short Rest, and wizards can regain some Willpower points since those are also linked to the idea of being exhausted, but it's primarily used to recover Vitality Points.

This is because we thought it made sense for you to be able to rest and regain at least a few hit points here and there (since fatigue is an aspect of hit points). We considered something more complex, such as x VP every 30-60 minutes, or 10 minutes if you stop to rest, but in the end decided on Short Rests as a way to avoid bookkeeping.

You can only benefit from a Short Rest three times per day, and while the first only takes 10 minutes, the second requires 30, and then the third eats up an entire hour. After that, you're just too exhausted to benefit further.

Long Rests get all your Vitality Points back and a bit of Wound Points. In this regard, it's more like older editions: you don't regain all of your WP like in 4th and 5th Editions.